What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Grefter]

Djinn needs to post more about pushing trees over with axes.

Rob needs to kick Snow more for not fucking playing Torment.

[Niu]

Negative Gate is missable?

It is not, Hermes Memo is still available after last dungeon appeared. Just head for Kapwa Trim.
I repeat, NONE of the techs and spells are permanently missable.

[Fudozukushi]

Negative Gate is missable?

It is not, Hermes Memo is still available after last dungeon appeared. Just head for Kapwa Trim.
I repeat, NONE of the techs and spells are permanently missable.

Thought so.

[Sierra]

Rose: I really like her as a character and it's obvious the writers gave her enough attention that she didn't feel lacking as a character. Loses points for being fanservice-y, but I can overlook it. Best character overall for me. Surprisingly, I just never used her much in battle. She still had enough screen time to be my favorite, though.

Whaaat, not wearing pants counts as fanservicey now? But yeah, I pretty much consider Rose to be the sole redeeming factor of LoD.

GL5: Watched all the endings on YouTube since the game decided it didn't like me.

Game is...fairly average inna final analysis. Gameplay's nothing special, nor are visuals (apart from the sparkly, sparkly Urushihara designs--and let's be honest, that's why I bought Growlanser Generations in the first place) or music (but then, that's something the series has never done well, in my opinion).

The plot, though, does have flashes of brilliance apart from the whole Destroying the Demon Sealed Away By the Ancients thing. What happens when you put a gun to the world's head and say "Get along, or else"? Some people resent you, some people agree, some people can be persuaded to change their mind, etc. It's nice that there's a fairly diverse set of reactions here. Also, bonus points for the people holding the tactical nuke realizing that the actual causes of war--diminishing natural resources--needed to be addressed to truly stop it (not that Isaac and Seldous bother talking about this, but some of the PMB researchers do, which is cool). There's plenty of fail mixed in, but overall, they did a nice job of portraying people dealing with a seemingly intractable national crisis.

Cast is a mixed bag. Melvina's cool apart apart from her mid-game emo phase (also so damned pretty, though I do wonder if she ever catches those wings on doorways), Krious is basically endearing (and a pirate)...on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Isaac, whose attempts to retain his position of authority seemed more pathetic and counterproductive as the game went on (though at least the writers didn't truly give up with him and go TRUE PEACE IS BUILT ON THE CORPSES OF MEN). Also, Pernagi. Pernagi defines ::psyduck::. Everyone else is somewhere in between.

6/10 overall, maybe 5/10? Dunno. I was admittedly kinda tired of it by the end.

[VySaika]

TotA: Played from "get flightstone back" to the Absorbtion Gate yesterday. Sync kinda sucked. God General Trio was pretty good though, even if they had ass for durability. Legretta hits really hard.

[Idun]

For some odd reason, this dungeon in FFXII is taking way too long and it's boring, so I haven't played anything for the past couple of weeks. I know Saddening.

[Sierra]

For some odd reason, this dungeon in FFXII is taking way too long and it's boring, so I haven't played anything for the past couple of weeks. I know Saddening.

Insufficient data. That statement applies to many FFXII dungeons.

[Talaysen]

For some odd reason, this dungeon in FFXII is taking way too long and it's boring, so I haven't played anything for the past couple of weeks. I know Saddening.

Insufficient data. That statement applies to many FFXII dungeons.

*all

And Cid, what I thought was the best part of GL5's gameplay was the twinking aspect.  The sheer amount of WTF you can pull with the skill board and accessories is absolutely amazing.

Rest of the analysis I pretty much agree with (including Melvina hype!), but I felt the gameplay was much better than you do apparently.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Djinn needs to post more about pushing trees over with axes.

Rob needs to kick Snow more for not fucking playing Torment.

Playing Torment involves playing a PCRPG. Failure Is Your Only Option.

[Grefter]

Djinn needs to post more about pushing trees over with axes.

Rob needs to kick Snow more for not fucking playing Torment.

Playing Torment involves playing a PCRPG. Failure Is Your Only Option.

Statements like that are why you are not allowed into nice places.

[Sierra]

For some odd reason, this dungeon in FFXII is taking way too long and it's boring, so I haven't played anything for the past couple of weeks. I know Saddening.

Insufficient data. That statement applies to many FFXII dungeons.

*all

And Cid, what I thought was the best part of GL5's gameplay was the twinking aspect.  The sheer amount of WTF you can pull with the skill board and accessories is absolutely amazing.

Rest of the analysis I pretty much agree with (including Melvina hype!), but I felt the gameplay was much better than you do apparently.

Too many battles were owned by moving Haschel around and hitting X when appropriate for me to enjoy the system to the extent I could have, I think.

EDIT: If you know of art that can be turned into an avatar, I demand that you link me to it.

[VySaika]

TotA: Absorbtion Gate beat. Van wasn't a bad fight, but I think the God General Trio was more of a threat.

Also, is it just me or does Guy's MA kinda suck? It didn't seem to do nearly the damage Luke's did.

[Pyro]

I think Guy's is fire elemental and so hits fire resistance? Think Luke's is stronger by default too (he has a higher Str? Something like that.)

[OblivionKnight]

As said above.  Guy's has the supposed advantage of hitting more area and being able to hit multiple enemies a lot easier, but it's weaker, in addition to Guy's lower P.ATK, and the fire element attached.

[Tide]

Wild ARMS 2:

Okay, so I fixed the no battle menu display graphics issue. Now we can finally play the game. As normal? Nah, let's have some fun. I changed all the names possible to other WA villains when possible and/or other suitable names. Names were also provided by various people in chat when I was stumped.

So people who were named so far -
Ashley is Janus (along with you are the demons jokes)
Lilka is Lolithia (idea based off IQA in WA5. Special thanks to Tal)
Brad is Hauser (pretty duh)
Tim is Malik (I think Meep suggested this?)
Marina is Enil (Thanks to Dune for telling me what she does. ie: Not much)
Irving is Augst
Irving's sister is Lambda (yes, thank Soppy for this one)

Tony is Iron Man
Scott is Cyclops

So! With that, the adventure of Janus begins. He saves Iron Man from a group of thugs who kidnapped him. Then placed on suspension. Finally, he wakes up, greeted by Enil. He is introduced to Iron Man's three friends, Cyclops and Malik. Malik gives him a medium and talks about his mom. Then, Janus receives an invitation! During the ceremony for knighting, they are attacked by a ritual and Janus becomes the demons. Unfortunately, he doesn't become a zombie, instead reverting back to a human, where he collapses and Augst takes him back to te bakery.

Janus wakes up, and is told to go thank Augst for saving him. He meets Lolithia who is hungry. So of course, since this is a RPG and all the townsfolk never have to worry about the issues of commerce, they happily give her free bread. Then they set off to meet Augst, who introduces them as a special unit and they meet the brother/sister Lambda. Augst sends them to the prison, where Janus breaks out Hauser. Now they're finally off and on to some caged tower or something. I haven't been paying attention all too much so far. Not when the dialouge is particular hilarious at points.

QUOTE(S) OF THE DAY
Malik: "We're so glad our dear friend, Iron Man, is alright. Thank you, Janus"
Janus: "I wonder what my relationship with Enil is really like"

[DjinnAndTonic]

Tried to play some SuikoTactics but got sucked back into SaGa Frontier.

Still on Asellus' quest - Started the Rune and Arcane quests and recruited lots of shiny humans - Rouge, Gen, Emelia, Fuse. I got Lute and Thunder, too, for all that's worth. By the end of the Rune quest I should also have Annie, Fei-On, and Slime to fill up a second party. I should probably go get TimeLord now in case I run out of party space, huh?

I -really- want to train a monster for some reason.

Because I want to break the game, my staple party is always going to have Asellus, Gen (working on swordtechs), and Fuse (DSC awaits!). The other two slots are reserved for a healer\mage of some variety and miscellaneous character I'm training.

Not quite sure how the magic Gift quests should be ordered. Thinking I need to do the Light Gift quest now before I recruit anymore and lose out on the chance to get -anyone- with the Dark Gift. Same for Arcane/Rune.

Gah, planning for this game is taking up too much of my brainspace.

GL5 - Cid does a good job highlighting GL5's good points. I would also like to chip in that I liked the various 'chapters' that the game has, its prologues and side stories where you control characters other than Haschen. Tal touches on the fun of the gameplay system, too.

Music was by far the failing-est of the fail, though. Couldn't listen to the game at times because of it.

Cid, did you ever sit and listen to any of Korin's gossip dialogues?

Comment on TotA/ToV - One of the things I liked about TotA battle system was the Overlimit/Mystic Arte system, and I'm really kind of excited about ToV due to its apparent increase in importance to the battles.

Grefter: Trees, Axe, what?

-Djinn

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

S5 - *Game tosses a fourth Boost Rune piece at me.*

*Two battles later, tosses a fourth Power Rune piece at me.*

...

^_^

[Pyro]

Comment on TotA/ToV - One of the things I liked about TotA battle system was the Overlimit/Mystic Arte system, and I'm really kind of excited about ToV due to its apparent increase in importance to the battles.

You have no idea.

[TranceHime]

Moemon 鹿ver: I'm doing a Mono Water-type Team run, screw you bastards who wanted me to do a Mono Grass-type Team, I'll do that for a different time or something. My progress can be summated in two pictures:




As you can see my "team" is pretty bare. Feel free to decide which Gen 1 Pokemon you want entered in my team as long as they are Water type and NOT named Magikarp nor Gyarados. They are uncute Moemon. >:|

[Sierra]

Cid, did you ever sit and listen to any of Korin's gossip dialogues?

Nah, this is something I still need to do.

Also, in regards to Saga: It's not worth the trouble to build multiple parties. Stick with one group of people that you like. If there's anyone else you're curious about using, hey, there are always the other quests for that.

Also also: Grefter is referring to the disc one LoD scene in which Dart and company epicly forget how gravity works.

[Idun]

For some odd reason, this dungeon in FFXII is taking way too long and it's boring, so I haven't played anything for the past couple of weeks. I know Saddening.

Insufficient data. That statement applies to many FFXII dungeons.

Objection!!! D: I found that I enjoyed the majority of the dungeons besides this one. Actually, I think I'm not enjoying this arc so far anyways, because I was particularly bored getting to and fro. That may be why. Also, any art can be turned into an avatar. Look at me. I changed a 768x1960 art image into wonderfulness. Win~

[AndrewRogue]

Puzzle Quest: Crap. Forgot how positively addicting this game is. Putting back together the God of War, and only have two pieces left. Hate the computer's seeming ability to always get drops it needs or resist my spells at the last moment. Thankfully, the enemies are all fairly middling, and we haven't have another goddamn Dugog yet.

[Sierra]

Also, any art can be turned into an avatar. Look at me. I changed a 768x1960 art image into wonderfulness. Win~

In this case, finding the art is the problem. I haven't seen a lot of GL5 floating around. Also, out of curiosity: what is your avatar?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

S5 - The Falena Army Army is now ready to take the Queendom by surprise with its sheer fabulousness. I also didn't screw up with Oboro, so life is the good stuffs.

[Veryslightlymad]

Civilization 4, Warlords:

I've been playing this online with two of my friends. The online play is really surprisingly good, and it runs FAST (for civilization), nearly as fast as playing the game by yourself. It's not remotely headachy, and I really think it'd be great to get a game together with some of us sometime. It's not nearly as bad as you may think.