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

[[K]KoaMeow]

I just love shouting the "JUST A COUPLE MORE SHOTS!" line when it's appropriate.

Yeah, that's my friend playing in that video, I'm at the top floor.

[trancehime]

Pokemon Crystal World:

Chuck:
LV50 Ampharos
LV52 Raikou

Jasmine:
LV50 Umbreon
LV52 Houndoom
LV80 Murkrow

Pryce:
LV70 Meganium
LV72 Victreebel
LV75 Crobat

Me (after Pryce and grinding):
LV62 Articuno
LV54 Ampharos
LV52 Rapidash
LV45 Azumarill
LV35 Togetic
LV34 Dugtrio (For CUT only)

:fail: This romhack :fail:

[Anima Zero]

Dark Souls - I lost so many souls yesterday in derpy moments, probably close to 180k in total at least.  ~90k total on Ceaseless Discharge because I was trying to kill it the cheese way by making it fall into the bottomless pit and failed miserably.  I even managed to die when I finally figured out how to get it to work by rolling off into the bottomless pit by mistake, haha.

The other 90k souls I lost?  Derping up hard in Great Hollow trying to get all the items there, whee!  Getting a Titanite Slab drop off of one of the 10 Crystal Lizards in Great Hollow though made up for it.

I still have some other areas to clean out, namely Depths (Treasure clean up, boss kill, and getting summoned for co-op runs on the boss for mass souls to max out my Pyromancy Glove), Blighttown (Treasure clean up), Catacombs (Rite of Kindling from boss), and a quick trip into the Tomb of the Giants (Grabbing that Covetous Silver Serpent Ring I will be doing), then I'll hit up the rest of Sen's Fortress.

Grandia II - Found a Hard Type mod for the PC version so I gave it a quick run.

The first enemy?  270 HP in vanilla, 530 HP in Hard Type.

Damage from said first enemy?  ~20-22 in vanilla, ~80-90 in Hard Type.

...Oh god D:.  We'll have to see if this ends up being harder than Grandia ReDux late game for me.

[theshirn]

I can't believe I got all the way up to Tiamat without Luster Candy OR Debilitate.  Finally had to pull out and grind up a Vivian to get the source.  I didn't get Debilitate and I'm not sure why; she uses Luster Candy on herself and I had to fusion dance up someone with Dekaja...who turned out to be weak to Ice anyway.  Foolishness!  Will have to fuse and level a Thoth soon.

But Tiamat has been properly squashed, and now it's Grus time.

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

Finished the campaigns for both Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath on Hard difficulty. The latter seems... oddly skewed in your favor, even on the highest difficulty; once you're able to repel whatever initial waves the AI sends at you, it pretty much forgets how to manage its resources and the missions boil down to cleaning up while it sends a few half-hearted attacks at you.

Then again, KW's campaign always did seem like an afterthought; the mission maps are literally just repurposed multiplayer maps and vice versa; it really isn't as polished as the base game is (and as much as I tend to hate EA, I will admit they got Tiberium Wars right until they took a sledgehammer to the game mechanics in the name of "balance")

[Random]

Pokemon Crystal World

Maybe I'll try that once Kaizo Blue stops being such an ass :V

Kaizo Blue Champion:
Level 100 Mew
Level 100 Jolteon
Level 100 Exeggutor
Level 100 Tauros
Level 100 Starmie
Level 100 Mewtwo

at least this isn't z boneka

[trancehime]

Maybe I'll try that once Kaizo Blue stops being such an ass :V

Kaizo Blue Champion:
Level 100 Mew
Level 100 Jolteon
Level 100 Exeggutor
Level 100 Tauros
Level 100 Starmie
Level 100 Mewtwo

at least this isn't z boneka

Pokemon Crystal World's Red has all his Pokemon at level 250. And I had to beat down a level 250 Magikarp just now. :fail:

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

I really wish my enemies had less... exact HP phase shifts in the Ys games. Between just barely missing the cutoff (necessitating one more round and possibly getting killed in the process) and dying with one hit left because my enemy decided right then to go batshit crazy, I've at least almost finished Oath on Normal. I think I miss Ancient Ys Vanished now...

I also really wish I remembered to get that damn pendant before I went into the abandoned mine - would have saved me a ton of trouble trying to navigate.

[Puffy]

Downloading Diablo III Beta. It's open for anyone with Battle net ID, from 20th-23rd April.

[The ⑨th Zentillion]

Final Fantasy VII, which I've been doing on and off for a while but for the past few days I've binged on (especially last night) and am almost done with Disc 2. Just doing all the Wutai stuff and grabbing Lv. 4 Limits and the Sector 5 key before I head on to Midgar to finish the disc off.

[Zengeku]

Finally got my hands on the Bitcher 2 on the Xbox 360 and I gotta say, gameplay-wise, this is probably one of the best RPG's i've ever played. It's actually quite challenging to me which is something i usually don't see in RPG's.

I'm not too interested in the Witcher universe though. Not as of now anyway. Perhabs it will be more interesting later on when the plot thickens.

[XephyrEnigma]

I also really wish I remembered to get that damn pendant before I went into the abandoned mine - would have saved me a ton of trouble trying to navigate.

Spoiler:

You dont need it so much for there, but later though...

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Loaded up my P3P file, and it seems I'm nowhere near as close to being able to defeat the optional bosses as I thought I was. I still have a whole lot of fusion, farming, grinding, etc. to do.


Where was that program that could help you plan fusions at?

[Random]

Pokemon Crystal World's Red has all his Pokemon at level 250. And I had to beat down a level 250 Magikarp just now. :fail:

Are you sure that they're all level 250? A video I watched on YT only had a Pichu that was level 250.
Either way, that's freaking insane! :getdown:

Speaking of Magikarps, the only Magikarps you'll find in Kaizo Blue are level 100 ones in the water routes.

I really wish my enemies had less... exact HP phase shifts in the Ys games. Between just barely missing the cutoff (necessitating one more round and possibly getting killed in the process) and dying with one hit left because my enemy decided right then to go batshit crazy, I've at least almost finished Oath on Normal. I think I miss Ancient Ys Vanished now...

I also really wish I remembered to get that damn pendant before I went into the abandoned mine - would have saved me a ton of trouble trying to navigate.

Thank you for reminding me to play more Oath in Felghana

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

After dying a crapload of times to the second phase (seriously, that thing's unfair), finished Normal in Oath. Next up, Hard mode.

EDIT: Fuck, since when did the second boss' regular attack aim at your position and height?! I keep mistiming it and eating energy blade in the face.

EDIT2: A ton of deaths later (including one double kill), finally beat it at level 7 with unupgraded armor.

[trancehime]

Are you sure that they're all level 250? A video I watched on YT only had a Pichu that was level 250.
Either way, that's freaking insane! :getdown:

Oh, I don't remember. They were most certainly at least level 180, and the Pokemon start exceeding Lv100 past... Um, the start of Kanto, I think.

And you sort of have to beat Kanto before the Elite 4.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Loaded up my P3P file, and it seems I'm nowhere near as close to being able to defeat the optional bosses as I thought I was. I still have a whole lot of fusion, farming, grinding, etc. to do.


Where was that program that could help you plan fusions at?

Igor's Index, right?

[Hanzo K.]

Welp, just got my hands on a copy of Wild ARMs 4 the other night.
Didn't know until starting up a new file that I could get bonus stuff via a Wild ARMs F file. Did I miss anything really worth it? I hope not. :ohdear:
But so far, I'm liking the battle and exploration system, it's far and away easier than the Search System in previous WA titles.

[Random]

Finally caught Mewtwo and Mew after about 2 hours of wandering in a cave that has wild level 100 Pokemon appear every 2 steps
Speeding up the game and using savestates are for cheaters and I'm not a cheater

Now it's time to start Crystal World :3

[nintendonut888]

Just finished Persona 4.

Man, that was a pretty rad ending. The final boss wasn't as cool as the one in Persona 3, but it was still fun.

Spoiler:

Though, I do have a small complaint at how objectively happy that ending was. Not that the characters didn't earn it, but when compared to Persona 3... It's as a good friend once said: A happy ending can only be happy one way. A sad ending can be sad a thousand ways. I dunno, it left me with a good feeling, but feeling as though there was still something else...

And yes, I say that upon getting the true end with Izanami. :V

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Going through the boss rush, and I'm amazed at how unfair some of the bosses really are. "Oh, you haven't truly gotten the hang of the controls yet? Here, have homing daggers that start from multiple positions - ones that get in your way even if you know how to dodge them, and by the way, I'm throwing them multiple times in a row. Plus you probably upgraded your sword instead of your armor, so nuts to you." "Keep me contained, huh? Eat energy dome!" "I'm not going to tell you when I change weaknesses - you'll have to eat spears to find out!" "Hey guy, I'm gonna laser you at random. I don't give tells for that one. Also my attack radius for my jump is larger than it looks." "Hey, you know that attack you used to just jump over? Yeah, I'm using that tell for anti-air attacks. Have fun!" "Did you know I can still use my first phase attacks in the second phase? You didn't? Oh well, eat fire!"

[Mr_Bob]

Finally got my hands on the Witcher 2 on the Xbox 360 and I gotta say, gameplay-wise, this is probably one of the best RPG's i've ever played. It's actually quite challenging to me which is something i usually don't see in RPG's.
I'm not too interested in the Witcher universe though. Not as of now anyway. Perhabs it will be more interesting later on when the plot thickens.

Hopefully you like it.  The series isn't well known, but is very deserving of the praise it gets.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Hard Campaign complete.  Much more satisfying than the normal campaign, as HC needed thought and strategy. However, even though the computer gets overwhelming numbers, it doesn't get equipable skills, which goes a long way.  Don't think I'm good enough to get through HC without them.

[Garlyle]

Welp, just got my hands on a copy of Wild ARMs 4 the other night.
Didn't know until starting up a new file that I could get bonus stuff via a Wild ARMs F file. Did I miss anything really worth it? I hope not. :ohdear:
But so far, I'm liking the battle and exploration system, it's far and away easier than the Search System in previous WA titles.

Nothing major.  The badge is more or less unimportant.  The thing you really miss if you're a 100% completionist is that you can't access some hidden chests (which just contain increasing piles of cash) without the save file UNLESS you're on a NG+, so you won't be able to open the Black Box on your first playthrough.
But if you're a 100% completionist WA4 will piss you off anyway because it's literally impossible to get 100% monster collection due to an oversight while removing cameo enemies (the enemies are gone but the game still checks to see if you've encountered them), so... yeah

Also I love Wild Arms in general, and 4 is actually kind of a blast.  Though it's probably the least popular in the series...

Hopefully you like it.  The series isn't well known, but is very deserving of the praise it gets.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Hard Campaign complete.  Much more satisfying than the normal campaign, as HC needed thought and strategy. However, even though the computer gets overwhelming numbers, it doesn't get equipable skills, which goes a long way.  Don't think I'm good enough to get through HC without them.

loling because Hard Campaign
Having access to all the COs really does make it easier than the normal campaign in my mind, until you're insisting on trying to clear the game winning wallpapers of some of the highly situational COs

But then again I've played AW1's campaign and AW2's hard campaign and just
oh my god
compared to that bullshit AWDS is easy mode

[Zil]

AW1's campaign

bullshit

Oh man that bonus mission against Eagle in the hard campaign. Had some good times with that one. :V

[axman36]

Friend recently bought me Deus Ex GOTY edition in exchange for... I think a piece of pizza I bought him or something.

Also have been playing ME2 insanity mode. I should have listened and not started as my vanguard already at level 30. And yet despite the impossible I still got through the collector ship.

Screw that Praetorian.

[Mr_Bob]

Having access to all the COs really does make it easier than the normal campaign in my mind, until you're insisting on trying to clear the game winning wallpapers of some of the highly situational COs

Yeah, I cheesed it this time around with Sami, Eagle, and Andy teams to get a feel and unlock the last two skills, but I'm not looking forward to my Flak, Adder and Koal run.

[trancehime]

Pokemon Crystal World: Defeated Clair. Play-by-play:

<CLAIR> Lv78 Alakazam (Psychic/Dark)
<Me> Lv62 Misdreavus (Ghost/Dark)

Misdreavus -- Shadow Ball --> Alakazam
Alakazam throws up Reflect, spends the next few turns being useless w/ Extremespeed due to lack of type coverage

<CLAIR> Lv85 Mew (Psychic/Dark)
<Me> Switch to Lv66 Articuno (Ice/Flying)

Articuno -- Mist (Lowers ATK Sharply) --> Mew
Mew -- AncientPower --> Articuno
Mew -- Psychic --> Articuno
Articuno faints due to Mew's higher SpATK

<CLAIR> Lv85 Mew 50% ATK
<Me> Send Lv62 Misdreavus

Misdreavus -- Mean Look --> Mew, trapped
Mew -- AncientPower --> Misdreavus, deals 35% damage due to 50% ATK rating
Misdreavus => Perish Song
Stall war, Misdreavus and Mew faint

<CLAIR> Lv80 Hypno (Psychic/Electric)
<Me> Send Lv50 Suicune (Water/Psychic)

Revive and heal Misdreavus to 100% HP
Hypno -- Faint Attack/Psychic --> Suicune
Suicune faints

<CLAIR> Lv80 Hypno
<Me> Send Lv62 Misdreavus

Misdreavus -- Shadow Ball --> Hypno
Hypno faints after continuous healing application to Misdreavus, but only once.
Hypno Faint Attack only does 10~22% damage

<CLAIR> Lv82 Espeon (Psychic)
<Me> Lv62 Misdreavus

Misdreavus -- Shadow Ball 2HKO --> Espeon
Espeon forced to use Moonlight due to 70% Shadow Ball damage, Espeon KO'd

MVP: Misdreavus Lv62 :getdown:

[Garlyle]

Yeah, I cheesed it this time around with Sami, Eagle, and Andy teams to get a feel and unlock the last two skills, but I'm not looking forward to my Flak, Adder and Koal run.

Honestly, Flak, Jugger, Adder, and Koal are great COs.  They're not specialist COs, but they don't exactly have any particular weakness either?  Adder and Koal, you just have to get used to the fact that you'll be using their CO Powers constantly - use them to get a surprise attack on a unit that is keeping you just out of range or to speed towards targets.  Flak and Jugger still do more damage on average with their normal attacks.

And you only need to have them as Top 3 COs - if you pull out the occasional other CO for certain missions (such as Grit for Ring of Fire - because there is no reason to NOT use Grit for Ring of Fire), you can still do it just fine.

The hard ones are actually completing it for COs like Drake, Olaf, Sonja, and Javier - COs that don't necessarily have great synergy and/or tend to be very specialized in when they excel.

And, ultimately... skills are batshit broken, especially if you feel like using two save files to grind the Oozium mission on Hard (4 COs can get something like 1200 EXP an attempt, and it's a very easy mission; you need the second save file to repeatedly save over and keep your exp gains though).  Proper use of them can turn any CO ridiculous for a given mission.

[triangles]

Also I love Wild Arms in general, and 4 is actually kind of a blast.  Though it's probably the least popular in the series...

:hi5wildarmsbro:
I really enjoyed the battle system in WA4 and that you can't just punch through a lot of the bosses you really needed a strategy, but the linear map idea bugged me and a mega-departure from the Wild West theme was that and overall storyline

Spoiler:

got kind of ridiculous and I can't remember for the life of me what was up with all the bad guys and the key conflict, unlike the previous 3

[trancehime]

:hi5wildarmsbro:
I really enjoyed the battle system in WA4 and that you can't just punch through a lot of the bosses you really needed a strategy, but the linear map idea bugged me and a mega-departure from the Wild West theme was that and overall storyline

Spoiler:

got kind of ridiculous and I can't remember for the life of me what was up with all the bad guys and the key conflict, unlike the previous 3

I think it's undeniable that the strong point of WA4 was the battle system and the introduction of the HEX system. It paved the way for Wild Arms XF and Wild Arms 5 systems. However, WA4's plot was definitely not its strong point.

Spoiler:

For 80% of the game it was KIDS VERSUS ADULTS