What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF6 does of course have its points as a game and even at its plot.  Quotable lines about submariners and self help books are not those points however and chances are that is the thing you are going to get hyped at about on the internet instead of you know, praising a 16-bit game for approaching things like suicide, extreme isolation and death of a paternal figure all in a single sequence which actively forces the player to fight against the almost inevitable sequence.

While I agree with you, I'd still praise those silly one-liners just for giving Kefka more personality than the villains of pretty much every previous JRPG, who were uniformly "rar destroy world me am big scary monster rar". They are not the most hypable thing about the game and certainly do not singlehandedly make Kefka a good character but they still represent a needed evolution in the genre.

[hinode]

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Finished chapter 21.

Camus was the first boss since Random 13 Speed Fighter Boss of C3 to have anything resembling competent stats, thanks to a halfway decent 17 speed and the almighty Gradius (range 2 legendary spears ftw).  He still got one-rounded by Barts (classchanged to Hero) with a forged Poleaxe for 100% hit and would've gotten OHKO'd by a crit if I didn't realize that killing him cut off the reinforcements I was counting on for exp.  So I reset, waited two more rounds, and took one hit before offing him.  The boss of the next chapter was more typical, getting 2HKO'd by Elfire and would've likely been OHKO'd by the aforementioned Poleaxe, if Barts were in range at the time.

Stat boosters are dirt cheap in this game, only 1250 with a Silver Card; thankfully they limited you to 3 copies per each item.  Ending up buying them all. I was going to pass on the skill and luck boosting ones at first, but ended up deciding the accuracy boost was worthwhile for my Shooter.

Checking the map preview, the next map looks almost identical to one from FE2.  Except that instead of a mage with a range 1-5 HP-1 spell, the boss is a crappy Dragon Knight with only 14 strength and 11 speed.  Also, I need to remember to burn some of my massively excessive cash supply forging uber Hand Axea and Javs for shiny overkill on the few remaining maps.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - Fuck you, Lacus.

[Niu]

SRW@3 - Fuck you, Lacus.

Say it more!

Devil Summoner Kuzunoha Raidou- What is with this game's side quest having more relevance then its main plot? But who cares, it is awesome, epic awesome. Alice/Belial/Nebiros trio back again. Louis Cypher bent on rewriting history to erase SMT1 from occurring at all and manipulating Raidou to participate in the events of SMT3. Hell, and you can actually change SMT1 history it by preventing Asura Ou from traveling to the future to be the SMT1 chaos side last boss. Shiny shiny shiny, Kaneko, toss in YHWH in next game and we can get Armageddon started already.

[Fudozukushi]

SRW@3 - Fuck you, Lacus.

Say it more!

[Shale]

SRW@3 - Fuck you, Lacus.

Say it more!

Is there an SRW with SEED where Eternal isn't the worst battleship ever? I'm drawing a blank.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - Fuck you, Lacus.

Say it more!

Is there an SRW with SEED where Eternal isn't the worst battleship ever? I'm drawing a blank.

J Eternal wants a word with you. Just because it's the worst battleship of the three the game gives you, it doesn't mean it's -bad-. It's actually okay.

But no, my complaint is mostly how insulting it is to actually be able to see Andrew's stats and realize that he would make the Eternal a whole damned lot better with the awesome spread. But nooooooooooooo, you get Lacus of the Mic Sounderstastic Ranged and 215 evade at L50. Once again: fuck you, Lacus Clyne.

[Meeplelard]

first off, I agree with Elfboy that the Kefka One-liners really just symbolize forward movement in the JRPG genre as far as villains go, giving them SOMETHING other than being evil, personality-less freaks.  It also is one of the examples of localization also taking a step forward (FF6 really is one of the first, if not the first, to have a fully adequate translation (this isn't to say there are fuck ups of course, but then, there's a difference between "adequate" and "perfection"), and this is despite the harsh censorship laws *AND* script size restrictions that the SNES was forced to work with), as a lot of those lines in the japanese were stock evil banther (supposedly "Son of Submariner!" is not "Son of a bitch!" like people claim but rather just a generic evil complaint)

You can claim its poor writing, bad humor, etc.  but if nothing else, it deserves credit for at least trying to not be 100% literal (cause literal Japanese Kefka does not translate into English given, from what I understand, since a lot of it is him playing around with the Japanese Language in ways that don't translate) and trying to make Kefka's character a bit more interesting.

Anyway...

Magna Carta: Is Magna Carta.  Ok, fine, I'm controlling Reith again and some guy got killed and priests are still trying to kill us, and OH LOOK RAUL FINALLY SPILLED THE BEANS!

...on the plus side, I didn't actually expect that regarding Raul.  I mean, yeah, its obvious he was a bad ass and washiding something, but was expecting who he actually was was going to be the FRUE Villain, pulling one of these "awesome hero is really evil!" things.  I guess Magna Carta surprised me or something <_<;

FF2: Castle Palamecia IS BEAT!!
...and by beat i mean I saved right in front of finishing it.  Mostly cause I needed to jot stats down, and then need to reconfigure Ricard's equips so he's got good stuff for staritng SoR, but nothing important, in that I can give it to him and not care.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

As I have understood it, the English version of Kefka is much more interesting than the Japanese version, as he is a "rar I am crazy lab experiment" villain originally instead of a homicidal clown who makes dumb jokes. The good one-liners Kefka got were made up by Ted Woolsey, who really gets a lot of unneeded flak for what he did with jRPGs in the 16-bit era.

[Monkeyfinger]

The crazy lab experiment bit is still in FF6US, but it's obscure and buried and really not important to Kefka's character.

[Grefter]

Like I said, FF6 does do some good stuff with its plot and is generally speaking something with decent writing.  Every time I see hype for "Ahem there is SAND on my boots" or "HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE" I lose my faith in humanity because there is one more retard that completely and totally missed some decent writing in the face of something that isn't fucking funy in the first place.  Is it different?  Yes.  Is it something of a step forward for JRPGs?  I guess.  What the they are not is the writing that you should have come out of the game praising, hyping and referencing as the total reason to play FF6, which it commonly is and each and every one of you know that it is.  There is better parts of FF6 plot, there is better written dialogue in FF6 and I sure as shit think there is probably funnier lines as well.

SO1 remake - Yeah it is easy to get 600ish attack power weapons without really trying.  It is the chain specific weapon+Specific gem/metal combos that I know are there but can't break down that are bothersome.  I have jumped in damage by about a factor of 10 times anyway, so it is beside the point.

[Sierra]

VP2: Just smashed Heimdal. He actually got to attack twice! Yeah, screw Toughness, twinking for damage is way more fun. (For the record: everyone I'm using--which is a revolving mix of Rufus/Alicia/archers/light warriors--has all skills but the extreme lategame ones learned).

[Xeroma]

The big maingame sword is just tossing a Philosopher's Stone onto a Force Sword Gref[and it's elements limit its use anyways, but still]. Force Sword + ...Meteorite? Gets Cyuss' version of a supersword.

For the record, you get two force swords automatically in the plot sorta late.

[Grefter]

Why settle for Silvalant when I can acheive so much more?  I don't think you fully comprehend the Power  part of Power gaming >_>  (Although yes that is far more than sufficient to smash an SO game)

Edit - Oh yeah I forgot to voice the extreme awesome that is Ashlay.  Dude with 1 arm that is better at killing shit than you, attacks faster than you, can hit multiple times in a single swing (So once you get that Slayer's Ring cheese going he should easy tear shit up) and is voiced by Michael McConnohie so he is roughly 8000 times the man you are by default.

[hinode]

Personally I liked the self-help booklet line because *I* was gagging at the cheesiness of all the stuff the PCs were sprouting just as much as Kefka.

As for the one-liners... some of them I found funny, some of them I didn't, but on the whole I felt they did a good job in establishing an actual sense of personality in Kefka.  A lot of overly literal translations fall in the trap of having every single character talk in the same stilted, mostly-formal style of speech, which results in tediously bland dialogue.  Woosley did a pretty good job of getting a sense of personality across in dialogue even when there isn't much in the plot itself, which is a sign of a translator who's actually capable of writing competently in English.  Cyan aside he managed to accomplish this without resorting to exaggerated characters accents as well.

[AndrewRogue]

Persona 3 FES: The Answer: Progress.

World of Warcraft: Super happy fun times crushing lowbie instances. Everything up to Scarlet Monastary achieved.

Billy vs Snakeman: Fuck Season 2+ Jonin Ascension

[Yakumo]

Eh, Season 2 is the worst of it.  Season 3 and on you'll laugh at it and crush it under your heel on your way to early 50's Sannin.  Or at least I did. >_>

Also, on a WoW note.  Bladestorm was already pretty freaking strong, and now they made it break snares to boot.  Arms warriors are getting ridiculous.  Just wondering how long it's going to take for the nerf bat to land. <_<

[AndrewRogue]

They have to finish with Ret Paladins first.

And its not so bad, its just getting the third bloodline is driving me up the wall because I have no decent way to do it. ;_;

[Meeplelard]

As for the one-liners... some of them I found funny, some of them I didn't, but on the whole I felt they did a good job in establishing an actual sense of personality in Kefka.  A lot of overly literal translations fall in the trap of having every single character talk in the same stilted, mostly-formal style of speech, which results in tediously bland dialogue.  Woosley did a pretty good job of getting a sense of personality across in dialogue even when there isn't much in the plot itself, which is a sign of a translator who's actually capable of writing competently in English.  Cyan aside he managed to accomplish this without resorting to exaggerated characters accents as well.

To Cyan's credit...well, not sure if you can credit him, more the effort around it...the game DOES go out of its way to mock Cyan's style of speaking, through Gau's "Mr. Thou" lines, and how random NPCs identify him by that.  Contrast to say, Frog, where he's the only one who speaks like that and no one gives half a shit (you'd think the idea of an anthropomorphic frog speaking in half assed formal old english would raise some eyebrows <_<)

But yeah, Woolsey actually succeeded in portraying something in terms of writing in FF3US, something that no other translation at the time (barring maybe Phantasy Star 4) really did.  Other translations were pretty much "the game is in english, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?" and devoid of any sort of personal input...

Sadly, some modern translations fail to understand that.  Compare FF5a and FF6a; the former actually tried to make FF5 have a degree of writing that was actually worth reading, if not for plot, than for random nuisances like Galuf being a stereotype, bitter old man at arbitrary points just for kicks, or Bartz being a genuine moron.  The latter...tried to be more literal and true to the japanese (though they were decent enough to keep Kefka more or less the same, in terms of how he acted.  He even got a few new one liners like "There's a reason 'oppose' rhymes with 'dispose'!" for example), but the writing felt kind of flat in comparison.

[Grefter]

Like I said.  Woosley = Good.  Kefka being the only thing the majority of people take out of FF6 = Bad. 

[Magic Fanatic]

They have to finish with Ret Paladins first.

And its not so bad, its just getting the third bloodline is driving me up the wall because I have no decent way to do it. ;_;

You have several options for that third bloodline, y'know.

I'm assuming you have Blood of the Reaper, so...

1)  The Trade.  Get Hyuk, get five apples, page a village leader of some run-down/small gathering.
2)  Wasteland Disease.  Probably the easiest bloodline to get.  All you do is get yourself bingo'd.
3)  The Power of Greass.  Probably the hardest.  This requires getting Cici, Lulu, and Su-Chan, as well as passing a few 13d/13s checks without allies or jutsu.  EDIT:  Well, OK, HELPFUL allies...  And you do get to use Value Meal if you're a Redeye.

Compare to my S3 Sp. Jonin which had the base bloodline, The Power of Greass, and Eye of the Storm from the start.

That reminds me - anyone care to page an L45 character in Godaiyou by the name of Van Burace?


On a completely divergent note, one of my friends (she's 3 years older than me and about a foot shorter) is a complete Celes fangirl.  She dressed up as her in the Opera costume for Halloween this year.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - *BRUTALIZES MUGE WITH SOUL'D EIN SOPH OUR/ZEAL SPAM WITH A VENGEANCE.* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THIS IS FOR KILLING HALF MY FODDER AND DENYING ME OF NEARLY 100K IN SPOILS LAST PLAYTHROUGH. DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~

[Unoriginal]

WoW: Actually went through with it and picked up the three Loremaster achievements currently available.  Outlands and Eastern Kingdoms were laughably easy, Kalimdor on the other hand...  Well, let's just say it's fortunate that it turns out one of the quests in Dire Maul apparently counts as ten quests, because I really didn't want to have to hit the Scepter questline.

Oh, also cleared Sunwell.  Now the owner of a Sunflare.

[AndrewRogue]

They have to finish with Ret Paladins first.

And its not so bad, its just getting the third bloodline is driving me up the wall because I have no decent way to do it. ;_;

You have several options for that third bloodline, y'know.

I'm assuming you have Blood of the Reaper, so...

1)  The Trade.  Get Hyuk, get five apples, page a village leader of some run-down/small gathering.
2)  Wasteland Disease.  Probably the easiest bloodline to get.  All you do is get yourself bingo'd.
3)  The Power of Greass.  Probably the hardest.  This requires getting Cici, Lulu, and Su-Chan, as well as passing a few 13d/13s checks without allies or jutsu.  EDIT:  Well, OK, HELPFUL allies...  And you do get to use Value Meal if you're a Redeye.

Compare to my S3 Sp. Jonin which had the base bloodline, The Power of Greass, and Eye of the Storm from the start.

That reminds me - anyone care to page an L45 character in Godaiyou by the name of Van Burace?


On a completely divergent note, one of my friends (she's 3 years older than me and about a foot shorter) is a complete Celes fangirl.  She dressed up as her in the Opera costume for Halloween this year.

Currently working  on the Trade, but note pages are slow to get and I'm not particularly good at getting style points otherwise.

I'd consider Wasteland Disease but, near as I can tell, I don't have have a way I can complete it currently. 15 difficulty 4 success Gen isn't currently doable for me.

[Grefter]

WoW: Actually went through with it and picked up the three Loremaster achievements currently available.  Outlands and Eastern Kingdoms were laughably easy, Kalimdor on the other hand...  Well, let's just say it's fortunate that it turns out one of the quests in Dire Maul apparently counts as ten quests, because I really didn't want to have to hit the Scepter questline.

Oh, also cleared Sunwell.  Now the owner of a Sunflare.

You are one sick fuck.  Congratulations on the KJ kill though.