What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[NotMiki]

Wii - Bought.

in NYC, the demand for Wiis is just crazy.  It's insane.  The Nintendo Store gets 150 or so of them every day.  You have to get in line TWO HOURS before the store opens at 9 to get one for sure.  Showed up at 7:45 and I was the next to last in line to get one.  Thought the rain would ease the line up a bit.  It didn't.  About 100 people behind me were disappointed.  Insane.

Anyway, got myself Rayman Raving Rabbids.  Planning on getting Super Mario Galaxy, too.  Other than that, I'm open to suggestions.  Well, suggestions that aren't Fire Emblem.

Also, noticed that Puzzle Quest game has Wii and PS2 versions ($30 and $20 respectively).  Is the game worth buying?  Is there a difference?

[Nitori]

Man, it's been a while since I made a Games post~

PW series, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: Both finished. PW rocks, awesome writing/characters, blah blah blah. I don't think I need to repeat several other rants. M&L2 was decent, not up to the level of the first but not bad, either, retaining much of the entertaining aspects of M&L1's gameplay and jokes.

Yoshi's Island DS: Also finished. Very solid game that is actually harder than the original and much harder than the original to score 100s on, since there are no items (Thus you getting hit actually matters.). The whole baby choice thing felt like it was implemented well, although I wish you got to use Wario/Baby Bowser more. Also, I didn't see any Fuzzies during the main game. Fail.

Etrian Odyssey: I suck at roguelikes, apparently. Using Landsknecht/Dark Hunter/Troubadour/Medic/Alchemist, and the second floor enemies like to go first and 2HKO me. (Granted, I can do the same...) At least I managed to kill the FOE, go lightning weakness or something?

DQM: J: Breeding things on the second island. I managed to get a...decent dragon type called Frou-something (Swordgon by the GBC names). This proves that breeding Trips with Snow leads to good things.

MMSF: In the third chapter, after the Cygnus/space place stuff.

[Meeplelard]

DMC3: Was in the middle of Mission 4 when I died in the Secret Mission called "The Untouchable."  Good to know that Secret Missions can actually kill you <_<

MM8: Robot Masters beaten, Wily's fortress is next! And yes, all Robot Masters were beaten using only the buster, and it was the basic buster too.  Only Upgrades I got are the Energy Balancer (yay convenience!), Shock Absorber (doesn't do much for bosses, but god damn does it save your ass more than you'd expect in platforming) and...ok, I did get the Charge Rate goes down thing but that doesn't seem to play as big an impact as you'd expect (since feels like I'm charging for a while before I get a good chance to fire anyway.)

Been fun, etc.  Its MM8, what did you expect <_<?

[Grefter]

Wii version is reportedly more stable and has a few bug fixes over the original 2.  I can't recall how good/bad the DS version in that regard, but the PSP version has some potential game killers with the learning spells from monsters and companions do nothing.  Been considering picking it up for Wii since the game is pretty cool, might lose something not being portable though.

ToPr - Just about to go to Thor.  I still laugh at Mint casting "The most powerful methodism spells" *NURSE! (The spell she would have learnt probably 10 levels ago and also possibly not even the highest level healing spell she has in reasonable level ranges around that time in the plot)*.  It would have been cool to use the Resurrection VA clip in there where learning it would have been pretty O_o power levelling and it actually is the strongest healing spell in the game.  Would have made more plot sense with her not being able to control it properly and whatnot.

Oh well, the game is still shit hot.

[Captain K.]

Yeah, like Grefter said, don't buy the PSP version.  DS freezes sometimes, but is fairly stable overall.  Don't know about the console versions.

Okay, so I broke down and downloaded some Touhou.  Mainly so I can mock it.

Highly Responsive to Prayers:  some sort of Breakout clone.  Sucks.  Next.

Lotus Land Story:  Okay, here's what I get of the plot.  Apparently this girl wants to be on the Rhythmic Dance team, since she's got a ball and a stick with a ribbon.  But she is too fat to get on the team.  So she takes out her aggression by shooting all the other fat girls in school.

First I fought Completely Forgettable Girl.  So exciting I completely forgot about her.

Next was Vampire Wannabe.  Goth is so last decade.

Then came Girl with Giant Barette.  She's actually one of the more intelligent ones, as she realizes you can't shoot her when she's holding a giant barette.

Next is some sort of witch girl.  I'm trying to figure out something clever to call her, when she goes and summons the Beatles to protect her.  Her name is now Yoko!

Finally, there's some Statue of Liberty/Flavor Flav cosplayer.  Who oddly enough is the easiest boss of all.

Anyway, finished it and got the "Bad End" because I didn't get to join the dance team.  Died maybe 4? times total.  Overall the game was kind of slow (on Easy mode anyway), and I kept getting distracted while playing.

[Sierra]

RKS: Played up to the boss rush. Actually fought the evil loli a couple times to figure out what weapons to use and was about to take her on for real--when I accidentally hit some key the game didn't like, causing it to shut down. Arghlefuck, now I have to do all the castle levels over again.

Fun platformer, though easier than Megamari. It is sparkly and the music is groovy. The catgirl's level is awesome just for all the ways they mess with your expectations (Oh look, it's that red trashcan dude from the later Mega Man games! Maybe he'll have a present for me? *Robot walks up, throws a bomb at your PC*).

Aaanyway, I'll make another run through the castle levels later today. At least it's easy to replenish your supply of energy tanks there.

EDIT: Aaaahahaha. I just went back to see if it would have the bird gimmick from Mega Man 2. It does! All the stars turn into crosses.

[Cotigo]

TF2:  God I've done nothing but play this game.  I think I may have a problem.

Sigh.  Anyway, classes.

Scout:  Getting better.  I'm not twitchy enough to do well, but I've gotten a lot better at capturing intelligence with him. 

Soldier:  Hate this class.  I blow myself up too often because I forget he has the shotgun.  Rocket Jumping is cool, but I can't really ever make use of it because I have to think about it for too long and then I die.

Pyro:  Now this is a fun class.  Hide behind corners, light people on fire?  Simplistic, yeah, but fuck you.  Now I just need to learn how to not die so easily (goes for all classes, but Pyro in particular) and I might be able to get my stats up there.

Demoman:  Probably the class I'm best with.  Stickybombs have way more range than I thought, and I've finally figured out how much.  Really good at defending with him.  Only issue is that his default attack is incredibly hard to aim.  Getting the hang of it, but for fucks sakes sometimes I just wish the Black Scottish Cyclops had a shotgun or something.  Beating things with a booze bottle>rest of the melee attacks for concept.  Except maybe the shovel. 

Heavy:  Boring.  Also doesn't help that I can't gauge when to run out and tank and when I should stop firing and fall back. 

Engineer:  Uh.  Despite conceptually being the class I was orgasming over when I was watching the previews, I really hate playing this class.  Probably because everybody else always plays him and 6 Engineers is just fucking stupid.

MEDIC! MEEEEDIC!:  Fun.  I suck with him, but really that can be said for all characters sans maaaaaaaaaaybe Demoman.  Need to get more accurate with Melee weapons and learn just how far my targets can go before I have to follow them around the corner.  Probably third favorite class to play, though.

Sniper:  Fuck this class.  Fuck Snipers.  I hates them.  More seriously, I suck at leading shots, I suck at aiming, I suck at not getting hit by other snipers, I suck at not getting spied, I suck at not getting Demomaned, I suck at not getting Scouted, and fuck, I was once even killed by a fucking Engineer from behind with his fucking Melee weapon because I wasn't paying attention.  Fuck. This. Class.

Spy:  I want to be good with spy.  He reminds me a lot of the heroes I like to play in Footmen Frenzy/Warcraft 3: Jaood, Assassin, Blademaster.  People who cloak, sneak around, then kill people when they're not paying attention.  However, it just doesn't work out in practice.  Everyone's always shooting their teammates to check for spies, so disguise isn't exactly safe, and you can't attack from cloaked position, and it takes a second to decloak.  Yet, somehow, people have been good with him.  I have the deaths to prove it.  I must find out how it's done.  Anyway, like scout, I've at least done well in capturing intelligence and points with him. 

Tsk.  Not only have I been playing this when I can but the first thing I do when I wake up is write about it.  This does not bode well once classes resume.

[metroid composite]

I suppose I should mention that I've been playing Super Mario 64 DS.  I put it in when flying back at Christmas to compare it to Galaxy (much worse in several areas; also dramatically easier in general).  Haven't taken it out yet, and have gradually built up 148/150 stars--it is, however, annoying that the "Castle Secret Stars" all you know is that you have 28/30 of them.

Anyway, got myself Rayman Raving Rabbids.  Planning on getting Super Mario Galaxy, too.  Other than that, I'm open to suggestions.  Well, suggestions that aren't Fire Emblem.

If you want an extra controller (which you probably do) then you may as well get Wii Play.  It effectively contains Duck Hunt II, and is therefore awesome, even if it will likely only keep your attention for five hours (but it basically costs nothing since it comes with a controller).
Super Paper Mario is a solid Metroidvania, and also has the character with the deepest character development ever in the mario universe (not that this says a whole lot, but the plot is decent).
Warioware is pretty enjoyable, and a good demonstration of everything that could be done with the Wiimote.
Haven't played Zack and Wiki, but I'm told it's fairly good.
Trauma Center is a remake of the DS game, so skip it if you've already played that, but otherwise I knew several people at launch who found it their favourite Wii game.  (I think there's a Wii sequel now, too; don't know anything about it, though).

Engineer:  Uh.  Despite conceptually being the class I was orgasming over when I was watching the previews, I really hate playing this class.  Probably because everybody else always plays him and 6 Engineers is just fucking stupid.

Speaking as someone who really liked setting up turrets in Tribes: Vengance, TF2 Engineer is just lame in my experience.  There was a while in TF2 when if we didn't have any Engineers on defence I'd switch to the class, but I'd always invariably get bored, decide to go place a teleporter somewhere, walk away from my Sentry that hadn't seen any action for two minutes, and then it would die.

[Cotigo]

Engineer's only really bored me in 2Fort.  But a lot of things about 2Fort bore me.  He's pretty fun to play in Well and... fuck, I forget which map it is; the Territory control map with the huge chokepoint at the end.  Maybe Well.  Fuck, I don't know.  Anyway, the point is, I've gotten action with him but I still hate playing him. 

[Captain K.]

Mystic Square:  Played some Mary Sue-looking character who I later find out is named Yuka.  Easy mode.  Didn't die at all until the stage 4 boss.  Died twice there, once to the stage 5 sub-boss, twice to the stage 5 boss, and twice to the final.  Got the good ending, although I don't know what's good about it or what I did to get it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Okay, bought some PS2 loot to play, so this topic will actually exist for me again. >_>

KH - Just started again. Figured I'd actually finish it this time around.

S4 - Also just started. Snowe looks girlier than Paula and Jewel when he gets scared.

The other games are Legaia 2, Okami, Dynasty Warriors 5, Warriors Orochi, Kingdom Hearts 2 and Shadow of the Colossus. This should keep me entertained until I get the massive game bonanza from Shale. ^_^

[metroid composite]

FFT

So it turns out the FFT board is doing some TDD race (TDD is Tactics Double Dare--two units each of whom have two classes).  Ninja, Samurai, Calculator, and Mime (!!!) are banned, which left me thinking "well...I could use Summon Magic, or I could use Summon Magic".  Figured I'd do a test run comparing a couple of setups, and also refresh my memory of what the pitfalls are in the earlygame, since it's been years.

The two setups that I decided to compare are Wizard/Summoner and Time Mage/Summoner.  Should be an interesting comparison--Short Charged Odin should deal about as much as Magic Attack Upped Ramuh from Wizard.  5ctr for Odin vs 4ctr for Ramuh, and 24 MP vs 50 MP, however Odin has the wider effect area.  Simillarly you could compare MAU Odin to Short Charged Meteor (similar damage, but 7ctr vs 9ctr, and naturally Meteor takes 20 more MP).

Basically, the Time Mage setup has higher MP and JP setup costs than the Wizard setup.  This should make it suck earlygame, and surpass lategame.  Probably.

I eventually turned off stuff like "show ability name" and "show JP/Exp gain".  I do miss them, but it is a fair bit faster.

I decided for my test run that I wanted a character with 70 faith from the Soldier office, to give a fair comparison.  My first note to self is that this is definitely worth the time.  It took me maybe 4 minutes before I landed on someone with 70 faith, 70 brave (unfortunately Gemini, which is bad with Virgo, but Ramza's Capricorn so hopefully he can just handle the boss smashing).

The first two battles I autobattled, and made mistakes like not giving Ramza a weapon in the second fight.  Didn't matter at all.  My first real mistake, however, was not putting the maximum number of chemists into the second fight (for JP spillover purposes).  Both Ramza and the recruitee had enough JP for Knight/Archer, but not enough for Wizard.  My second mistake was not getting this JP at Araguay Woods--the challenge starts at Dorter, so may as well take advantage of Delita and Algus for unlocking Wizard.

Getting the rest of the classes from Wizard was smoother, but I realized very quickly that I couldn't just autobattle my way through these randoms unless they're very wimpy and satisfy certain conditions (I did lose once even on a wimpy random when a Red Panther redirected a spell onto both my characters; speed 5 enemies are so overpowered >_>).  I'm still undecided as to whether Ice 1 was a waste of my JP.  Yes, it kills the occasional Goblin who has enough HP to survive Bolt, but that's only relevant in randoms, and later Ramuh with a Thunder Rod is often what you're using anyway.

My next noteworthy mistake was not spending enough time on Delita and Algus.  It would have been useful to get them Potion and Phoenix Down.  It would have been useful to at least give them up to date equipment.

Dorter was a bit of a wake-up call here; I've beaten this with a solo level 2 or so Wizard with item, and here I had a Time Mage with Ramuh, and a Summoner with Bolt; should be a cakewalk, right?  First time I just made a play mistake (I came from a level 99 file, so I didn't even think that Haste might blow my ability to Summon).  It still took a couple more tries, though.  The moral of the story is that a level 1 Wizard with Item was probably stronger than the combined power of my two characters.  It had stuff to do when MP ran dry.  It could heal away the Archer.  It could keep the guests alive.

Incidentally, one move I made that was probably a mistake on my part was shunning Moogle in favour of getting Ramuh first.  This sounds like a good move, since it's a speed run--why waste time on healing?  In-practice the Time Mage would blow her one spell, then gain no JP or exp for the rest of the fight.  Also, healing is a bit better than it was when I did the solo summon user playthrough, since you don't just get heal-locked.  In a way it's more important too (since ally dead frequently means instant reset due to lack of revival).

So...Chapter 1 was finished at level 5 and level 7.  The Wizard naturally was much more valuable in this chapter, to the point of dominating JP/exp (certainly used Ramuh a lot too, but got more out of it, etc).

Roughly speaking my planned route for the two was Ramuh/Moogle -> Magic Attack Up -> Odin (or Leviathan) ...and on the TM's part replace MAU with Teleport, and then pick up Short Charge after.  On the whole this is going much slower than I expected--The Wizard got MAU just before Golgarand, and the Time Mage got Teleport at the start of Chapter 3 (granted, that's partially my fault--in retrospect learning Slow was stupid.  Haste is fine, since Hasted guests are cool and stuff, but I didn't get that near to enemies unless I planned on killing them).  Still, that's about 1000 JP in two Chapters; I can't deny that I expected more.

The competence of the party also leaves a bit to be desired; I've been resetting once or twice on every decent battle; not always because winning the battle is hopeless, to be fair--often there's still a possibility of victory, but it would take a while and luck.  (The challenge is done in real time, so resetting is wasted time, but spending longer on a potential reset is also wasted time).  It has also been very common for me to need to wait for a Crystal to give me more MP--that's certianly more time than I'd like to spend on the fights, though on the whole it's generally preferable to win the fight rather than to go through all the plot again.

Levels at the end of Chapter 2 were 11.  Obviously the Wizard/Summoner remained the MVP over the TM/Summoner in this chapter; we'll see if finally having Teleport in Chapter 3 changes that at all.  I am fairly worried about JP, though.  If I can't get at least 850 Summoner JP by Yardow, I'll probably need to invest in Titan just to handle the White Robe summoners.  So...I'll be spending a lot of time in Summoner--the level 14 speed point can't come soon enough.

I have been left wondering about the most efficient route, though.  Something that doesn't run out of MP would be nice; I guess that would be Lancer, Chemist, or Monk.  I can't help but feel that having those would slow down the battle a lot compared to having more Mages, though.  It seems more time efficient to fight more fights and win them all (i.e. level up in randoms) than lose about half the fights; then again, some situations just can't be helped by a few levels (like Summoners in Goug Machine City having Battle Boots and locking a Summon onto Ramza before he can move).  On Monks, one of my initial thoughts was "TDDs will probably be overlevelled, and that's one of the few times Monks are good"--however my levels, outside of the reasonably long time spent unlocking the classes, seem to be fairly normal.  I can't imagine I'd be pleased by Wave Fist doing about as much as a Time Mage Staff Thwack right now; though to be fair, an endless MP battery wouldn't be objectionable.

[Scar]

So my friend imported FF4 for the DS and then let me borrow it.

O MA GAWD!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it's freaking great. I've noticed tons of new things, but the whole not being able to read any dialog kinda sucks.

This version seems a tad harder then the original. I actually died while fighting Octomam, but that was because I was lost in the menu list looking for a Phoenix down. >_> Also, during the bomb fight with Yang, he was the only person to survive the multi explosion. They seemed to have started him with more HP in this game.

Tellah is less fail at the beginning as well. Rydia's magic was piss poor compared to his.

I just became a Paladin and now my grind to level Cecil begins.

I love it all over again so much!

[Cmdr_King]

Tales of Legaia- Chapter 7: Why is Ultima the time travel spell anyways?

Following yet more backtracking, we learn that Shana's date can be found in a forest somewhere vaugly around the Plains of Valhalla.  Since a unicorn can traditionally only be approached by a maiden, Shiki is clearly the most qualified for the job.  However, Shana insists that she and Archer will be the ones for the job.  Can we get a "WTF" people.  Anyway, despite pretentions of maze-hood, it's a completely obvious path down to the horny pony.  Archer, realizing just how insane Shana is, bails, knowing that she at least has no hope of meeting a unicorn.  Or maybe she's just not into that sort of thing.  Anyway, it's guarded by... yet more Dhaos minions?  I thought we killed all these guys.  But a handy scream for help summons Shiki and ends any threat quite quickly.    Amazingly, the unicorn still gives Shana his horn, and thusly empowered a quick flash is made over to the Forest of Mithos, finally using the divine power on Martel and reinvigorating the entire forest.  On to Thor!

Ah, Thor.  Ancient sunken land containing technology never seen in this world, being at least 20000000000000000000000 years ahead of current advancements.  Amazingly, however, it's dead easy to navigate with the only security being randomization of doors.  Well, and killer robots, but robots are no defense against Shiki's mad killing skills.  There we meet a giant floating bronze face named CUST, who tells us that the mayor is the only one that can use him.  So he just declares us the mayor.  Um, thanks?  Then we're informed that current power is insufficent for Ultima.  Well that sucks.  But if he raises the city from beneath the ocean, that'll fix it right up.  Were we sure we wanted to do that?  Uh, sure.  So that's done, in grand cinematic fashion.  The moral of all this, I think, is that no matter how advanced the technology, no matter how sentient the computer, they're still completely retarded and will never, ever actually make life simpler.  THEN we learn that we can travel to any time/space we want.  Naturally, Shiki picks... the moment they left the past, so they can kick Seifer's ass and save Chucky Cheese!  Um, wait.  So we're NOT going to, say, prevent Dhaos from ever waking up, or kill Seifer's minions before they burn down our village, or any of a zillion potential places.  No, we're going to save one worthless ass bow-slinger who'd as soon grind us up for pepperioni and do anything remotely useful.  Good lord.

Anyway, the Ultima spell is cast, and we appear in front of Seifer just as he's about to vaporize Super Powered Old Man.  Ass kicking ensues.  Amazingly, this triggers these random ruins to collapse, so a chase scene follows.  Just before we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done, however, yet another Ultima slinger appears (no relation, however, to Super Powered Old Man) to tell us that, in the grim future (+50 relative to now) Seifer is still alive and has totally owned Midgards.  So, we go back to Thor and go back to the future. 

We wander around aimlessly for a while, Archer mocking Chucky for his complete uselessness, Kirk realizing that no matter how many hot alien babes he gets, he'll always love his crew and that Chuky hates Seifer, and Archer, and everything, but is still underlevelled and useless.  Shiki takes a brief time out to visit the swordfighting school she presumably founds in her father's name, and picks up the  ultimate technique (that will never be useful).  Shana... teaches... a little girl piano?  She has the strangest damned hobbies.  Ultimately we discover that while ships are still in use, the ocean is unbelievably treacherous.  So, clearly the time has come to invent the airship.

We learn that the airship actually has been invented, or at least something so close as to make us not care about the details.  However, due to a critical shortage of summoners, the elemental source of lightning cannot be harnessed to power the things.  We are sent to the ruins where Dhaos once attempted to kill us to meet Volt.  Traversing a dungeon that's closer to an evil secret pokemon lab than the maze-things we're used to, we accomplish this, but not without randomly running into a mysterious ninja girl.  This will obviously not be important later.  Anyway, with a might battle cry of "LOLOLOLOLOLONEWWWWWBBBBBBBSSSS", Volt charges in.  We, of course, kick his ass.

Before wandering back to the lab to prepare for tommorrow night, we notice some treasure chests conveniently out of reach.  Archer flies down for them, while Chucky babbles on about not stealing from the party right in front of them.  The pettiness is awe inspiring.  Thereafter, the almighty airship is finally in our hands.  What?  Seifer?  We can fly, bitch!  So long suckers!

Credits:
Shiki- now with anti-robot powers.
Archer- calls it likes she sees it.
Shana- ahahaha Shana a maiden
Kirk- Will he and Uhura kiss?
Chuky Cheese- lamer than Seifer in every possible way.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Okami - Wow. Just... wow.

I don't think I've ever played a game as pretty as this. And not in the generic "oh these polygons are really smooth" way. It's a downright artistic game for looks. Gameplay is intriguing, too, although the painting mechanics could use work. But the flow of the game is so amazing I don't care too much, and the idea itself makes me drool, particularly considering the surprising freedom you get with the stroke techniques. Cutting down the maid's bucket over and over to dig the turnips is fun. Although I have no idea of where to go next. >_>

[Sierra]

RKS: Beat it. Final Loli was pretty easy. The battleship form in the previous level, though? Eugh. Even when I was fighting seriously, as opposed to just trying to figure out the weakness (never did find one for the second form). Far too much going on in that fight to keep track of; burned through three or four energy tanks before the damn thing fell.

So, Rider mode? Ahaha. I'll try it just to see how far I can get, because it's different enough mechanically that I want to see how much I can skip with the walljump and whatnot...but actually getting through the game is not bloody likely. I wasted Liebea, but that says nothing because mechanically speaking she's Toad Man. I'll attempt the others, but I know I won't be able to get through the castle levels. Imagine, if you will, fighting a clone of the MM1 Yellow Devil...with only melee attacks. And a PC who takes double-damage from everything. Bleugh.

Anyway, yeah, game is fun. If you feel like burning some time on an old-school platformer (with sparkly modern graphics! It's basically MM2 with all the robot masters replaced by anime chicks. I call this a fair trade!), I'm quite willing to send it to people.

Megamari: Went back to this to check out the weapons I didn't see last time (giving everything Alice had in the first game to Marisa this time, and vice versa). Eirin's stage still sends me into paroxysms of rage. How do they expect you to fight off that many bunny mechs? Argh.

[Dunefar]

Disgaea PSP:

I had a few gift cards to Best Buy, so why not? I wanted to see Etna mode and I'm in the mood for Disgaea's gameplay. Anyway, I used a code to start in Etna mode and made it to Chapter 2. It's pretty amusing so far as the plot is already going off the rails. Laharl dies from a single extra shot Etna fires, which leads to a spoof Prinny Laharl and Etna moving to take over the Netherworld. This should be good, since Midboss already caught wind of what happened. Also, the story battles are switched up for Etna mode. I think anyway, it's been awhile since I played the first chapter of Disgaea 1, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a Ronin in 1-3 and the Geopanels for Midboss were different.

[metroid composite]

FFT

More TDD stuff.

Teleport has definitely helped the Time Mage/Summoner a lot.  There have just been quite a few situations where having someone on the team who could Teleport saved a whole lot of hassle, and it just generally adds to her durability.

Goland Coal city actually has my most resets in Chapter 3 so far.  The first time Ramza got charmed, was beat out of charm, then got charmed again, and dodged the staff thwack (I henceforth removed his mantle).  There was another time when the Mediator used Solution on me--"no, I'm not playing through the rest of the game at 5 less Faith".  There was another time when the Mediator knew Silence Song, and instacast it on both party members before I could move (missing one of them, but the battle was an eventual loss).  I think those were the only three resets, but there might have also been one fast one where the damage just overwhelmed me very early (Libra Chemists deal 80 damage to Gemini Summoner).

Zalmo was a joke.  He has a white robe, but it just doesn't matter.

UBS2 I fought once before realizing that Summoner's first speed point must come at level 13 instead of level 14, allowing me to switch to Holy Miter (quite a bit more HP, MP, and MA; nice).  Haste was actually a bit of a lifesaver here, since after most enemies were dead a Time Mage reached us and Slowed (not good).

UBS3 Izlude sucks.  I didn't even take him seriously enough to equip Green Berets--an advantage of having only two units is that Germinas Boots are affordable; he gets his first turn on clocktick 13 (jump has a CTR of 6, and needs a CTR of 4 to hit me turn 1) he waits, and will get his second turn on clocktick 23, which gives me 6 clockticks to summon on him (I only need 4).

UBS1: see above, although I would have lost had Wiegraf known Lightning Stab since I didn't bother with Chameleon Robes.

Grog Hill: This actually caused me a couple of resets, though I'm certainly at fault for the losses.  The issue is that one Chemist has Rubber Shoes, so while it's usually possible to hit all enemies with Ramuh first turn, he survives.  I didn't bother learning Titan, but instead leaned on Ramza's old Ice 1 spell to finish off the Chemist; I figured I was still such a long way from learning Odin that it couldn't hurt.

In the end I still didn't have enough JP for Odin for Yardow, so I fought a random battle to hopefully save myself some pain.

Yardow...At first my setup was very focused on killing the Summoners--having a speed 6 unit with Odin to kill right after they move.  This turned out to be a terrible strategy, and at any rate they never once had Titan when I was fighting them.  I eventually made both characters Speed 7 to hit the Ninjas, and just figured I'd deal with the Summoners eventually.  This worked just fine, though it did make for an entertainingly pathetic White Robe on White Robe summoner fight at the end of the battle (courtesy of teleporting to a Ninja crystal).

Yugo Woods: This battle always seems to just roll over and die.  It doesn't need to, on paper--there's four mages with White Robes--that ought to be problematic.  But...I mean, both Wizards walked into Ramza's MAU Odin turn 1 (one of them Charging a spell which resolved after Odin).

(I'm getting Odin over Leviathan, incidentally, because it has a 7 second animation time instead of a 17 second animation time; besides that they're very close stat-wise.  Given the success rate of the battles, actually, I should probably pick for power over animation time.  Though hmm...since the TM's getting Short Charge eventually perhaps she should go for Bahamut instead...).

So...at this point I've just reached level 18, and am really worried about Velius.  The Summoner/Time Mage has enough JP for Odin, but I haven't spent it, since I'm worried she might need Lich.  Although hmm...I suppose she could also probably spring the JP for Demi much more easily--she doesn't have that kind of Time Mage JP just sitting around at the moment, though.  Hmm...I think Ramza should be able to kill Wiegraf with a Ramuh (presuming his HP's high enough) then hit Velius and all the demons with an Odin before they move, and shaving off half of his HP on paper.  This is with Black Robe Holy Miter, mind you, which doesn't give him enough MP to do much afterwards (well...maybe another Ramuh) potentially leaving everything up to his ally with bad Velius compatibility.

[Niu]

ToPr - Just about to go to Thor.  I still laugh at Mint casting "The most powerful methodism spells" *NURSE! (The spell she would have learnt probably 10 levels ago and also possibly not even the highest level healing spell she has in reasonable level ranges around that time in the plot)*.  It would have been cool to use the Resurrection VA clip in there where learning it would have been pretty O_o power levelling and it actually is the strongest healing spell in the game.  Would have made more plot sense with her not being able to control it properly and whatnot.

I think you somewhat miss the point, though that do sounds like a good idea.

[Meeplelard]

MMX3: Beat Volt Catfish, got a few items, not much else more.

MM8: Completed! Bustered all bosses but the Robot Master Refights.  Had to fudge wily some with Rush Healing, and used that on Green Devil as well (though the latter was cause I entered the fight with too little health, so I used it at the start.)

...ok, fine, I used the Mega Ball on Wily 1 Boss, but that goes without saying <_<.

Still a fun game, finally replayed it like I intended, etc.

[Grefter]

Mmmm Niu?  If it was the her not controlling it properly stuff, well that was just brushing over a scene that was more complex than I put it.  If there is something deeper to that scene other than a generic "Girl really has teh frue powa and needs teh powa of luv!!!" then I missed it (The Dhaos helping stuff from the OVA was pretty cool).

Beat Present Dhaos during lunch today.  He killed me once because I screwed up and told the whole party to come follow me to the other side of the battle field, where Cless was in a corner with Dhaos facing away from everyone (wasn't sure on the range of Dhaos Laser).  Redo with keeping that Stay command up properly this time and not Phoenixing over him, easy win.  He has some pretty insane damage potential (Double hit will probably stun and he can chain 2 Tetra Assaults together... I think that is is PC HP damage).  Very nice, like the revamp to that fight.

Items are overpowered though.  If you are getting humped hard you can just chain spam items.  Since they take effect as soon as you press the buttons then someone getting hit out of a use item animation just lets you use more of them faster.

Indignation is weaker than God's Breath, this makes me sad.  The fixing up of the spell lists is nice though.  Shame it takes so long for Arche to get a worthwhile Earth spell (ie, just after a few areas full of earth weak guys...).

[Niu]

Mmmm Niu?  If it was the her not controlling it properly stuff, well that was just brushing over a scene that was more complex than I put it.  If there is something deeper to that scene other than a generic "Girl really has teh frue powa and needs teh powa of luv!!!" then I missed it (The Dhaos helping stuff from the OVA was pretty cool).

Well, what she is casting there really is not the strongest healing spell ever or anything. But whatever spell that the unicorn horn powers up. So basically it doesn't matter if she is casting first aid or nurse or resurrection or even raise dead there.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Neverwinter Nights Two... turns out this game completely and utterly rapes my computer to the point that I can't play it and have fun.  Fighting seemed a lot more complex than BG2, but didn't get to try it out that much.  GG me.

Started a XG replay since I saw the game while cleaning my room... got bored.

Played some Warcraft 3 and realized I'm still too good at FFA. Thanks to the matchmaking system I can no longer find games with people in my tier since there aren't any unless I wanna play on Europe servers, and fuck a 350ms delay.  Solo and RT is boring, Sooooo...

Gonna start Grandia 2 some time in the next day or two.

[Grefter]

You did patch it first Chapin?  It had some really bad optimisation unpatched.  Might still be a slow bitch for an older computer, but might actually run....


Fair enough Niu, just was what the line roughly said in the translation.  Not implying that it is the strongest spell ever cast, but the strongest spell within the school of Methodism assuming Methodism uses a standardised structured magic system ala Sorcery does.

[Shale]

Viewtiful Joe: Halfway done. Game's picked up now that I pretty much know what I'm doing. Fun gameplay, good level design. Boss fights are kinda lacking, though. It's too easy to lose them in the oversized arenas, and there's too much dodging random bombs and not enough one-on-one with the enemy him/herself.

Shadow Hearts: "Tested" the copy I downloaded for Snow by replaying up to the Float. Game's both better (Europe story, atmosphere) and worse (short, gameplay balance) than I remembered. Not sure if I'll actually bother finishing it.

ICO: Started, got past the area with the giant crate on a rope. Liking it a lot. The aesthetics live up to the hype, and the gameplay is solid.