What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Anthony Edward Stark]

A history of bad design does not give a free pass to continue with bad design.

I thought I'd quote this even though I'm not actually going to respond in a meaningful way. Fuck level grinding.

Anyway, Gref, the thing you should learn is that the shooty thing he does? You can guard impact them back at him and once you realize that, the fight becomes stupidly fun.

[Captain K.]

Thanks, Tai, but I've been reading the boards at Gamefaqs, so I knew most of that already.

@QuietRain:  Monochrome is doable in Season 2, but you need to follow the guide at the bvs wiki in the *exact* order it shows.  Basically you get an ally off of an easy mission, use their jutsu to get the next ally, etc. etc.

The hardest thing in Monochrome is passing the 25 range, 25 success mission to level Strawberry.  It's just persistance until you get enough successes.

Actually, I take that back.  The hardest thing in Monochrome is getting enough Dark Waters to do the final special mission.  Unless your village has an excess you can steal.

As for my own progress, I finally got enough ash-covered items to get Larry, but I still need lots more money to activate Spice and Wolf teamup.  Going to go for Jonin on Friday, since the extra range will make Wasteland a bit easier.

[metroid composite]

Well I took Grefter's advice and bought the X-Com series for $15.

UFO Defence: I've managed to shoot down some UFOs, but when I did the landing party after it landed the aliens killed all my people .  Also, I have no source of income; I'm told my Engineers will do that eventually.

[DjinnAndTonic]

A history of bad design does not give a free pass to continue with bad design.

Chiming in with some defense for Disgaea. Disgaea is about level-grinding. It has ALWAYS been about level grinding and it probably always will be. The reason Disgaea is as successful as it is comes from the fact that Nippon-Ichi has unabashedly expressed this time and time again to the point that the story includes levels as canon plot concepts.  Disgaea's fanbase likes level-grinding and Disgaea puts a shiny, very accessible face on level-grinding, complete with lots of various methods to approach level-grinding. The game also seeks to reward level-grinding with all kinds of extra content and aftergame bonuses/cameos. If you don't like level-grinding, fine - Disgaea's not for you. It's not bad game design, it's just pandering to its devoutly-loyal fanbase.

-Djinn

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, I actually agree with Djinn, here.

Disgaea still sucks, of course.

[Magic Fanatic]

WA2:  After 20 more deaths at Trask, I may or may not be giving up just keeping Ashley at level 3 for as long as possible.  Giving Tim more HP was a fool's dream anyway, I guess.

Also, I'm swinging the vote back at getting Strawberry 2.  Dark Water is easy once you find the mission and have SBYN/Stripeypants2/I Can Has Cheezeburger.  25/25 missions are just darn near impossible, even with Vanilla/Strawberry/Sporty/Bonedaddy/Nightfall (or if you think you have enough range there, switch out Vanilla or Sporty for Hermano).  He has a decent level-up rate, but...  Ow.

Disgaea 2:  I forgot about this.  Lover-farming ahoy~!

Perfect World:  Guess what, I got sucked into a new MMO.  It seems like World of Warcraft, but...  It's free, and it looks beautiful.  The only real problems are the timings for things (I remember dying to an enemy's attack AFTER I had killed it), but...  Whatever.  Three or four days already saw me to level 20, since quests are so abundant and give loads of EXP.  My only gripe is that the game didn't allow for male Venomancers.

[Excal]

I'd disagree that Disgaia is even all that well made for level grinding, but that's mostly due to the flaws in the experience gaining system that could well have been ironed out after the first one.  In fact, I vaguely recall hearing something about getting experience for actions besides killing things which is one of the biggest flaws in Disgaia.

That said, so long as you consider it an SRPG, Djinn is right.  Myself, I find it much more interesting as a puzzle game.

Now, on to good games...

1 X Ciato Voodoo Curse defeated!  It took me a while, but I managed to get back on with Wild ARMs 3.  This time facing off against the Sand Canal and the Light Temple.  The Huskarls in their final fight almost managed to kill me, and I had to sink a lot of my resources into staying alive as A) I had been messing around with my Medium setup when I accidentally walked in on that fight, and so Virginia had the Water Medium, and hence all my healing, and B) Ginny got IDed on round 1 before she could even act.  By the time she was back in the fight and not at risk of a sudden offing, Clive and Jet were down, and it took a good deal of effort just to get the first Huskarl dead.  Once one fell, the rest went easily enough.

As for the boss of the Light Temple, it took me a while to get reflect up, but Ginny did have Darkness immunity, and between that and a Mysticed Lucky Card she ended up with 2.5X Exp from the fight.  The fight also ended when the boss hit Clive with Reflect up, which got me a Darkness Gem, which means that I can now try and mystic one on one of those fights with the tons o' enemies weak to dark and actually begin building up a stockpile of the things.  So, all is good.


Also, FF3 progress, Eureka beaten!

I am now prepped for the ascent of Sylx, and will be buffing up my final party on the way.  The party looks like so.

Luneth - Ninja w/ Moonring and Masamune
Refia - Warrior w/ Ragnarok and Break Blade / Blood Sword
Arc - Magus w/ Omnirod
Ignus - Devout w/ Elder Staff

Sadly, no one can really use the Excalibur, so it's sitting this fight out.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF3: A word of warning. (Gameplay advice/spoilers if you want to find out for yourself.)

Use two healers for the final boss. One Devout and one Sage would be my general recommendation. Hopefully you have multiple copies of Curaga/Curaja/Arise, but you can get by without.

[AndrewRogue]

World of Warcraft TCG: Constructed tonight, but alas, somewhat poor turnout meant I really didn't get to test my new deck well.

The good news, of course, is that I swept perfectly. 2-0 every match, 3 matches. The bad news, on the other hand, is that the breadth of decks wasn't very good.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the deck. The ally base is solid and hard to break through, with several very durable protectors serving as the backbone (Antikron and Xanata being the best). Myriam Starcaller, as always, an absolute beast if properly supported and puts a heavy clock on the game. If Instructor Giralo also hits the table, then the game goes into overdrive. If neither of them can be neutralized, the game will end very quickly. The true star, of the deck, of course, is Water Elemental. Capable of shutting down all attackers every turn, it serves as the perfect guardian for Myriam. Clocking in at 3/4, its pretty durable, but is vulnerable to direct removal, which is fairly prevalent. This threat can be played around (especially with the help of Vindicator Kentho and Nether Fracture), but its still noteworthy.

Overall, the deck has some potential! A perfect curve (Turn 1 Antikron/Naglaas, Turn 2 Kentho, Turn 3 Water Elemental, Turn 4 Myriam) is fairly devastating, and there are plenty of turn variants I can get out as well (Turn 4-5 Water Elemental, Turn 6-ish Myriam seems to be the least risky route). Overall though... I'm not sure I can risk running it on Saturday and will likely fall back on Fallenstar. We'll see though. I'm not sure too many people are expecting Black Ice.

[Magic Fanatic]

Is there some secret to IaMP netplay that I'm not getting?

Anywho, I think I'm getting better with Meiling.  Despite being considered the worst character in the game, I still enjoy her play style.  A very close second for fun characters to play as (at least in my opinion) are Marisa and Suika.  And I actually got a guard crush to work once on a human player!  Woo hoo!

[Cotigo]

FF3: A word of warning. (Gameplay advice/spoilers if you want to find out for yourself.)

Use two healers for the final boss. One Devout and one Sage would be my general recommendation. Hopefully you have multiple copies of Curaga/Curaja/Arise, but you can get by without.

Alternately, steal uber items from Sage and do it with one.  >_>  What do you mean this advice is useless.

[Clear Tranquil]

I see Tai, I see. I like shiny overpowered physicals though ;_;

Well since I don't have a stubborn perfectionist streak I'm not going to start over just for Focus but I'll get it after finishing the game and starting Hard Mode >.> Next time too I'll be able to do a more extensive run starting from the beginning since I have a better understanding of the way things work now =-)

SMT-Nocturne- Arrived at the Maniquin village. I like it though I already thought I would >.> Found the Pyro Jack minigame - haha awesme *^_^* The shop has two shiny new Magatama for me to buy once I get enough money and the Collector Maniquin is planning to open a shop with rare goods for me to purphase too. Good times.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I'd made a Matador. Then before the Maniquin village I made a Unicorn with the attack/magic/def/hit+evade buffs added to it's default skills which include Media =-) Nifty support package. Unicorn! <3 So at the moment my party is Main/Unicorn/Senri/Evolved Inugami (I'll stop forgetting the name eventually >.>)

Boss wise - Well uh Klik Klik was a joke with my newly built up party but I was expecting that anyway so. Haven't found the other Oni yet, stumbled on the way to the Maniquin village first and since my party needed healing from getting ambushed from randoms I went that way instead. 

[Meeplelard]

Excal, wouldn't Lust Dagger be better than the Moonring Blade? IIRC, the two were equal in power but Lust Dagger boosted speed.

[Shale]

SRWZ: Finished stage 20, on track to get Rush Rod (finally! A secret I didn't screw up!) and hopefully Dijeh. S20 wasn't nearly as a big of a pain as it was hyped to be; none of the initial units could dodge for crap, yes, but the only goal was to kill a boss who ran right at me, and Ganelon and Walker Gallier are forced deployments. All it took was saving up SP for the third turn, building Will for the heavy hitters' finishers, and then blitzing.

Unit review, because why not:

Gan Gan Ganleon: Awesome. Probably the best tank in my army counting Big O thanks to Rand's obscene Prevail levels (skill level 8 at level 26. What the eff.), and brings the pain with minimal Will requirements (plus Z's newly badass Battle Spirit). Also gets reasonably cheap Lock On and Alert.
Xabungle/Walker Gallier: Pretty damned good. Solid ranged damage, can evade and take hits equally well, both have co-pilots and nice finishers. Free reassignment of sub-pilots is the awesome.
King Gainer: Currently my top ace thanks to frankly obscene anti-grunt capabilities - cheap attacks with good power, a barrier, Bunshin, and practically impossible to hit on mobility alone? Yes, please. The P ALL guzzles EN, but it's also a P ALL finisher so I'm not complaining.
Orguss: Kei. Is. Wrong. Is going to need B Save to be a truly effective fighter, but the stats and innate Attack Again are just absurd.
Turn A Gundam: Meeeeeh. SP Regen on the girly-man pilot, whatever his name is, is nice, but the mech is hamstrung in any number of ways - the only good P attack has low ammo, the finisher is range 1, it can't fly, etc. Great TRI attack, though, which is why I've got Amuro in it building up kills for Dijeh. (Can any Gundam pilot switch into Turn A, or just the UC ones? I hope it's all of them, that would be funny.)
Gravion/Grankaiser: Better than it seemed at first. Grankaiser's damage isn't terrible (Gran Diva Attack is actually pretty brutal), and three turns is a lot of time for Gravion to wreck stuff given how quickly you need to finish most of the stages for an SR Point. Also, 20SP Spirit helps a lot with the 130 Will requirement. Gravion itself is about as awesome as it ought to be. 2-5 P finisher that competes for party-best damage? 
Gundam X: Was great early on, has fallen off a bit lately. The P ALL finisher is still nice, but the damage otherwise is lacking a bit. Satellite Cannon soon, though!
Zambot 3: MOON ATTACK MOON ATTACK MOON ATTACK. It can do other stuff too, but the finisher is where it gets almost all of its actual use.
Big O: Completely awesome. Fantastic damage on all its attacks, tanks like a bastard after you buy Blocking for it, Sudden Impact is obscene.
God Sigma: Okay, but nothing special. If I could get it to build Will a bit quicker for the finisher, Trinity Charge would be a lifesaver. Maybe I'll toss Battle Spirit on there.
Various other UC and CE Gundam people, Baldios, etc: Hell if I know, I've had them for one whole stage. Baldios' teleportation is really cool, though.

[metroid composite]

FF3: A word of warning. (Gameplay advice/spoilers if you want to find out for yourself.)

Use two healers for the final boss. One Devout and one Sage would be my general recommendation. Hopefully you have multiple copies of Curaga/Curaja/Arise, but you can get by without.

Personally I found the most important thing was high magic defence + back row for everyone you can.  There's a lot of magic moves that can be reduced to 0 damage, and if you don't you'll have trouble with healing.  Similarly, in the front row I had to worry about dying to a crit physical, but it's not an issue in the back.

[Talaysen]

Clear Tranquil: If it makes you feel any better, I played on Hard mode and beat the game without having Focus (I didn't think it'd be good either).  So missing out on it won't screw you over or anything.

---

Tales of Vesperia - I guess I could say something about this.

Gameplay: It's TotA+, but lacks Natalia.  I suppose that's an improvement, but the lack of awesome bowgirl owning everything is saddening.  I just unlocked Fatal Strikes and Burst Artes.  Fatal Strikes seem to always show up when the enemy is already dead or on enemies I'm not attacking, but I THINK AI controlled PCs use FSes anyways, so the latter isn't a big deal.  Burste Artes are kind of cool.  Basically mini-MAs that don't take you out of Overlimit.  Though Estelle's kind of sucks.

Overlimits themselves are better.  They carry over between battles (I don't think they did that in TotA?) AND seem to raise quicker than in TotA, but the OLs are shared, so while you're getting up 4 in TotA, you're only getting up 1 in ToV.  What's nice about OLs in ToV?  Mages get instant casting, which is freaking nuts.  On top of that, going into OL and chain casting a spell got me back half an OL back before it even wore off.  Fighters get faster I believe, and of course, less chance of being stunned (though they still can be), and Burst Artes to increase damage output quite a bit.

Also, Hard mode?  Is bullshit.  That is all.

Plot:  TALES PLOT.  Well, it's not bad I guess, but it really hasn't gotten going yet.

Characters: Better than the plot by miles.  Most of the characters are enjoyable (umm, all of them but Karol right now), and they interact often and well.  Skits being voiced adds to this quite a bit.  Probably the best reason to play the game, but the gameplay's good as well.

Music:  TALES MUSIC.

So yeah, I'm enjoying it.  Has its issues, but overall, it's solid.  Though I'm nowhere near the end so that could change.

Also, PIKOHAN~

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If you don't like level-grinding, fine - Disgaea's not for you. It's not bad game design, it's just pandering to its devoutly-loyal fanbase.

-Djinn

Dragonball Z has a devoutly-loyal fanbase. Does that excuse its writing from being terribly designed AND executed? People will like shit, that doesn't change the fact that it's badly designed.

[Sierra]

Disgaea 3: Chapter seven = wacky geocube tricks. Oh, Nippon Ichi. Actually had a game over in there because I went "Screw the Enemy Turbo x3 layer, I'm going to try killing the enemies anyway." Didn't work out well. (Wiping out the heinous layer of geocubes necessitated also wiping out a layer of EXP+ and Mana+ cubes, which is obviously undesirable).

[Grefter]

Blue Dragonball Z - Party Vegeta  continue to curb stomp everything.  I am pondering the possibility of beating the game with a party full of Swordsman just healing off of basic physicals with HP Absorb.  Seen no attacks that would outheal that so far.  Still it is fun enough.  I met Picolo Vegeta.  One of my brothers friends was around and we were talking about the game as I was playing it "Who is that guy?" "He is going to be annoying." "Oh have you played the game before?" "No, but I have played enough RPGs to know all the tropes.", lo and behold, he is annoying I MUST YELL A LOT POINTLESSLY (which to be honest fits the whole Blue Dragonball thing), but whatever.  It is fun.  Interesting to see the direction they went after Dragonball Quest 8 which is pretty much take the job system from FF/Dragonball Quest series and make it even easier than FF5.  Oh well.  Smashing is decent enough.

[Cmdr_King]

ToE- Fuck Finality Deadend.

That said, may as well do the wrapup now.  ToE's... got lots of little issues that add up to being fairly frustrating for a lot of the game.  Early on, your TP and options for healing it are just too damned limited, leading to several hours of hacking at things with base physicals, getting your ass kicked around because that's not tying up enemies in the slightest.  Cooking helps, but it's still frustrating.  After that problem's solved, you still have the giant mid-game scavenger hunt.  Granted, there's FAQs for that, but blah to needing FAQs for maingame stuff.
Otherwise... well.  I swear that the cast is just Too Dumb to Live.  Hell, not just the cast, most of the NPCs too, at least any Inferians.  That said, by the end Keele's character development is actually pretty decent, and as often happens in Tales the worldbuilding is enjoyable (if fluffy.)

Despite all that though it's not really a bad game, just one that takes too long to get going.  It can be pretty decent at times, actually good at others.  6/10 range I guess?  Feels right.

DLness.

Reid- Heavy/Middle.  The average just kinda goes wonky by endgame, and he's really only got damage.
Farah- Heavy?  I'm not terribly inclined to believe in Super-Farah, Destroyer of Averages, but he damage is at least passable and she's got the healing.
Keele- Light.
Meredy- Light?  Without really knowing just how the damage average pans out, it's hard to say just how far Destiny carries her, although Tech Ring hype leads to amusing mental images.  I certainly hope it works.  If the kill point ends up under 30k, she's probably a Middle.
Max- Heavy.  The HP is pretty gross, and he's 2HKOing at some level.  And it really takes FFIX level elemental resists to even start to bother him.  Straightforward but solid.
Chat- Light.  Eternal Hammer just isn't a viable DL move, so she's got mage HP and damage.  Hurray.

Rassius- Middle.  ITD makes him explode, but otherwise... 3HKO, and the defenses carry him well.  Healers tend to get a free pass though.
Shizel- Godlike.  Hp->1, enough damage to register and solid enough HP.  Just generically Godlike.

Edit: Ahahaha, Nurse > Final Attack.

[DjinnAndTonic]

If you don't like level-grinding, fine - Disgaea's not for you. It's not bad game design, it's just pandering to its devoutly-loyal fanbase.

-Djinn

Dragonball Z has a devoutly-loyal fanbase. Does that excuse its writing from being terribly designed AND executed? People will like shit, that doesn't change the fact that it's badly designed.

You missed the point of my post. I wasn't saying 'Disgaea has fans, therefore it is good', I was saying 'Disgaea does level-grinding well'. If you want to call level-grinding itself innately bad game design, that's your choice. But there's going to be disagreements over what kinds of gameplay styles are 'fun' and which are not.

Also, you're comparing writing and gameplay as if they are measured on the same kind of scale, which really isn't the case...

-Djinn

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Legaia 2 - Poor Hugo Weaving never got a chance to be truly fabulous. ;_;

[DomaDragoon]

Mega Man 9 - Buster Only Playthrough (i.e. first run-through, curse you Capcom and not releasing last week like you had planned for over a month). Five Masters down, so I've got Rush Jet. As usual, I have more problems with the levels than the bosses, so I have no idea how I'd ever manage a sub 60-min game. The game is classic MM-style, though I'm really missing sliding, far more than charging. Now if only they'd get around to releasing the GB collection...

Soul Cal 4 - All characters unlocked, half done Story Mode, half done Tower of StopHittingMeLetMeGetUpOwOwOw. I haven't found Algol all that cheap in game... at least, no more so than any other character. I'm maining Siggy with a tank/ringout build and Taki, who I haven't found a good setup outside of default yet. Gref, you do know that the CAC equipment affects the character's stats, right? A bunch of the good stuff is stuck there by doing stupid and insane things that I hate. I can't Guard Impact to save my life.

KOTOR 2 - Doma used ABUSE GLITCHES! Bao-Dur Jedi get! Handmaiden Jedi Get! Got 99x Handmaiden Robes! Got 100,000x Credits! Got 4000x Components!

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have no idea how I'd ever manage a sub 60-min game

Using the weapons makes the levels about 10x easier. I got sub-60-min on my second playthrough.

[Niu]

Fatal Strikes seem to always show up when the enemy is already dead or on enemies I'm not attacking, but I THINK AI controlled PCs use FSes anyways, so the latter isn't a big deal.  Burste Artes are kind of cool.  Basically mini-MAs that don't take you out of Overlimit.  Though Estelle's kind of sucks.

Use those deal hp 1 skills or weapons to get FS (FS damage is irrelevant to hp damage). And FS kills later on is even more efficient than hp kill. As you'll later gain skills that recharges your hp and tp or hands off limit guage bonus when you FS. So yeah, all of sudden, hp damage is a boss fight only thing.