What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Hunter Sopko]

Etrian Odyssey 2

Picked this up on a whim and have been playing the last couple days. The heroic guild Chryslis, led by Capuchin (Dark Hunter), Forsworn (Ronin), Harkan (War Magus), Keith (Survivalist) and Phadeus (Medic) set off into the Labyrinth. Made it up to Floor 3 so far.

Its been pretty rough, really. After defeating the FOE on floor one (and testing themselves on the one on the second floor), the team found themselves flat broke and in dire shape, necessitating that they hire out a few more hands. They already had Kiyone (Landsknecht) from a previous mission, but she alone couldn't handle the first floor. Thankfully, there were several willing hands, including Malgor (Hexer), Anita (Alchemist), Erec (Protector) and Annelise (Troubadour).

After some tough work (and some pawning of their gear for the sake of the guild), they managed to get the original team back on their feet and ready to try and dodge some FOEs on the third floor.

Bwhahaha. Ain't no party like a Chrysalis party.

[Talaysen]

Etrian Odyssey 2

Picked this up on a whim and have been playing the last couple days. The heroic guild Chryslis, led by Capuchin (Dark Hunter), Forsworn (Ronin), Harkan (War Magus), Keith (Survivalist) and Phadeus (Medic) set off into the Labyrinth. Made it up to Floor 3 so far.

Its been pretty rough, really. After defeating the FOE on floor one (and testing themselves on the one on the second floor), the team found themselves flat broke and in dire shape, necessitating that they hire out a few more hands. They already had Kiyone (Landsknecht) from a previous mission, but she alone couldn't handle the first floor. Thankfully, there were several willing hands, including Malgor (Hexer), Anita (Alchemist), Erec (Protector) and Annelise (Troubadour).

After some tough work (and some pawning of their gear for the sake of the guild), they managed to get the original team back on their feet and ready to try and dodge some FOEs on the third floor.

Yeah, uh, don't kill the FOEs.  They aren't worth it (especially early on).

[AndrewRogue]

Sopko: Indeed.

Tal: Yeah. The one on floor 1 I killed for a quest. After sucessfully killing the Furyhorn, I figured out it isn't worth it at this juncture for sure. Still, feels like a nice general check on the power level of my team.

[Grefter]

Yeah Delsus is all about twinking him out.

[Dark Holy Elf]

MM9 - 90% challenges. What's left: Beat game without killing an enemy (just need to beat the Wily levels here), Beat game 30 times, Beat game five times in one day, Beat game killing every boss with 1 HP less (argh), Beat game without taking damage (requires skillz madder than mine at the moment).

MMXCM - In the middle of Chapter 6, just beat Shadow. Game is awesome, etc. PC notes...

Chapter 4 - X feels like the LVP here. Charge Shot twinking isn't very effective yet. Massimo has a much more useful Action Trigger in the powerful single shot of Berserk Charge, especially with Power Charge backing it. Spider of course is awesome with the two-hits-at-75-WE weapons (WE twinking is great for making 'em turn 1). Marino, when she joins, is excellent as always and is a good candidate for the second Power Charge.

Chapter 5 - Marino and Spider are obvious. X... Ice Buster is pretty nice here, but not nearly as many people are weak to ice as you'd expect for the token fire dungeon, so he's not that great. Massimo is starting to struggle due to lack of worthwhile weapon upgrades. Axl, when he joins, is a clear upgrade over either - two hits gives him the best physical, better MT than Charge Shot, and ST that is comparable to Berserk Charge. Had miinor trouble with Marino's durability here but not a big deal, LE twinking gets around it largely. Once Zero shows up, he also competes for a spot well obviously.

Chapter 6 - Where I am now. Massimo actually sees a lot of use in the first half of the chapter because of all the ranged spoiling. X... still isn't very good, as Axl does his bat-killing job better. Giving him the right buster can be handy for picking off certain blobs, I guess. Marino continues to excel (good physical, good AT), Axl gets better because his MT is called for more, possibly passing Spider even? Hard to say. Zero, of course, is pretty much a beatdown machine, just lacks variety.


EDIT: That's all for randoms. For bosses... X and Zero > Marino > Massimo > Spider and Axl > Cinnamon, or something like that.

[TranceHime]

Knights in the Nightmare: Just defeated Ganzer. I ended up saying "screwit" and used the NoName priestess. Rolled a L20 one which was good so I could use Venus Wand. The range and such is great for defeating Ganzer who often trods around in a straight line waiting to charge into you to kill you dead. So... Yeah. Outsmarted, though his danmaku really is very painful if you get hit by it. It cost me a few turns.

[Niu]

Hmm, I always find his danmaku easy. they have a dead set pattern, compare to other bosses.
Even his big scissor ultimate has some opening int he middle. The charge move is like the only danger, but not too bad as long as you are willing to sacrifice your damage.

[TranceHime]

Knights in the Nightmare: Melissa mk.II, as annoying as ever. Beat her at 5/6, that's how annoying she is.

@Niu - I have a tendency to collide into things a lot and the fact is if you touch the danmaku it /hurts/. -12.00 secs is nothing to scoff at, and even if there are openings, I'm horrible with stylus control.

[Niu]

If you can pull a 5/6 on Melissa, I honestly don't see a problem for Gunther. Melissa wiped my floor more often than anyone else outside Zogonak and Melto. Oh, watch out for Melissa 3, the terrain, combined with her "lock you in a circle" thing is simply not fair.

[Meeplelard]

SONIC PLOT: In the middle of Metropolis or whatever Eggman's Fortress of Doom is called.

I just now noticed how awesome the Mults on Axe Kick is; this combined with Sonic's 3 turns per round make up for him being on the "low" damage tier.  Kind of wish he wasn't forced though, as he has one map action that both Shadow and Amy can cover, and...well...only real edge he has on Shadow is MT damage.
Shadow, admittedly, is pretty awesome, being basically Sonic but better at like everything that matters (Slower...but he goes before all enemies anyway), complete with Armor Piercing damage (worse mult than Axe Kick but higher base damage; piercing armor makes it better in practice against a lot of enemies to boot)  Eggman's Barrage is awesome though he's not much otherwise...well, his basic physical isn't too bad and doesn't fail at accuracy like Big's does, though he's obviously a temp given his godlike skillset of 2 moves instead of 7.  Knuckles and Amy are both good Powerhouse characters, given they both can do actual damage with no PP, and act twice, and in Knuckles case, has nice solid Armor Piercing damage with uppercut.  Big Sucks; well, ok, Bulldozer is cool bu that's ALL HE HAS.  Cream is solid healer, but the nature of the game's battle system makes me feel like she's less necessary, and complete lack of offense kind of sinks her worth overall (in fairness, could use combo attacks with her to help offset this, but meh) Tails...is way too niche.  Too geared towards taking down Robots, which he isn't especially good at unless Eggman is with him (and I fail at pulling off Sabotage so...), Medibot is good for PP+HP restoration I suppose, but...yeah.  To his credit, he's an evasive little bastard so he tends to live a lot longer than you'd think.
Been a while since I last used Rouge; I really wish I put her on Sonic's team instead of Big so I wouldn't be stuck with *2* one action PCs (Cream's also here), but whatever.

Team's if you're wondering are Sonic/Knuckles/Cream/Big and Tails/Eggman/Shadow/Amy for this split.

Game's still enjoyable though some randoms do get a bit irksome when you keep fighting them (mainly giant robots with lots of HP), but that tends to be the case with most games.

Magna Carta: Up to Notia! Why won't this game move faster ;_;

[TranceHime]

If you can pull a 5/6 on Melissa, I honestly don't see a problem for Gunther. Melissa wiped my floor more often than anyone else outside Zogonak and Melto. Oh, watch out for Melissa 3, the terrain, combined with her "lock you in a circle" thing is simply not fair.

Oh, yeah, Melissa's danmaku actually isn't really that bad, it's just the circle-lock that really can catch you off guard, it'll force you to at least take one hit and if you stay inside the circle you get overkilled anyway, so... Mmm.

[Niu]

Actually, you can't escape from the circle is the thing. Once it forms, you are stuck until it is gone. the reason why that move always freaks me out.

[Hunter Sopko]

TotA: Started! Through the Cheagle forest and stopped. Kinda the perfect game to see how things will look on the new TV when I get it tomorrow. Hopefully! Game is fine, meh for 3D Tales. I prefer the 2D at the moment. Free Run is nice, but should really be automatic. SO3 did everything better gameplay-wise at the moment.

WA:XF- To 3-5. Just kinda puttering characters in random classes outside boss fights until the new group of classes opens up, with the exception of Strider Alexia. She needs that speed, plus her base class EQ pumps up the power nicely! Weisheit fight failed.

[Taishyr]

FFXII: Started. No clue as to why.

I will give it this, the intro was pretty damn classy. Too bad it apparently doesn't keep this up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

That was exactly my reaction to starting FF12.

[OblivionKnight]

My reaction was more akin to:

"Wow...I think I'd rather be playing Diablo II Harcore Mode with full PvP turned on against me right now"

Though yes, it is pretty stylish and classy to start <_<

[Shale]

SRWZ - Finished S41. Wow, that's a lot of units dropped on me all at once. Also a lot of cash to upgrade them with - 1.5 million over the last two stages. Renton is completely broken now thanks to Valor and Seventh Swell, Re-GZ is bizarrely good, Daitarn is awesome, and strangest of all, the Mazingers could benefit from B-save. That's just weird. I'll probably take a break for a bit while I catch up on the Gravion anime, since the next stage brings in Sol Gravion.

Edit: Oh yeah, Super Gundam is without a doubt the best squad backup unit in the history of the system. It's regularly breaking 4500 damage with PLA attacks, which is all kinds of wrong.

[Taishyr]

FF12: Got to the desert, already I'm bored. That was impressive turnaround, FF12.

[Niu]

Just wait, there are far more boring and grating maps.

[Taishyr]

No there aren't. Not if I can't see them because the game's off. >_>

[TranceHime]

Actually, you can't escape from the circle is the thing. Once it forms, you are stuck until it is gone. the reason why that move always freaks me out.

Yeah unless you want to take -7.00 sec ohohoho

Letting yourself get stuck in it without escaping is just exactly playing into it thinking you cannot escape. Actually, you can, you just have to have the balls to do it and don't afraid of losing a few seconds. Oddly, in that second battle with Melissa, she never used that thing once o_O;;

[SageAcrin]

SRWZ - Finished S41. Wow, that's a lot of units dropped on me all at once. Also a lot of cash to upgrade them with - 1.5 million over the last two stages. Renton is completely broken now thanks to Valor and Seventh Swell, Re-GZ is bizarrely good, Daitarn is awesome, and strangest of all, the Mazingers could benefit from B-save. That's just weird. I'll probably take a break for a bit while I catch up on the Gravion anime, since the next stage brings in Sol Gravion.

Edit: Oh yeah, Super Gundam is without a doubt the best squad backup unit in the history of the system. It's regularly breaking 4500 damage with PLA attacks, which is all kinds of wrong.

Don't get used to ReGZ. Nu's coming up in four stages and kicks it's ass hard.

And GET KOUJI B-SAVE YES.

Gundam Battle Universe:

I have a Ball that can kill Elmeth in about 10 seconds. I think I'm done with this game.

Super Robot Taisen Z:

Beat this since my last post, I think? Very, very good game with probably the first difficulty I can really, genuinely call "solid" and not joke, ragged or overdone out of any SRW. It gets easier as it progresses, but it's a very nice curve and not "Oh hey look SUDDEN DOOM MAP OUT OF NOWHERE.".

Stripping back SP worked very well. Pilot skills are well balanced. The Tri system has much more strategery than most squad systems, although you can mostly ignore it if you're lazy.

The game is hilariously pretty on lower end mechs, with stuff like battleships producing ^_^ worthy animations. (Higher end stuff is still pretty, but it's not ridiculously flashy for the most part, unlike OGs/OGG.)

The only complaints I have are that A: The game's SRs(new name for masteries) are so taxing that I was mocking the hell out of it the two times or so that I actually managed to get an SR before a time limit. It's a little much...and B: Sakura isn't an assignable theme until halfway through the final stage. C'mon guys. ._.

Super Robot Taisen Advance Portable Turbo Championship Edition:

Two stages from the end.

Does not share a lot of Z's virtues, but it's still a lot of fun in some ways. It's still A, but it's A with the ability to skip animations. On the other hand, it's A with a boss with 3300 Armor and L9 Prevail that boosts that 45% when the last level kicks on. I figure they didn't think that through. Glad I had some weapon capped people.

[Shale]

And GET KOUJI B-SAVE YES.

You joke, but it's a decent option for him. I went for E-Save, but that just means whoring out Photon Beam, Breast Fire and the combos instead of getting 50% more shots for Rocket Punch, Iron Cutter, and the Nitori Special spinning punch.

[SageAcrin]

And GET KOUJI B-SAVE YES.

You joke, but it's a decent option for him. I went for E-Save, but that just means whoring out Photon Beam, Breast Fire and the combos instead of getting 50% more shots for Rocket Punch, Iron Cutter, and the Nitori Special spinning punch.

Joke?

I've been hyping that since I got Mazinger Z. It was damned near my best unit throughout every bit of Z I had it for, in large part because I could spam six shots of a 5k+-after-moderate-upgrades ultimate that would get backed up by Mazin Power, without eating up EN. And that's ignoring the limitless other punches it gives.

E-Save's good too, though. I ended up giving him both.

God, I love Z Mazinger Z. Appropriate considering the name.

[Captain K.]

BvS:  Got the Cote yesterday, and got Jaws, Palmface, and Venus today.  Collecting Chunks parts now.

WO2:  Finished all the Story modes.  I guess Wei is the canon ending, since you end up with all Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga fighting together.