What games are you playing 2024? Battle strength determined by frilly outfits

[DragonKnight Zero]

Guess I might as well put up writeups for my next FFT fiesta before the memories fade.  Even though I don't think I ever posted a writeup for the final battle of first one I completed.  Well whatever, though I'll put that conclusion in a separate post.  For reference, classes are rolled on the following schedule.

Start: Knight, Archer, Priest or Wizard
After Windmill Shed; Monk, Thief, Oracle, or Time mage
Meeting at Lionel: Geomancer, Lancer, Mediator, or Summoner
Chapter 3 start: Samurai, Ninja, Calculator, Bard, or Dancer
Chapter 4 start: Any of the above not already selected plus Chemist, Mustadio, Agrias, Rafa, or Malak

Playing on console so Mime is a "hell no."

Like FF5 fiesta, at least one party member must be in a primary job once it is unlocked and the party can only use skills from one of the five rolled classes.  Other than universal skills.  Much like how FF5 allows the Item command, I designated certain squire and chemist skills as always available.

For Squire, it's everything besides Accumulate.
For Chemist, it's Potion, Phoenix Down, Antidote, Eye Drop, Echo Grass, and Equip Change

The fiesta restrictions only apply to story battles from Dorter onwards.  Randoms and grind fights are anything goes with the exception of Move-Find Item, equipment theft, Invitation and Train, and Brave/Faith altering.  Those are forbidden unless the associated class has been unlocked.

RNG rolled Knight, Thief, Summoner, Calculator, Mustadio.  Ouch.  One good skillset, two middling units, and two scrubs.  Piss awful skillset synergy with every non-summoner having trash for MA, among other issues I expect to encounter.  Special characters I've decided they remain in their base class for story fights and rely on randoms and spillover JP to access skills in the other 4.

Optional rule 1: So you rolled a calculator but no other mage classes.  Under strict interpretations, that would mean they have nothing to use Math Skill with.  But that's no fun.  So the alternative is going crystal calculator and allowing any spells they can scrape up from crystals.  They are allowed Bolt for unlocking calculator but cannot Math Skill it unless they have obtained a crystal that would have it. (basically any enemy unit on the mage side of the job tree)  If going crystal calculator, setting Math Skill as a secondary is banned; only calculators get this.  I'm using this one for my party as it feels right for calculator to have access to its gimmick.
Optional rule 2: Hi-Potion, Madien's Kiss, and Soft are allowed in Chapter 4.  I'm not intending to use this but if it's more fun for you, by all means.  Could even include Ether is so inclined though I feel it takes away from MP management.  But if you want to roll that way, hey it's your game.  FFT fiesta is more about fun than enforcing a challenge.

OK, what a long preliminary text wall.  The theme I'm going for with character names this time is special attack names.  Starting with Ramza who has been renamed Dark Matter (Belvoue)  Not really sure what's his best Zodiac with this class config so went with my Virgo standby.

Prologue and Gariland are very standard.  Well, the Broad Sword squire rushing forward to lob a rock at my party instead of swinging at Delita isn't standard but that makes my opening moves easier.  Get my crystal at gariland to teach Potion and Equip Change to Dark Matter.  I drag things out a bit for Delita to pick up enough JP for him to learn Throw Stone.

Right away, it's time for the Soldier Office grind.  One of my starting female generics has 66/74 which I decide is good enough to keep her.  Will make for some mouth-watering Summon damage.  So I seek two more units and after scrolling through far too many I settle upon these two.

Cross Blaze; Male Taurus
Meteor Storm: Female Sagitarius

Not that I care about internal Zodiac with the skillsets I got assigned.  My requirements were 68 Brave or better and 64 Faith at the lowest.  Teach them and Dark Matter Throw Stone and Phoenix Down.

For Mandalia, I make Dark Matter a chemist for scraping a few extra Chemist JP for the guests and the generics stay squires.

Mandalia - 3 resets

  Even though I choose Destroy the Death Corps for the Brave boost, I still want Algus to survive long enough to gain the JP for Throw Stone, if nothing else.  He keeps suicidally charging into the greatest concentration of enemies though, hence the resets.  Finally, get an opening where he's still standing at 4 HP when my squad gets its second round of turns.  After which the enemies tend to favor targeting my units and I proceed with the normal beatdown.  Did have a stupid AI moment.  Thought I was being clever in leaving the thief at low enough HP for Delita to kill but Delita goes to whack the full health panther instead.  You idiot.  This leads to Meteor Storm getting beaten into the dirt.  Battle ends before the death countdown expires but I was not happy.

  After this, there's a long wait before there will be any story progress.  Knights are the most expensive starting class to gear up.  I need 3000 Gil to fully outfit someone with knight gear and Battle Boots and the goal is 4 sets.  Starting from 2300, it's a long way to go.  So even though I have 4 characters all with Knight unlocked already, not everyone is going to be in the class right off the bat.  I do sell the starting Holy Water which is enough to pick up a second Long Sword along with shields and helms for two knights.  Also, a third pair of Battle Boots for a chemist because 3 Move humans feel so helpless.

  What follows are several grind fights where I have 2, later 3, Knights with helmets and no armor with the remaining filling in as squires and chemists.  Starting generics rotate in and out to fill the 5th deployment slot.  I didn't intentionally drag out fight for crystals/chests though maybe I should have with the dire cash situation.  Oh yeah, I want gear for Delita and Algus too.  It's close but I do manage to meet my goal of getting everyone geared up with no one higher than Lv 4 for Sweegy.  All 4 of my fieasta units also have Job Lv 2 in Chemist for convenience.  Grab a few extra Potions at Gariland before moving on to the next story fight.  Teach Power Break to Meteor Swarm.

Sweegy Woods - 0 resets

  I make one of my units a Chemist for this one while Delta gets a Knight setup to scrape up some extra Knight JP.  Straightforward exercise in minimizing the numbers of enemies that can reach me while beating down the others.  And keeping Delita and Algus productive.  Went well, only used one Potion.

Dorter 1 - 0 resets

  Delita and Algus are in their base classes with Item.  I choose to live dangerously and have all my knights with Basic Skill.  Forgot that with 4 knights and two guest Squires, they'd all like Long Swords but I forgot to pick up the 6th.  Oh well, one of my lady knights will have to make do with a Broad Sword.   Longbow archer shoots Algus, which I've never seen before as normally, one of my units has lower HP and is therefore a more attractive target.  Male Knights advance along the ground; their role is to bait the wizards into leaving themselves exposed to midcharge swings.  I even remember to check Zodiacs to ensure it will be a one shot kill.  Lady knights go after the longbow archer with the guests.
  I messed up my positioning with the wizards and was only able to finish off one midcharge so Dark Matter got fried once.  Knight durability comes through so while Dark Matter got brought down low, no deaths on my side.  I do hold off on killing the knight and unarmed archer for some crystal farming.  Both wizards leave crystals which I have the males grab, giving them a small headstart on their magic collections.  Meteor Storm got the longbow archer's crystal for the basic Potion, which I'd not bothered to spend the 30 JP to teach earlier.  A satisfying battle result overall.  The Iron Sword war trophy was a welcome addition.

Finally stable enough funds-wise to hire the 5th unit.  I had intended to use a different name but whimsy struck before then so instead or Raging Edge, welcome Tiro Finale' to the team.  Female Capricorn.  So I've got a Virgo/Taurus/Capricorn triangle, meaningless as it is (what am I going to use it for?  Carbuncle?  Steal EXP) to go along with a Sagitarious and Aquarius.  Can finally kick out the other starting generics to reduce the clutter on my formation screen.  Pick up more Potions and off to Sand Rats.

Sand Rats - 1 reset

  I leave Tiro Fianle' on the bench seeing has she hasn't unlocked Knight yet and I felt no need to wait.  Each squad gets one male and one female knight.  As it happens, each one also has one member with Dash and one without.  Thanks to the last fight, I have enough swords for everyone.  As in Dorter, I slap Basic Skill on my knights leaving the sole source of recovery as Potions from Algus and Delita.  As they're the lowest HP targets on my side, the enemies will favor going after them.  It's going to be an interesting map.  Shrugged and bought and set Weapon Guard on Algus; maybe that extra 10% W. Ev will help.
  All about positioning and using my units as body shields to keep the enemies from landing deathblows on the guests.  First attempt saw enemies dodging fatal shots and Algus dying around round 3.  Delita going down was the dealbreaker for me along with being right about to lose one of mine to an angry Monk.  Maybe could have finished it from there (only 2 enemies remained) but I opted to reset and try again.  Next go I was more successful about spreading out enemy attacks to keep anyone from dying and Algus and Delita chose to be smart about when and who they dispense Potions to.  Got a monk crystal but only got Spin Fist out of it. (I was hoping for a free Weapon Guard)

Stop by the Dorter shop for gear upgrades, picking up two sets of light armor.  And 4 Bucklers though going for all 4 right there was probably not the right call.  Got no randoms on the way back to Igros.  Look at what I want to buy and realize I'm around 15000 Gil short of what I'm looking to purchase.  I want 4 sets of swords, shields, and armor for my knight squad.  And a Long Bow as I plan on running Algus as an archer for Thieves Fort.  Of that, I only have one Iron Sword and some shields.  Not too upset since there's a new member who needs some training time.  Teach Power Break to everyone but the newbie.

  During this grind session, not everyone stays in Knight the whole time.  Various units spend time in squire and Dark Matter gets some mage time in, unlocking Time Mage.  Partly to be able to obtain time magic off crystals and partly because I'm going to be unlocking calculator eventually so might as well knock some of that load now.  Also because I'm going for only 4 sets of knight gear.  By the time I finish up the grind fights, everyone but Tiro Finale' has Move +1 and some have Counter Tackle done, the last squire skill I'll ever care about.

Thieves' Fort - 2 resets

  Delita as a squire with Item as before, Algus as an archer with Item.  These two are my sole sources of HP recovery since all my knights are running Basic Skill.  Highest level female sits out, in this case it's my starter generic.  I'm one Iron Sword short but I'd consciously chosen to skimp so Tiro Finale' makes do with a Long Sword. Same general strategy as Sand Rats where I try to control the fight so that the guests don't die.
  Algus gets dropped in the first attempt having only succeeded with one action, no thanks to the Black Magic priest going after him while staying out of sword range.  I had no need to care since it's his last battle as an ally and half the enemies were down by this point.  But dammit, I wanted that spillover Archer JP and he's my only Phoenix Down user.  So I reset.
  Next try, Miluda ganks Algus with a critical.  Again, with him having only landed one action.  Not good enough, reset.
  Next attempt, I screw up the PBF which results in a lady knight getting Charmed on round one.  Upshot is that the Black Magic priest has best compat with one of my dudes and comes close to target him.  Smack down the priest midcharge; bonk the Charmed knight out of it with Basic Skill.  From there, I proceed with my plan of taking out enemies as they present themselves and not letting the guests take fatal hits.  Land a Power Break on Miluda too, which  removes the threat of freak KOs.  I opt to stall a bit for the Black Magic priest to crystalize, which she does.  Have Meteor Storm pick it up; now I have three units with a starter set of spells.
  The downside of Power Breaking Miluda is that she's much more eager to break my stuff.  End up losing two shields and one helmet to her, which will need to be replaced.  Though the Bronze Shield war trophy can fill one of those slots and the Iron Sword trophy is why I opted to choose to skimp on buying a 5th.

  Got into a random on the way back to Igros.  Fielded an Equip Armor archer, which is funny because I'd never use such a build in normal play but here, the unit had loads of Knight JP and I was short on light armor so that's how things played out.  i have enough funds to outfit a 5th unit with up-to-date knight gear so do so and off to Lenalia with no further fanfare.  Grab some more Potions while at it.

Lenalia - 0 resets

  Delita is an archer with Item and the sole source of HP recovery.  He climbs the cliff and shoots a wizard.  Enemies go with the weak wizard going after Delita and the strong one going after my team.  Time Mage casts Haste on herself and Miluda.  Other enemies just shuffle around.  My first set of actions goes decently with the strong wizard killed midcharge and I land a Power Break on Miluda from the fornt, which is neat.  Not so cool was the Hasted time mage Don't Moving three of my units with the one able to smack it midcharge not quite doing enough to kill.  My mistake for clumping up but does put a damper on my offense.  It's the time mage's last action as some rocks from the Don't moved group is enough to remove the last of her HP.  Enemy knights hit people but they're spread out and Miluda can only swing for 14.  Not very threatening to my 110+ HP squad.  Delita Potions self and retreats.  Wizard drops a spell on all three Don't Moved units for about 30 to each.  Get some damage in on him though not enough to kill.  My two mobile units are able to chase him down and kill him midcharge before he can land a second spell on the three still stuck.  Once the Don't Move wears off and I see no one is in critical danger, battle is good as won.  Help finish off the knights while waiting for mage crystals.  Delita keeps himself alive and gives a few Potions to allies who are running low on HP.  Also landed another Power Break on Miluda for additional hilarity.  Got one mage crystal which Dark matter takes, being the only one with Time Mage unlocked.  I would have been OK with finishing the fight before the knights' countdowns ran out but I opted to take the slow way of using Dash and Throw Stone to pummel Miluda even though I don't really need to fear 7 damage Counters.  Taking it slow does have a handy upshot; Delita finally hits the 500 Knight JP for Equip Armor.
  Oh, one Knight broke an Iron Helmet.  Not again (sigh), more replacement costs.

  With the fight complete, off to Igros for gear upgrades.  It has Mythril Swords, Bronze Shields and Chain Mail.  I want 4 each of swords and shields and 5 Chain Mail as Delita would like one too.  Yep, short on cash again.  Though this time, it doesn't take that many fights given how high Dark Matter's level has been climbing.  I also decide to nab two Silver Bows now for future Thief unlocking rather than return later.  During the grind fights, a few spend a fight in mage classes such that both Dark Matter and Meteor Storm have Summoner unlocked.  In the spirit of the fiesta, I won' use summons until it become opened up through story progression.  Same deal with thief; between spillover JP from guests and a brief stint or two in archer 3 of my 5 have thief unlocked but I won't start using it until its designated time.

  Hit a random in Mandalia and with the funds from that fight, I bring my Chain Vest supply to three, pick up a Small Mantle, and raise my Potion stack to 30 and Phoenix Down to 8.  Game throws another random at Lenalia but I reload until I can skip it as Dark Matter's level is getting worryingly high at 10.  Teach Weapon Break to Tiro Finale' and Cross Blaze before challenging the next fight.

Windmill Shed - 4 resets

  Delita is a monk with Guts and Equip Armor.  That means I don't have any recovery.  So I do something that's rare for me and give one of my knights Item.  Meteor Swarm is the designated item monkey.  As a Sagatarius, she's less attractive of a target to Wiegraf.  other two are the Capricorn and Taurus for good compat Weapon Break attempts.  The start of the fight will always open with Delita walking forward and chucking a rock at Boco.  Wiegraf will step back and Stasis Sword Delita.  Boco and the two monks will pound on him but with his high HP, he can weather the assault.  I gave him Counter Tackle for some extra damage too.  Rock plus Counter Tackle should bring Boco low enough to kill; if it doesn't I'm going to have issues controlling the fight.  Ideal opening is Ramza taking out Boco with an attack and the other male and one female putting the hurt on the close monk.  Delita is generally in critical after the enemies' first set of turns so he'll attack anyone within reach and retreat.  It's not necessary to Potion him before he retreats as moving the item knight behind him and acting would leave two targets open for a Stasis Sword, which I'd rather avoid doing.  On his second turn, Wiegraf will come forward and Crush Punch Ramza and he's now within reach for a Weapon Break attempt from the side.

First go - Crush Punch instakills Dark Matter.  Uh oh.  And the first Weapon Break misses.  Not surprising at 38% but still not good controlling the battle.  I goof up with the Item knight's timing too  While I play it out for another round and do break Wiegraf's sword next round, Delita got himself killed.  With I'm willing to expend one Phoenix Down, two is more than I'm willing to absorb and I give up.
Attempt #2: Stasis Sword Stops Delita.  This is bad because Boco will attack from his front rather than the side, which prevents me from landing a round one kill.  I misplay and though a Potion would save him but it's not enough.  Wiegraf Split Punches him and retreats and the generics finish him off.  More significantly, Wiegraf is out of swinging range.  Reset.
Attempt #3: Delita dies to the opening assault no thanks to a high damage critical.  This won't do; I want him alive long enough for more than one action.  Reset.
Attempt #4: Stasis Sword lands Stop.  Can see where this is going.  Rest.

  Next attempt, no Stop, Delita lives through the opening moves, and Boco dies as planned.  Delita finishes off a weakened monk and retreats.  Just as I planned.  Crush Punch on Dark Matter, no instakill.  Connect with the very first Weapon Break which is fantastic.  I do much better about keeping Delita alive after giving him his first Potion and he helps out finishing off the support.  Tossed Delita a second Potion to incline him to Wish a weakened Dark Matter.  A third Potion and he's pretty much set for the rest of the fight without further intervention.  Stack a Power Break on Wiegraf as well; now he can only punch for 6.  Or Potion himself since I forgot to check his secondary.   This makes taking him down a slow process, especially when I mess up positioning such that he retreats along the back where only one member of this melee focused party could reach him at once.  Thankfully for me, he is able to jump out of the corner he retreated to onto more open ground where ganging up on him is possible.  Delita turns up around 70 JP short for Move-Hp up.  Not that I was expecting him to reach it starting from 115 at 11 or 13 JP a pop but he sure put in a valiant effort.  Dark Matter learns Head Break off the knight crystal.  I wasn't intending to farm but it dragged out so long the generics passed on anyways.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT fiesta: (knight, thief, summoner, calculator, Mustadio)

  Thief is not opened up for my party to use freely.  Gear up the remaining two units who haven't unlocked it and knock it off in one battle.  I do play out an additional random to get some thief JP going though I don't drag out the fight to do so.  My units are dabbling in non-fiesta classes too so after these fights, Tiro Finale' has enough squire JP for Move +1 and Cross Blaze spent one fight as a weaponless priest (his fists do the same damage as 3 WP staff) and has Oracle unlocked.  Dark Matter's level is also disturbingly high at 12.

Fort Zekaden - 0 resets

  I'm not counting the reset where I forgot to give Delita a sword.  Or the one where I forgot to set Move +1 on Tiro Finale'.  Or the various attempts at manipulating things to prevent the Brave loss on Ramza.  Or the stupidity that wouldn't have happened if I'd just played it out the first time.
  Delita is a Squire with Item and Equip Armor and the Small Mantle.  The males are Knights with Basic Skill and start in squad 1.  Females are Thieves in squad 2.  The higher HP one gets Item.  Both have Steal Heart learned.
  I could not manipulate Algus to go where I wanted; he always went to lower ground where Delita would walk forward and attack from the front on his first turn.  I advance the thieves as far forward as I can without leaving them in wizard range.  One wizard will always target Dark Matter with a spell except for the rare occasion she goes after Delita.  Dark Matter goes to whack her midcharge, hopefully taking her out.  Or at least low enough to where a rock from the other knight will finish the job.
  After the first round of shuffling, the thieves go and are close enough to start attempting Charms on the knights.  I'd predicted they'd be irrelevant to the fight but turns out that as bad as I'm inclined to think Steal Heart is, it's not so awful when they're being stacked.  Charming various knights actually proves quite helpful in keeping them off my back. (and Delita's)  My knights mostly want to target Algus though the other wizard is a higher priority to eliminate.
  To my disappointment, Algus tends to live to his third turn and Dark Matter loses his Brave bonus from Mandalia.  No thanks to Auto-Potion working just when he needs it though even without it, my knights don't get very many chances to swing at him.  Eventually, I give up on Brave retention and just play things out.  I'm landing enough Charms to keep Algus' knights from doing much to me.  Delita is generally staying alive through the fight.  Head Break on Dark Matter is relevant if Auto-Potion is going too crazy.  Though the attempt I kept, Auto-Potion only worked once on three hits so after two swings from Delita and one from Cross Blaze, Algus has low enough HP that another 56 damage swing from Cross Blaze ends things before any enemy unit crystalizes.
  I forgot to try piling Speed Break on Algus to delay his third turn.  Though since I get my first attempt after his second, somehow doubt it would be enough.

Chapter end random stats

HiLevel: Still 12 somehow.
Job Levels: Everyone has job level 8 in knight except Trio Finale' who is lagging at 5.  Thief job levels are mostly 2 though one or two do tick over to 3 during Zekaden.
Skills report:  All units have Power Break, the Taurus and Capricorn have Weapon Break.  Those were the only breaks used all chapter though Head Break had relevance.  Yeah, got all the Knight JP I'll ever need and can probably stop using JP up on knights after this.  Haven't picked up Weapon Guard for anyone yet even though they can easily afford it now though sub 10% W. Evade isn't going to count for much.  Only Thief skill learned is Steal Heart on the two females at Zekaden.

Welcome the wonder trio.  If nothing else, for free gear though I do plan on having them field random if my main team is out on propositions.  Set up the guests with Battle Boots and Item.  Agrias does start with Hi-Potion, could be useful at some point.  Only other change is shifting to 3 knights and 1 thief for the upcoming fight.  Maybe I gave Item to someone for Phoenix Down, already forgot.

Dorter 2 - 0 resets

Favoring knights here to fish for juicy midcharge damage.  I move the thief to bait the archers while staying out of wizard range. Enemies do oblige with one archer coming forth and dying midcharge.  Thieves do show up with Steal Heart but all that does is divert a turn from my squad to bonk someone out of it with a rock when it hits.  Wizards don't live long enough to get a second spell off and with them gone, what remaining enemies there are don't have enough damage output to threaten my life.  Fight off Charm and finish them off.

  Pick up some light armor in Dorter; the Headgears are quite welcome for thieves.  I get three.  Then it's off to Igros for knight armor upgrades.  Two of each will do.  Shields last of which I settle with two.  I actually have enough cash to afford all this without extra grinding.  Did get two randoms on the way to Igros but didn't have to go out of the way to raise money.

Araguay - 1 reset

  Astounding, a failure.  Black Goblin corners Boco and kills him in two attacks and a counter, not helped by Boco missing his attack which would have done enough for my team to finish it off.  This is in spite of landing a Charm on the black goblin before it can act, a counter knocked it off.
  Anyways, my team is three thieves and one knight as I'm hungry for thief JP.  Knight has Secret Hunt just because and more knight JP isn't going to be productive.  Boco doesn't die so guests can dominate.

Strip Gafgarion's weapon, shield, and accessory.  Agrias is around 30 JP short of Move +1, too bad.

Zirekile Falls - 0 resets

  Joke fight.  Went with the three thieves and Dark Matter as the knight.  Between guests, landing random Charms, and the non-standard AI settings of the enemies, barely saw any attacks directed at my team.  The knight using Water Ball on my team could have caused some mischief but no frog procs occurred before Agrias helped my party take him down.  Could have made it even more of a joke if I'd stripped Gafgarion naked and no secondary to spam Hi-Potions but whatever, more JP.

Tiro Finale finally has the squire JP for Counter Tackle.

Backtrack for the shops.  Triangle Hats do matter on thieves that will be focusing on Steal Heart.  Platina Daggers make thieves suck slightly less; I settle for three.  Coral Swords are handy for better knight damage and Agrias likes the damage increase too.  I make a judgment call to pick up 4.  Also update my heavy armor stock.  I did do the proposition in Dorter on the way over so that at least one member would have enough Summoner JP for Ramuh right away.  Good thing as the cash from the prop made the difference in being able to afford everything I wanted to purchase.  I also pick up 10 more Hi-Potions just as a precaution though I don't expect Agrias to use the all up.

Why yes, I do have three units with summoner unlocked already.  Gonna be doing it at some point anyways so got it done early on the three who have spells from crystals already during the various randoms I run into.  I let the wonder trio of Rad, Alicia, Lavian handle one random with two chocobos.  As I expected, they struggle.  With a team that struggles with damage output, chocobos might as well be hellspawn.  Whatever, did this to myself.  Make my way back to Zeland.

Zeland - 1 reset

  I go with three thieves and knight Dark Matter again, having decided that the 4 Jump thieves are better suited to this map.  One thief is set up with Equip Armor and Item for emergency restoration while the others keep JP up.  Choose to save Mustadio.  He goes right and shoots a wizard.  Thieves open with a bunch of Steal Hearts, charming the close knight and a wizard.  Funny moment where the charmed knight dodges two attacks intended to uncharm him.  Knight whacks the uncharmed wizard.  That wizard locks a spell on two thieves; other wizard targets a spell to hit himself and the other wizard.  Both die when it goes off.  Even with the wizards out of play, Musty still manages to be stupid and put himself in range of both knights.  They and an archer gang up on him.  Even if he could have lived if the critical hadn't occurred, he'd still be doomed as the knights had him cornered.  Game Over.
  Next go-around, I get a best compat Steal Heart on a Wizard.  Mwahaha.  Land a charm on the close knight too.  Last thief beans the uncharmed wizard with a rock as that lets my thieves spread out better.  Charmed wizard goes for spell on both, like last time but the uncharmed wizard dodges the fatal attack.  Too bad.  This prompts Mustadio to put a bullet in his skull, leaving him low enough for my thieves to finish off.  Recharm one wizard while the other two make sure the other is all the way down.
  Next round, other knight beans the charmed wizard with a rock.  Uh oh.  He blasts the best compat thief with a Bolt 2.  Hurt like hell but thankfully no kill.  Potion time since Mustadio goes to shoot wizard and I don't trust Agrias to heal in time.  One more knife stab takes the second wizard down.
  Most of my offense in taking down the remaining four enemies is Charming knights and Mustadio gunshots.  At least until Agrias and Dark Matter can finally get to work.  Three thieves was definitely the right call since knight takes 3-4 turns before being able to reach anyone to strike.  Things get slowed down even more when Agrias gets her sword broken, first time I've ever seen that succeed on her.  She mostly spends the rest of the fight giving out Hi-Potions to low HP thieves.  Might as well since 8 damage punches aren't doing much.  One archer was down by this point and by keeping Charm on one knight at a time, enemy damage is kept in check until I can finally wear them all down.  Got a Wizard Robe drop, which definitely appeals to me even if the current party has no use for it.

  In a normal game, I'd be ecstatic to hike all the way back to Igros to replace the broken sword and get some training time in for my party.  In this case, I'm less enthused about the idea as the highest leveled unit (14) feels worryingly high and I don't want the enemy levels getting more bloated just yet.  Thankfully, my earlier choice to buy a 4th sword paid off and backtracking to ensure a fully equipped team is fully optional.  Also arrived in time for the Zeland fight proposition  but I don't feel I have enough second stringers to handle randoms while I have party members on a job.  So I pass on doing it for the time being.

Baraius Hill - 1 reset

  Only one?  Well that's because I can lean on Item.  Without it, like say under stricter rules, this would be much more of a nightmare.
  First try, I use three thieves (they're better as setting midcharge hits on summoners).  Open up with a Charm offensive, getting a knight and archer.  The other knight and archer knock them out of it, resulting in my units taking hits.  Summoner on Mustadio's side blasts him, other summoner has Time Magic and Hastes a knight and archer.  Hasted archer picks off Mustadio before he can get a second turn.  Uh oh, this looks bad.  While I do manage to off one summoner before it finishes casting a second summon, the other generics manage to down a thief in the meantime.  The other JP up thief bites it later on and me only inflicting one additional casualty.  Not helping that my future Steal Heart attempts all miss.  With three corpses on my side and a Phoenix Down already used (with the revived trying to land a turnaround Charm before an archer puts her back down), I decide the situation is unsalvageable even if I was willing to spend the items and hang up that attempt.
  Next try, I run two knights and two thieves.  Plan on the first round is to bait an archer into coming forward and chopping him up with the knights midcharge.  Land a Charm on the closer knight again.  Though the other knights whacks him out of it first and he goes and break the helmet of my Equip Armor thief.  Yuck.  One archer goes after Mustadio; other takes my bait and comes forward to charge something on my other thief.  Knights take him out as planned.
  Downside is that a summoner blasts three people with a summon.  And she has best compat with Dark Matter resulting in nearly 150 HP of pain on him.  Mustadio shoots summoner again: Equip Armor thief Move/Waits to set up a midcharge kill on that summoner.  Other thief does land a charm on a knight.  Enemies do their thing with the Archer charging something on Mustadio.  I decide to have a knight send him over the cliff but it takes both of them to do it.  Which leads to the other summoner landing a double kill.  Ouch.  And my armor thief is low since she was needed to kill a summoner.  Desperation rock from the other thief sends the summoner off the cliff, though she survives in critical.  Armor thief uses Potions to get out of oneshot range or Phoenix Down on an ally knight, depending on which I feel is more important.  Living summoner Moogles herself out of critical.  I really wanted Agrias to go after her but Agrias goes after the weakened archer first, (forgot he was still alive down there) and then goes for a killshot on a weakened knight, leaving me to scramble about desperately attempting to neutralize the summoner.  A rezzed knight and a thief can't quite get enough damage in and my knight is sent back into the dirt before the thief can finally bait her into a summon and landing a killshot midcharge.  Meanwhile, Mustadio goes down to a knight critical.  I've rezzed my other knight at this point and between that one and Agrias (thieves diverted grabbing chests from archers) end the battle before my other knight crystalizes.  Yeah I won but it was ugly with two Phoenix Down needed to make it and someone on the ground when it ended.  maybe I could have done better if I'd gone for Equip Shield instead of trying to squeeze out more JP with JP up on non-armor thief and set Weapon Guard on the thieves.  Ironically, this winning attempt had the low HP thief as my only unit at full health at the end, having never taken a hit.  So maybe not; I don't know.

With two guests departing, my team has access to summons.  And their levels are at the point where summoner has equal Speed with average Speed classes.  Score.  I have three units with summoner ready to go so it's just getting the last two through wizard and time mage.  Buy a bit of knight gear in Lionel before backtracking to Zeland.  Which is mildly annoying as I have only two Wizard Robes for casters but I just had to make do for one fight.  The magic-less units I teach Bolt which suffices to get them through the class unlock grind without the hassle of having skill-less casters.  Grab a third Wizard Robe at Zeland as well as bringing my Rainbow Staff count up to 3.  Go for three sets of light armor as well.  One more fight for the last straggler to finish up Time Mage and everyone has summoner unlocked.

  I suppose a sane player would do some summoner grinding to at least have an attack summon on all 5 units.  I am not sane and choose to move on without further training.

Zigolas - 0 resets

  Mustadio has Seal Evil, was the outcome ever really in doubt?  I went with one knight, two thieves, two summoners.  My male summoner only has Moogle learned, the one female summoner had just enough for only Ramuh.  Knight, a thief, and the female Summoner also have Secret Hunt.  Mustadio made statues, I pull out a few Steal Hearts now and then and poach a few undead.  No pig, I got a Floatiball instead and chose not to reroll.  Moogle summoner is on heal duty.  Ramuh didn't come into play with enemies so spread out and Mustadio making statues.

[Vennobennu]

LFT Fiesta (Wizard, Time Mage, Mediator, Samurai, Thief):

At the beginning of November I started a Fiesta run of LFT. I haven't been spending as much time with it as I intended and so blew past the one month deadline, but I'll see it through eventually. At any point, all party members must be in one of the five jobs or on the way to them, and each job must have someone in it once that's possible - so, no bringing over abilities from prerequisite classes. It's like the Double Dare challenge in fives.

Chapter 1 and early Chapter 2 were not much trouble. The windmill and Dorter 2 were the only maps to take more than one reset out of me; otherwise, it was smooth sailing and light record-keeping until I reached Zaland and, intimidated my my memories of Bolt 3 Wizards, put it off for a couple of weeks.

Zaland Fort City - 1 reset
First mistake was not putting Spike Shoes on my Time Mage Kambei. I had hoped the Rainbow Staff's +1 Jump would be enough, but no, he couldn't scale the cliff and had to haste Agrias and Ramza but not himself. Mustadio ran to the roof and shot a Wizard for about 55% health, and Agrias saved us bigtime by proccing Stop on a Stasis Sword on a Wizard who was charging a nasty Fire 4 on the main squad.

Still had a Ramuh and a Cure 4 to contend with though, this map's enemies are as scary as ever. Ramza ran up and charmed the Stopped Wizard, only for Mustadio and Agrias to down her anyway. Soon afterward Ramza and my Thief (taking advantage of Best affinity) landed Steal Heart on both the Oracles (one of whom had been charging Raise 2 on the dead Wizard!) so things were looking up, but one of the Knights had Throw Item and X-Potions and stalled us long enough for the Two Hands Oracle to recover from Charm and start OHKOing people. Our Thief crystallized shortly before we could kill the last enemy left.

Round 2, we had enough Spike Shoes to go around and things immediately went off to a better start. Gorobei the Thief ate a Shiva up on the wall but was able to kill a Wizard and charm the Two Hands Oracle into killing the other one. Time Mage Kambei Bolt 2'd the Knights only for X-Potion man to heal the other...whose Distribute healed him to full as well! This brazen display of Distribute value could not go unanswered, and so Shino the Monk Insulted the potioneer Knight to put a stop to any funny business. Gorobei stole the deadly Oracle's Bamboo Pole which led to her spamming Confusion Song on the Knight, us and herself thanks to a redirect courtesy of Agrias, so the fight was trivial from then on. Shino Invited the Berserked, Confused Knight to finish the battle.


Bariaus Hill - 1 reset
First attempt, Elemental and a Lancer killed my Monk before we even got a turn. Second attempt with better PBF positioning went incomparably better: Ramza now in Samurai oneshot a Summoner midcharge, the Geomancers charged forward and got cleaned up quickly, and Agrias got a Crush Punch death proc too, making this the shortest battle of the run so far, and that's counting randoms.

Zigolis Swamp - none
Fire 3, even in the rain, is more than enough to oneshot things. Mustadio nails a Seal Evil on his first turn which helps too.

Goug Machine City - 1 reset
First attempt, Arm Aim-less Mustadio did chip damage before dying instantly, Ramza got hit with a nasty Ifrit, and the enemy Archers cleaned us up. I then went back to my alternate save to teach Mustadio Arm Aim. This time, one of the Archers moved aggressively along the bottom and fell prey to a Fire 3, and with better positioning on our part the Summoners couldn't charge up troublesome spells immediately. With the help of Mimic Daravon I was able to clump up them and the Thieves in the center, where all four were killed by a marvelous Asura Draw Out (I think one was due to a Death proc but still). The rest was easy, and I was able to stall for crystals, leading to my Wizard learning a grab-bag of lower level Black and Time magic.

Bariaus Valley - 1 reset
Agrias got ganged up on by the Knights and died to a critical sword hit, but my PBF had a lot to improve too and I was able to get the second squad in play much sooner on the second go. Ramza got hit with Death Sentence and died, but that was my only casualty; Asura Draw Out from my Mediator did a lot of work on this map as well. After the map I realized my Time Mage had gone into the battle with nothing equipped on both attempts. Oops!

Golgorand Execution Site - like 10 resets

This one needed me to try several approaches to see which one worked, and a little luck in the first couple turns. I eventually learned that it was critical to A) take out the Time Mages early or they'd cause headaches and B) avoid any of my people dying early on, as with so many enemies to kill they'd surely crystallize before I could close out the map. The strat I eventually hit on was to put my own Time Mage with my Wizard in the second group and, between the two of them, Fire3/Fire4 the Time Mages and nearby Archer to death. Meanwhile the main group disabled the near two Knights with Mimic Daravon while Ramza runs forward and steals Gaff's Blood Sword, catching a Haste2 meant for him in the process. That limits him to Charged punches which are manageable, although on the successful attempt he ended up running into Ramza's Meatbone Slash shortly thereafter and exiting early.

The Yin Yang Archer goes pretty crazy with Confusion Song and tags my Mediator with it, but nothing too disastrous happens as a result and we're able to get across the finish line with only the Wizard hitting the dirt. It sure took a lot of failures to reach this point, though. Notable was Attempt #4: Time Mages charged Slow and Stop on Kambei from opposite sides, so he put Reflect on himself. Result - the Time Mages Slowed and Stopped each other! I really wanted that run to be the one, but things didn't work out with my old setup. I had the Knight with him then, and that just lead to the enemy focusing down Kambei before I could make much headway.

Gate of Lionel Castle - 1 reset
Went in without Rubber Boots, Steal Heart luck was not with me, RIP. Next time went well - Ramza was able to duel Gafgarion thanks to Reraise from Koutetsu, and boosted Fire 3/4 still rocks. Got a Steal Heart on the Summoner before he could Silf us.

Inside of Lionel Castle - 0 resets
Got a bit lucky here. PBF, put everyone in the corners. Queklain opened with Bio 2 and Petrified my Time Mage, but my Thief had good compat with a Knight and Charmed him, so I kept going. Not sure what Draclau's bodyguards are in universe, but at least they're susceptible to the stirrings of love. Ramza had unlocked Murasame and mostly kept people topped up with that while my Wizard and Thief beat down Queklain. Mediator got a clutch Persuade in, might have lost otherwise. His only other move was a Bio 3 that didn't kill anyone.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Baldur's Gate 3 - At the end of Act 1 now. I wanna be Level 5! Truly this game captures the all-important D&D feel of obsessing over how cool the next level will be and wondering why the cruel DM hasn't let me level up to reach it yet. Floor-based damage is still bad.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Hard Mode. I guess this is for people who spam items or are really good; I'm certainly not the former and am still working on the latter. The first boss was crazy hard and the second wasn't much better, but since then it's settled into a more reasonable feel for the game, i.e. harder than Normal but in general by greater skill with the game can close the gap. Plenty of resets on Bloodless, Alfred (who got a substantial buff), and the sorcery lab -> fire cave sequence. Stuff I've gained appreciation for: Welcome Company, some directional shards (True Arrow early, Bolide Blast more recently), MP regen food, guns (mostly they just wrecked Craftwork after I thought he'd be a third consecutive hellish earlygame boss). Just got Invert.

Fire Emblem Fates - Beat Lunatic Conquest. This is the second time I've done this, and the first I've done it without losing a lot of people on the final map.

So the thing to understand is that the final map is silly. Probably overtuned, certainly overtuned when considering you have to do another (admittedly relatively short/easy) map before it without saving between. So using the knowledge of "Rescue and Pass lets you set up a quick kill" and "Samurai talent lets Corrin stack Life and Death with Swordfaire on the Yato which ignores half the final boss's damage reduction" I came up with a plan to one-round the final boss. (You need 78 attack and to double. 4 from Rally Strength, 15 from the aforementioned skills, 7 from Wyvern Gunter pairup, 2 from tonics, 19 from Yato and A swords yields a reasonable 31 str, and I additionally had Outdoor Fighter. There are other details like needing enough bulk to survive a Vengeance proc and reaching 29 speed before rally+tonic). Further to this strategy I captured both the rally dude in Takumi's map and a Falconknight with Pass in Hinoka's to use Rescue.

Final map aside (which tbh is a bit silly, if satisfying), the rest of the game is just generally super fun. Every map is recognizable from Hard with the same enemy stats, but a couple key improvements (extra reinforcements or new enemy skills) increase the amount of attention you need to pay. I was constantly sitting there planning out turns.

Notable units:
-Corrin was +Str/-Skl. Default class until 20/5, then Swordmaster until 15, then Master of Arms and finally Paladin. Kinda all about the final boss kill. Overall not too notable a unit before then, solid offence but a bit squishy.
-Effie was definitely the MVP of the (pre-Camilla) earlygame and remained real good thereafter. I went General for Wary Fighter but she did well on speed so perhaps I shouldn't have bothered (I forgot to set it on maps where it'd be useful again late i.e. Ryoma's map, oops). Then Great Knight. Outstanding str and def.
-Niles was vanilla Bow Knight. Was usually paired with Camilla since she gives him str and he gives her speed, relationship goals there. Niles could one-round frailer enemies (notably including ninjas, eventually getting Shruikenbreaker), was mobile and evasive. Lots to like.
-Camilla was a staple as always, I did Malig until 11 when I went over to Berserker, back to Malig for Trample at 16 then back to Berserker again. Could kill everything forever, and her defence was, though not as good as Effie/Xander, still good enough to frontline.
-Soleil (Laslow+Peri) went Master Ninja and had great 1-2 offence one-rounding all but the physically bulkiest enemies basically, particularly good against mages due to res and ninjas. Permanent +2 str/def/res from lesbian powers is certainly welcome.
-Xander was his usual tanky self. Charlotte supported him but could also do some decent fighting of her own, like Camilla with roughly 15 less def/res. Nina (Camilla+Niles) provided lategame utility and decent offence with the Shining Bow (had Trample from her mom). Percy (Arthur+Effie) was mostly a rallybot and anticrit aura, but he did some key tanking in Iago's map because he had really high def and wasn't weak to beastslayer or armourslayer. Jakob, Elise, and Dwyer did usual staff-and-aura stuff. Peri was a generically competent combat unit, if not as good as her daughter. Azura danced and made Ryoma's map bearable.
-Only deaths were Odin and Silas who both fell on the last turns of Chapter 10. That map is evil.
-The freeze staff rules. Rescue too but they limit that for good reason.


Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Started yet another goofy random run.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT fiesta (knight, thief, summoner, calculator, Mustadio)

Teach the designated knight for the next fight Speed Break.  As well as pick up at least one summon for summoners: Ramuh if enough JP, Moogle if not enough for Ramuh.

Goug - 0 resets

  End up running one knight, one thief, three summoners.  One summoner only has Moogle, one only has Ramuh, the third has both.  Item on the summoner with both.
  My thief gets the first turn.  Runs up and chucks a rock at the slower enemy summoner.  Mustadio Leg Aims a thief.  Enemy thieves go after Mustadio: one stabs, the other lines up a Charge +2.  One summoner goes, just moves.  Archers calculate that Mustadio is doomed and go after my team.  Complicating matters is that one has Steal Heart and charms my thief.  My team's turns.  Dark Matter moves forth and locks a Ramuh on the slow summoner.  Thankfully, Zodiacs and Faith work out to ensure a kill; contrary to popular belief, lightning magic is not boosted on this map.  Knight knocks the thief out of charm.  One summoner is able to get close enough to Ramuh the two enemy thieves.  Other tosses a Moogle on Mustadio for comedy.  Ramuh goes off, failing to break 100 on either thief.
  In an unusual twist, Mustadio is still alive at the end of round one.  My thief goes for a killing stab on a thief, guarded by Small Mantle.  Mustadio Leg Aims the other thief and retreats towards my party.  Enemy thieves attempt a Steal Armor (misses) and a knife stab on mine.  Living summoner blasts Mustadio and three of my team with a Shiva.  Dammit, hoped he only had Moogle as he has only job Lv 2 in summoner.  Why he didn't attempt it on my thief earlier who can say, maybe MP.  I was kind of hoping Musty would still be around to draw the archers after him.  Dark Matter gets charmed and locks a Ramuh on my thief.  Yikes.  Knight bops him back to his senses with a rock.  One summoner goes after a thief with her staff, can't quite kill. (this proves unnecessary)  Other Moogles the team.  Ramuh goes off, enemy thieves die.
  Next round starts of with my thief stabbing the summoner.  He goes for another Shiva but this time, I bash his face in with midcharge whacks.  Next objective is to remove the Steal Heart summoner.  Then I stall for crystals from the summoners and thieves.  Knight applies Speed Breaks to the last archer while waiting Dark Matter goes for Steal Heart to further keep her neutralized (the other male hasn't learned it yet).  Both thieves drop boxes but one summoner does leave a crystal which goes to Tiro Finale'.  Free Moogle, yay.  And some starter magic for the calculator unlock grind later.  Finish off the last archer and claim.

Blooper moment, I Ramuhed the wrong archer when it was just the two of them.  Lost track of which was which and forgot to check skillsets.

Not much to do except switch jobs around for the next fight.

Baraius Valley - 1 reset

  Two thieves, two summoners, one knight.  Thief, knight, summoner for squad one.  Summoner and thief on squad 2.
  Having thief Dark Matter run up an toss a rock at the wizard was not the play.  Knocking him back means Agrias can no longer open with Stasis Sword on two.  Bolt from the wizard and a Bolt 2 proc from the Lightning Bow archer drop him.  And my only Phoenix Down unit is in squad 2.  They have a smoother opening oneshotting the wizard with Ramuh and putting the archer in critical but aren't able to make it over before Dark Matter crystalizes.  And all my Steal Heart attempts fail, for added insult.  Game Over.
  Finally make the decision to stop being so frugal and set up Dark Matter with Equip Shield and also giving the summoner in squad 1 Weapon Guard to hopefully ward off early deaths.  This time, I position Dark Matter further back on his first turn to draw the wizard forward.  Stop from Stasis Sword is also a good opening though.  Squad 1 summoner also gets a 90% Steal Heart on one of the knights, which she merrily abuses.  Other knight does whack him out of it but it does divert his turn and my knight was body blocking the other knight from reaching the summoner so she's safe from retaliatory sword swing.  In the meantime, Dark Matter stabbed the wizard dead.
  On the other side, it was slower.  Ramuh doesn't kill either generic but a move/wait from the thief on her second turn for CT manipulation let her deliver a midcharge stab for a kill on the wizard.  The archer also had worst compat with the summoner so it took longer to beat her down.  Charming the archer was a big help in staying in control of the situation on squad 1's side.  I also have the knight try to break her bow once the enemy knights have been dealt with while waiting for wizard crystals.  Game obliges and my 5th unit gets a mage crystal, ensuring she'll have something to calculate way down the line.

  Back to Warjias for some shopping.  Thieves get slightly better body armor but it's the Wizard Staff that makes the detour a worthy one.  Also up my Gold shield count to 4 in preparation for Golgrond.  Get into a random on the way back, which I take for the welcome chance at extra summoner and thief JP.  Ramuh > Mindflares and while I'm chasing down a few stragglers to Secret Hunt, get an archer crystal that gives up Charge +10.  Which is amusing despite that this group will never be using it along with a Jump +1.  After this, Dark Matter has enough knight JP to master the class.

Golgarond - 0 resets

  Was dreading this battle prior to playing it as it presents a number of issues for my job limited squad.

Issue #1: I want that Blood Sword.  Which rules out nuking Gaf out of the gate.  This also means I want someone with Steal Weapon.  It's for this that I still haven't taught anyone Move +2 and been hoarding thief JP.  Tiro Finale' gets to do the honors of swiping that sword.
Issue #2: Gaf sticking around means my team will be eating a lot of Night Swords.  And he'll get frequent doubleturns on my 6 Speed knights and summoners.  This is hazardous when combined with the other enemies.  So Cross Blaze, also having good compat with Gaf, is the designated Knight.  I make sure he has Power Break and Speed Break learned.  And because knight JP is so plentiful, I go ahead and teach Shield Break.  Landing a Power Break early will greatly reduce Gaf's ability to kill someone.
Issue #3: I'm outnumbered 8 to 5.  So it's very unlikely I can solve my problems by throwing Ramuh at them until they stop moving as my casters will likely run out of gas first.  And with all the enemies around dishing out damage, going to need to reserve some of that MP for healing.  So gotta be selective about when to drop those attack summons.
Issue #4: Time mages.  They can ruin things by creating a highly unfavorable turn split at a key time.  My whole team has high Faith too so those Slows will hit quite often.
Issue #5: Thieves suck at dealing direct damage.

To give myself the best chance I believe I could get, I set up my team as follows.

Dark Matter is an Equip Armor thief with Item for emergency revival and Potions if I feel they'll save someone from death as well as being the team member who can charm the female enemies.  I even take the speed hit for the extra HP of a helmet for AI manipulation.  Thus, raising my chances that the emergency reviver will be upright if the need arises.
Tiro Fianle' is the designated weapon thief with Basic Skill secondary.  Much as I want to scrape up more JP, I choose survivability and give her Equip Shield and a Gold Shield for better evasiion.
Cross Blaze is a knight, for reasons already mentioned.  Sticks with Basic Skill.  Has Equip Change since i don't need knight JP.
Other two are summoners and I give them Steal so they can charm knights if I feel that's the play.  With their caster MA, they have better success percentages.  Both have Ramuh and Moogle learned.  Set them up with Weapon Guard and Equip Shield with Gold Shields to increase their survivability.

Knight and Michelle, the generic Aquarius summoner go to squad one leaving other thief and Sagatarius summoner for team 2.

  Gaf goes after Michelle and gets a critical for 72.  Crossbow archer goes after other summoner, guarded.  My thieves are next.  I do not go for the Blood Sword straight away; have other matters I deem more important.  Attempt to charm the knight on the gate, fail.  Move her towards squad 1.  Dark Matter goes for a charm on the nearby time mage, success.  Enemies turn.  Knights on ground can't reach anyone to hit and shuffle around.  Knight on gate whacks the charmed time mage.  That time mage goes for a Fire 2 on Tiro Finale'  Ice bow archer shoots at someone.  Other time mage locks a slow on to Meteor Storm.  I redirect to the crossbow archer.  One summoner locks a Ramuh onto the knight and injured time mage on the gate; other summoner Moogles the one hurt by Night Sword.  My knight goes to Gafgarion's back and attempts 70% Power Break.  Success; things are turning my way.  Does leave him within range of two knights but he's got enough durability to live through one round with them.  Slow resolves, hitting both my summoner and crossbow archer.  Ramuh goes off before Fire 2, offing the time mage and sending the knight into critical.
  Next round sees Gaf Night Swording for a more manageable 24 and the crossbow archer shoots at a summoner but is blocked by shield.  My thieves go for some Steal Heart; one misses but I land one on a knight.  Uncharmed knight ignores his buddy to break my knight's Cross Helm.  Well damn, guess I'm hiking back to Igros then.  Charmed knight whacks his ally and Counter Tackle returns him to his senses.  Time Mage Hastes the Slowed archer.  Ice Bow archer shoots at someone to inconsequential effect.  I risk a Ramuh with my non-slowed summoner on the knights.  My knight runs away and tosses a rock to little effect as he can't reach anyone to swing.  Ramuh puts down both knights and the threat of sustaining heavy damage on the ground is removed.

  Only on my team's third round of turns do I feel it's prime time to attempt to steal the Blood Sword.  First 47% attempt succeeds and once Tiro Finale' scales the gate and stabs the knight in the corner dead, it's onto the home stretch.  I do make a goof with Dark Matter; should have charmed the Hasted, best compat archer rather than the other two generics.  I still go on to win but better target prioritization would have made things more decisive.  Steal Heart does lots of work; nearly every generic ends up charmed at some point in the fight.  Equip Shield was absolutely worth losing out on JP up given how many physical attacks got sent my way.

Other highlights:

Equip Changing the Blood Sword on and later whacking Gaf with it is so gratifying.
Gaf pulling out a Magic Break on a summoner.  Never seen that happen before.  Wasn't a midcharge shot either; it's the most proactive I've seen the AI get about attacking MP.  I was a bit scared for the summoners' MP but he never made another attempt, sticking to 3 PA fists.  It was enough to shut out Ramuh on the unlucky victim, which did mean I had to resort to physical violence on the remaining enemies.
Charming the Ice Bow archer and she helps shoots down Gaf.  I momentarily thought the battle was over then the game reminds me, oh yeah got to kill her too.  Every other enemy crystalized before I could finish so that archer is the sole witness to pass on the account of what happened.

Hike to Igros dealing with randoms along the way.  Sometimes I have the main party tear through them with Ramuh while some I let the second stringer squad consisting of Rad, Alicia, Lavian, Mustadio, Agrias, and the chocobos handle them.  Helps get Mustadio more JP for his eventual addition.  I'd prepared a unit to swipe a Judo Outfit if I ran into the overleveled archer entering Araguay from Zirekile but didn't get that formation.  Buy three Cross Helm then stop and save in Dorter and see I have sufficient quantities of Potions and Phoenix Downs.  Going to make a short stop in Araguay to do some hunting.  Set Secret Hunt on most of the squad (even summoners) and set out.

  I'm looking for the enemy composition that include both a Trent and a Gust.  Goal is to Secret Hunt both; other monsters don't matter.  Dark Matter reaches Lv 18, which is desirable for my intended Lionel strategy.  Game also throws another random as Baraius Hill, which I welcome for some extra summoner and thief JP.

Lionel gate - 0 resets

  Dark Matter is a knight with Item.  Relevant Breaks are Power, Shield, and Speed in that order of priority.  Also taught and set Move +2, the first time I've bothered to use it so far.  Though the Blood Sword is the main source of recovery; Potions are a backup plan.  The Lv 18 Speed point is a big help for keeping up with Gaf.
  For the others go with one female thief and three summoners.  Thief has item; others stay with Steal.  All use Equip Sheild.

  I'd placed my thief for turn order priority in the PBF  This happens to start her within Steal Heart range of an archer.  Attempt a Steal Heart - success.  She scoots over to the one corner that the summoner or any knights can reach on turn 1.  Archer shoots a summoner and procs a Bolt 2.  Knight hits archer out of Charm; other knights advance unable to reach anyone.  Archer goes for a killing shot - guarded.  I may have been able to recover even with a summoner down but this is far preferable.  Enemy summoner cannot target anyone due to how I set up the PBF so just advances.  My summoners' turn.  One tosses a Moogle for the injured summoner the others attack.  Two Ramuhs and summoner, archer, and a knight are down.  Next round, two more Ramuhs and the other archer and a second knight are done.  Opt to bash in the last one with physicals as my summoners are running dry on MP and Moogle can deal with any hits that get through my evasion.  I notice I forgot to give some of my summoners shields.  After all the trouble to give them Equip Shield, really?  Play it out rather than start over.

  On the other side of the gate, Move +2 and Battle Boots let Dark Matter reach Gaf on the very first turn.  40% Power Break lands first try which will be a big help in surviving.  Future turns are either using regular attacks to recover from the constant Night Swords or attempting to break the shield.  Gaf's shield does stop a number of my swings but not enough for him to wear Dark Matter down as 27 a shot isn't really able to make damage stick on someone who can parasitic heal for 64, even with a speed advantage.  I do eventually open the gate to let the rest of the party in.  They grab crystals and boxes before joining in the gamgbeating; oh hey free Magic Break.  Also break the shield after about five tries.  I do attempt to steal the sword for added humiliation but those all miss.  Ganging up on Gaf is a bit tricky since I don't want to corner him and all my attacks are range 1.  Got to watch the turn order to get the most swings.  I do wear him down in the end though.

Inside Lionel - 0 resets

  One knight with Speed Break, one thief.  Both have Basic Skill to wake up sleepyheads.  Others are summoners with Ramuh.  Use the PBF that only lets Queklain hit two with Nightmare.  Two Death Sentences, perfect.  Thief chucks rock.  Should have set Move +2 on knight as she'd be able to reach Queklain for melee/Speed Break.  So has to resort to rock.  Doesn't matter as three Ramuhs do enough damage to end the fight in a single round.

Chapter end statistics:

Hi Lv: 20
Job Lvs: 8 in Knight with one fully mastered.  Except for Tiro Finale' who lags at 7.  Thief job levels range from 5-7 depending on unit.  Summoner job levels have most at 3-4 though I have one at 5 close to 6.
Skills report: Speed Break, Shield Break, Weapon Guard, Equip Armor, and Equip Shield see use this chapter for the first time.  Steal Weapon gets used and one unit has learned Move +2.  Male generic finally spends the 150 on Steal Heart.  All units have Ramuh with only one trying to skimp on purchasing Moogle.

Not much to buy at the start of Chapter 3.  A couple of Twist Headbands, Flame Shields, and higher WP swords are all my fiesta team will make use for.  Check the fur shop, of all the times to get the rare Fairy Harp poach when I was aiming for an early Gold Staff.  Didn't get the Main Gauche but that was the rare so to be expected.  I do pick up two Musk Rods for the upcoming grind to unlock Calculator.
  It's possible to get Air Knives now.  It is a rare poach from a monster that only sometimes appears in one specific fight when entering Zigolas from Goug.  Opted to not bother to try for it even once.
  So story progress gets put on hold for a long while.  I have 4 units with Oracle unlocked as I did spent a bit of time dipping in Priest in the previous two chapters.  No one has trained in it though and wizard hasn't gotten attention other than what was necessary to unlock summoner.  With Ramuh ending fights in so few actions, it takes a lot of battling to open up Calculator for the 5 fiesta units.  Not helped by that I refused to buy additional Wizard Robe so was only training up three at a time with the other two mucking around in knight and thief.  I do some propositions for some of the mage JP.  Took around 15-20 fights to open up calculator on all five though if I add the battles the B team tackled during active propositions, the battle count comes closer to 30.  Had a funny moment where I got two crystals from Oracles at Zirekile and they both granted the exact same ability list: Cure 2, Blind, Silence Song, and Invitation.
  Stole two Judo Outfits during the process since my levels were high enough for them to appear in randoms.  One from an archer: easy pickings once isolated and surrounded as he had no Basic Skill or Steal Heart.  Other from a female monk, who hit pretty hard but could only go after one target at a time.  And she was more determined to try for Secret Fist but the RNG kept saying "nope."  My units didn't unlock calculator at the same time so I did get a little calc training in while working on the last ones.  Not much though, not enough for Damage Split on anyone.

Goland - 0 resets

  Two enemies have better knives than what shops carry and I am interested in stealing them.  I'll settle for one though.  I don't need more Judo Outfits or guns and don't care about early Germinas Boots enough.  Tiro Finale' gets placed on thief duty having already learned Steal Weapon.  I roll with two summoners here.  Not counting the reset where I didn't obtain either of the knives; the Main Gauche thief had worst compat with mine so I gave up on trying and the mediator died before she could reach him due to a combo of Olan going after him and charmed Chemist.  I was clearly winning when they dropped crystals with only a single disarmed chemist still alive on the enemy side.
  Next try I steal the Main Gauche on the first attempt.  As a bonus, didn't have someone get charmed right out, the thief instead Dashing Dark Matter.  Olan is also cooperative going for Galaxy Stop most of the time.  Knight help kill people I don't need alive or goes for breaks on those I do.  Thief charms people when out of range for theft.  Summoners support with Moogle, Ramuh, Steal Heart, or staff whacks depending on the situation.  Calculator, heh.  Looks for allies to feed Potions though if it's lucky, there will be an enemy around to poke.  I got about three Steal Weapon attempts on the mediator, all failing.  Then Olan kills him and I don't care enough to revive him to attempt again.  One summoner gets silenced by mediator's Silence Song partway through.  Oof, the one time Echo Grass would have mattered and my Item users don't have it.  Same summoner got her Triangle Hat stolen  87 HP is precarious but most enemies were down or Galaxy Stopped so I didn't have any disasters because of it.  Cross Blaze got a thief crystal gaining Steal Weapon and Steal Exp, the latter of which I'll probably forget I have.  Mediator crystal gives Tiro Finale' (the only one on my team who could reach it) Silence Song, making three free Silence Songs on my team.  Calc Dark Matter does scrape up enough actions to have the JP for Damage Split.  It will be very rare that I bother to use any other reaction now that he has it.

With the Main Gauche in my possession, opens up a fun Thief combo.  With Weapon Guard, Equip Shield, and a mantle, a thief becomes a dodgy little gnat.  Cross Blaze got selected to be the thief in the next fight and he has the JP reserve to learn Steal Armor and Move +2.  He would do more damage with fists but he's likely to be in the midst of heavy hitting knights so I valued the evasion more.  I have plenty of spare Triangle Hats so don't need to replace the lost one.

Lenalia - 0 resets

  I want that White Robe.  Both because it's not buyable for another shop checkpoint and therefore a shiny and also because swiping it lets Ramuh do full damage on Zalmo and I can skimp on spending JP for Titan.  I do hope that Zalmo doesn't have Raise 2 (or that it misses a few times) because I only have 3 casts of Ramuh on my summoners, which is my main killing tool.  And Zalmo has more casts of Raise 2 on him than I have summons.  Going with two summoners again on this map.
  Not counting the reset where I end the fight with a crystal on the field because I misjudge distance.  Was very clearly going to win, which was the issue as I wanted to pick up the crystal.  Zalmo did have Raise 2 but several enemies crystalize anyway due to him being too far from them and therefore not a consideration to FFT AI.  Also saw a few misses on Raise 2 attempts.
  Next attempt, he doesn't have Raise 2 but does have Phoenix Down.  This is far less of an issue for me as it has less range and it's less resource intensive to put the newly revived back into the dirt.  Anyways, battle plan is fairly simple.  Nuke groups with Ramuh and use a mix of physicals and Steal Heart to deal with single enemies.  Steal that robe when I get a good shot and breaking that stick would be ideal.  Had a cool moment where a knight weakened by Ramuh draws close.  My Knight chops off 63 of his 64 remaining HP, leaving him at 1.  Summoner could try to kill him but the calc's turn is coming up and I don't want to body block her.  So instead I Steal Heart a 1 HP knight.  Which in turn allows the calculator to walk through him and slug him in the back.  For extra irony, this is the only action the knight connects; she would miss every other physical swing or break attempt for the rest of the fight.  Monk in critical?  Guarded by mantle.  In part due to my knight's inability to hit anything, both monks were still alive (and charmed) when I had nicked the White Robe and was ready to go for the kill.  They went down a time or two but Zalmo would pick them up with a Phoenix Down, then my units would miss their killshot, and he'd Cure them up on his next turn.  Saw a couple of Secret Fist attempts from a monk but they all missed.  Calculator gets to feel useful feeding a Potion to a summoner at a key moment and the next attack leaves summoner at 3 HP.  Weapon Guard comes in at a clutch moment right after as Zalmo tries to poke her dead and guarded.

[Twilkitri]

The Picross block

Logiart Grimoire - Emil's Magic Training Parts 1 - 3 (Steam)

Extra puzzles for Logiart Grimoire. The gimmick is that Emil isn't great at designing picross puzzles (in artistic terms, not in coherency terms), so there's some novelty in that.

Similarly to the free additional puzzles which were added after the early access release, these don't directly play into the tech tree setup of the main puzzles. They are however set up in groups which simulate it in a basic sense. (e.g. one group has a puzzle depicting wool, another depicting a hand, and the final one depicting a glove.)

Since playing through the initially-released packs, two more packs (Parts 4 & 5) have been released, which I have not gotten to yet.


Pixel Puzzle Collection - replay (Android)

Got back up to 200%.

I had forgotten that once you've completed all of the regular puzzles in the run-ups to 100% & 200%, you're locked into having to complete any remaining boss puzzles and can't play random regular puzzles. (More of a problem for the first of these because before hitting 100%, every time you complete a boss puzzle you then have to wait a few hours before you can do another.) After hitting 100% I made an effort to include a lot more boss puzzles in the rotation but still ended up with only boss puzzles remaining somewhere around 190 - 195%.


Charm Studies (Android)

Short free VN with included picross puzzles that I picked up because it was by the BAD END THEATER developer. For quantification's sake, it includes 15 puzzles (and five of those are post-game).

Pleasant enough but there's not really a whole lot to it. Also the mechanics are set up to automatically flag errors which I'm not a fan of.


The non-Picross block

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (Steam)

Replayed the first game before starting on the second as it'd been a long time since I originally played it. I've been rolling my eyes at complaints about the final sequence being too long for years - but on replay, it turns out it really is much longer than I was remembering. (More specifically there is much more remaining after Alba's diplomatic immunity is revoked than I remembered.)

I never got around to playing the fan translation of the second game so it was pretty great to get a chance to play through it. It does a very good job of tying everything together. On the negative side, I didn't care for Mind Chess.


Final Fantasy XIII (Steam)

I was expecting Dragon Age Inquisition to go on sale when Veilguard was released close to the end of my playthrough of the AAI games. Then it didn't. So I started playing FF13 instead because it's been eating up a comparatively ludicrous amount of drive space for too long. (Inquisition didn't go on sale during the recent major sale either, weirdly.)

Found the main game generally enjoyable, no doubt helped by the generic gameplay advice I've seen brought up over the years (e.g. switching paradigms after two ATB sequences giving you a full ATB bar). Had some trouble with the first Barthandelus fight because I mistakenly assumed that his big attack was something you were supposed to switch to defensive paradigms for rather than something you were supposed to punish (no doubt forgetting how the fight worked in RK), and with a few Eidolon fights where I was concentrating too much on the side activities they liked and not enough on just generally building chain against them.

I think the game doesn't really do a good job of selling Sentinel, especially given the Barthandelus issue. It feels like you rarely ever see any enemies telegraphing big attacks. They also feel very weird to control directly. ('Okay, I guess now I just sit here while all these guard blocks slowly tick down'.) Also they mess up your targetting for your offensive roles when controlled directly (a problem saboteurs also have), which is annoying.

Ultimately I did get five stars for the sequence of final bosses so I thought I had a decent handle on things. Then there was the postgame.

I'd completed a bit over 40 missions before leaving Gran Pulse initially, and when I went back in the postgame I found that most of the missions I hadn't done previously I still couldn't do. Had around 1.5 million in funds available, so spent some time grinding Adamanchelids for gold dust & also to start working on the level 10 crystarium nodes, and eventually was able to give Lightning an Omega Weapon. Didn't help as much as I was hoping for. Kept grinding Adamanchelids for money to improve that weapon, every now and then trying my hand at an Adamantortoise and failing to make any headway.

As things stand currently, everyone has had all the nodes for their primary roles for a while. Primary team is Lightning/Sazh/Vanille, it had become clear that I needed a Sentinel to survive Adamantortoises & Attacus so I started Lightning on that, and also started Vanille on Commando so I could switch out my COM/COM/RAV slot for COM/COM/COM. (Didn't want to change any of Sazh's current setup, part of why I didn't make him the Sentinel, so started him on Saboteur arbitrarily without adding it to anything.) Tried Attacus again with Lightning having L2 Sentinel, and while Lightning & Sazh can now survive Merciless Blade, Vanille still can't (and Provoke doesn't appear to have any impact on who is targetted). This ultimately led to me losing chain on him at one point while resurrecting Vanille, which further ultimately led to me running into a doom timer situation (or at least exacerbated it).

So while there's scope available there for me to spend more time grinding to get Lightning to a higher Sentinel level (getting more levels for Omega Weapon & more HP for Vanille on the way), I've come to the conclusion that there isn't much point. Not helped by having now seen that Attacus also reduces the lead-in on Merciless Blade as the fight goes on, which is all adding up to making the fight painful to attempt. Final missions completed count is 58. (Several of the later ones, involving Zirnitras & Neochus, were also only completed because Instant Chain happened to trigger.)

Best I ever legitimately managed against an Adamantortoise was to kill one of its legs. Tried the summon thing once and I only got it down to half health before it got back up. I assume that it also gets back up if you actually kill its legs (unclear on why the mere act of summoning knocks it down, as far as I'm aware that doesn't do any damage) so also in a situation where I have no longer have any desire to continue attempts on those.

[Captain K]

Baldur's Gate 3: I killed a fortress full of goblins but only because their priest drugged me and threw me in a prison cell. I was perfectly amenable to them beforehand.

Marvel Rivals: This is surprisingly competent for a game at launch. I've mostly been playing Captain America and have also dabbled in Peni Parker, Luna Snow, and Wolverine.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT fiesta - knight, thief, summoner, calculator, Mustadio

  Shopping time.  Bog standard armor upgrades for knights.  Holy Miters are very welcomed upgrades for summoners; they can finally ditch those tired old Triangle Hats.  Chameleon Robes will come in useful in a few key situations, one of them coming up so I grab three.  I pass on the Sleep Swords out of habit though maybe grabbing one would have helped.  I have enough Judo Outfits for my purposes so don't buy more.
  Get into a random in Zeklaus which is welcome as I have two units sitting at 290ish Calc JP.  The calculator in the fight is able to take enough actions so that spillover JP pushes them over the 300 benchmark to learn Damage Split.  Glorious, glorious, Damage Split, probably the only perk of a calculator in a fiesta context.  Does it make up for having to drag a lump of deadweight?  Guess I'll see.

  Pick up three Aegis Shields at Dorter and four Germinas Boots and after some pondering, bring my Flame Shield stock up to five.  Preparation for the next fight involves all my non-knights setting Equip Shield.  I'd prefer to stay with Gained JP up on the JP hungry summoners and calcs but those lancers in the next fight scare me and I feel the shields offer the best shot at survival.  Meteor Storm also has saved up enough summoner JP for a big summon and since she's on deck to be a summoner for the next fight, pick up Leviathan.  A bit shaky since she only has enough MP for one Leviathan but I want those big summons before the enemies get too fast.   My designated thief picks up Steal Helmet for the next fight as I want to swipe a Platina Helm.  She's rocking the Main Gauche + Weapon Guard duo, which along with Equip Shield and a Small Mantle because I'm being too cheap to pick out something better.  With this, those scary spear pokes will have only a 37% chance to hit from the side and even less from the front.  Preparations complete, onwards.

UBS2 - 0 resets

  Running two summoners here.  My thief goes first and charms the frontmost Lancer.  He goes and rams that spear into another for 121.  The other lancers seem to take offense at this and both go for Jumps on him.  Time Mage also targets the charmed lancer with Fire.  Other time mage goes for a Haste that ends up missing.  My knight does nothing of significance.  One summoner just moves for lack of targets but the other charges a Leviathan that will catch the jumping lancers.  Fire and Jumps land, charmed lancer dies.  Leviathan goes off; chemist and hurt lancer are on the floor with the last in critical.  Crap, I wanted to steal a Platina Helm but both the wielders are dead.  Next round sees the Lancer retreating and the Time Mage on that side tossing out a Moogle.  Lancer is introduced to the dangers of bringing an Ice Shield against a Ramuh and the time mage is also dropped to critical.  Other time mage gets charmed.  Summoner time mage doesn't get to do more than another Moogle before my knight and theif catch up and lay into him with sharp objects.
  I stall for chests hoping for a Platina Helm drop keeping the other time mage charmed while he wastes his MP on Hasting my team.  Calculator is desperately looking for not-full HP allies to feed Potions to for JP.  No dice, I get other drops instead.  Guess I could have revived one of them myself but I opted to roll the dice and lost.  Reset but I'm not counting it as I was in no danger of losing.  And wow, for all my fears about this map, thanks to charming enemies, I didn't see a single attack thrown my way.
  Next try, charm the frontmost lancer again.  He goes after the Chemist this time and lands a solid hit.  This time around, the other lancers try a Throw Stone and a regular poke to try to break the charm but both are evaded.  A Moogle and a Cure come out towards the injured chemist.  Not that it ends up helping as I drop Ramuh and Leviathan which leave both uncharmed lancers and the chemist on the floor.
  So that leaves the time mages and a charmed lancer I intend to steal from.  The time mage with summons has no attack summons because all his JP are in time mage.  And the other has no offensive skills to threaten my life with.  So all I'm doing is keeping the lancer charmed; not complicated when all three of my girls have Steal Heart within reach, and chasing down the time mages.  Which takes longer than planned because the lady knight has gone back to being unable to land hits through mantles.  Time mages do get a couple of Slows on my units and one attempts a 36 damage staff whack which get blocked by shield but that's it before my lancer buddy helps kill them, landing the killing shot on both actually.
  Which just leave item theft on the lancer.  My knight fails an 85% Power Break.  Soon after, Charm falls off and he gets a turn to stab the knight for 143.  Damage Split reduces that to 71 net.  This is the only time the enemies manage to land a hit all battle.  While trying and failing to grab that helmet, lady summoner grabs a crystal and learns Steal Shield off it.  And I think, sure let's get an early Diamond Shield.  This gets slightly complicated as charmed lancer keeps moving to spots where height differences only let me attempt thefts from the front.  Knight also keeps failing to land Power Break.  Sometime during this, one of my units snags a crystal from summoner time mage.  Yay, free Shiva.  It takes a while but I do snag both helm and shield and finish him off with physicals.  Astoundingly, the calculator's hit made the difference in being able to kill him without him getting a turn.  All calc had done up to that point was feeding Potions to the knight.

I now have a 4th unit with Damage Split.  Oh yes.

UBS3 - 0 resets

  Running two summoners here.  Meteor Storm and Michelle the starter generic as they have good and best compat with Izlude.  I also do the unprecedented and set the knight up with summon magic.  Set them up as follows:

Summoners -                       Knight -
Wizard Staff                        Any sword (doesn't matter)
Aegis Shield                         Aegis Shield
Holy Miter                            Platina Helm
Wizard Robe                       Wizard Robe
Germinas Boots                  Germinas Boots

Going for the assassination here.  Tiro Finale' the Thief goes for a Steal Heart on enemy summoner.  Calculator ... gets jumped on turn 1 because he's so slow and I goofed on the PBF.  Knight and summoners go for Ramuh on Izlude and a knight close enough to catch in the effect area.  All of them resolve after Izlude lands from Jump so all it accomplished was denying me a Flawless Victory.
Archers take shots at the thief at 49% because I forgot Weapon Guard, both miss.  Summoner drops Shiva on both archers.  Turns out a 7 MA Ramuh, and 14 MA good compat Ramuh, and a 13 MA best compat Ramuh are enough damage to send Izlude packing.

Hmm, there's some weird Jump math going on here I don't understand.  Izlude Jumps on clocktick 13 and going by solely by the numbers, he would land on clocktick 20.  7 speed knight goes on tick 15 which would have Ramuh going off on tick 19.  Yet for some reason, Izlude landed on tick 19.  Curious.

UBS1 - 0 resets

  This shocked me as I expected to end up with a few.  Well OK, it would be simple but I wanted that Crystal Helmet.  Which meant I'd actually be dealing with the support rather than baiting Wiegraf into a 4 unit Damage Split and assassinate.  For the first time since Baraius Hill, I run two knights, specifically the Capricorn and Taurus for good compat Weapon Breaks.  Dark Matter is the Thief and I teach him Steal Helmet.  Tempted by Weapon Guard to go with the Main Gauche but opted to stick with Damage Split.  Calculator and Summoner get Chameleon Robes.  I set the PBF trying to bait Wiegraf into a swordskill on Dark Matter and either knight.  Equip Shield on any non-knights.  I stick with the Flame Shield as if I'm lucky, the wizard will have only fire spells and be useless.

  Wiegraf goes for the male knight and calculator instead and lands a Stop on the knight.  Oh no.  Dark Matter charms the closer archer through the wall, though the other archer breaks it with a Throw Stone.  Archer takes a shot at the calculaotr, guarded.  My female knight tries for a Weapon Break.  Fails but mercifully blocks the Counter.  I have the summoner toss a Moogle on calc and stopped knight.  Wiegraf clobbers the stopped knight dead with a 220 swing.  I goof up here and have Dark Matter drop a Phoenix Down on the male knight.  Instead, I should have had him try to charm another enemy and use the calculator's turn for the revival.  Male knight gets a turn to attempt Weapon Break, fail.  Counter doesn't trigger, I move him 6 panels away from Wiegraf.  Enemies shuffle around, archer eats shield.  Female knight tries Weapon Break again, success.  Had it failed, I would have reset as I'm not willing to take another 2 unit Stasis Sword.  Now I just got to  deal with the other enemies before attempting to obtain that Crystal Helmet.
  So it turns out the Wizard has Bolt magic instead and a Bolt 2 is incoming.  Male knight gets a turn while it's charging but isn't going to do enough to kill.  Attempts a 54% Steal Heart, success.  Spell interrupted.  My female knight lands a Don't Move proc on the far archer with her first swing and busies herself whacking her to death.  Summoner is generally kept busy with healing though I'm happy to blast multiple enemies with Ramuh if they're polite enough to clump up and no one is in immediate danger of dying.  I mostly lean on Charming enemies to soften them up to a point I can go for kills.  My shield evasion is working well enough to fend off death from arrows or Wiegraf's 54 damage punches (66 on the knights).  The other archer is the first to fall thanks to a charmed knight landing a solid whack and the Wizard is the next to go after Bolting herself (for a paltry 39), two of my units gang up and finish her off.  I do get too aggressive at one point and the calculator gets put to sleep for my hubris.
  With my female knight done bullying the archer and rejoining the team, I decide the situation is stable enough to let the calc snooze.  Kill off one knight and charm the other (again).  Calc is healthy enough that Wiegraf ignores her.  I pull out a Head Break on the still full HP charmed knight to soften her up and finally feel like I can give more attention to Wiegraf.  Ideally, I'd prefer to land a Power Break before attempting theft.  But they keep missing.  I'm also getting constantly diverted by picking up crystals/chests and making sure the enemies don't get them.  Another free Shiva from the wizard crystal.  I actually snag the helmet off a random steal from the front and retreat before I connect any Power Breaks.  And seeing Wiegraf weakened enough where my knights and thief can finish him off and they're all in range, I abandon the Power Break idea and go for the kill.  All three get through the evade and end it before the last enemy knight crystalizes.

  Last unit has enough calc JP for Damage Split now.  This is earlier than I expected.  Very nice.

  Shopping time.  I grab two more White Robes and 2 Power Sleeves.  Stick upgrade for the calc.  Pick up a Wizard Rod and Gold Staff though I don't expect to use them often.  Then off to Lesalia for Diamond Swords and Diamond Shields which I bring my count of up to 4.  Pick up an Orichaculm for slightly better knife stabs.  That's it for equipment.  Proceed directly to Grog Hill after setting up my units.

Grog Hill - 0 resets

  This battle does scare me a bit so I go for the safety of Equip Shield on non-knights.  Damage Split on everyone.  Knight gets Summon Magic along with a Wizard Robe and Red Shoes.  With that Crystal Helmet, she still has the highest HP total in the squad so the sacrifice in evasion is less likely to come into play.  I opt to run two thieves for a change.  Male has Basic Skill and is stacking PA and fists.  Female has knife and Item for those emergency revives.
  Battle starts.  Enemy thief walks forward and waits.  My thieves go. Male thief throws rock.  Female thief attempts to charm a chemist, fail.  Chemists shoot different targets, Damage Split.  Archer charges something on a thief.  Close squire take a swing, blocked.  Far squire Accumulates and advances.  There's a nice big cluster of 4 enemies that my summoner and knight drops Ramuhs on.  The Rubber Shoes chemist is already outside that effect area so no loss from Ramuh here.  A 12 MA Ramuh and a 9 MA Ramuh are enough to drop the archer and chemist and thief and squire are in critical.  Thief retreats doing nothing.  Calculator gets a turn, walks up, and slugs the squire in the face for a kill.
  My thieves go.  Male tosses a rock through the C. Evade for a kill on the enemy thief.  Female Charms the chemist.  Yeah, I've got this won.  Chemist uses Fire on himself for 22 rather than shoot the squire.  Squire hit's someone in the back with his axe for 84, Damage Split.  I'm saving squire for last so knight has no one to hit.  So she Equip Changes into Diamond Armor and Diamond Shield for lack of anything to do.  Summoner's main job is done and she's just tossing heals, Steal Heart, or staff whacks depending on my whims at the moment.  Recharm the chemist who Fires himself for another 22.  This time, I have enough units close enough to beat the remaining HP out of him before he gets another turn.  Lone squire just can't make any meaningful headway against evasion and Damage Split and a summoner ready with Moogle and is just target practice.

  It's a bit easier to hunt for the Air Knife poach as Ahrimans show up more commonly at Grog Hill.  I feel it would be easier with Ice Brands and a Blaze Gun on Mustadio so opt to put off the question for later.  Do my usual shuffling of jobs before Yardow.  There's a Gemini ninja in the next fight so I make Meteor Storm into one of the summoners.  She also gets a Green Beret.  Cross Blaze is on summoner duty too and teach him Golem.  Summoners and calculator get White Robes.  Knight would have one but I was stingy and has to make do with armor.  Aegis shields for summoners, Diamond shields for everyone else.  Yes I am using Equip Shield again, expecting ninjas to get a few attacks off.

Yardow - 0 resets

  This was a pleasant surprise.  Knights and thieves are really ill-suited to facing the opposition here with ninjas that can throw things from positions melee characters can't reach to the ever-present risk of getting outsped.  Thieves have Steal Heart but it's a coinflip if it will work and/or slow down the enemy enough.  And the summoners will have their picks of victims for a couple of turns since they go after most other units I could field.  I am pretty much depending on the summoners to swing things in my favor.
  Catch would be relevant here and I even have someone who got it for free.  But it's a tough sell since it does nothing against summons which I do expect to face a few of and I have access to full team Damage Split.  So I stick to Damage Split.  Fight opens with Gemini ninja throwing Magic Shuriken at Rafa for 49 and another ninja climbing on the wall and tossing something at one of my summoners, blocked by shield.  Malak advances and starts up a Dia Sword Back in Rafa's direction.  Thief Dark Matter can do nothing better than toss rock at ninja for 11.  Knight Tiro Finale' whacks Malak for 100.  Female Summoner plants a Ramuh on two ninjas and Malak.  Enemy summoners advance with a pair of Shivas.  Male summoner shuffles away from the clump and puts up Golem.
  Dia Sword Back resolves, one hit on Rafa for 30-ish.  My Ramuh goes off, sending Malak and the Gemini ninja into critical.  Malak leaves.  Shivas go off, one hitting only the knight for 50, the other able to reach summoner and knight.  Damage Splits keep the net damage under 100 to knight and about 25 to summoner.  Calculator has nothing better to do than Potion the summoner.
  Ninja attacks knight with physical, double guarded.  Ninja on wall throws something at male summoner, blocked by that 10% shield evade again.  Critical health ninja Potions self and retreats.  My turn.  Dark Matter can once again do nothing better than throw a rock at a ninja, misses due to C. Ev.  Knight swings at ninja in front of her, miss again.  7 speed summoner has a Ramuh for the Gemini ninja and a summoner.  Ninja dies; summoner only takes about 50-60 thanks to White Robe.  Enemy summoners blast 3-4 units at a time with Shivas.  Male summoner can't really do much other than Moogle Rafa and any nearby allies.
  I'll mention how much of a letdown it is when 3-4 units are getting hit and only 1 Damage Split goes off.  At least there were no deaths on my squad.  Enemy Summoners are running low on HP though with Wizard Mantle one in critical at 19.  Though I do have incredible evasion luck to compensate.  Another swing at the knight, another double guarded.  Other ninja throws something at calculator, eat shield.  With the doorway no longer clogged by enemies.  Dark Matter can get inside.  He can't guarantee a kill on any summoners so instead, Charms the 19 HP one as he has better compat with her.  Spike Shoes ninja gets another turn and hops the wall and goes for a physical from behind the calculator.  Finally, a 100% hit chance, no way to dodge... denied by Golem instead.  Suck it.  Look at the AT list and have the knight whack that ninja.  My female summoner opts to Charm the other ninja instead of heal.  Risky but it pays off.  He goes and kills the uncharmed summoner.  Charmed summoner goes for Cure on self.  And while I was tempted to make use of it, I opt to have Dark Matter punch her out with a 133 midcharge.  (from a thief, mind you).  Calculator finished off the ninja who attacked her.

  Calculator kill count; 3  What sorcery is this?

  All that's left is a charmed ninja at 54 HP.  I was aiming to chase him down with multiple units to gangbang him without letting him get a turn uncharmed but Rafa takes him out first with a miracle 5 panel Heaven Thunder.  Sure, I'll take that.

  My evasion luck was perfect this map.  Don't think I've seen that ever until now.  Well, not outside speedy assassinations where there's only one attack made against one of my units.

  Black Robes are for sale, a welcome upgrade for summoners to get more oomph out of Ramuhs and better HP than Wizard Robes.  Gold Hairpins may be relevant on Velius so I grab two.  Platinum Swords at Lesalia are a welcome sight for knights whose damage have been mostly stagnant.  I also pick up a Circlet and elect for a 5th Diamond shield.  There's nothing I need in Dorter so I can just return to Yardow.  Thinking it over, I do splurge on a Bracer just in case I find myself wanting a male punch thief. (punch damage goes from 77 to 126 with 70 Brave)  Decide to go with Chemist Rafa since I already have the gun so buy a third Power Sleeve for her.  Last thing is to replenish the Potions my calculators have been using and to have enough for 4 fights. High level is 27 going into Yuguo.

Yuguo Woods - 0 resets

  Felt easy enough to forgo Equip Shield for Secret Hunt and Gained JP up.  I'm running two thieves this fight.  White Robes on knight, summoner, and calculator.  Rafa shoots a ghost.  Undead Time Mages go for a Demi on Dark Matter the knight and a Haste 2 ghosts.  My thieves each go after a time mage to stab/punch as Steal Heart doesn't work on them.  This recklessness does put them in Wizard range and there a Fire 2 and Bolt 3 incoming.  Ghosts Throw Spirit at thieves, Damage Split.  While I generally don't like walking into spells, I have the knight walk into the incoming Bolt 3 to down the Demi casting time mage.  Summoner is able to line up a Leviathan to hit all three ghosts and a wizard.  Haste 2 hits a ghost but it's still not going to be fast enough to escape Leviathan.  Black magic goes off.  Fire 2 dodged by Elf Mantle.  Bolt 3 gets Damage Split.

Recall that I said Move-Find is banned unless Chemist is selected and active?  That restriction doesn't apply to guests.  Rafa started with Move-Find and uncovers a Mythril Spear.  An amusing surprise.  Rafa shoots time mage.  Time mage goes to bonk the male thief, Damage Split.  He punches her dead.  Other thief Secret Hunts the ghost that Rafa shot earlier.  Calculator finally gets a turn a feed a Potion to the knight.  Leviathan finally goes off for a triple kill on other ghosts and one wizard.  With only a lone Wizard left, easy mop up.  He gets one last Fire 2 but doesn't live long enough for another.

No I did not stick Item on everyone and oneshot everything with Phoenix Downs.  That would be boring and I feel it would go against the spirit of a fiesta run.  Also i completely forgot that was a thing and this map is easy enough to win without them.

[Cmdr_King]

Ace Attorney Investigations 2- f i n a l l y beat this.

I don't know why I had quite so many gaps as I really did playing this, because it's good.  It's better than I remember the first being.  It is very frustrating seeing how they portray some characters early on relative to where they end up (Gavelle's antagonism most strongly) but I think that's honestly common throughout the series.  It's just that AAI2 keeps a very stable cast so it stands out more.

In the end I'm not sure what to make of Kay.  I suppose it's not uncommon for assistant characters to feel a bit undercooked in the series, but for Kay I don't quite get a sense of what her skillset is going to grow into if that makes sense?  Her story doesn't end on as strong a note as Maya's.

But obviously this is an exercise in spending time with Miles and within that it's very good.  The first game is mostly about thrusting him in a scenario where he's out of his depth, but this game feels much, much stronger thematically because they started from the premise of what they wanted to do with Edgeworth (challenge his decision to stay on the path his adoptive father put him on) and built the rest of the story around that.
This does have some drawbacks in the overall game because it kinda means every other case is gonna suffer compared to 3, because that extended flashback is, somewhat by design, going to drown out anything the game does on its own merits.  That's just the price you pay for having that choice in the game structure.  But that's not to take away from some of the absolute highs later on, which still have a lot to do with Edgeworth.  I think this game more than any other set aside time for him and Franziska to just be siblings, the teasing, snarky cooperation they engage in is so emblematic of their relationship as brother and sister, and I love it.  And as I had to comment in chat, the bit where he has to defeat Eustace's self doubt using logic?  Perfect, no notes.

But yeah this is some good stuff, it's annoying I made so little time for it and spent so long on it, it deserved better.  But glad to have it knocked out.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFT Fiesta: knight, thief, summoner, calculator, Mustadio

  Before heading into Riovanes, I finish teaching Move +2 to the entire party which will be the only movement ability I use for the rest of the game.  Not that there's a whole lot of options anyways since of the 4 generic classes on the docket, only two have movement abilities to speak of.  And given how slow calculator gains JP, I don't expect Move -JP up to pay back what it costs to buy it.

Riovanes gate - 0 resets

  I expect to have arrows raining down on me so I scramble to hide behind Diamond Shields with the help of Equip Shield.  Combined with the nighttime accuracy penalty on bows, the archers are going to struggle to land their shots on my party.  For an added buffer, I have enough spare Summoner JP on the knight to teach Golem and set summon as the secondary.  Knights mostly suck with magic but Golem is one of the few summons their scrubby MA can still handle.  Other preparation include having at least one member of each gender able to Steal Heart and making sure the team has access to Steal Helmet and Steal Armor.  Thief is running Main Gauche with Weapon Guard to go with her shield and mantle.  I decide to run two summoners.  Summoner Dark Matter goes with the knight, leaving the thief, calculator, and other summoner on team 2.  Keep Rafa in chemist.
  I want a 2nd Crystal Helmet in the off chance I find myself reaching for Equip Armor.  I also want the Earth Clothes on the high level archer as I have a plan for it at Velius.  General plan is to murder or charm anyone I don't need and charm the targets before attempting to rob them.  Battle starts with Rafa shooting Malak and Malak advancing doing nothing.  Check enemy skillsets; the Feather Boots knight has Elemental.  Having someone get frogged by Water Ball would be very bad given I have no means of curing it so fingers crossed.  Thief moves towards team 1.  Enemy generics go.  I expect them to go after Rafa and one does but the other two have bad and worst compat with her and they decide they'd rather go after my party.  Hilarious when an archer decides she really wants to take that 10% from the front shot at the thief.  Knights just advance; Elemental knight has no valid targets yet.
  I choose to risk the knight on team 1's side to rush the archers to introduce them to Ramuh.  Knight casts Golem as a safety net.  I do have shields though and between the knight's one cast of Golem and my evasion, I'm counting on those to prevent deaths to my party.  Summoner on team 2 Ramuhs the Feather Boots knight even though he's the only target in the effect area because that Elemental scares me.  Archer Charges go off, connecting on Rafa and guarded by my party and I groan.  Damn, cast Golem too early and now I worry it's going to get worn down by enemies picking on Rafa.  Who does not have evasion.  Ramuh goes off sending one archer to critical.  12 MA, Black Robe Ramuh is pretty good after all.  Malak gives a Potion to the critical HP archer and it's enough to take her out of it.  Thief lands a Steal Heart on the knight on team 1's side.  Rafa shoots the guy I just charmed.  Dammit Rafa, stop being a dumbass.  Calculator finally gets first turn but has nothing to do with it so just move closer to the team while not getting close to too many knights.
  Knight takes swing at Dark Matter, blocked by shield.  Elemental knight seemingly does not have Water Ball instead going for a Quicksand on the female summoner.  Death Sentence I think I could recover from though still glad it didn't proc.  Archers take shots at thief and calc, all blocked.  One is close enough for my knight to reach and murder.  I decide that rather than blow 24 MP on a single target, Dark Matter is better off going for a 93% Charm on the Earth Clothes archer.  Another Ramuh for Elemental knight over there and he's low enough for Rafa to finish off.  Malak poke denied by shield.  Thief charms knight.  Thankfully, Rafa doesn't repeat her previous stupidity and goes shoot the near dead knight taking him to full dead.  Charmed archer shoots Malak, which combined with earlier damage, is enough to get him to retreat.  And Rafa too, which is probably to my advantage.
  5 on 4 now with my team healthy and the Golem safety net still up.  Still takes a while as enemies resist clumping up for Ramuh, not helped by knight landing Magic Break on one summoner.  AI being pre-emptive with the MP damage again, what is this?  Had concerns that my other summoner was in danger of getting MP busted but the knight never tried Magic Break again.  Having my knight trying to bash the worst compat archer was also a misplay on my part; would have done better to have her take down a second knight.  Relying on a mix of Charmed enemies attacking their allies and physicals to wear down the remaining foes.  Eventually get a second knight to critical, who takes himself out chucking rocks into the calculator's back and getting Damage Split.  Gemini archer goes down too being fixated on my Aquarius thief and never landing any of those 10% and 17% shots.  Earth Clothes archer does get low after a hit from a charmed knight.  I do steal the armor on the next attempt though so I don't need to worry about manipulating enemies to keep a theft target alive.  With all the charming my thief and summoners are doing, there aren't many attacks coming my way though the few physicals they do slip in are all blocked by evasion.  Knights only have a 22% chance of hitting the thief with physicals from the front so thief is the body blocker of choice when it comes up.
  Which just leaves stealing that helmet, which is the only reason I haven't murdered the last knight so far.  It takes several rounds between Charming him, him being in positions where I have to try to get past evasion, my knight constantly failing to land 62% Shield Break from the back (which would make the theft simpler), and picking up crystals and chests from the other enemies.  And when I do land that steal, there's still the matter of finishing him off.  My summoners don't have the MP to spare for Ramuh (the Magic Broken on being reduced to 2) so physicals it is.  His evasion ends up being on a roll much like my party's.
  Yeah, my party's evasion was on a hot streakl.  Think I had over 20 physicals to fend off throughout  and only ONE managed to break through to be stopped by Golem.  This includes multiple 66% hits from knights and an arrow to the thief's back which the Elf Mantle stopped.  It takes around 3-4 rounds for my party to land enough hits on the knight (56% from side and 85% from behind) to finish the fight.  Shield Break would have greatly helped but the lady knight had gone back to missing over and over.

Velius - 0 resets

  This was surprising as I was prepared for a few fails during the Ramza/Wiegraf duel.  Velius worried me when I was first starting due to no MagicDefend Up to hide behind and he is capable of oneshotting 3 out of my 5 party members with Cyclops.  But I do have 3 party members with enough hoarded Summoner JP to attempt a Lich assassination strategy so that's what I bank on.  First, got to get Ramza through his duel.  I opt for a happy fun times with the Blood Sword approach.  Set him in knight as follows:

Blood Sword                 Battle Skill
Diamond Shield            Summon Magic
Crystal Helmet             Damage Split
Chameleon Robe          Equip Change
Red Shoes                    Move +2

  I'm relying on landing a Power Break early; if I can't I probably lose.  With Move +2, Ramza is able to reliably reach Wiegraf's back for a 59% chance.  I expect a few losses though on my first attempt at the fight, the second Power Break lands. which is enough.  Sure, a Counter will reduce my net gain from a Blood Sword hit down to 2 but it has to trigger and connect through the evade.  Between Damage Split and Blood Sword whacks that don't get undone by Counters, I'm able to keep Ramza's HP in good enough shape to not get around to a second Power Break attempt before the battle moves on to phase 2.

  The rest of the squad has specific roles to play.  I have two units with good compat with Velius.  Since Cross Blaze doesn't have enough JP for Lich while Tiro Finale' does, he plays the role of bait.  He's the calculator with Earth Clothes and a Holy Miter.  Earth Clothes are there to stuff Titan so Velius will be forced to use something else, ideally Cyclops.  Tiro Finale' is a Knight with summon secondary for the extra bulk since Lich is another summon that low MA units can use just fine.  Being on the same Zodiac triangle as Velius, her Lich is 100% accuracy even without any MA boosting.
  Michelle the starter generic is the summoner.  Gets a Green Beret so that she can get Lich off before Velius gets a second turn.  Which leave the Sagitarius to be the thief.  Her job is running interference on demons with Steal Heart since her offense on Velius would be neutered.

  Ramza gets the first turn.  And since the last action in the first phase was a Damage Split attack from Wiegraf, Ramza gets an immediate turn with everyone else's CT at 0.  I have him run up and drop an instant Lich on 4.  Connects on all 4 doing 481 to Velius.  Velius' turn.  I hold my breath and just as I'd hoped, he takes the bait and goes for a Cyclops on the calculator.  He's clever enough to hide behind a torch to stuff a "surround and beat during charging" strat though if things work out, it's not going to matter.  Thief marches up and Charms the 6 Speed demon as that's all she can reach.  Ramza gets another turn here and with the demons out of kill range, shrugs and swings for a parasitic 104 on Velius.  Demons go for a Dark Holy and a Lifebreak on the thief.  Knight and summoner take up positions with Lich on Velius.
  Lifebreak goes off, Damage Split.  Charmed demon GigaFlares the other two so no Dark Holy.  Cyclops overkills the calculator for nearly 350.  I'm relieved as that would be enough for a kill on Tiro Finale' the knight but instead he went for who I wanted him to.  Liches go off.  I merely needed 2 out of 3 for a win; the first two do the trick.  Lich for 496 and sheep monster is gone. (496 because he leveled up on killing the calculator, which meant his HP max is higher)

Riovanes Roof - 4 resets

  There goes my streak.  First map with resets all chapter.  I do have a specific plan for this map though Rafa being suicidal can still send that plan to hell.  Only 4 units.  And one has to be a calculator so functionally a 3 person deployment.  Can still make this work.  The plan.

Tiro Finale' is the calculator.  As one of the units with good compat with Celia, her role is to be the bait.  Gets a Holy Miter and no armor.  Celia will see that she can bring her to critical with Ultima and be drawn to Ultima the calc.  And because she'll survive the first Ultima by 3 HP, Lede will be drawn to Ultima her as well.
Cross Blaze is the thief.  His role is to steal the Cachusha off Celia.
Dark Matter is the knight.  His role is whacking Celia while Ultima is charging for 156.  Gets a Chameleon Robe to deter instakill.  That Bracer looks tempting but I'm holding off unless the extra power is necessary.
Starter generic is the summoner.  Wizard Staff, Holy Miter, Black Robe, Red Shoes.  12 MA with lightning boost.   Her role is to cast Ramuh on Celia.  And anyone else that's close enough to the blast zone.

Catastrophe follows.

1. Rafa gets confused.  Nukes herself with Diamond Sword before the enemies get to her.
2. Rafa gets confused.  Celia goes for Ultima on the bait.  Lede murders Rafa.
3. Rafa runs away with a Diamond Sword on Elmdor.  Both assassins go for Ultima on the bait.  At last, I get to move.  Due to a positioning error, thief can't reach Celia but can reach Lede.  Barrette is probably the more useful hairpiece anyways so attempt a steal at 52%.  Miss.  Might have taken this attempt if it worked but it failed so I reset after confirming that sword whack and Ramuh do indeed do enough to send an assassin into critical.
4. Rafa goes after Lede.  Celia goes for Ultima on the bait.  Lede murders Rafa.

OK, I need Rafa to retreat on her first turn.  Fight still looks winnable.  I'm not counting the reset I forgot to teach the thief Steal Accessory.  Next try, things work out.  Rafa retreats with a Diamond Sword in Elmdor's direction.  Both assassins go for Ultimas on the bait.  Thief is in range to steal from Celia.  Land the 65% steal, physical from knight, Ramuh, done.  Didn't need the Damage Split off Celia's Ultima but welcomed anyways.

Chapter end statistics nonsense:

HiLevel: 29
Job levels
Mastered Knight on all but one who is somehow about 150 JP short.
7-8 in Thief on everyone
5-6 in summoner
3-4 in calculator  No one has enough calc JP after Damage Split to get any Math Skills going.

Skill report
Kinght: Weapon Break is super useful in two fights but otherwise didn't feel worth a turn to try for.  Head Break sees use for the first time.  Power Break sees use; shame that it missed every time.  Weapon Guard sees serious use this chapter with one of the few standout W. EV options becoming available.  Equip Shield showed itself as a breakout star of this chapter, something I did not anticipate when starting this.  It's particularly good at nighttime fights against archers and it proved invaluable in those fight heavy on evadable physicals.  Equip Armor gets put back in the closet.
Thief: Steal Heart continues to be useful in disrupting the enemy rhythm and getting them to help out with killing given how shaky my party's damage dealing is.  The other equipment stealing abilities see use to snag some handy things earlier than they show in stores. (and early Earth Clothes was key to a smooth Velius fight)  Steal Weapon goes unused this chapter.  Everyone has Move +2 now.
Summoner: Moogle and Ramuh continue to do their thing.  Titan is relevant when White Robes are about even if I never got around to using it.  Golem, Lich, and Leviathan all make appearances though no one can spare the JP for all three so hoarded and had to pick and choose which would be most valuable.
Calculator: Damage Split on all and it is awesome.  Softening enemies up before I've gotten around to spending actions to deal with them is a useful benefit when my non-summoner damage mostly sucks.  Haven't learned anything else yet.

  I've never bothered with knights with summon before until now.  Turns out they're totally fine with Golem and Lich and Golem from their HP is a safety net that gives my party space to turn the tide of a battle.  Generally get only one cast of either but it's OK when one cast is all I need.  And if I'm desperate for another summon caster, (which did come up a couple of times) they have decent options for salvaging their MA.  I never did try Diamond Armlet (preferred) or Magic Gauntlet but that would require giving up 6 Move and I never got desperate enough to resort to those.
  Thief got, well good may be giving them too much credit but they did obtain a respectable evade setup in this chapter.  Damage sucks so they do depend on allies and Steal Heart for offense.  But the ability to straight up deny most physicals sometimes feels worth the lower offense and losing Damage Split.  The PA boosting gear also open up the option of punch thief for males which is a noticeable boost to their attacks.  So they have more to contribute than Steal Heart and Move +2.
  Summoners' speed deficit didn't cause me as many problems as I feared.  Throwing summons at key groups of enemies does solve lots of problems in this chapter.  It's those fights that aren't essentially won in a barrage of summons where I actually have to work for my wins.
  Calculators suck. They contribute Damage Split and are prime bait for assassinations and very little else.  Pretty much require a Green Beret if I want calculator JP which puts them at a bigger HP deficit.  Though it is still pleasing when the calc gets a kill or a meaningful assist.

Chapter 4 begins and Mustadio officially joins the fiesta squad.  In story fights, he must stay in Engineer but can use secondaries from fiesta jobs or Item.  Along with the standard RSM, specials may also use support abilities from any fiesta job.  I considered allowing Hi-Potions, Maiden's Kiss, and Soft in Chapter 4 and maybe I'll suggest it as an optional rule but I'm sticking to the original plan.

  Before running off anywhere, pick up two Icebrands (the 2nd if I feel inclined to try Equip Sword thief; so far that hasn't happened) and two Platina Shields for now.  I can also spare funds for two Carabini Mail so do so to have an Equip Armor option, never mind that I never used it last chapter.  Only other item on my shopping list is some extra sets of Earth Clothes   And a Papyrus Plate surprisingly.  I did math and found that if a calculator is wearing a Green Beret (and there's little reason to use anything else if I want them to participate in combat), the male generic with a Power Sleeve does more with the book than the stick.  Not as much as Wizard Robe but I'd rather not take the HP hit when calculator HP is already so low.  Fought a random in Zeklaus which is significant because I poached a Dragon and game decides to award the rare poach.  Early H Bag, score.  Very tempting for a female calculator.

  The randoms on the way to Goug and back to Goland give Mustadio training time to knock out some of the prereqs for calculator.  He's already got knight and thief unlocked from some fights with the second stringers and summoner is opened up on the way so calculator is the only one he doesn't have.  I don't actually finish before challenging Colliery but progress is made.  Before talking to Beowulf, I buy a third Black Robe.

[SnowFire]

In the end I'm not sure what to make of Kay.  I suppose it's not uncommon for assistant characters to feel a bit undercooked in the series, but for Kay I don't quite get a sense of what her skillset is going to grow into if that makes sense?  Her story doesn't end on as strong a note as Maya's.

Lingering good vibes from AAI1 meant I liked Kay and think that in concept, she's one of the most interesting assistants possible!  Having a "thief" of sorts pair up with a prosecutor is an interesting match.  But...  the writers just had no idea what to do with Kay in AAI2.  Really needed to stop and give her something cool to do that wasn't just "person who operates fancy tech tech device for flashbacks."  And much as Maya was damsel'd in distress at times in the OG Ace Attorney games, at least she was still Maya (well when not channeling).  Giving Kay Hollywood amnesia for a length of time was just gratuitous.  It's not like it made much sense or much interesting happened thanks to it.  Ah well.

[Cmdr_King]

Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster- so for a while now I've been thinking "gosh, I played the worst version of FFV like 20-odd years ago and never again.  I almost feel like I didn't even play the same game as everyone else.  Maybe I should check this out."  So I did.

Anyways, so final builds!  Mages ended in Mime, and fighters in Freelancer, because I'm actually bad at video games and also wanted to do the DBZ "throws off weighted training clothes and enemies stand agape at the intimidating battle aura before them" maneuver.

Bartz (Blue, Summoner, Black, and White mastered in order)

Used !Summon, !Blue, and !White

Blue magic is weirdly streaky.  In the end you're really only here for White Wind, and that's a bit marginal, unless you got Mighty Guard of course but that's still pretty niche.  Early on the MP costs are prohibitive, but there is a stretch when you get the Air Knife where they rule.

Lenna (Monk*, Thief, Ranger, Dancer, Berserker, in order)

!RapidShot and HP+30%

*I actually nabbed Barehanded, went to thief, then finished out Monk once the AP flowed like wine

Monk is fucking *nuts* at the start of the game, I wasn't ready for it.  Then it just slowly falls further and further behind.  And honestly because of the way I planned the build, Lenna didn't fully come online again until the Kaiser Knuckles came along, which has the minor problem of making her less potent in endgame battles due to sacrificing the Hermes shoes, but it's worth it.  It's funny.  yatatatatatatatata ta!

Krile (Red, Time, Black, Mime)

!Dualcast, !Time, and !Black

You know what this build is.

So Galuf obviously struggle bused for the last couple dungeons before Krile joined, but honestly it's kinda impressive how long Red Mage avoids being truly dead weight.  There's definitely a time in mid-late World 2 they are absolutely just here as an MP battery and to chuck elemental rods if you saved some for the purpose, but it takes a *while*.  Early world 2 has some pretty handy utility weapons, and boosted -aras are actually viable for longer than they intuitively should be.  Mind, I did get enough levels of Black Mage to use the L4 spells before I could train in RM, which had some edge uses thanks to Bio.

I'm floored that she got enough accidental MP in Mime to actually master it, but I did do all the magic pots so.  I shouldn't be.

Faris (Knight, Samurai, Mystic Knight, Berserker)

!Spellblade, Two-Handed

Faris only did the one thing for most of the game.  Honestly the reason I even did samurai was so she could keep the same core concept but not waste AP.  I definitely used Zeninage a bit though so it's not the worst decision I could have made.  Honestly though the biggest problem with all of this is that accuracy is a real struggle at several points in the game, and I'm not sure there's much you can do about it with this set?  I also spent most of the time I was training MK unable to use Spellblade, because I just kept using the Masamune until I got an Enhancer.  The Initiative is pretty juicy and if you don't know a weakness then Spellblade isn't much until Flare.

But yeah, that was fun.  It's neat how much dumb bullshit is in this game waiting for you to walk face-first into it.

[SnowFire]

The Case of the Golden Idol

Finished the main story (i.e. not the side stories added later).  Was pretty fun!  Note that the game got completely remade in a new engine and was re-released a few months ago, so it looks and plays MUCH prettier than some old screenshots you might have seen from before.  (It's also added a hint system, which is appreciated although the puzzles were well-designed enough I never needed it.)

This is a very much a "Return of the Obra Dinn"-alike.  You aren't actually solving these cases in-setting.  You are just piecing together what happened based off what information you have with zero attempt to explain why you have access to this specific evidence set.  It does not matter if you "catch" the criminal, it's very likely they'll still be hanging around in the next chapters, their plans proceeding!  "You" are just the player, making these mysteries interactive rather than passive.

...but there are some advantages to this approach, too.  Sometimes there just isn't a good answer for why you have access to a specific evidence set and this game just entirely skips the part about justifying why your investigator showed up at the perfect time and strip-searched everyone and tossed everyone's room without causing a ruckus.  And it's nice to be able to confirm directly what happened as a "reward" without constantly having to recycle characters - in a normal detective setup, either you wouldn't be sure about the identity of some killers or those characters stop participating in the plot without shenanigans (i.e. they can't just show their faces openly if they escaped).  Here you get to know who did it but also get to recognize the same ol' cast of characters showing up again.

Anyway, pretty fun.  Do recommend smashing it out in a single day though - similar to Chants of Senaar, there is a "final boss" puzzle that expects you to have understood the overarching story to that point.  I didn't really have any trouble with it, but not a great fit for a long break in the middle.  Still, not bad for some Christmas Eve gamin'.