What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Niu]

ToV- I-NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! URAGGHHHHH!!!!

[OblivionKnight]

I assume they got to the plot point where everyone is straight, and there's no chance of any yaoi?

[Fudozukushi]

I assume they got to the plot point where everyone is straight, and there's no chance of any yaoi?

ToV- I-NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! URAGGHHHHH!!!!

[Otter]

LotR Third Age: just beat up on the Balrog.  Awesome boss fight there.  Idrial and Gandalf did all the work (Gandalf definitely seemed powerful, but Idrial had the badass healing, speed buffs, and extra draining that kept them both going until Balrog ran out of MP; all he really did was pour on the damage after that when the fight was already essentially won, as well as supply some of his own MP draining).

You can probably tell Idrial's really impressed me with her high-speed healer++ shenanigans.  Berethor's got the awesome MT buffs to start every important fight with and is otherwise a solid fighter, which makes him a pretty great main.  I was basically expecting Hadhod to lag in performance, but throughout Moria he was dealing out Goblin Banes and OHKOing randoms that would've otherwise required multiple hits, so I've got nothing to complain about there.  If anyone, Elegost has been a bit underwhelming, but he has Examine and status (sleep/paralysis) arrows that made all nine troll fights (especially the ones with two at a time) a breeze and a general niche for when I need ranged damage and his damage isn't really bad at all either.  So I guess what I'm saying is that the party balance has been pretty solid.

As soon as I wrapped up East Moria and got out of the mines for good, of course, I hit up Evil Mode and did East Moria again from the bad guy side.  Balrog smash.

Game's been surprisingly fun.  Great combat, solid growth system (you choose which skill in each category you want to learn next, and whenever you use a skill in that category, you get +1 point towards learning it; pretty basic but a little more interesting than just learning skills at arbitrary levels), customizable stats, full party involvement via switching in and out ala FFX.  The story ain't much but it doesn't get in the way, either, and watching cutscenes that are just scenes from the LotR movies is... not really a step down from JRPG standards.  Anyway, it's good times and it amuses me that I'm saying all this about the game I got for five bucks.  Although, really, you can get a lot of awesome things for five bucks.  Smoothies, for example.  Smoothies are good.

[Niu]

I assume they got to the plot point where everyone is straight, and there's no chance of any yaoi?

No, I am screaming over game play issues, not plot. It makes me regret that I didn't use I-No more when playing Guilty Gear.

[PsySlaver]

Idrial is indeed an excellent character and would probably be the best duelling healer if we ranked her.

Everyone in the game has uses, though. I find the last two characters to be generally inferior to the others, but no one outright sucks.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well, yeah, in a group, what's his face from Rohan with the spear isn't that great. But he's probably the best duelist because he's got what amounts to Night Sword and Dark Sword.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Suikoden 4 - Just got Elenor, the super-crabby Silverburg who poisons people and then pokes them with sticks. Not sure whether I like her for having more personality than the rest of the cast combined or hate her for just being annoying and crabby.

Have I perma-missed any stars yet? Current team is Lazlo + pirates, though I was using Jeane + Razril Knights (or Ninjas) before Kika joined up. I really should do some star-hunting at this point.

Comment on Snowe: While he's a candy-ass punk brat, he's pretty believable as far as characters go, and is up there with Elenor (he seems like he may surpass her) for personality in this particular Suikoden game.

Also, props to Grandia III's story for making Suikoden IV's story and characters look deep and meaningful. I recommend anyone who's going to play S4 try watching a few G3 second-disc-plot scenes on Youtube before they pop in S4. It makes the experience heavenly in comparison.

Alternately: Play -good- games.

I wonder if Amazon.com will ship english-language videogames to Japan?

-Djinn

[Pyro]

ZoE2: Up to the war mission. yeah, ZoE2 Hard mode isn't meant to be done on a first run. I could really use Naked Jehuty for this mission (infinite homing missiles), as otherwise I just don't have the skill to do this. This has pretty much trashed any potential of me completing this playthrough.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS - First: SONG OF NEPHILIM FAILS. Second: bwahahahahahaha Bravesoul Jr. destroys worlds.

[NotMiki]

Castlevania: SOTN.

Well, that was awesome.

[PsySlaver]

Well, yeah, in a group, what's his face from Rohan with the spear isn't that great. But he's probably the best duelist because he's got what amounts to Night Sword and Dark Sword.

He's also immune to magic, IIRC. But only on absurd levels.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS - Man, Bravesoul Jr. is hilarious. *Simeon drops Jr. to 50 HP out of nearly 900.* *Jr. retaliates by dropping two 1250 damage Angelic Requiems on him.* He also has Speed Shoes -and- Speed +25%, which means he uh is kinda faster than everything. I stacked Quick on top of it for hilarious Jr. insta-lapping Simeon shenanigans.

[metroid composite]

Hmm...summary of gaming over the weekend with Laggy...

Subterranean Animisim: Failed a lot on Normal (dieing around stage 3 or something sad like that) with Laggy there.  When I got home, tried Marissa B, and got through to stage 5 without running out of lives (took me a while to figure out how to switch shot types with Marissa B, though--got it sometime in stage...4?)

Also performed a bit worse than usual on PCB Easy and IN Normal (needing to continue in Stage 5 instead of Stage 6).

Deus Ex: This game impressed me (in a way that, say, Half Life 2 completely failed to do).  Attention to detail in NPC interaction was just downright impressive.

FFT: Laggy played Ramza (named "Litttle money"), and is heading towards Ubersquire/Samurai.  I played a generic female (named "Little girl") and am doing Time Mage, with small amounts of Summoner.  Obviously my setup is fairly canned--I wanted enough power level that a two-character game wouldn't run into serious roadblocks, and we haven't; in fact we have about 4-6 resets out of 15 battles or so--hence a semi-power setup is reasonably justified.  Laggy actually stopped and got several abilities in Squire before moving on (Gained JP Up, Yell, Throw Stone, Move+1, Accumulate; got Cheer Up from Spillover in Chapter 2).  This puts him behind on reaching Samurai--we've already got Katanas, but he's maybe half-way through the unlock requirements--but lets him use Guts to get through the physical job tree.  On the whole Guts hasn't blown me away--I mean, it's hilarious when we have effective speed 15 in Dorter Trade City with Yell+Haste, but when we ran into hard battles in Chapter 2 (Zaland Fort City and Bariaus Hill)--In Zaland we lost once because he ran towards the front lines using Yell, died, and then crystallized superfast.  In Bariaus Hill he, after one loss, ended up switching to Item, and spent the battle using regular potions as he sucked up the aggro from archers and such (much more useful than his previous performance--in fairness that run was my fault since I told him there way the enemy Knight would be able to attack out of a height gap of 2.5; still not entirely sure how that worked >_>).  I'll be interested to see how Guts does once we don't have guests--in theory the skillset gets relatively better the fewer party members you have.


FFT-PSP: Added Kletian Dorter battle: is lame.  It's protect Meliadoul, and I had already stripped Meliadoul what with her being added to the party already and stuff.  Actually I should have kept a save file--I'm now wondering what happens if you kick her out of the party before going to Dorter?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS - Began jotting down notes for Virgil stats and modus operandi. The -actual- Virgil testing is going to suck more than collecting notes from other enemies did. Agh.

[metroid composite]

Some stuff I forgot about:

PoFV: Well...I managed to take one round off of Laggy (out of 10 or so >_>).

Some random Mouse-movement shooter: Interesting way of doing things.  Lots more twitch deaths than using arrows, but it does allow for some design that just wouldn't work otherwise.

[Laggy]

La souer de barrage.

Your antics in Deus Ex are an endless source of amusement and I wish to see more, on that note. I am sure Grefter would approve.

Also I need to assimilate NEB or something so I can keep up with you in FFT. ;_;

MYSELF SINCE I NEVER POST: Bought Orange Box at mc's recommendation, been trying out TF2. I suck, but it's fun and seems like something I can potentially get better at than the original TFC. Should really play Portal.

[superaielman]

Deus Ex is awesome and everyone does need to play it, yes.

[AAA]

Dammit, quit making me want to play Deus Ex again.

[Excal]

Heh, Cyril.  You want to see true FFT Geekery?  Find some way to sneak up north the next time MC visits so you can get a ticket to see some Satan FFT action.  Nothing quite like 15 minute planning sessions for a move to be made that reminds me of nothing more than a game of chess.  Probabilities and precise clocktick calculations abound, punctuated only briefly by curses at Balk and all his lineage.

Anyways, I honestly need to get going in SH3 again now that I'm having some free time again.  Last I left off, Shania had run off to get herself killed.  I approve of this, and am not awaiting the moment when I discover that she managed to fail in this one simple task.  She always dissapoints me when it counts.

On the DS front which I've been playing a lot more of since I've been on the go a lot more, I've gone back to Advance Wars for a bit before returning to FF3.  Just passed Bahamut's nest, using my usual earlygame setup of Warrior and the three mages.  May sub out the Red Mage for a thief after I get past the forced mini dungeons though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS - [15:38] * Hello-Prescott also thinks. I think that the point where I just gave up entirely on XS writing amounting to anything good was when Albedo and Jr. went "AAAAAAAAAND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiii WILL ALWAAAAAYS LOOOOOOOOooooooooooooVeeeeeeeEEEEE YOOOOOOoooooooooooouuuuuuuUuuUuu".

Sums up my thoughts on XS plot so far pretty accurately. At least, I enjoy the gameplay in spite of its clunkiness, and the thing is so goddamned short in practice.

[Idun]

Huh, I never got the "I will always love you feeling" from that whatsoever. But I guess anything can be dumbed down to that, though they were both openly reluctant in admitting any risidual feelings from Epiosde 1 to 3.

Anyways. I just entered Eruyt Village in FFXII. Holy shit, if I were a man and into dark skinned/non-white skinned womens and loved furries with bunny ears, I would be in sperm heaven.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Huh, I never got the "I will always love you feeling" from that whatsoever. But I guess anything can be dumbed down to that, though they were both openly reluctant in admitting any risidual feelings from Epiosde 1 to 3.

That's my code for "DBZ POWER UP HOMOEROTICA AURA CLASH", actually. Doesn't help that the homoerotica in the case of the Edos feels... very, very intentional, though. Gaignun and Jr. were specifically created to make Niu squeal like a little girl.

[Shale]

Tales of Symphonia: Raiding the second human ranch. The boss battle kicks my ass on Hard and there are three forced fights between it and the previous save point. May just switch to Normal altogether (or at least stop trying over and over to beat boss teams on Hard), as this iteration of the LMBS is getting unpleasant quickly with competent enemies.

Phoenix Wright: Replaying random cases, because why not. Did all of PW1 except 1-2 (going 1-1, 1-5, 1-3 and then 1-4), and am now going through PW3 in order. Still great games and I've forgotten enough of the puzzle solutions that it's not pure autopilot.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well, yeah, in a group, what's his face from Rohan with the spear isn't that great. But he's probably the best duelist because he's got what amounts to Night Sword and Dark Sword.

He's also immune to magic, IIRC. But only on absurd levels.

Less absurd than Yamikei levels, I think.