Games You're Playing Right Now IV - A New Hope

[Cookiejesus]

I'm currently playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past again, because I couldn't get this song out of my head.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Started a fresh playthrough of Tales of Vesperia. Going with Hard mode the entire way through.  I'm only up to Aspio at the moment. I'm not sure how long a playthrough will take when I need to grind for skills and other stuff since I don't remember how long I took on my first playthrough.

Did get a 100 hit combo on the Eggbear you have to fight for the materials for the Panacea bottle, when I didn't get a 100 hit combo on my first playthrough until after I had beaten the game.

[Phlegeth]

Started playing Cave Story+.  I remember playing the original awhile back and enjoying it, but I never beat it.  So when it was on Steam Sell awhile back, I got it and have finally gotten around to playing it.  It's still really fun.

[Piranha]

Diablo 3 all the way. I've been playing nothing else since 1.0.4, not even Touhou...

I'm surprised how good the game now is, and with the 1.0.5 patch it will probably get even better.

I want to play Touhou again, but D3 is just too much fun! :derp:

[C27]

My dwarf fortress is under attack by a ⑨!

[AnonymousPondScum]

My dwarf fortress is under attack by a ⑨!

Seems more like a hideous fairy/Nazrin hybrid to me. :V

[Phlegeth]

My dwarf fortress is under attack by a ⑨!

Yeah, she should really stop going places she doesn't belong.

[NekoNekoRex]

Yeah, she should really stop going places she doesn't belong.

y'know Totaku has a mod right on this forum that lets you get attacked by ACTUAL ⑨s

among other Touhous

[C27]

I know this, but I'm playing vanilla anyway - until I get a good idea for a mod of my own.  :3

[AnonymousPondScum]

BLACK MESA SOURCE DOWNLOAD COMPLETE IN 2 MINUTES.

GET HYPE.

[DX7.EP]

Been playing Black Mesa - got to the first brief outdoors bit and calling it there for today.

Highly recommended for any HL fan (naturally), and as it only requires the free Source SDK 2007 Base, it's a great way to introduce newcomers to the series too. (Minus the Xen parts but those are quite gimmicky :V)

Good: OST fits very well, graphics and atmosphere overhaul make it feel fresh, soda cans heal a little now , great voice work, fixes some of the more annoying areas
Bad: Notably different weapon placement (later crowbars and shotguns among other things), vortigaunts seem to hurt a bit more than they used to, Freeman seems to jump a bit lower
Ugly: Scientists still have shitty AI and now make a few too many science puns and references, personally getting a few too many DX:HR vibes and now I want to upgrade my 357 :colonveeplusalpha:

Of course, one can always recite Freeman's Mind lines at the right places to make the playthrough all the more fun. :3

[チソウ タイゼン]

So, Tales of the Abyss, then.

Currently level 46; Natalia's 45 because she's uncool.
The Absorption Gate is probably one of the most annoying dungeons in any games I've played ever, and I explored FFXII's Great Crystal completely, and without a map.

Finding it incredibly hard to not dump Luke's party slot for Guy's because his strike arts aren't as strong and look less awesome. Also, constantly tossing up Jade and Anise, because while Jade's 1,002 Fonic Attack is incredibly sexy, Anise's 910 and 80-less-than-Jade's-Physical-attack is also pretty cool and she uses Strike Artes more effectively than Jade does, and somehow turned out to be the party tank, being second in both defenses and having 200 more HP than Luke ._.

Also, Miracle Hammer hitting as much as Mystic Cage. Soooooo :V

[Reddyne]

My copious amounts of free time have guided me back to playing Fire Emblem for the GBA. I got quite far in it the first time, but never quite finished it. Now I'm back to the part I just never managed to get through the first time. Everyone's intact and I've made WAY too much use of the coliseum. Also, I like how much I favor fast/magic/swordmaster classes over any axe wielder save for Hector, who is a 120mm gun shy of IRL TANK STATUS.

Been playing Black Mesa - got to the first brief outdoors bit and calling it there for today.

Highly recommended for any HL fan (naturally), and as it only requires the free Source SDK 2007 Base, it's a great way to introduce newcomers to the series too. (Minus the Xen parts but those are quite gimmicky :V)

Good: OST fits very well, graphics and atmosphere overhaul make it feel fresh, soda cans heal a little now , great voice work, fixes some of the more annoying areas
Bad: Notably different weapon placement (later crowbars and shotguns among other things), vortigaunts seem to hurt a bit more than they used to, Freeman seems to jump a bit lower
Ugly: Scientists still have shitty AI and now make a few too many science puns and references, personally getting a few too many DX:HR vibes and now I want to upgrade my 357 :colonveeplusalpha:

Of course, one can always recite Freeman's Mind lines at the right places to make the playthrough all the more fun. :3

Very much this. I will also say that the game as a whole does feel unique enough that it's worth it even if you've played it to death. The AI is closer to that of HL2, baddies take different amounts of damage, some areas feel different enough from the original to feel unique, and some areas ARE completely unique. It's been a great help for parts like the On A Rail chapter, which were relatively dull. It truly does feel unique.

So, Tales of the Abyss, then.

Aw, crud. That reminds me that Edible recommended it to me a year and a half ago and I STILL HAVEN'T PLAYED IT.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

So about Ys: Oath in Felghana Inferno Mode, since I just thought of this, do I have to defeat Black Pikkard to finish it, or will the fight appear in Time Attack after beating the final boss? I'm currently at second Chester, but then I realized that maybe I'm not really all that close to beating it if I might have to beat another boss.

Of course, I know the final dungeon can be kind of hard too since I died so much trying to get through it on Nightmare.

Also, there were a lot of bosses that were stupidly hard for me on Nightmare, but I was able to beat pretty easily on Inferno, even some at the Time Attack levels.

[lumber_of_the_beast]

Picked up FTL yesterday.

RNG: The Game. I'm disappointed.

[Mr_Bob]

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition delayed to Nov 30th.  Which is saddening, but it just means more game development / tweaking. The day comes when Tiax will point and click.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Beat Oath in Felghana on Inferno. Defeated the Black Pikkard optional boss as well.

I also beat Nightmare Boss rush after over 2 hours of lots of deaths then beat the boss that's only available by doing that.

[DX7.EP]

Inspired by this insanely hilarious 240+ mod "playthrough" of Skyrim, I've added about 60 more mods (based largely off the list featured on the last entry) to my already 110-ish mod-loaded version. Thus totalling at least 170 mods running (with another 30-40, mostly extra quests and stuff that kept crashing, not loaded) on my crazy Skyrim installation.

Goddamn, this game got so glorious (regular massive Imperial-Stormcloak-bandit battles outside Whiterun where everyone can FUS RO DAH before you learn it, anyone?) that regular crashes are somewhat common. :getdown: Reading those sets of articles will give a rough idea of how it runs (in other words, have fun diagnosing which mods keep incurring crashes; you'll be doing that often :V).

[Kataze]

I've been playing Fortune Summoners quite a lot lately. It's fairly interesting.

Planning to start Cave Story again because it's been some time since I last played it.

[Mr. Sacchi]

Inspired by this insanely hilarious 240+ mod "playthrough" of Skyrim, I've added about 60 more mods (based largely off the list featured on the last entry) to my already 110-ish mod-loaded version. Thus totalling at least 170 mods running (with another 30-40, mostly extra quests and stuff that kept crashing, not loaded) on my crazy Skyrim installation.

I read that last night and simply laughed for a good 20 minutes, :V

In the meantime, still trying to get Speed Holic in Elsword - Still failing miserably.

Now going for a full stealth playthrough as a thief/assassin in Skyrim, it's actually pretty fun, really different from my Jack-Of-All-Trades playthrough.

I did feel the Nightingale Armor was a bit weak though, and seeing as the Nightingale Prime mod has disappeared from the Nexus, I did my own little mod to buff the Nightingale Armor to the extremes, including but not limited to double backstab damage and changing the Nightingale Blade to a dagger, instead of a One-Handed Sword.

"Oh hi, you wanted to shout "THERE'S A THIEF OVER HERE" so all guards could hear you?" *SNEAK ATTACK FOR X30 DAMAGE* "Sorry."

[チソウ タイゼン]

So I've totally beaten Tales of the Abyss.
The game was... horrendously easy, with the occasional one difficult boss here and there.
To remedy this, I've chosen to NG+ on Very Hard. Watch me flail around and try to beat the first boss!

Legretta, on both counts, was not nearly as difficult as I had heard. I had a legitimately harder time fighting Sync, even if I beat them both, and Largo, on the first try.
The final boss took two tries, and Asch took three.

Asch took three tries primarily because of his hax abilities to shrug off knockback once he hits a certain HP threshold. I had to resort to Mystic Arte-ing to take off the last 9,000 HP, provided I was able to get as far, because he kept breaking all my Rending Blasts and White Tiger Strikes.

I'm also surprised how breezily the first two forms of the final went, and how nonindicative it was of the final form.
(The party is level 62.)
He spammed Judgement. I counted. He used it ten times consecutively. He didn't bother to move. He just let another one out as soon as the last stopped. It was really frustrating.

Another horribly disappointing boss was

Spoiler:

Mohs.

Took a little over a minute.

*sigh*

[Aya Reiko]

Borderlands 2

Team Fortress 2 - I've been spending too much time (and money) in Mann Up Mode.  I don't care.

Victoria 2 - Haven't decided who to play next;  France, the US, Sardina...

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Torchlight II.

I'm still in Act 1(Veteran Difficulty) just after defeating General Grell. Mainly trying to grind and farm a little since I prefer to try to be overprepared in these types of RPGs unlike most RPGs.

[Garlyle]

Picked up FTL yesterday.

RNG: The Game. I'm disappointed.

It's a roguelike.  Yeah I can definitely feel the part where it seems like the game could easily prevent you from winning simply by ensuring you're still stuck with default equipment come sector 3/4, but... well

...It's also incredibly addictive and I might have just spent like the last four hours playing it.  Damnit.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

And I have no idea how I want to build my character. I just keep restarting them. I'll need to decide on something

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

It's a roguelike.  Yeah I can definitely feel the part where it seems like the game could easily prevent you from winning simply by ensuring you're still stuck with default equipment come sector 3/4, but... well

Funny story. That just happened to me. I reached the end of Sector 8 with only the Artemis and Burst Laser starting weapons. Let's just say it didn't end very well, especially as the enemy I died to had cloaking, four three-shot weapons with independent power supply, and four shields.

[Garlyle]

Funny story. That just happened to me. I reached the end of Sector 8 with only the Artemis and Burst Laser starting weapons. Let's just say it didn't end very well, especially as the enemy I died to had cloaking, four three-shot weapons with independent power supply, and four shields.

Yeah, my first time making it to Sector 8 saw me with no additional equipment beyond a hell of a missile weapon.  Which to be fair was a very cool weapon (Twice the Artemis charge time but twice the damage), but you just can't deal with those kinds of enemies unless you've gotten crazy good equipment.  All the shields and other upgrades in the world won't save you if you can't generate enough output to take down four shields at the end of the game.

...Hopefully though, the other ships I've unlocked will do better.

[Phlegeth]

Started playing Yggdra Union.  Can't remember what was going on, probably not a good thing in a story driven game, so I restarted.  Not too big a deal, since I think I was only like three or four fights in.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Oh hey, apparently Atelier Meruru has a second stage to the game after you complete the 3-year mission. Wasn't expecting it, since Atelier Annie (the only other standard-type Atelier game I've played) and the Mana Khemia series had the strict time limits. That dragon I killed on the way was a huge ass, though - 2400 health, recovers 180-200 every turn it gets, my basic attacks barely hit for 50 (or barely double digits, in Keina's case) - I had to vent nearly all of my sizable collection of Bombs and Salutes. I suppose it would have been more effective to synth more Bomb Ice, but meh.

Also finished up Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Jeez, though, they made it way tougher to get the best ranks, huh? Guess I have to be better at engaging DFM, or switch to a low-sensitivity classic control scheme.

[theshirn]

Started playing Yggdra Union.  Can't remember what was going on, probably not a good thing in a story driven game, so I restarted.  Not too big a deal, since I think I was only like three or four fights in.

GBA or PSP?