What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Niu]

there's a VP2-like roster of personality-less generics that fill out your ranks.

Among them you may find Vyse and Eika.

[TranceHime]

Kimi no Yuusha: Beat Phobos and ended Episode 10. Phobos himself was actually a pretty tough fight, Surround Spear totally RAPES your ass whether or not you have good armor, high 2HKO to mid 3HKO ST damage. He also has two forms of MT sleep - magical damage and physical damage, which he can switch at will. Added to this he's also fairly tanky pre-debuff, 37800 HP with 60+ DEF that's pretty decent. Average damage against him pre-buff is around 950~1000! >_>;; Hell, even Phobos' physical does around 50 to 170 HP average >____> which is like low 4HKO =_=;; This game absolutely EMPHASIZES the need for Star Book / Star Memory optimization, wrong combination of skills can fuck you over really badly. The skills in this game are so broken that it offsets the painful difficulty the bosses give, which is a relief as they take very long to beat =_=

[SageAcrin]

Star Ocean: First Departure:

Just got started on the Emblem quest.

Kinda stalled on this, although it's pretty fun. Also, Omega Lightray Blade rocks.

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition:

Up to Stage 7 Dante Must Die.

Very Hard was very fun, though pretty nuts at points. Very challenging, yet things still move fast.

DMD? DMD, everything's a boss fight and you avoid fights you don't have to fight unless you're one of those ranking running freaks because they take frigging forever. Oh and the hard boss fights aren't harder but are now more likely to chipdeath you. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

It's not all bad, really. The revised fight with the giant flying electric caterpillar whose name doesn't stick with me was actually fun on DMD, and Virgil 1 was pretty challenging.

Flipside, Cerberus degenerated to Spiral canceling with Gunslinger because the alternatives involve getting in the way of the most stupidly fast-to-size ratio attack I've ever seen(Seriously, he pounces across the entire room in less than a second with nearly no warning sometimes. The hell?). And Agni/Rudra required an item because the only way they ever kill you once you know how is chipping you down and screw that, seriously. They probably will chip you some on DMD. Ah well, still worth playing.

If it throws a Devil Triggered Hell Vanguard at me I'm pulling out Super Dante though.

Ketsui Death Label:

Played this like 20 minutes yesterday, while on stops out during Thanksgiving shopping, and darned if I didn't clear Very Hard. 11 stock, on my last life. Not bad.

Death Label looks "fun", in the sense that I damn well am going to need 15 stock minimally and probably 20 in practice to beat it.

[Cotigo]

Deaths in writing can be done well, if they achieve one of two things (preferably both, but at least one is justifyable):  

1. They meet the artistic objective of the author.  
2. They are framed in such a way that there is no other choice BUT for the character to die.

Works in which characters are killed off because the author doesn't know what to do with them are bad.  I agree there.  Works in which characters start getting killed off for the sake of it are mostly bad.* Works in which the characters are killed off to invoke a false sense of empathy are also largely bad.

However, on the flip side of it, works in which characters never die can also be absolutely horrible because of this.  By and large, they get into situations where they should have died but they didn't because they happen to be central to the story.  This is also poor storytelling, though inarguably better than one where characters get killed off for the sake of it.  This is one thing that irks me about Creative Writing classes:  they hammer it in that you should never kill off a central character.  I see why they do it, for a reason NEB pointed out (people when they first start writing use death as a plot device way too much), but authors who never, after becoming better writers, break that rule, especially in a setting where death of minor characters is common (Hi, WoT) are just as bad.

*I say mostly because I disagree with NEB's comment on ASOIaF Book 3: the multitude of deaths clearly meets the artistic objectives of the author there; the point isn't to have us shocked or be put into either the mode of pity or the mode of terror when the characters that die.  The point, as I see it, is to re-emphasize that Martin's world is one in which characters won't be spared because they're main characters, and that the world is one largely indifferent to death.  Any emotional attachment to these deaths is more felt by the characters than the reader.  This is good--if the characters were indifferent then it would be bad writing.  If the reader was still supposed to feel for the dead characters after main death 24, then it would also be bad.  I don't think this is the case, but I don't have the book with me so I can't argue it in depth.  Going from memory here.

---

What's that, Topicality?

Well, I played with myself this morning.  Quick game, too easy after the 900th replay.

[DjinnAndTonic]

there's a VP2-like roster of personality-less generics that fill out your ranks.

Among them you may find Vyse and Eika.

What, really? Is this serious or some kind of joke?

Skies of/Eternal Arcadia characters cameo in this game?

Pictures or it didn't happen.


On the subject of FF2 > PSII: I would argue that FF2's story isn't that amazing, though it definitely had more plot scenes than PSII. And yes, PSII was helped by its American release timing here. However, FF2 is helped by the fact that it was remade much later and made it to the States with a much better translation overall. PSII -also- got a remake with enhanced dialog et al, but it was never released Stateside. Admittedly, the improvements probably -still- don't make its plot better than FF2's, despite that not being a hard hurdle to overcome. It also gave you the option of reviving Nei through a very complicated sidequest, thus nulling this entire conversation... >.>;;

(Well, I guess you could that PSII having an unhappy ending is still somewhat unique...)

-Djinn

[Cotigo]

Except PS2's ending isn't so much bad as it is... nonsensical.  Earthmen are attacking and then there's a cliffhanger and then PSIV comes around and, in the first of many good decisions PSIV made, completely ignored what happened, ultimately making it not make sense (but it was crap to begin with so who cares). 

[Grefter]

Man you know what?  Go play Ultima series.  By the time you get through to Ultima 7 part 2 killing off one of the characters is pretty goddamned brutal because there really is that much emotional investment in them, most of them have been floating around for a good 4 or 5 games by that point and they all developped over time.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The initial argument wasn't that PSII did main character death -well-, simply that they did it -early-...

[Excal]

In which case your argument fails, because the original argument was that FF2 did it -earlier-.  In addition to having more plot scenes that generally strung together better.  Honestly, FF2 manages to stand on it's own until, oh...  probably mid-SNES era with the exception of DW4, which is better than it.  I know the FF series doesn't manage to best it until FF5.  I'm not going to comment on the PS series, because it sounds like 3 could be better, but manages the feat of even worse gameplay, which boggles the mind.

[Hunter Sopko]

Sorry to break up the fail-fest, but I finished Tales of the Abyss, so I'mma break it down! Ironically, some of what we've been discussing applies! TOPICALITY BITCHES! Slight TotA spoilers.

Overall good impression of the game, but it suffers from some serious characterization issues. The story is pretty good, and despite the game's length, the plot moves along pretty well. The characters are pretty good as is, but the problem it runs into is that it refuses to let the characters have their breakthroughs until the very end, so at logical points in the story where growth would be possible, they painfully choose the worst possible in-character choice and wallow in angst some more. Luke, Natalia, many of their angsting issues could have been overcome at certain points in the story, but for the sake of 20 gameplay hours left, hey, can't let that happen yet! Who wants game where you get to enjoy the story after the character has overcome their major personal issue already?

This kinda leads to a downward spiral for many people, because that automatic character choice? Angst. Sync probably is affected the worst out of all of them, followed by Luke, Natalia and Asch because they had a lot more screentime relative to Sync, so his downfall is a lot more stark and failtastic. The people who come out of this the best? Jade and, ironically, Anise. Jade is no surprise, but it's surprising that Anise was probably the most stable character of them, followed by Guy of course who has some understandable issues but has a tendency to dwell. I get where the Anise hate comes from, but she amused me and annoyed me far less than most of the cast.

The end was fine. Expected/10. Coulda done with a slight twist or two. Asch certainly coulda lived. I really think that they killed him off due to lazy writing. I'm pretty sure that the Luke at the end is supposed to be a whole Luke with both Luke and Asch's memories, so it's not as bad as it could be, but eh.

Fun gameplaywise. Still kinda like 2D Tales better. Party was Luke/Tear/Jade/Natalia. Used Luke. Combo -> Rending Thrust -> Fang Blade Havoc for worked for 99% of the game with Sparrow Counter and Raging Blast for the up/down. It was mostly easy until the end, since I always broke the game using Din's Shop ASAP. Had Level 2 weapons for Luke, Jade and Natalia the first time you get to Chesedonia, and managed Level 3 before Inista Marsh. Got everything else I needed/wanted too. Van's final battle was the only battle I felt pressured in at all. Arietta 2 though was probably the most fun. Felt like a melee and the unique battle quotes made it neat.

<3 Star of Malkuth Natalia. Cleavage ahoy. Luke's Viscount costume was also pretty neat. I got tired of that stupid design on the back of his shirt, so I went the rest of the game with it on. The skits that pop up for wearing both were funny (especially Natalia's). Jade's wit could always be counted on, and Anise and Guy have some great one-liners too.

Random stats...

Skits- 389/489
Average Battle- 26s
Encounters- 822
Hits- 51
Damage- 29193
Grade- 13.84

Luke- 96%, Tear- 94%, Jade- 78%, Anise- 11%, Guy- 29%, Natalia- 68%, Asch- 1%

Fastest Win- 1s
Time W/O Damage- 2min 13s
Total Damage Given- 22,146,786
Total Damage Received- 1,171,462

Started up Suikoden Tactics in the meantime! Hopefully the save Meeple gave me will work. Stopped after the intro. Nice to see Snowe always failed.

[Meeplelard]

In which case your argument fails, because the original argument was that FF2 did it -earlier-.  In addition to having more plot scenes that generally strung together better.  Honestly, FF2 manages to stand on it's own until, oh...  probably mid-SNES era with the exception of DW4, which is better than it.  I know the FF series doesn't manage to best it until FF5.  I'm not going to comment on the PS series, because it sounds like 3 could be better, but manages the feat of even worse gameplay, which boggles the mind.

Phantasy Star 3 had some...interesting ideas, I guess, but the execution fails for all the same reason Phantasy Star 2 does:

Fundamental lack of plot scenes, and actual dialog.  If you remember, characters never actually interacted much in Phantasy Star 2 outside of Rolf saying "That is a good name, you can join us!" to each new character, and I guess "Shir, where did you go?"  This is the extent of PS2's interaction.
Phantasy Star 3 is, for the most part, no better, IIRC.  The scenes are few and far apart, and its more monologue based than characters actually speaking to each other, so it feels more like you're being ordered what to do next rather than an actual story is transpiring...

Which is why that style fails.

Again, FF2 deserves credit for the things it tried and the style of plot it had is something that pretty much 90% of the jRPGs after it that at least attempt a half decent plot/characterization emulate (FF2 does not have half decent characterization; I mean games that attempt at it go for this style of plot), so relative to its time, it stands out.  Like I said, FF2 didn't necessarily do this stuff WELL, but it sort of broke the ice, in a sense.

And i played through the original FF2 the entire way through, with a fan translation admittedly, but it still didn't have the luxury of a slightly enhanced script.  It had actual character interaction; it was bare bones, boring, generic interaction, and frankly, it downright sucked...but its still better than a plot style where its one guy monologuing each scene, and telling you want to do (which sums up like all of Phantasy Star 2's plot.)

Basically, what I'm getting at is...

FF2 feels like a really badly written plot, but still a coherent one nonetheless.
PS2 feels more like you're just following orders OR the random path before you until your next dungeon, and nothing happens the entire game until the death of a character with no speaking lines until that scene (...wait, Nei may have had one line when she initially joins?)

And FF2 did a plot idea very few games actually attempt at (maybe cause its so hard to pull off properly?  FF2 didn't do it right after all; again, FF2 tried at a lot of things, it seldom did them right <_<), that being the idea of an actual villain in your team.
By which I don't mean "He use to be a villain, but now he's good!" style, which lots of games do, or the "Good guy turns evil!" thing.  No, Leon was actually, you know, evil the entire time.  When he rejoins, he's really just helping you out cause you're the lesser of two adversaries, he himself still is a pretty bad guy.  Again, FF2 failed at doing this right; I'm not gonna argue it, but very few games even attempt it, which is my point.  Feel free to disprove me if I'm wrong!

As a random side note...
FF3's Old Men > all characters in the 8 Bit Era. *FACT*

[DjinnAndTonic]

In which case your argument fails, because the original argument was that FF2 did it -earlier-. 

Someone else said it better, but essentially...
FF2 killed off a lot of 'unimportant' side PCs.
PSII killed off someone who was ostensibly filling the role of the lead heroine.

Neither of these games executed it well, and I outright stated that I think FF2's plot is better than PSII's, but as previously mentioned, the difference between killing a bunch of characters to free up party space and killing the lead female have different levels of impact. This is incredibly obvious after five minutes of asking a FF7 fanboy why FF7 is so great - 'zOMG, Aeris died, it was so moving!' comes pretty quickly after 'Cloud has a big sword' and 'Sephiroth is the epitomy of badassery and villainy'.

Also - December 1988 (FF2) isn't -that- much earlier than March 1989... >.>;;

These two games are about as close to contemporaries as video games can get...

-Djinn

[Anthony Edward Stark]

These two games are about as close to contemporaries as video games can get...

There were... what, three jRPGs released between the two? FF3 and a couple of DQs maybe?

[Meeplelard]

The thing is, though, you're equating a character whose the female lead from a PURE GAMEPLAY PERSPECTIVE to someone like Aeris who has actual plot relevance and what not.  Its no wonder people actually cared about Aeris' death but many just said "whatever" to Nei's death; if anything, Nei's death was a GOOD thing since it stopped forcing her into your team (where as Aeris' served a purpose in the plot, for all that I find the scene rather ineffective; if nothing else, Aeris didn't seem like a burden when she's forced, but that's more FF7's Materia System by nature kicking in, which makes anyone at least serviceable)

Nei does jack shit in plot from her recruitment until she dies.  She has nothing.  She's basically just "Some girl who Rolf found 6 months earlier, and has been living with him since" or some such, and that's the extent of it.

Anyway, if you argue Nei's death is big cause she's the "Female lead!" or some such, I see that and counter it with "FF2 Characters had connections with other characters in game.  Josef was a father who just died with an 8 year old girl at home!"  Yeah, its a really damn shakey reason, but its hard to care about someone dying cause they're the lead from a pure gameplay perspective.

For a parallel, I wasn't really that moved by Crono's death.  Yeah, I kind of cared since the main just died, the characters were sad, what not, but I wasn't overly upset.
Nei's...worse than Crono's death in every way, which really says something.  Crono at least the game pretended he was important by making him be the accepted leader of the party without them ever saying it; Nei just forces her way into your party every time.

Again, as I said, saying "Nei's death is noteworthy cause she's the female lead!" is a stretch; she's only that in a gameplay perspective.  Since we're arguing about plot points of the game, its...kind of hard to give game credit for killing a useless member of the plot just cause she's got a lot of forced game play time.

[Xeroma]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - I think I'll just refer to this as HDR.

Quite a bit of fun. Wish the 360's DPad was less crappy, but I'm starting to get the hang of it in spite of all odds. I think my best right now is FEI LONG, which is just weird as hell. Being able to do chicken leg chicks with ease helps him soooooooooooooooooooo goddamned much.

Generally the rebalances are pretty cool, and aside from somewhat random disconnects the online play is quite smooth. Also looks/sounds pretty good to boot.

[AAA]

Mana Khemia-I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOST! Also, Flay owns

Guitar Hero III-Playing this whenever MK bores me. Just did the first set of Expert songs. Alas, a year of no playing and no Hyperspeed means I'm doing terribly. Only 5-starred Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and failed once already. Hyperspeed should help, whenever I remember to get the damn code.

[hinode]

Downloaded Pokemon Ranger 2 to my younger brother's flashcart and played the ~1 hour or so necessary to unlock the Manaphy egg.  Made a backup copy, so I can get unlimited copies in the future if I want.

Probably not touching the game again until they release the Darkrai mission, or at least announce a date for it.  Hopefully my brother will do most of the work for me.  <_<  Game's not bad I suppose, but there are higher priorities.

[DjinnAndTonic]

These two games are about as close to contemporaries as video games can get...

There were... what, three jRPGs released between the two? FF3 and a couple of DQs maybe?

In four months? Really? That's pretty unbelievable for 1989... not to mention wrong.


@Meeple: I'm not saying the subject was handled particularly well... But regardless of how ineffective of a female lead she may have been, that's still essentially what she was. All I was trying to say about PSII in the first place was that it was a pretty horrible game, and that Nei's death is one of the only things that is generally remembered about it. Many people consider it a notable moment for jRPGs due to it being an extremely early example of main character death (and only misses being the -earliest- by 4 months apparently? Which leads me to believe that they were in development concurrently).

-Djinn

Eh... also:

Crono, at least the game pretended he was important by making him be the accepted leader of the party without them ever saying it

...The way this is somehow better than Nei's situation is kind of hard to see from this argument. You claim that Nei's position as female lead is shaky because they don't mention it outside of her being forced into your party. And you claim Crono's position as leader is strong, even though they don't ever say it?
...I'm just going to assume that you're still trying argue about plot 'quality' of PSII, even though that's not a point on which I disagree with you... >.>;;

[Xeroma]

SF2 HD Remix: This just in, my new best is not Fei Long. It's fucking ZANGIEF.

Good grief, I've been totaling most people I've run across online with him, even good players. To say this is disorienting is to understate.

[Meeplelard]

FF9: Just got Eiko.

...Dagger has 5 more Magic than her at the same level.  Uh, yeah, safe to say those stat bonuses do matter!  She also has 120 more HP.  Actually, she beats Eiko in every stat, but Magic is the most noticeable and significant.

Also, forgot the nuisance of choosing between Fenrir and Ability Up for her.

[TranceHime]

Kimi no Yuusha: Now at the start of Episode 14. Very manageable so far, but I do believe that there's one problem in this game: SHIT'S TOO EXPENSIVE. I see Japanese people saying that this is "a very easy RPG" but I'd disagree, then again it is Japan so... Anyway, the enemies as usual followed standard Yuusha fare of "HIGH DURABILITY HIGH DAMAGE HAHA YOU CANNOT KEEEEL" of crazy durability, excellent damage, but extremely susceptible to debuffs and buff-powered attacks. Star Memory twinking is essential and as such you can't afford to waste levels... :V

[Ryogo]

FF9: Just got Eiko.

...Dagger has 5 more Magic than her at the same level.  Uh, yeah, safe to say those stat bonuses do matter!  She also has 120 more HP.  Actually, she beats Eiko in every stat, but Magic is the most noticeable and significant.

Also, forgot the nuisance of choosing between Fenrir and Ability Up for her.

I've been doing an off and on playthrough through this game again too. I'm actually at the same part, I just got to the Iifa tree. I've never been one for the Stats though. I just keep them general in my head. Steinier is strong physically, Garnet, Vivi, and Eiko magically, etc...

[Fudozukushi]

Wrath: Weirdest downtime ever.  Also did the quest Rob was talking about earlier.  Damn that makes you feel manly.

[superaielman]

SN: Wins. Map 42 right now, going to finish this today.

[Rozalia]

BvS- Got myself some pokerballs today making it my third monster drop. Doing my sannin sun tommorow and once that gets done I see more monster drops coming my way.

RotKVIII- Currently doing the donkey work for my prefect and trying to gain favor. I now have a couple of allies in the town and a rival in Sima Lang but my advancements are coming slowly. Its proberly because the Dong hates me but it shouldn't matter if I keep on the prefects side.
On a side note some guy attacked me in my home because I killed his father and two brothers. I then ended what was left of his family (Him).