Games You're Playing Right Now III: Return Of The Protagonist

[Garlyle]

Picked up Super Mario 3D Land.

I can heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy.  Or, really, any Mario game ever - it's 3D levels, but they're more like "2D stages with depth" in a way that actually keeps it feeling much more like... well, like a successor to Mario Bros 3 or NSMB or what have you instead of the 3D-dedicated Mario games, without losing out on the awesome variety and level sense that Galaxy had.

I love it so much.

[[K]KoaMeow]

Hooraya, I got a permanent sniper in CS Online's lucky draw. Too bad I am not a sniper guy.

[trancehime]

Thanks to Roukanken's Paradise Blue LP, I've decided to do a semi-blind challenge run of it.

The restrictions are as follows:
Of four characters, only one of them (Shaniqua) is allowed to change class.
Everyone else must remain White Mages

Earlier, I ran into this:

Note: Everyone's only L11 there.

[Sality]

Sonic: Generations.
I might be a bit biased since Sonic was my favorite hero back then. But hey, the game is nice. It is frustrating sometime, but it still has one essential element that every good games must have, it is "fun".  One thing I don't like is how short the game is, I can just skip most of the challenges, beat the crap out of rivals, earn emeralds, and voila, last stage is where you are.  Even so, it's still one game I do consider as way-above-average. It's full of nostalgia, it's fun, it's beautiful, it's high-speed, it's challenging, and the most important of all, it's Sonic. 

[Yog-N'yggoth]

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Although it's a bit clunky and buggy even with the patch(es), it's a interesting concept for a RPG. Though there's the whole Magic vs Technology, my build is a swift melee character who also tries to persuade people when he's not stabbing people.

[nintendonut888]

So, I finished Persona 3 last night.

...



I wanna play The Answer, but I can't just spoil that beautiful ending. I gotta let this game sit for a month or so.

[Sality]

Corpse Party : Blood Covered ... Repeated Fear.
Thanks to my generous friend, now I have a temporary PSP.  The first game he'd recommend me is this game since he knew I love Silent Hill.

At first, it looked like a generic RPG (which is not really my cup of tea), but with horror as seasoning (now I like it). The more I play it, the more I like this game's story. 
* Character is the primary good point of this game; I find every character leaves an impression within myself, whether it's sweet or bitter one.
* Story is good so far, I always dig a creepy school as setting. The premise also remind me about Silent Hill, much.
* Scary factor here is not cheap. It is playing with your inner fear, like Silent Hill.

Still in chapter 4 here. If only I am not in my finals ....

[Garlyle]

Okay so I finished Super Mario 3D Land.

This game totally makes owning a 3DS worth it.  The level design is fantastically fun and feels somewhat reminiscient of Galaxy, and visually it's excellent and I have to hand it to it, the game actually uses the 3D in its level design to great effect sometimes.  There are actually segments of the game where the game actually alerts you to use the 3D, and trick rooms where it'll be extremely hard to make certain jumps or correctly figure out where things are without the 3D.

The levels feel a little short, and I was sitting there at the end credits going "you know this was a little on the short side".
And then

Spoiler:

This game's special world aftergame?  Is literally a whole new set of worlds with brand new levels.  Literally, the final boss is... actually only the halfway point!

So, uh, heck yeah.

[Formless God]

Corpse Party : Blood Covered ... Repeated Fear.

dem bad ends man

[Reddyne]

Partied it up with a couple friends in Broderlands [sic] yesterday. We'll have a four next time we play, too. It was SO MUCH FUN and far superior to going it solo. The time passed even faster than some of the quests, too. I'm playing as a Siren, which is a bit awkward because I don't know how to best exploit the Phasewalk skill just yet. I started using it as a flanking maneuver, but apparently there's a lot of other things that are effective with it. Based on the skill tree, I'll be doing a bit of experimenting but would really like to see if the Daze skills are worth it. It already saved our bacon once...

I really hope the sequel keeps the original's sense of humor and focus on ridiculous weaponry just as much as it fills in the gaps of its lack of depth and enemy variety.

[Anima Zero]

FFVII Hardtype - Been playing this over the past week or so.  Enemies are more nasty obviously, but also, most equips are modified.  Some E.Skills got the nerf stick as well (Beta and Magic Hammer are the two big ones).  Most importantly though, your stats have been nerfed quite a bit.  At where I'm stationed in the game,  my max HP levels for my current team...

Cloud (lv31) - 634
Vincent (lv30) - 706
Yuffie (lv27) - 440

...Fun D:.  Still, Midgar isn't too bad.  The stealable items and some boss drops have changed for Midgar as well.

Just wait until you get onto the ship to Costa del Sol though.  The challenge starts climbing pretty fast.  Mt.Nibel can and may very well kick your ass, ESPECIALLY the goddamn pain in the ass Materia Keeper.  Considering ALL bosses cannot be poisoned now (to my knowledge), that means I have to suffer through Cure2/Trine combo.

...Did I mention pretty much every spell has had their MP cost rebalanced?  Since your own team's MP isn't as high as in vanilla (Probably 100-150 MP max by Disc 1's end I'd reckon), this was needed.

What that means for Materia Keeper is it can spam the Cure2/Trine combo far more often than usual.  Oh yeah, Cure2 heals it for roughly 1000+ HP.  You have to work your rear end off when this phase starts to kill it before running out of resources.

Cleared the Temple of the Ancients a couple days ago.  Demon's Gate....yeah I almost shot myself in the foot at one point.  Don't ask how I managed to drop the last 2100 or so HP the boss had left with only Cloud alive and the fact a double rock drop or crit rock drop without Barrier + Sadness up could be Game Over from full HP.

Will finish Disc 1 today and get started on Disc 2.

Seraphic Blue - So an update came out for this game within the last week.  This game was originally in Japanese, but is now currently in the process of being translated.  The newest version's translation goes up to the start of Episode 18.

Having started this game last night, I must say I'm impressed.  Fun battle system, interesting story (Prologue before you get into any battles takes a bit of time to get through), equipment/upgrade system will be fun to tinker with when more options become available.

The difficulty...let me just put it this way.  I've only cleared the 2nd dungeon.

...I've gotten 3 Game Overs.  That is no lie.  The difficulty of this game early on is nasty. 

Rafflesias...1600 HP for an enemy in the 2nd dungeon where the rest of the rabble is running around 250-350 HP is insane.  I basically have to dish out at least 4 fire elemental spells to kill it.

The attack options it has?  Normal strike that does like 80-90 HP and Swallow that does half your current HP in damage.

Did I mention both of the above attacks can induce Poison and said status does 20% of your max HP in damage every turn you get?  Christ.

At max HP and Swallow just happened to induce Poison?  GJ you have just lost around 70% of your HP.

I hate Rafflesias D:.

[theshirn]

Partied it up with a couple friends in Broderlands [sic] yesterday. We'll have a four next time we play, too. It was SO MUCH FUN and far superior to going it solo. The time passed even faster than some of the quests, too. I'm playing as a Siren, which is a bit awkward because I don't know how to best exploit the Phasewalk skill just yet. I started using it as a flanking maneuver, but apparently there's a lot of other things that are effective with it. Based on the skill tree, I'll be doing a bit of experimenting but would really like to see if the Daze skills are worth it. It already saved our bacon once...

what let me in

Phasewalk is good for utility but not terribly good for damage.  Lilith's best skill to max out ASAP is probably Mind Games (the daze per bullet); you daze the crap out of everything in the goddamn game and it is awesome.  Daze is unbelievably good.

[master105]

I've been playing the Oddworld series as of late. All ready beaten Abe's Odyssey and am currently going thru Abe's Exoddus.

..... thank god I have a lot of patience

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

I'm closer to throwing a controller in anger than I've ever been in my over 10 years of gaming. (To put this in perspective, I'm a normally placid gamer who is used to games playing epically unfairly.)

Frisbees that hang far right when I barely flick the remote and angled toward the left.

Enemies that counterattack at speeds beyond human cognition, at angles that I'm defending, yet still hit anyway.

Absolutely arbitrary bullshit which completely undoes what could have been a decent run.

Not even not knowing how to actually fight Ghirahim got me anywhere near this level of anger.

And to think, I wondered why I had shelved Wii Sports Resort.


...In less rage-inducing news, two words: "Capitalism, ho!" In addition, I took Sumaga out of my pile, eager to make a dent in my uncompleted games list. I just finished falling out of the sky, hopefully for the last time.

[lumber_of_the_beast]

If I have to fight the Imprisoned one more fucking time, I'm dropping this game.

[Kumori]

Finished Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call. A replay of Lost Future is in order. (I've spent over 40 hours on the Layton games, you know... I have no life.)

[Anima Zero]

Seraphic Blue - Currently in Ep15 and going through some long ass mountain (Split into two halves, East Side and West Side).  Enemies still prove to be quite beastly (Yeah hi I'm a physical dude and I'm gonna smack your 1300-ish max HP mage for 900 damage kthxbye).

Still...I did NOT like the goddamn Chaos of Envy segment I did this morning.  Good god that was a nightmare.  Lake solo against enemies that can knock off half of his 1720-ish max HP before he can even get the first turn is hell...especially when I have to go through a 5 battle gauntlet with no chance to heal in between any of them...and the final 2 fights are against 3 of the crazy ass enemies (First 3 fights have 2 each in them).  I got 2 game overs to that battle gauntlet alone.

The other one?  The boss I had to fight BEFORE that goddamn gauntlet.  I kinda got caught off guard by the boss charging up, followed by me thinking my 1200 hp atm would be good enough, then getting hit in the face for 1700 damage and dying.

As for the current dungeon I'm in...probably gonna fight a boss before I get out of it.  With my track record at predicting some events in this game so far, it would not surprise me at all if I have to fight two bosses in a single battle...or two bosses back to back with no chance to heal in between.

[nintendonut888]

Okay, so I've been grinding away at The Answer in Persona 3 FES, up to level 65. It's honestly kind of surreal; it has Atlus' trademark cruel battles, yet at the same time it takes the pain out of grinding by giving me regular opportunities to gain over 2000 experience per fight. @_@ I must say, Atlus knows how to create fun boss fights in RPGs.

Well, by fun I mean FUN.

[Phlegeth]

I got The World Ends With You, Golden Sun: Dark Age, and Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness.  I don't know which one to focus on.  I'm leaning towards Island of Happiness.  Harvest Moon has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.  But I put of TWEWY for so long. 

[lumber_of_the_beast]

Dark Dawn, not Dark Age.

I found it rather disappointing.

[theshirn]

Dark Dawn, not Dark Age.

I found it rather disappointing.

There were two problems with Dark Dawn.  First, that it was far too easy, and second that it added almost nothing from GS2 in terms of gameplay, which made it kind of repetitive and samey.  I can't say it was a bad game, but disappointing is about right.

TWEWY is still probably my favorite DS game and one of the best the system has IMO.  Plaaaay iiiit.

[Garlyle]

TWEWY is still probably my favorite DS game and one of the best the system has IMO.  Plaaaay iiiit.

This.  TWEWY is still easily one of the best DS games ever.

[Phlegeth]

Kay I started it.  Finished the second day.  I have no clue what I'm doing :V.  And I don't like the main character so far.  Music's awesome though.

[theshirn]

Kay I started it.  Finished the second day.  I have no clue what I'm doing :V.  And I don't like the main character so far.  Music's awesome though.

No worries.  The combat is the hardest thing to get used to (hint: mash one direction with the top screen, occasionally check where the enemies are, until you get used to it).  And Neku's a complete ass at the beginning, but he gets better.  Ways better.

[ふねん1]

Metroid Prime again, this time on Hypermode difficulty. Just got past Thardus. Seriously, getting out of the Space Pirate lab just before that felt harder (health-wise) than this guy did. Though I'm not exactly looking forward to

Spoiler:

Omega Pirate

later.

[Anima Zero]

Metroid Prime again, this time on Hypermode difficulty. Just got past Thardus. Seriously, getting out of the Space Pirate lab just before that felt harder (health-wise) than this guy did. Though I'm not exactly looking forward to

Spoiler:

Omega Pirate

later.

Yeah.  Flaahgra can actually take you down quickly if you don't act fast as some of its attacks come out incredibly quick and can be painful to dodge.  Thardus?  Eh, there's two attacks it does that are of any real major threat, yet are easy to counter once you know how each attack starts up.

The boss in your spoiler?  Easily the hardest fight in the entire game without question on Hypermode.  The first visit to the

Spoiler:

Phazon Mines

can be quite nasty too.

This also reminds me I have to get through MP3 on Hypermode.  Lovely.

Anyways..

Seraphic Blue - Made it to where the current translation ends, the start of Ep18.  Ep17...was boring at first at it's basically Vene's team backtracking to a previous town to go somewhere.

Of course, when I reached the destination...storyline exposition and I have a boss fight.  It's a really nice opener when its first move does like 3400 damage to Nixon...and his max HP hasn't quite broken 2000 yet  :V.

On the downside?  The boss is weak to light element attacks.  Nixon has an attack that's light elemental and based on his physical attack power.  He also has a skill that halves his Mentality, but doubles physical attack power.  It can be stacked with Force for even more attack.

The result?  Nixon + Rosario Snipe + those two attack buffs = 6500-7000 damage to the boss each time.  With everyone else on healing/support duty, it didn't take long for Nixon to drop the boss and its 39000 HP.

Afterwards, basically more story exposition.

I now get to sadface until the translation gets updated  :ohdear:.

[Sality]

dem bad ends man

Dem straight. Have you finish it though ? There are a lot of bad ends which caught my interest, for example :

Spoiler:

That one when Ayumi acted like a bitch and kill Naomi. Yoshiki and Satoshi died due to darkening. Yuuya killed Yuka. This end is so sick mainly because it explained what happened to the whole casts if you screwed up or hesitating with your decision. 

I am not really a big fan of wrong ends, but that accursed game just love to redirect me to one of them :V
--

Great story and awesome twists here and there, I REGRET NOTHING. I would love to play Corpse Party : Book of Shadows in the near future, only if I could understand japanese .... asdxcvwq##n%cv.

[ふねん1]

So I just finished Metroid Prime on Hypermode. It's too late for me to continue playing anything, but I've "unofficially" begun playing MP2 on Hypermode to follow that up. *shudders at thought of facing Boost Guardian* :ohdear:

The boss in your spoiler?  Easily the hardest fight in the entire game without question on Hypermode.  The first visit to the

Spoiler:

Phazon Mines

can be quite nasty too.

For me, boss fights are the only things that are ever remotely challenging in MP1. Your first comment seemed that way for a bit, then I realized I could Power Bomb the legs for easy pickings. I actually had more trouble with

Spoiler:

Metroid Prime's first form

in the run I just finished. I barely survived it the first time, but I messed up while attacking the Metroids during

Spoiler:

the second form

and had to redo the whole fight. And it somehow took me several more tries before I got past

Spoiler:

the first form

again. Fortunately I didn't screw up the rest of that run.

It's been a long time since a non-bullet hell game has challenged me this much. I have to wonder how far I can take this.

[Formless God]

Well, by fun I mean FUN.

Harem Dancer fight is way too much dicks
You should totally try fighting the final boss at Lv.5x-6x. Makes the victory a lot more satisfying.

post

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF should've put the Ch. number in spoilers
I got to Ch. 5 just now. My favorite so far would be <Ch.2, 3, 4>

Spoiler:

the Victim's Memoir cannibal end

,

Spoiler:

the eyestabban end

and

Spoiler:

the pool end

. That's some traumatizing shit right there.

>Great story and awesome twists
The part where

Spoiler:

it reveals the culprit

. Totally did not see that coming.
At first glance the story is just another haunted school type. Hell, it isn't terribly new and original, but the storytelling managed to be extremely convincing and interesting. Take a common setting and make something special out of it, heh, I like that.
The screams are some of the most authentic I've heard in any vidya gaem. Somewhere in Japan there are two voice actors wearing eyepatches.

[Angelfire]

Still trying to clear The Butcher Birds on Ace difficulty in Heroes over Europe. I'm alternating between the Spitfire XIV and the P-51H, both of which are the Tier 4 versions of their plane. The Spitfire has godly agility and awesome guns, but the P-51 has bombs and rockets, and I can confirm that in that game, rockets solve everything.

oh god how can focke-wulfs do so much damage to me and not the bombers oh please stop for the love of god go after the bombers like you're supposed to leave me alone no sto-*shot down*

I'd use the Black Widow as it has a tailgun that will shoot for you sometimes, but it doesn't have rockets. The Blenheim has rockets, a tailgun AND torpedoes, but saying it's as agile as a whale would be an insult to whales.