What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Cmdr_King]

Tales of Legendia- Beat the second half.  Turns out?  I had completely overkill Grade.  Shiny.
General comments... what were they thinking with enemy blocking in this game.  Seriously, even the puniest types of enemies will block routinely, meaning that you basically sit there chipping everything for ten seconds, deal real damage for five seconds, break the combo and repeat.  Everything after about 5 hours into the game does this, and there's exactly one item in the game that boosts your accuracy enough to really circumvent this (the Extreme Symbol/Crest/Whatever, which is awesome but very very late).  Even then, the final boss just doesn't, uh, get hit.  Granted!  Getting hit leads to being Knocked Down! which leads to getting thrown.  For the nasty enemies that are hit by unique throws, this is worth huge chunks of life (Killing Time dealt like 20,000 damage.  To 170k, in a Tales game?  Yikes.)
 
DL stuffs:
Senel for Heavy.  Other three fighters as solid Middles (Chloe's got a Last Fencer which might be worth another nudge, but I'm not convinced due to it being about a 300 attack loss.  Didn't test though so uncertain.)  Mages are Lights, casting times are pain, half the damage of the worst fighter, and the fastest and most versatile of them has prohibitively high TP costs.

Characters!  Simplest to comment on the plot here.  Spoilers, but no one likes ToL so whatever >.>

Senel- The entire first half is about him, so he gets lots of gradual development.  Just... I dunno, he's kinda boring about it?  Hard to explain, but he's not terribly memorable after the fact.  Works well as a straight man and driving the action forward, though.  The running gag in the second half with his sleeping habits I liked a lot, I was kinda sad the last couple opportunities weren't used.

Will- Raine, but smarter, more violent, more uses of Ruins Mode, and later on has the whole daughter thing which resolves... pretty well.  Not bad, kinda makes you wish you'd gotten to see more of his wife.

Chloe- Cute, acted exceptionally dumb during her character quest though.  Yeah, stab the guy.  That'll work out.

Norma- Kinda one note and annoying during the first half of the game.  Second half... I dunno.  Seeing her flashbacks with her teacher put everything into perspective and she was a lot funnier somehow.  Also by far the best character quest ending.  Completely sappy and awesome for it.

Moses- *shrug*  Comedy duo thing with Jay was hit and miss.  Not much else to say.

Jay- Started out cool, wore thin in the second half, culminating with being very dumb during his own quest.  That said, more forgivable for that, considering who was antagonising him.

Grune- Awesome.  Really a pity they did so little with her in the end there, but otherwise consistently great at... breaking the face, as it were.  She can kill the tension of the most serious scene.

Shirley- arrgggghhhh.  Take Kain, make him worse.  Seriously, More Than Mind Control with a DESTROY ALL HUMANS going on like that?  Yeah, nuts to that.  Overall made the first half of the game leave a bad taste, and doesn't get her own arc in the second half (on the premise that, like Senel, she should be pretty much over everything)... I dunno.  They did have some stuff with Fenny's sister, but that wasn't enough to work against DESTROY ALL HUMANS.

Overall, wish the game had gone into more detail on some aspects that were covered pretty quickly, but what can ya do.  Still felt like it picked up to a 7/10 I think?  Probably.

[Meeplelard]

For the record, I enjoyed Chrono Cross overall.  No, it wasn't amazing, and its plot tends to make your brain melt if you think about it, but it wasn't a truly horrible game like some people say.

That said...

FF9: Disc 3!  In the middle of doing that stupid race with that stupid hippo kid using Vivi.  My arm was starting to hurt at level 60 or so, so quit then.  I might just go hook up my PS1 so I can turbo controller the last 20 levels <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

FE10 - Up to 3-F, yay.

3-11 and 3-12 are the two hardest maps in the part. Easily. Bridge has those accursed traps, and generally a much improved batch of enemies (higher levels, two authority stars) in a good position. 3-12 is, unlike the other two Dawn Brigade chapters in Part 3, hard to chokepoint effectively, and individual promoted enemies can be quite scary to the DB. 3-13, fortunately, was much easier, and a more stylish display of DB power with chokepoints and weakness-hits.

Part 3 DB mini-review:

Micaiah: Plays field marshal in Part 3 for the most part, although she can insta-nuke Generals with Thani in 3-12 which is nice. Lots of staves, kinda fragile for close combat otherwise, but gets in some nice sniping time.

Sothe: Fragile but excellent speed, and range 1-2 offence is very solid in particular. Beast Killers make him invaluable in 3-6 and 3-13.

Nolan: Tarvos kicks ass. His stats are otherwise very solid, but durability could be a bit better. Avoid has serious problems working in this part, even with him/Zihark B...

Aran: Invincible wall, just about. Seriously, DB-best durability is a big deal. Offence is not good despite Str (wishes so badly that he could get a Brave weapon, but he's the only physical DBer who can't...). Supported him with Meg which fixes any accuracy problems either has and makes them even MORE tanky with sacrificing earth supports; very effective.

Meg: Mine's odd. Bit below average in most areas, but somewhat blessed in Def, so it... largely balances. Pretty overall solid, makes an excellent mid-tank, decent speed but could be faster. Low move isn't quite as bad in this part.

Zihark: Takes hits like a girl (not to be confused with Meg). Offence is unreliable but excellent as far as unreliable offence goes, at least. Resolve can help with the avoid game, but isn't perfect.

Jill: RNG-raped on HP but doing well otherwise. Great offence, defence is hamstrung by said HP, but flying, Canto, good offence = kicks ass.

Volug: Takes a turn or two to get going then is an indestructable ass-kicked who needs to sacrifice more turns periodically. More awesome when the enemies are laguz because he's never outranged and faces no Elfire that way.

PEOPLE NOT BEING SERIOUSLY USED:

Tauroneo: Probably a bit inferior to Aran/Meg by now, but not bad.

Leonardo: Lughnasadh and ballista can bring down flyers, despite being a Level 8 archer!

Laura: Can staff use if not nearly as well as Micaiah, dies instantly to anything but that's really not an issue in Part 3 maps the way they're set up.

Edward, Fiona: Pretty much completely useless. Ed has a Leo +Hit support for whenever he really needs to do something, Fiona is... good at rescuing!

[Grefter]

Haha Meep you actually made me laugh.  Truely a horrible game. One of the stains from a relatively solid era from Square.
Edit - In light of the last few pages.  Disclaimer, this is a joke you retards.
WoW - I am playing this still.

[Twilkitri]

Finished my SRWD replay.
I was majorly biasing my teams towards people with the least kills, so I failed to get Haman again. Ah well, she's ugly anyway.
What it does mean is that there were only 14 pilots of the total I had collected at the end that aren't aced yet, and most of these are either massively restricted on when you have them (e.g. Roze) or on actually being able to be offensive (e.g. Basara).
Most people are approaching +50 on favourite attack, evade, and defence now. The extra defence doesn't seem to be worth anything whatsoever. Unsure of what I should direct people into after defence, but there's not really any point worrying about that now as I'll forget by the time I replay it again.

Initially I had planned to start replaying J now, but now that I've ordered W that's probably not a good idea.


Started DQ4DS. Accents are somewhat annoying. Have not done a great deal yet as I have been grinding for overpriced equipment.


Started The Longest Journey, up to going to look at the other city. FMV April is hideous. Puzzles haven't seemed especially annoying so far.

[Niu]

I really don't understand what you people want from this game.

Personally, nothing really, as long as it don't involves more of Katoh's bad writing, which it end up doing. Really, CTDS would be fine in my eyes if it is just another remake, which I can just overlook like all other Square cash milking remakes. But this is a different story when you pull in CC plot, especially you are making it no longer self contained.

SN I'm moving up to 10/10. Just DAMN to some of those scenes.

Ahhh super giving N1 game a 10!!

[DjinnAndTonic]

SN I'm moving up to 10/10. Just DAMN to some of those scenes.

Ahhh super giving N1 game a 10!!

It starts making sense when you realize that Soul Nomad is probably the LEAST well-known/liked of N1's releases, even among N1 fans. Why this is the case is beyond me, but it probably has something to do with something superficial like having a different artist, having the least advertising (of any of the main N1 SRPG releases in the US), or NOT having Laharl in it.

Or it could be that SN is actually a good game, who knows?

----

Recently picked up Fate / Tiger Colosseum UPPER because I liked Fate / Stay Night anime and it was a fighting game (and therefore I could play it whether I wanted to bother translating the text or not) for a system that could actually play Japanese games (PSP).

It is, in a word: Adorable.

This does not imply a quality fighting game by any means, but that wasn't what I was looking for. It's cute and fluffy and I can practice some Japanese while I'm at it - a win-win situation.

-Djinn

[Sierra]

ES: Mirrormaze. So, temp PC Crescendo/Serenade? That new to the PS3 version?

Also, I am increasingly of the opinion that just nuking Forte would solve all of this world's problems.

[Pyro]

It is indeed new. Enjoy your too-damn-pretty PC (Serenade).

[Cotigo]

I really don't understand what you people want from this game.  Do you want Square to just pretend the sequal never existed?  There's plenty of people out there that enjoyed the game just fine, the game companies don't have to arrange things to fit what you specifically want.  If you're basing your entire decision on whether to get a game or not on the fact that it isn't disowning a fairly popular sequal, you need to step back and think for a minute.  You aren't the center of the universe or anything. 

Now, not wanting to get another version of the same game is one thing, it's the reason I have no plans to get this.  But seriously, think about what you're saying here.

I honestly never entertained the idea that they would up and ignore CC.  Mostly, I was commenting on how dull, poorly written, and not-worth-paying-for the new ending was, and said had they ignored CC it probably would have been better.  This, however, is more of a commentary on how atrocious the series itself is than anything else.  It's overhyped crap that I enjoy bitching about because it sucks.

--

KoL:  Still obsessing. 

[Fudozukushi]

SN I'm moving up to 10/10. Just DAMN to some of those scenes.

Ahhh super giving N1 game a 10!!

It starts making sense when you realize that Soul Nomad is probably the LEAST well-known/liked of N1's releases, even among N1 fans. Why this is the case is beyond me, but it probably has something to do with something superficial like having a different artist, having the least advertising (of any of the main N1 SRPG releases in the US), or NOT having Laharl in it.

Or it could be that SN is actually a good game, who knows?

Bah, Laharl has that voice cameo!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Really, how many people even in the DL really think it's a truly bad game?

I consider it to be Fallout Tactics. A mediocre game on its own, but then you consider that it is a sequel to a game I actually enjoyed, and that is what makes it shitty.

[superaielman]

I really don't understand what you people want from this game.

Personally, nothing really, as long as it don't involves more of Katoh's bad writing, which it end up doing. Really, CTDS would be fine in my eyes if it is just another remake, which I can just overlook like all other Square cash milking remakes. But this is a different story when you pull in CC plot, especially you are making it no longer self contained.

SN I'm moving up to 10/10. Just DAMN to some of those scenes.

Ahhh super giving N1 game a 10!!

? I've liked every single N1 game I've played (Dis, Dis2, PB, SN). LP:T bored me, but I also barely touched it.

Still playing LFT.

[hinode]

Dragon Quest 4 DS: Up to Chapter 5, just got the twins to rejoin.

Really enjoyed the chapter system; each chapter is fast paced and fairly short, with decent variety in character selection.  Torneko's shop/trading related stuff was especially cool.

Only had one reset on Balzack, came in at Level 9 and sucked too much on damage.  Twice he managed to full heal himself right after silence wore off, so I gave up.  Went back after grinding for L10 and getting the best storebought weapon for Meena, which did the trick.

[Pyro]

WARNING: Last Remnant Spoilers. Like you care.

Finished disc 1. The game had a neat moment or two, like when it has a major character death, or when it hands you disc 1's shiny late joining PC. In general the game is still bad however. The plot is nothing short of lame and the characters get no work or interaction worth talking about (well, except "David talks Rush into being a tad less emo but still annoying as hell" scenes. Those are rampant). The environments, while pretty, feel criminally underutilized. The music is of only average to slightly above average quality, and the gameplay...

So much wasted potential. So. Damn. Much.

For starters, the lack of control you have over things is frustrating. I'm not asking to give individual command to every single one of my 18 units, but the ability to tinker with a mini-party's AI would be marvelous. As an example, if I want one of my 4 mini-parties to buff and heal, I have to take a potshot that the relevant option will come up, and it will only give a command for one option: Use some buffs or heal. It will not allow you to specify what kind of buff, and whether you heal via items or AP is completely random. I have a pretty cool buff on one of my PCs that raises Spd/Atk/Mag for 3 turns. I'd love to be able to specify "Use this while attacking this enemy with as much AP-spending abilities as you can" but this is beyond my power. The only thing I control is what the groups are and what formations (stat modifiers) they use.

This all inevitably makes combat excruciatingly dull. The game gives you some choices, you pick some, and watch as the game handles it all for you. FF12 at least had Gambits so that you could play a more direct role in HOW you automated your party. It might not be so bad if not for one tiny thing. ROUNDS TAKE TOO BLOODY LONG! The game feels the need to display a preparation animation and a relatively long execution animation for any special attack. Special attacks are the bread and butter of your offense, so this results in lots of pointless animation time. This isn't even counting all the wasted animation for mini-parties charging each other, flashing "DEADLOCK!" or whatever situation is appropriate for any encounter between ally and enemy mini-parties, death animations, and the few seconds the game sometimes takes to slow down during a player's attack to give you the opportunity to do a timed hit.

And don't get me started on the customization/IC system. It relies on things like this: Digging in the corner of sidequest/optional dungeon #1 for a recipe that includes an ingredient that is found by digging in the corner of sidequest dungeon #2. Just for something that is probably not worth wearing anyway and can only be equipped on the main character regardless. Or maybe it is worth wearing, but you don't really know because the game throws terms like "Physical resist +4" without any way of knowing what the heck that means.

If they had streamlined combat, added some customizable AI, explained the game's abilities/stats, and included character interaction worth mentioning I'd probably be singing this game's praises. As is I find myself trying to avoid monsters in sidequest dungeons because the monotony of taking them on is infuriating.

Best moment so far: Getting the main character's little sister as a party member after he has an angstfest about how he has to protect her and keep her out of danger. And then opening up her stats and realizing she has the best HP score out of every single PC I have, beating out her big warrior brother by a clean 50%.

Worst moment so far: Going through a dungeon without saving in a good while because nothing is dangerous enough to scare me and then having the game reset itself without saving because it lost the connection to XBOX Live that it isn't using for any reason. Its a good thing no impressionable young children were near me at the time. Or within a block.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Pyro:

Out of curiosity... You said that you would be 'singing its praises' if it weren't for all of that. But that list of flaws is pretty all-encompassing except for the few plot points you mentioned at the beginning of the post. Is there -anything- redeeming about its gameplay that makes you say this?

I don't know anything about Last Remnant, but it was in production for so long, building its hype train, I'd like to know that it does -something- interesting.

-Djinn

[Niu]

Djinn, to best answer that question we need to start with how much a SaGa fans you are. The degree of SaGa love is directly correlated with one's opinion on Last Remnant.

[AAA]

MK-Chapter 5. Vayne is soooooo fucking bland. Also, Flaya is pretty good in battle. Pamela's kinda frail right now, though. Plot? What plot? I just want to make more things that lead to other things. Speaking of things, I have a lot of things that can't be made right now and it annoys me.

GH3-RAIIIINING BLOOOOOD FROM A LACERATED SK*fail screen*

Fuck you, Mosh I. I think I'm going to be here awhile, especially since the only song I passed in the final tier is One so far. Cliffs of Dover I can't get past that mishmash of notes in the beginning and my hand cramped out during Number of the Beast. Speaking of hand-cramping, fuck you Before I Forget. Easily the worst song so far.

[Pyro]

Djinn: The ability to control large scale battles like that with plenty of abilities floating around is something I've always wanted to try in an RPG. And some of the boss battles are pretty fun in their own way. (Boss with a  limit move that grants him quintuple-acting including on counters? That was fun.) In short I would love it with more control/faster battles, as the strategy part of it is neat enough.

It *is* a Saga game though. For all that its not as fun as RSMS by a ways.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Djinn, to best answer that question we need to start with how much a SaGa fans you are. The degree of SaGa love is directly correlated with one's opinion on Last Remnant.

What part of it is SaGa, exactly? I really loved SaGa Frontier - it had a lot of really amazing parts to it. It also kind of sucked in a lot of ways. Particularly the 'unfinished' way. If Last Remnant is particularly under-finished, I think I'll pass.

Side note: I hope that I'll be able to phrase a statement as complex as you just have in -my- second language one day.

Djinn: The ability to control large scale battles like that with plenty of abilities floating around is something I've always wanted to try in an RPG. And some of the boss battles are pretty fun in their own way. (Boss with a  limit move that grants him quintuple-acting including on counters? That was fun.) In short I would love it with more control/faster battles, as the strategy part of it is neat enough.

It *is* a Saga game though. For all that its not as fun as RSMS by a ways.

In SaGa Frontier, I really enjoyed the various methods through which abilities were gained. I also enjoyed the recruitment aspect, and how different races gained abilities through different methods. The fact that there were 7 different stories to play through that all vaguely connected, but were completely different stylistically was also a good selling point.

Lack of an actual plot in any of the stories, as well as an over-connecting plot; and lack of dialogue (and horrible translations of the dialogue that was there) were kind of a painful part of the game, though.

What aspects carry over to Last Remnant?

-Djinn

[Niu]

The unfinishedness of the game should go without saying.

The game is basically SaGa in its system mechanic. But the game is more similar to RS games rather than SF games. It focus more on the weapon proficiency and the formations. BTW formation is really important this time, about as important as it did back in RS2.

Though, the game has some huge changes from SaGa, it is trying to be very macro on the combat system. It takes every single micro control out of the combat, and most of the battle flow are determined by your team set up. Formation is a given, you basically have to think about it whenever you run into some big fights. Than group set up, as the commands you get to give to your members are determined base on what abilities, equipments they have (like duel wield makes you have less defensive commands than those use shields) and what situation they are currently in. Thus, you have to consider what situation you are likely to run into next and what characters is best to put into the same group to allow the command you need to appear when you need them. Basically, you actually do battle before you actually get into a fight, and this is especially so when have to deal with enemy quirks like Animate. In another word, if you like micro management and fast paced combat, flee from this game.

[Cotigo]

GH3-RAIIIINING BLOOOOOD FROM A LACERATED SK*fail screen*

Fuck you, Mosh I. I think I'm going to be here awhile, especially since the only song I passed in the final tier is One so far. Cliffs of Dover I can't get past that mishmash of notes in the beginning and my hand cramped out during Number of the Beast. Speaking of hand-cramping, fuck you Before I Forget. Easily the worst song so far.

For Raining Blood, the best thing I can recommend is to make sure you get the star power, then wait until you almost fail and use it.  Just give up if you miss either of the starting ones.  For Cliffs, just about the same thing.  Basically ignore everything else, get the star power, then when the Orange-Blue-Orange-etc. part comes hit it.  Pretty easy to get past the song once you get past that part.  I can't say the same for Raining fuckthatsong.

EDIT:  Alternately?  Just focus on hitting the orange notes on that section.  If you've done well enough until that point the section doesn't go on long enough to fail if you do that.

[Grefter]

Raining Blood needs to be used in one of the newer games with drums.  I want there to be a wasteland of destroyed plastic instruments.

Edit - WoW - We are up to Sapphiron.

[Rozalia]

PS4- King L is down. I think I'm underleveled at the moment because the king was OHKOing most of my party.

BvS - Got a money printer and a plug suit. Also got bingoed ten or so times on the same day for no real reason. I wasn't in the top ten so that many attacks happening is weird.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Raining Blood needs to be used in one of the newer games with drums.  I want there to be a wasteland of destroyed plastic instruments.

Edit - WoW - We are up to Sapphiron.

I'd have finished off 4H last night, but we were carrying people who can't do more damage than the tanks.