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

[Formless God]

Just got FE: Path of Radiance. Fantastic stuff. The combat and interface are fluid, the cast is likeable, the conversations feel natural. This is probably be the first FE game where I actually sat down to read the texts instead of slamming Start through everything.

[Zengeku]

Back to Final Fantasy 8. And I've beat my first optional boss Odin!!

He was standing idly by doing absolutely nothing speaking about the weak shall perish and the strong shall prevail. Obviously he was talking about himself as it was a battle Squall was able to take care of on his own. Doing nothing but attacking. While Odin was doing nothing. Not a single action. What the fuck is up with this game? It. Is. Messed. Up.

It's almost like Final Fantasy XIII but with better characters and music. Oh and that's better characters because at least their writing is so stupid that they become memorable.

[theshirn]

It's almost like Final Fantasy XIII but with better characters and music. Oh and that's better characters because at least their writing is so stupid that they become memorable.

...whatever.

Just got FE: Path of Radiance. Fantastic stuff. The combat and interface are fluid, the cast is likeable, the conversations feel natural. This is probably be the first FE game where I actually sat down to read the texts instead of slamming Start through everything.

I really enjoyed PoR, but then I'm a massive FE junkie.  It certainly has the cleanest dialogue and characterization in the series (RD was something of a one-step-forwards-two-steps-back in many respects).

I have against my better judgment started a romhack of FE4.  It's...pretty cool, all things considered!  They actually made changes to the calculations, rather than just the characters' stats and things like that.  Given that Pursuit is no longer the deal breaker on making people good (Lex excluded, obviously) I'm going to have to seriously think about pairings this time.

[Sality]

Just played Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

and yeah, ugh, well, uhm, okay, it's not really all bad, but mostly bad. The game-play is just like your usual hack n slash gems with the usual feature to upgrade/earn new skills, but heck, it's not that many, and most of them ain't useful at all. Graphic is a bit turn-off.  Voice Acting, scenario, and facial expressions are ARGH, I'd rather slap the protagonists instead of the enemies. Story is okay, but I still cannot comprehend why Scorpion attacked the protagonists, it seems forced in my opinion, given Scorpion's neutral nature.

Overall, the game is simply repetitive. You might find it good/fun at first, but as the story progress, you would find yourself yawning a lot.

[Zil]

Because it was mentioned earlier I played Advance Wars for the first time in perhaps a year.

3,000+ hours of gameplay across the games and they still pull me in... I only wish I had more (competent) human opponents. Nuking Tabitanks upon Tabitanks while willfully not even using a CO in wi-fi matches was never fun.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Started up Persona again. Just restarted as I wasn't far in anyway. I'd like to actually beat this and then do Snow Queen later. Expert mode obviously as I pretty much always play the SMT games on the hardest.

What's the best party for SEBEC quest?

[Zengeku]

Gameovered to that Shockwave Pulsar attack in the final battle of FF8. Great dick move Square. I didn't even have HP enough to survive that if I had full HP.

Next battle I have raised my guys max HP to be able to survive the attack. So then I get Squall to use his limit break on the 2nd form but right before he actually does that, the boss manages to pull out a Gravija spell officially pulling my guys down to 2000 HP setting me up for a game over that I had no power to avoid. Of course, it all goes more sour because of that retarded random character selection that usually means I'll just have to wait around for the boss to get rid of the secondary characters.

Reminds me of why I don't play that much RPG... The end game of FF8 is surprisingly cool though. I don't care if it makes sense or not. It's still cool.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Well, there are a lot of good ones.

Most Final Fantasy
Most SMT
Most of the Star Oceans
Probably most of the Tales games
The main Pokemon games

and so much more.


Played Persona PSP up until finishing the part where the school is full of demons. Not sure how far that is. I made sure to get Reiji because the characters I miss from doing so are mandatory when I do the Snow Queen Quest, so I'll be able to use all the characters over the 2 playthroughs. I'll obviously be going for the good endings and just watch the bad ends on Youtube afterward. It's pretty easy for the series so far though, hopefully it gets harder.

Also, do the Mikage Ruins on SEBEC path and Devil Mountain on Snow Queen path have any optional bosses to fight? Obviously, that's not an issue until I actually beat the game on the routes to fully unlock them.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

"Oh hey, here's a Cu Cuchulain knockoff with Phys Up. Get it, MC!" *double killed due to enemy backup healer* "Okay, Shoot The Medic first!" *double killed due to said knockoff*
"****."

And the slow descent starts, especially since I'm working under the restriction "No Free Battles". I think I've got a decent strat now, but don't know how well Joe will appreciate me abandoning one flank completely.

EDIT: Oh, so all I really needed was to move that Zio. Oh well, on to the next one.

[Yog-N'yggoth]

The pain of some of the battles in Saturday in DeSu 2.

Spoiler:

Gave up trying to fight Shiva against Hinako/Jungo

Spoiler:

Io/Daichi were pretty neat with Lugh's "appearance", though it was easy.

Fumi/Keita/Makoto were a bit annoying, mostly because my MC doesn't have a movement boost.

And Yamato is destroying me me because he keeps taking turns and he has Chaos Breath.

Also replaying Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. While it's easy to grind, I decided to actually go to the arena for once just to see how it is.

Spend 200 turns, get rich and have high leveled units before.

Also jesus christ Eirika get some STR will you

[Zengeku]

Well, there are a lot of good ones.

Most Final Fantasy
Most SMT
Most of the Star Oceans
Probably most of the Tales games
The main Pokemon games

To be honest, I do agree. I was just venting my irritations over getting 1 shotted so long into a long and boring battle and having it happen twice. It's pretty easy to take that attack into account though and the Bahamut card just gave me 100 Megalixirs so...  :V

The JRPG genre has been pretty weak lately imo. The last good one I played was Tales of Vesperia,,, or Star Ocean 4, i don't remember which one was most recent but I enjoyed both a lot. I'm hoping that XIII-2 can fix that. Despite the fact that it's a sequel to... XIII. I dunno, they said a lot of the issues had been adressed but the plot is apparently about time travel so I'm just hoping that it's not a physical manifestation of a time paradox like last time they tried that.

[Naut]

Command and Conquer: Generals, Zero Hour! Come find Suwako if anybody plays.

[Dr.Strafe]

I'm hoping that XIII-2 can fix that. Despite the fact that it's a sequel to... XIII. I dunno, they said a lot of the issues had been adressed but the plot is apparently about time travel so I'm just hoping that it's not a physical manifestation of a time paradox like last time they tried that.

I'd recommend XIII-2 if you liked the Paradigm system from the first game. The story and writing are a bit "bleh". As a fan of time travel stories, I really wish that they went into a bit more depth on that. You might enjoy the game, you might not. If you didn't like XIII nor care about the characters, then you might want to sit this one out.

Speaking of time travel in games, I am loving Warriors Orochi 3. I haven't played DW6, DW7, or SW3, so the new characters and character designs threw me off at first. Still, it is good, mindless fun.

[Zengeku]

While I didn't enjoy Final Fantasy XIII, it wasn't because of the Paradigm system. In fact, I found that to be a pretty cool system that really offered the potential for some fun combat. However, Final Fantasy XIII ended up becoming a rutine of raising the chain with ravages and then switch to commandos to deal heavy damage once they've been staggered. No variety, just a lot of enemies with huge health bars that can't really do anything except having a high HP count.

In XIII, I did like some of the characters like Snow and that black guy whose name I can never remember how to spell. Unfortunately these doesn't seem to play a very large role here instead going with some random generic male RPG character who is seemingly blessed with as many bad puns and jokes as possible. Not that can't hold it's charm on it's own.

I dunno what to think about the game but I've bought it for a really cheap price now so I'll try it out and see what it can do. It wouldn't be the first time in history that a sequel to a bad game turns out to be pretty good.

------------

Ahem. Final Fantasy talk aside. Silent Hill Downpour just got released over here so I'm playing that for the moment. It seems like this game has a combat system that grants an entirely new meaning to the word horrible but other than that, the game seems just fine. It's really just another example of horror games using poor combat systems as an engine to inspire fright. And it works.

[Garlyle]

XIII-2's a little underwhelming on the difficulty front, but it's mostly because the game throws experience at you.  If you liked being challenged, then weirdly enough you kind of have to avoid the extra sidequests and stuff (Despite pretty much every area having its own bonus boss at the end of a string of these).  They just weren't able to balance out the challenge that well, unlike XIII where they knew what the heck they were throwing at you.  It's a weird case where you will probably max out your characters' level in the process of reaching 100%; they just... didn't create enough content that's challenging up at that end of the spectrum, sadly.

That and most of the battles, you'll find, ARE still pretty much "speed RAV and then beat them down with COM".  When the game DOES deviate from that, however, it's goddamn fantastic, just... yeah.
(The DLC battles, if fought at the right time, are pretty goddamn grand, but I don't know how much you feel like shelling out the money for them)

Speaking of time travel in games, I am loving Warriors Orochi 3. I haven't played DW6, DW7, or SW3, so the new characters and character designs threw me off at first. Still, it is good, mindless fun.

God yes oh my god wait until you start meeting the cameo characters ahhhh

[Zengeku]

Sounds a bit problematic but thanks for the heads-up. I'll just avoid most of the optional stuff then.

[theshirn]

The pain of some of the battles in Saturday in DeSu 2.

Spoiler:

Gave up trying to fight Shiva against Hinako/Jungo

Spoiler:

Shiva is simple.  Just don't melee him.  At all.  He will annihilate your party wholesale.

Just got to AO's Sunday.  Fused a Titania with Repel Phys and Null Curse.  Short of Almighty, it is indestructible.

Now I just need to fuse that Purple Mirror.

[Yog-N'yggoth]

Spoiler:

Shiva is simple.  Just don't melee him.  At all.  He will annihilate your party wholesale.

Just got to AO's Sunday.  Fused a Titania with Repel Phys and Null Curse.  Short of Almighty, it is indestructible.

Now I just need to fuse that Purple Mirror.

It's more like the only one who could do amounts of damage without giving the guy 3 turns also didn't have Repel Physical at the time. Doesn't help that I don't feel like looking at how I can get Repel Phys on all my demons or anything.

[theshirn]

I don't even think you can get Repel Phys by that point unless you grind a ridiculous amount.  Evil Flow is what you want.  Evil Flow is broken as hell.

[Yog-N'yggoth]

Too bad I don't think that'll help against

Spoiler:

Yamato

and his 4 range and much faster turn speed.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Opened up Metroid: Zero Mission again, and like usual, tried for a zero-save challenge (Game Overs dump me back to the beginning of the game) and one-heal challenge (only allowed to use a single heal point aside from the Chozo Statues that block a path - I pick the final area's first save point so I don't have quite as much trouble during the stealth section), 100% under 2hrs. Got all the way to the final large section before the boss where

Spoiler:

you get the second suit

before I died because I was an idiot and a little rusty with single wall jumps. Oddly, I'm still good with stuff like diagonal bomb jumps (though double bomb jumps are impossible for me).

Also, Circumpolarity makes it really hard to get the damn Cracks, and Io dying all the time doesn't help either.

[Garlyle]

oh my shit
I woke up to Tales Of Graces F and Kid Icarus Uprising

I'm not even joking they both arrived simultaneously and I am flailing AS HARD AS I CAN

[theshirn]

Too bad I don't think that'll help against

Spoiler:

Yamato

and his 4 range and much faster turn speed.

Haven't gotten to him yet so I can't say for sure, but two things you should know about Evil Flow:

1) The active increases your range by 4, giving you a total of six range.  This outranges everything but a couple of the nastiest bosses.

2) Attacking an enemy with Evil Flow pushes their turn back farther than yours.  If you sit six spaces away and just attack, unless

Spoiler:

Yamato

has an actually and significantly higher speed stat (and I'm really annoyed that you can't see that anymore), you can lock him down.

[Yog-N'yggoth]

Haven't gotten to him yet so I can't say for sure, but two things you should know about Evil Flow:

1) The active increases your range by 4, giving you a total of six range.  This outranges everything but a couple of the nastiest bosses.

2) Attacking an enemy with Evil Flow pushes their turn back farther than yours.  If you sit six spaces away and just attack, unless

Spoiler:

Yamato

has an actually and significantly higher speed stat (and I'm really annoyed that you can't see that anymore), you can lock him down.

Spoiler:

Yamato

has Chaos Breath (natural 4 range) and he gets a passive where he has much more speed, like he must've had 4 turns before any of my team could do anything and I couldn't do anything because he either destroyed my demons, or the leaders

Spoiler:

since he also has that passive that increases damage to same race

.

Also how Turn Order works seems kinda bull at times, mostly because it seems you get pushed back harder since there are more enemies that can attack you. It doesn't seem as excessive as the first game.

Playing Arkham Asylum since I swore I finished it but the save was still near the beginning. I could never chain the combo well in fights.

[theshirn]

Evil Flow and a Tyrant.  Synergizes well to keep refunding the mana cost as well as letting you snipe and lock down a single target.

The turn order this time seems to punish much more heavily for being attacked than the first game did.  This does favor the enemy, as they always have more groups, but it does mean that an Evil Flow + Tyrant combo will push an enemy's turn farther back than your own.  It worked on

Spoiler:

Shiva

, and I'm going to get up to

Spoiler:

Yamato

soon myself.

But I'll test with the MC, rather than AO, as he actually does have a higher speed number than everybody else!

[Zengeku]

Currently playing some Mass Effect 1. Twas' on offer on Xbox Live so I figured it was time to repurchase the game since my physical copy of ME1 from 2k7 was so badly damaged that I just ended up getting rid of it. I don't know what the hell happened.

The game is surprisingly good actually. I had remembered Mass Effect as being a game series where the first installment is a bit mediocre but the sequels are a lot better. I got that impression due to the rather inferior combat system but it actually a pretty fun game. I wonder why they saw the need to remove all the RPG elements for the sequels. It's not like you can't mix up RPG elements and the radically improved combat that the sequel brought.

Feels good to play the game again though. The story was a bit confusing back in the day when I first played it but playing it through again with the overall story of the game in mind is pretty cool.


I'm playing as a Vanguard. It might not have the Biotic Charge but it's still a satisfying class to use. It owns ass with those shotguns. I can often 1-shot Geth with a shotgun at 30 meters range. On Hardcore difficulty. Love that stuff.

However, I don't love the idiot who decided that you have to unlock Insanity. Who thought that was a good idea? Probably the same guy who thought that not having frequent checkpoints was a good idea. Instead having me manually go and save the game.

[theshirn]

Turns out

Spoiler:

Yamato

was nowhere near as tough on AO's route - two Evil Flow attacks from MC and AO spamming Holy Dance took him down.  Whose route are you playing?

[Phlegeth]

Started playing Devil Survivor 2, which my roommate just got me for my birthday.  Awesome roommate.

[Yog-N'yggoth]

Turns out

Spoiler:

Yamato

was nowhere near as tough on AO's route - two Evil Flow attacks from MC and AO spamming Holy Dance took him down.  Whose route are you playing?

I just took Ronny's route. And yeah, Evil Flow helped. Although he and his groupies decided to not attack Bunny at all for whatever reason.


And speaking of AO,  the battle with

Spoiler:

him/Alcor

was hilarious when having a physical team with Phys Repel, apparently it has a third form, but it kinda just died through its own counters.

[theshirn]

Just a heads up for the final battle, which I got killed on the final form of - bring Phys Repel, Null, and Drain.  Whoever the unlucky sap with just plain old Anti-Phys is, they're probably dead.  But not too many of the worst physical hitters have Pierce, so they're all pretty useful!