I'm so sorry! Did that hurt? - What Are You Playing v5

[Collectonian]

So, still working on a long game? Finished up and moving to the next? What are you playing now!

(previous thread (http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/18368/) )

For me, it is still Shadow Hearts: From the New World. I'm working through the side quests, slowly but surely. Finished getting Natan's final power up, and going through the Doll House of Ricardo's last muse. I also finally hit 10k on the pedometer to get his best armor (and to free up those three slots). I was all ready to go for Shania's final fusion, when I realized I'd missed one of those idol looking things, so now I gotta power it up first. About to head to the sushi house instead. :P

[Suwako Moriya]

Note: Replying to a post from the previous thread which is bound to be locked shortly.

Doesn't the fastest character always end up with accelerator? What's up with that?

In at least the case of Wild Arms 3 it would be the second fastest character. Since in my experience when you remove the mediums and go by base stats the fastest is in fact Virginia. Virginia then Jet then Gallows then Clive would be the order.

Still that doesn't change the fact it's usually on one of the faster characters. Which I guess makes sense if they're trying to say in order to use something like accelerator you'd need to be fast in the first place. On the other hand a slower member is more likely to benefit from it since they'd be in more need of going first. Especially during emergencies.

Yeah, needed much more Maya. Also there needs to be Maya/Virginia yuri fanfic, because they totally had this "You're so annoying I want to rip off your clothes" thing going on.

I'll admit it right now. I approve of the idea of Maya X Virginia and it's something I thought about while playing the game. That includes thinking of things in varying levels of detail. I'll just leave it at that for now.

[ADC]

Took the evening off from games last night so I could watch some SuperGALS! and Yumeria, but I'm still at the Yetis' Mansion in Twilight Princess, having found 27 Heart Pieces, 27 Poes, and 15 Golden Bugs. I tried the STAR game and can't win it to save my soul. I like going to the fortune teller (elihwa sekat gnidaol … tiaw), who's very good at showing me the way to true love.

[distantmantra]

I've technically finished Gundam Musou to 100% completion, but I still find myself going back and replaying many of the levels over and over. Absolutely fun game and easily my favorite of 2007 so far. Probably helps that I'm a huge Gundam fan and never spent much time playing Musou games in the past.

Aside from Gundam Musou, I'm playing Oblivion on the PS3, God of War II, Yoshinoya, and Appleseed EX on the PS2, and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on the Xbox.

[indigo0086]

Just bought Tomb Raider Legends over the weekend after trading in Chrome Hounds and Ghost Recon for 360. It's actually a nice game, the lara croft manor is pretty fun to play around in. It's actually quite a nice game, got it for practically nothing after the trade ins.

[Azumangaman]

Just bought Tomb Raider Legends over the weekend after trading in Chrome Hounds and Ghost Recon for 360. It's actually a nice game, the lara croft manor is pretty fun to play around in. It's actually quite a nice game, got it for practically nothing after the trade ins.
It's fun, but I'm stuck near the beginning :D
EDIT: I looked at a walkthrough and I feel stupid now :D

[jecca-neko]

I'm playing through Feel the Magic and working on completing Hell Mode and also trying to get all the stars for each of the mini-games in Memories.

[AbeChinchilla]

Just finished a final sidequest in .hack//G.U., Vol. 1, so I'm 100% done with it. Now I'm treasure hunting to farm cash at the guild shop and building my Win Points at the battle arena.

[Suwako Moriya]

As mentioned in the previous thread, I'm currently in the middle of the break period. I'm not sure how long it will last in reality, but I'm leaning towards starting Xenosaga 3 or whatever I ultimately decide on sometime around the weekend or so. Perhaps earlier if I'm feeling motivated and later if I still want to relax a bit more before dedicating myself to a game.

[Kevinroc]

I still haven't finished Super Paper Mario. I'm about to start 8-1. I'm almost done.

[Maru]

In the last thread, I mentioned I was raising a chocobo in FFXI... well, the egg hatched, it's a boy! (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/chocobo.jpg) :neko: I named him AutumnFrost... maybe a little girly for a guy choco, but he's not complaining. When it was just an egg, all you could do was "watch" it; but now that he's a baby choco, you can take him for walks (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/chocobo_walk.jpg), and sometimes meet up with NPC trainers (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/chocobo_meeting.jpg).

I wish pictures could show how the baby chocos move :D Their heads bobble a bit like they're too heavy.. and when they're happy, they squint their eyes and waggle their butt. (I couldn't catch a good picture of it, but here's someone else's (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v257/Inariya/chocofriends.jpg))


Also, you know how pretty much every Final Fantasy has a floating castle of some sort? Well, I've just earned access to FFXI's floating palace, Tu'Lia. It's a huge, beautiful area (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/sky.jpg) filled with gardens (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/sky_garden.jpg), but the best part is the floor in the entranceway.

It's hard to describe, but when your foot touches the ground, light ripples out like water. As the light spreads, electricity sparks out and creates little blue and white hexagons (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/sky_floor1.jpg) that eventually fade to green and flutter away (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/sky_floor2.jpg). We must've spent at least 15 minutes just running around in circles. :sd:

[ayareiko]

Note: Replying to a post from the previous thread which is bound to be locked shortly.

Why are we making new threads anyway? The new forum software eliminates the need for them.

[MegsLeigh]

I discovered the joys of the Virtual Console last night and purchased The Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus and Super Mario 64. I was grinning like an idiot as I played some of Zelda. All of these nice, shiny new games and I play a 20-year-old game that is probably my absolute favorite ever. I also tried out Mario 64 and discovered that it still makes me feel motion sickness. :sigh:

[Super Saiyajin Joshua]

Pokemon: Emerald is my game right now. Since Diamond/Pearl will be out soon I wanted to catch all the legendaries from the previous games since in D/P all previous pokemon except the starters and legendaries from the previous games will be catchable.

[GHardin]

With my 360 sitting there, still broken, I'm stuck with using the PC as my gaming front (well, not to say my PS2 or Wii are gathering dust, but I've been on the PC longer regardless. :tired:)....

[ADC]

The battle at the end of the Snowpeak Ruins was fun! I did have to drink some of the Superb Soup because I have no talent for anything requiring skill, but it was still good stuff. And the payoff, with all the Hearts popping out, just killed me. Funny funny. I think the Yetis are my favorite characters in the game.

[Lumberjack]

The battle at the end of the Snowpeak Ruins was fun! I did have to drink some of the Superb Soup because I have no talent for anything requiring skill, but it was still good stuff. And the payoff, with all the Hearts popping out, just killed me. Funny funny. I think the Yetis are my favorite characters in the game.
I liked how if you talk to them after all the hearts pop out, another heart would pop out.

[ADC]

I liked how if you talk to them after all the hearts pop out, another heart would pop out.
That was cute. It's even better that (1) they pop out more Hearts than you would ever need to fill your Heart Containers and (2) they give you an extra Container, too, which gives you full HP — yet (3) that extra one pops out.

Now it's back to the fortune teller to go find some more Heart Pieces. :)

[Suwako Moriya]

Why are we making new threads anyway? The new forum software eliminates the need for them.

It's been decided that the decision to continue a thread or start a new version will be a case by case basis. In this case it was decided due to the potential massive length of the thread and the broad subject it would be best to restart it each month. Besides it gives an excuse to think of fancy names. :D

[AbeChinchilla]

Besides it gives an excuse to think of fancy names. :D

And Collectonian wins for using Hildegard quotes.
What's next? "Nyao, nyao, nyao!!"

[Collectonian]

Besides it gives an excuse to think of fancy names. :D

And Collectonian wins for using Hildegard quotes.
What's next? "Nyao, nyao, nyao!!"

LOL, I love her quotes. As for next...depends on if I can actually finish this game before the next restart :P

[Suwako Moriya]

LOL, I love her quotes. As for next...depends on if I can actually finish this game before the next restart :P

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sort of sounds like you're thinking of planning the titles around whatever you're currently playing. Regardless whatever works is fine.

[AbeChinchilla]

LOL, I love her quotes. As for next...depends on if I can actually finish this game before the next restart :P

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sort of sounds like you're thinking of planning the titles around whatever you're currently playing. Regardless whatever works is fine.

Non-believer! Go get a Shadow Hearts title!

[AbeChinchilla]

LOL, I love her quotes. As for next...depends on if I can actually finish this game before the next restart :P

Still at the He-Man Sushi quest? It can be a bit difficult, so equip everyone accordingly.

And avoid Purgatory (if you're going to do it) until your level average is above 55.

[Suwako Moriya]

Non-believer! Go get a Shadow Hearts title!

Ah that's where you're half-wrong! For I am a strong believer! The problem is my faith is dedicated in a different direction thus you're half-right. If people can't guess which direction(s) then they don't know me very well. In all seriousness I have enough to decide between in terms of what to play and/or buy. Thus I can't exactly rush out and randomly buy titles unless I feel the proper motivation to. Granted in some cases the motivation comes along easier, but that's a given.

[Kevinroc]

I still haven't finished Super Paper Mario. I'm about to start 8-1. I'm almost done.

And now I've finished Super Paper Mario. I'm gameless (unless I feel like just playing around) until Pokemon Diamond/ Pearl come out.

[Collectonian]

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sort of sounds like you're thinking of planning the titles around whatever you're currently playing. Regardless whatever works is fine.

For the most part, that is probably what I'll do, since its the easiest to think of stuff from. Though I have been looking for goodies from other games, if I'm in a hurry I'll just snag one from whatever I'm playing now. :sd:

Still at the He-Man Sushi quest? It can be a bit difficult, so equip everyone accordingly.

And avoid Purgatory (if you're going to do it) until your level average is above 55.

Yep, haven't had time to get back to it yet. I plan to do Purgatory too, so I will keep that in mind about the levels :D If I'm not mistaken, thats the place with no saves, right? So I need to block out a good chunk of time for it...weee

[AbeChinchilla]

Yep, haven't had time to get back to it yet. I plan to do Purgatory too, so I will keep that in mind about the levels :D If I'm not mistaken, thats the place with no saves, right? So I need to block out a good chunk of time for it...weee

Yep! It took me two hours. It was scary!

I tried it again this gameplay around, and got through battles easily with the "Ether Purge" skill that you can obtain for Johnny the first time around (and carries over in New Game Plus!). But I was outside the last door of the last floor (which leads to a room WITH a save point) and was mauled to death because of an enemy ambush! Ugh!

[HitokiriShadow]

Two weeks and 10 hours later, I finally finished Chapter 1 in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. And considering how much grinding the game requires, I think I'm going to put Disgaea on hold and work on a different game. Perhaps Ar Tonelico.

[Suwako Moriya]

All right then I've officially established a save for Xenosaga 3. Currently I'm in the middle of chapter 2. Since well the last "Do you want to save?" screen resulted in "End of chapter 1". Kind of nice how they're now having one of the characters ask if I want to save. First Miyuki and then MOMO. In any case now for some thoughts.

Having the episode II clear data is kind of nice if you prefer Shion's older outfit to whatever she's currently wearing. Plus at least for now it's a decent armor. I'll probably alternate between her wearing it and her not wearing it or maybe not. I'm not sure yet.

It's still early in the game so the battle system hasn't been truly tested yet. However in general it seems to flow pretty well so far. Which is definitely a good thing. Also allowing the player to carry traps actually makes it so they can be part of your strategy as opposed to a case of being a lucky situation.

MOMO exists as absolute proof that episode 03 is already better than episode 02. Her new outfit is rather nice and she's well rather pretty. In general it's just good to have her restored to her former glory. *Slaps episode 02 again for committing that crime*

Since I'm still early in the game there isn't much to comment on right now. Hopefully I'll have more to say later, but that depends on how often I play and how much I'll play each time. Either way at least I managed to establish a save. So that's a start, I think.

[ADC]

So I went through the Temple of Time today. The boss was a pain in the ass, but the payoff at the end of the battle with the weird music before dealing the final blow to the pathetic actual final boss was awesome! Overall this was a very straightforward dungeon, which was somewhat of a disappointment — but a relief, also, after the convoluted Snowpeak Ruin. Now I'm trying to reach the sky. I think I have about 10–15 hours left before I'm done, and I'm almost at 40 hours at this point.

[Collectonian]

Yep! It took me two hours. It was scary!

I tried it again this gameplay around, and got through battles easily with the "Ether Purge" skill that you can obtain for Johnny the first time around (and carries over in New Game Plus!). But I was outside the last door of the last floor (which leads to a room WITH a save point) and was mauled to death because of an enemy ambush! Ugh!

Two hours? Wow...yeah, that's a weekend project then! :P And that would seriously suck to be right in front of the save point and die.

[hub]

Ah, finished this one a while ago but I found it to be a good RPG. Actually, I honestly think that the story takes a nose dive near the end because they try to cram too much into it, but the ending itself is still incredibly (bitter) sweet, and I actually felt a bit melancholy afterwards. KOS-MOS, for being a super-powered anti-gnosis killing machine, really grew on me after three games. :cry: Just sucks that they had to end the series in such a rush, considering how much of a waste Episode 2 was in retrospect. That and I really feel that the KOS-MOS/T-elos "rivalry" deserved an entire episode of its own. Would've been really cool watching them duke it out again.

Oh, and it would've been nice to be able to use KOS-MOS' Ver.3 outfit again. :blush: :P

[Chloe]

Before I say what I am playing atm, I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that I actually was able to finish both Lupin 3rd, and "help" my niece finish her Bratz game for the PS2. Considering that is more than I've been able to finish in the last couple of years, that's quite a feat. :)

I am currently almost halfway through Bully. I am truly enjoying this, though it is not for little kids, and gets disturbing to me personally in a few spots. but I am having a wonderful time with this. I love games like this with a big world, and a "do it at your own pace" mentality. They use and abuse every stereotype going, but it all works in this particular setting. The VA and the music has been especially strong. Freewheeling and fun, just the way I like them. After playing this, I am going to have to try a GTA title at some point.

I am wondering what people think of the difficulty though. I am pretty inept at gaming, and I have had very little trouble going through this. A few rough spots, but nothing horrible yet. Does this have a rep of being too easy??

[Nosredna]

I've actually been playing something! Instead of studying for finals, I've been playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney -Justice For All-. Although since I'm an idiot, I started playing the second game before the first :sd: . Now I'm going to have to go out and find the first game.

[HitokiriShadow]

Ah, finished this one a while ago but I found it to be a good RPG. Actually, I honestly think that the story takes a nose dive near the end because they try to cram too much into it, but the ending itself is still incredibly (bitter) sweet, and I actually felt a bit melancholy afterwards. KOS-MOS, for being a super-powered anti-gnosis killing machine, really grew on me after three games. :cry: Just sucks that they had to end the series in such a rush, considering how much of a waste Episode 2 was in retrospect. That and I really feel that the KOS-MOS/T-elos "rivalry" deserved an entire episode of its own. Would've been really cool watching them duke it out again.

Oh, and it would've been nice to be able to use KOS-MOS' Ver.3 outfit again. :blush: :P


The last area of the game was clearly not originally intended to be in this game. The prior dungeon had all the makings of a final dungeon (particularly the final dungeon of Xenogears) and the last boss in that area was grade A final boss material, complete with great unique battle music, and what happened right after could have easily been the end of an episode. But sadly, they needed to wrap up the series, so that was what they came up with. All things considered, it was pretty good. But I cry when I think of what could have been. I thought Xenosaga I was really good and Xenosaga III was great, but after I finished epsiode III, I sold it because I couldn't deal playing through them again. Between the edits and the aborted story, its just too painful to deal with again.

[Suwako Moriya]

Ah, finished this one a while ago but I found it to be a good RPG.

So far at the very least it does seem to be better than the first two games. I'm in the middle of chapter 3 and thus I've had a chance to use the seven leads. Thus allowing me to decide the basic level up strategy.

The first rule of thumb if MOMO and Shion are always in the party so they're always getting top EXP and SP. The others are rotated in one of two ways. The first is in Alphabetical order when I have a level up goal. The second is whoever the heck I feel like using while progressing through the dungeon.

The level up strategy is simple at least in terms of characters. Say the person who's special attack level is the highest has it level 4. In that case I'll either bring all others to level 4 or bring everyone to level 5. Hence forth when Shion and MOMO meet the goal then only the third character will use the special attack and be switched when s/he meets the goal. Granted if I max out the special attack levels, I'll need to think of a new strategy instead.

Finally it took awhile to decide the characters types, but this is what I went with. Chaos is Breaker, Jin is Counter, Jr. is Hybrid, KOS-MOS is Blocker, MOMO is Attacker, Shion is Support and Ziggy is Breaker. Perhaps if I actually like Xenosaga III enough to replay in the future I may consider starting on the opposite lines for a change of pace.

While I was determined to make sure to play all three the first time, I think if I do replay I may focus just on the third and only do summaries. Granted any replay won't be for a long time and it requires err completing it the first time. Just a wild guess here.

On a final note one thing does annoy me. I liked how in the previous two games they all had their own "ether" saying. Now all of them say "Ether Drive". I want my "Mystic Powers grant me a miracle" back. Did Jr. become corrupt and force the other six to submit to his way of ether use? :sd:

[Randall Flagg]

So I went through the Temple of Time today. The boss was a pain in the ass, but the payoff at the end of the battle with the weird music before dealing the final blow to the pathetic actual final boss was awesome! Overall this was a very straightforward dungeon, which was somewhat of a disappointment — but a relief, also, after the convoluted Snowpeak Ruin. Now I'm trying to reach the sky. I think I have about 10–15 hours left before I'm done, and I'm almost at 40 hours at this point.

The City in the Sky is a goodie. I loved the boss fight there.

[ADC]

I finally beat the STAR game (version 1.0)! My arrow quiver holds 60 and is full! And I have the last technique, too. So I'm going back to the Hidden Village secure in the knowledge that I can take out all the Moblins without running out of arrows like I did last time. Not sure if I'm going to attempt the STAR game (version 2.0), though, because I don't know that I'll ever need a bigger quiver and I just did win this time by catching the last star as the screen was fading out — after the clock hit 0 seconds!

[Lumberjack]

I finally beat the STAR game (version 1.0)! My arrow quiver holds 60 and is full! And I have the last technique, too. So I'm going back to the Hidden Village secure in the knowledge that I can take out all the Moblins without running out of arrows like I did last time. Not sure if I'm going to attempt the STAR game (version 2.0), though, because I don't know that I'll ever need a bigger quiver and I just did win this time by catching the last star as the screen was fading out — after the clock hit 0 seconds!
The STAR game 2.0 is MUCH easier after the next dungeon.

[Lumberjack]

The City in the Sky is a goodie. I loved the boss fight there.
I concur. I also liked exploring the dungeon with the double clawshots.

[MegsLeigh]

I finally finished chapter 2 of Super Paper Mario last night. I agree that running like a gerbil got old, so I pulled up a couple Web sites and caught up on my reading while making money.

[Randall Flagg]

The City in the Sky is a goodie. I loved the boss fight there.
I concur. I also liked exploring the dungeon with the double clawshots.



Oh yeah. That was fun. Grabbing then shooting right back out.

Damn, wasn't planning on playing it again so soon, but this talk makes me want to.

[Suwako Moriya]

Okay I got to spend a bit more time with the err mechs in Xenosaga 3. So far they're at least decent. Choosing multiple attacks to use in a single turn can be interesting. Although I still prefer humans. Of course the fact I prefer to stare at cute girls like Shion or MOMO over mecha may be part of the reasons.

In any case as of current well the mechas have decided to break down apparently due to I guess mystical stuff in the area. Thus I have to travel on foot for now. I'm still in the middle of the said area.

[ADC]

This time the adventure took me into the sky, where I fought Bahamut Argorok and lost a whopping two Hearts before taking his measure. This is not meant to be a pat on the back for my gaming skill; the battle was easy. I recall being very glad to have 20 Heart Containers as I neared the end of Link to the Past, but here I have 17 and never felt like I was in danger.

The sky palace was a lot of fun, though. Got my Spiderman on.

[Noodle]

This is not meant to be a pat on the back for my gaming skill; the battle was easy. I recall being very glad to have 20 Heart Containers as I neared the end of Link to the Past, but here I have 17 and never felt like I was in danger.


I felt this way most of the game, actually. I was worried about my ability to not fuck up in the sky battle and in the end I only lost something like 2 hearts. Or maybe it was 4, because I was in the fire-sucky Zora uniform, now that I think about it. *laugh*

But nevermind this one, egads the final battle was a piece of cake. I'm not one to bitch about a game being easy, to be honest, but, really... I didn't even need those bottles of goo. I remember being downright scared to go in to the final stage in years past. :sd:

[Maru]

But nevermind this one, egads the final battle was a piece of cake. I'm not one to bitch about a game being easy, to be honest, but, really... I didn't even need those bottles of goo. I remember being downright scared to go in to the final stage in years past. :sd:

You got through it okay? :sd: I was stuck on Beast Ganon for the longest time, trying to figure out how to flip him over in wolf form. I used up all my fairies, all my goo... so by the time I got to Ganon's little horse show, I died - and then was forced to get through that battle with three hearts. Many, many deaths followed. I'm so sorry, Link! :cry:

I do agree that most of the fights were easy, but that last one put me through the ringer, lol..!

[Noodle]

I was stuck on Beast Ganon for the longest time, trying to figure out how to flip him over in wolf form. I used up all my fairies, all my goo... Many, many deaths followed. I'm so sorry, Link! :cry:


Hmm.. I think there was a fairy in one of the pots in that room that helped me thru that part of it, but .. overall, yeah really no troubles. I guess I was just lucky? (It's not that I have impressive skills, I can assure you...)

[jecca-neko]

I started FFIII last night. I'm still at the very beginning, where you have to break the Djinn's curse on the townspeople where they all are "ghosts" but actually look like rubberband monsters. :D Anyways, I'm enjoying it a LOT more than FFII so far. FFII's "leveling" system drove me crazy so it's good to be back to a more standard leveling scheme.

[NickFalzarano]

I started FFIII last night. I'm still at the very beginning, where you have to break the Djinn's curse on the townspeople where they all are "ghosts" but actually look like rubberband monsters. :D Anyways, I'm enjoying it a LOT more than FFII so far. FFII's "leveling" system drove me crazy so it's good to be back to a more standard leveling scheme.


Did you actually finished Final Fantasy II? (Loved the levelup system myself. have yet to start III though.)

[Jaynin]

But nevermind this one, egads the final battle was a piece of cake. I'm not one to bitch about a game being easy, to be honest, but, really... I didn't even need those bottles of goo. I remember being downright scared to go in to the final stage in years past. :sd:

You got through it okay? :sd: I was stuck on Beast Ganon for the longest time, trying to figure out how to flip him over in wolf form. I used up all my fairies, all my goo... so by the time I got to Ganon's little horse show, I died - and then was forced to get through that battle with three hearts.

Glad I'm not the only one! :D I ran around for about 15 or 20 minutes trying to figure that one out. The little hint at the bottom of the screen would flash by just too fast for me to catch. When I finally figured it out, I was kind of embarrassed it was fairly simple, especially considering it involved basicly using that goat charge stopping technique from the beginning of the game. I just wasn't thinking that might be a usable skill in wolf form. :sd:

[jecca-neko]

I started FFIII last night. I'm still at the very beginning, where you have to break the Djinn's curse on the townspeople where they all are "ghosts" but actually look like rubberband monsters. :D Anyways, I'm enjoying it a LOT more than FFII so far. FFII's "leveling" system drove me crazy so it's good to be back to a more standard leveling scheme.


Did you actually finished Final Fantasy II? (Loved the levelup system myself. have yet to start III though.)


No. I'm about halfway through. I'll probably start playing it again this weekend. I can't stand to have an unfinished FF game. I don't know why.

Hmm, juggling two NES-era FF games at once. That'll be interesting.

[Nosredna]

I actually found a copy of the first Phoenix Wright game for DS, so I started playing that. I did beat the second game a few days ago, but it's still fun playing through the first one.

[hub]

Finally got my hands on a Japanese Xbox 360 a week back so I've been playing The Idol Master like crazy. Already produced five(!) units now, and so I think it's about time to take a little break. :sd: Overall I think it's a really great game, and the first game to come around in a very long time where I actually lost sleep over it (all in a good way of course). D/l'ed some of the Xbox marketplace costumes, and while they're expensive (~$10 for some!), they add to the game in their own way. :D :blush:

After considering a number of different games I finally decided on getting Atelier Iris 2 for my first RPG since Valkyrie Profile 2 last year, and hopefully it won't let me down. In the end I went w/ it because the game and battle systems sound interesting, and I really dig the artwork (as expected of a NIS game). But now I'm just wondering what my next big game will be...

[Suwako Moriya]

I started FFIII last night.

Once you gain the first set of Job classes you will be required by law to let us know which class you chose for each character. :D Just remember it's more fun to make everyone a different class. At least that's what I feel and that's all that truly matters.

[ADC]

I started FFIII last night.
Once you gain the first set of Job classes you will be required by law to let us know which class you chose for each character. :D Just remember it's more fun to make everyone a different class. At least that's what I feel and that's all that truly matters.
And may I recommend that you pass on the Black Mage, no matter how badly you want to cast attack magicks. I would probably even pass on the White Mage, take a Red Mage in hish place, and go for big physical power through the rest of the party.

Of course, I've taken this game off the back burner and instead put it in the back of the refrigerator, where it'll grow mold and be generally dangerous to mankind before long. I think the reason Square didn't bring this game over until last year is that it sucks. (Note to Ender: It's still better than FF8. Not that that's a challenge.)

[Suwako Moriya]

I would probably even pass on the White Mage, take a Red Mage in hish place, and go for big physical power through the rest of the party.

Speaking as one who actually completed the entire game. :P I'd suggest ignoring this advice. Sure the Red Mage has its uses and makes a decent supplemental character. He can be used for extra healing or extra damage, but in the end he can't truly replace a White Mage. A White Mage has more MP and access to more spells.

I've found in general it's better to use a mixture of physical power and magical power. As well making sure to use each class properly. They have skills for a reason. Honestly reading this makes me wonder if maybe this is part of the reason you were having so much trouble with the game.

I think the reason Square didn't bring this game over until last year is that it sucks.

Wow I'm not even sure I want to know how you'd feel about the original. Given that that version is more lacking in terms of story and the balance between the classes completely sucks in comparison. Plus the original doesn't have a female party member which is like a crime.

Of course while the new version makes it even clearer how flawed the original was, I don't regret playing it. In part because it gave motivation to play this new version. Plus it gives me perspective that several here won't have.

[SilverLuz]

I'm playing... way too many games :D

Currently I've been getting back into City of Heroes. I've got a bit of a groove going where I've got a lot of story material to run, rather than semi-random missions, so that's been fun.

I'm pretty dang close to the end of Final Fantasy III DS. I've got all my summons, and I've done Eureka. Working on the Crystal Tower, but the dragons are a major pain. I've kinda been putting off playing this, because I know my next session is going to require a huge chunk of time.

I'm also playing La Pucelle Tactics, up to chapter 4 so far. I've hit a point where I need to do a major grindfest, which is really dampening my enthusiasm for the game. The story and characters are entertaining, and I like the gameplay OK (although I think I prefer Disgaea in that respect), but the difficulty ramp for the plot compared to the experience it gives you seems really unbalanced to me. So I've just been doing 2-3 maps, plus the item management and fusion, and that's about all I can handle in a session. Hopefully I'll get past this point soon and can get back to plot, which I enjoy more. I've been building up movement bonuses, which should help me run past those dragonshrooms.

[Suwako Moriya]

I'm pretty dang close to the end of Final Fantasy III DS. I've got all my summons, and I've done Eureka. Working on the Crystal Tower, but the dragons are a major pain.

Ah yes those Dragons can be quite annoying. Although how often they'll actually show up is partially a matter of luck. Also yes this is one final dungeon where you want to make sure you have proper time to finish it. Oh yes fair warning for you. There is an event battle where the boss whacks the party for 9999. I'm warning you so you don't reset thinking you didn't level up enough.

After you manage to beat the final boss after taking on the other bosses in the final area (Trust me) and watch the ending the game will allow you to save. This save essentially does the following as far as I can tell.

You'll be saved outside the final dungeon. Ie the whole castle in general. You will retain the items, levels and such you gained. Heck if you go through the final area again the treasures you grabbed such as the four awesome ribbons will be opened. You'll also have three stars next to the save file.

So it's definitely worth saving the game after the first time you beat the final dungeon. However it's debatable if it's worth saving multiple times. Since you may end up using rarer items each time you go through the said final dungeon. Hence I have yet to bother to save a second time no matter how many times I refaced the final boss.

[Kinomoto_Shinji]

Finaly, class is over till August. I've taken summer courses the past two summers...I will be taking a break this summer. With that said...

I've tried to play through some of my backlog today, but I just can't get into it. Finaly Fantasy XII...got bleh. Then went to KOTOR1, got into it...but ultimately got bored and stopped.

Bah...maybe it's time I go next gen...when I get enough hours to buy a system that is.

[martod]

After considering a number of different games I finally decided on getting Atelier Iris 2 for my first RPG since Valkyrie Profile 2 last year, and hopefully it won't let me down. In the end I went w/ it because the game and battle systems sound interesting, and I really dig the artwork (as expected of a NIS game). But now I'm just wondering what my next big game will be...

From your thread asking for reccomendations, you said you didn't play Atelier Iris 1, so I have to ask--why are you playing Atelier Iris 2 first? Atelier Iris 1 was one of my favorite games of the current system generation by the way.

[NickFalzarano]

Well, in Digital Devil Saga I hit a roadblock: I need to levelgrind. So I put that to the side and started Twilight Princess. Just under thirty hours in, and beat the Ice level last night.

On the portable front, I beat Locoroco. So now I'm on to Pokemon Pearl, which my friend scored for me free.

[jecca-neko]

I started FFIII last night.

Once you gain the first set of Job classes you will be required by law to let us know which class you chose for each character. :D Just remember it's more fun to make everyone a different class. At least that's what I feel and that's all that truly matters.



I agree with you that it's more fun to make everyone something different.

Anyway, here's what I had as of last night. I plan to start playing again fairly soon until a ridiculous hour, like 1am or something, despite needing to get up at 6am tomorrow. :D Last night I got the ship from the vikings and need to go back in the tower where you cast Toad on yourself to go on. Well, as soon as I get Toad. :sd:

Luneth: Warrior
Arc: Black Mage, though I'm contemplating changing him to a Red Mage until I need higher level spells. I think he needs more defense so he doesn't need healing so often.
Refia: White Mage, because only females look good as White Mages I think
Ingus: Monk at the moment, but he alternates between that and Thief based on my mood. Him being a Thief in that dungeon where you have to be Mini'ed was incredibly useful. I ran away from everything but the boss thanks to him, so I wouldn't die from enemy spells. :D

[jecca-neko]

I think the reason Square didn't bring this game over until last year is that it sucks.

Lies. I'm personally already thinking this is my favorite NES-era FF game, by a long shot. But then again I very much enjoyed FFV and knew I'd like this for the same reasons: the job changing is fun and makes random battles more interesting.

[ADC]

Lies. I'm personally already thinking this is my favorite NES-era FF game, by a long shot. But then again I very much enjoyed FFV and knew I'd like this for the same reasons: the job changing is fun and makes random battles more interesting.
I think part of the reason I don't like FF3 is because I liked FF5 so much this time around. I liked the job class system better. I liked the story better. I even liked the graphics and sound better — and it was a GBA game! Holding FF3 up against the more recent job-class FFs (5, T, X-2), I see its flaws all the more clearly. If I'd chosen to play FF3 before FF5, maybe I would think differently. I don't know.

In the meantime, I'm glad you're enjoying it. And I do stand by my recommendation against leaning on the magic-users.

[ADC]

I expect that this will be the penultimate Twilight Princess update from this corner of the Inter-wub. I just fought Kefka.

If I'm lucky, some n00b will actually believe that Kefka is in Twilight Princess. Everybody else should at least see some resemblance between the batshit clown and his twice-as-demented usurper-king cousin. My stars and garters, I wanted to whack that dude just to stop him from yelling out HEE-AHH! all the time.

So it's off to the last battle! After that, I can stop ignoring Princess Peach. Unless I get another urge to play some Zelda, in which it'll be Wind Waker (and this time I mean it!).

On a side note, I think I'm really glad I went with the GCN version of Twilight Princess. I'd have CTS after the Twilight Palace if I had to swing the Wii Remote around all the time.

[Suwako Moriya]

I agree with you that it's more fun to make everyone something different.

Then there is the matter of it being more effective in the long run. Your set up is pretty decent over all. Although in my case it was Luneth the Black Mage, Arc the Thief, Refia the White Mage, and Ignus the Warrior as my first set of classes.

As a suggestion I would split the characters among the magical lines. By this I mean the following. Dedicate one to black magic, one to white magic, one to summon, and one as a mixture. Think Red Mage and Sage. The reason being is this way you don't have to repeatedly swap spells whenever you decide to have a character be a mage of the serious spell casting variety. Simply because well in my case since Refia only uses White Magic that's all she'll have on.

Ah yes the Thief is an awesome class. Good for avoiding battles, not wasting money on magical keys, and in general collecting items. Only problem is you may want a stronger class for boss battles, but if you're new to the game it can be hard to tell when they come up. Still then again there is also the matter of deciding to steal from a boss if you so desire.

Oh yes you may have noticed the crystal sickness where your stats are dropped for awhile. It's not much of a problem so long as you don't repeatedly change in the middle of a dungeon. In fact while I can't give examples I can tell you this much.

Depending on the classes a character has leveled up it can be possible to change between two classes without any period of crystal sickness. Which is quite useful if you play your cards right. For certain I took advantage of it because I could.

However then again I just thought it would be neat to play a game of time to switch modes. Sure I could keep Refia as a White Mage the whole game, but hey being a Scholar on occasion works for me. Plus she makes a cute Ninja. Yeah I hard a rather strange way of playing the game, but well it all worked out.

[jecca-neko]

I see its flaws all the more clearly. If I'd chosen to play FF3 before FF5, maybe I would think differently. I don't know.


Well, sure it has flaws. The major thing FFV has as part of the class changing system that this game doesn't is you can't mix and match abilities. A warrior is a pure warrior, a white mage is a pure white mage, etc. There's also the fact that each class gives very limited options to the table while in FFV each class could do more. And also some classes aren't "real" classes in that they're sorta just upgrade classes to previous classes you'd already gotten.

But unlike you I haven't played FFV recently. In fact, my last FF was FFII. I haven't played a more modern FF game since FFX-2 since I don't have FFXII yet. Maybe it's easier for me to play it for all of those reasons.

Or maybe it's just simply that I've been looking forward to this game for a very, very long time. Once I found out we never really got FFII or FFIII, plus FFV was missing, I wanted to play all of those games. Thanks to 2 of the PS1 collections we got FFII and FFV. But years still passed before we got FFIII so my desire to play the game grew.

[jecca-neko]

Ah yes the Thief is an awesome class. Good for avoiding battles, not wasting money on magical keys, and in general collecting items. Only problem is you may want a stronger class for boss battles, but if you're new to the game it can be hard to tell when they come up. Still then again there is also the matter of deciding to steal from a boss if you so desire.

Considering I just beat Gutsco and Salamander with a Thief in the party, it's not so bad. The Thief is better at surviving magical attacks than the Monk, the other class Ignus alternates between. Also, the Thief is fast so most of the time gets a turn first. This is handy for healing and such. Also a Thief is pretty good offensively with two knives in the front row. He's slightly fragile so you just have to make sure your White Mage is looking out for him.

As a result of beating Salamand I've got new classes to play with. I did the logical choice of turning Luneth into a Knight. Arc is a Red Mage and I'm not changing him for a while. The game hinted that I should use a Scholar soon for something. I guess that means I'll make Ignus, the Jack of All Trades, be a Scholar as I want to keep Refia a White Mage.

Ranger seems pointless, but I don't know if Scholar or Geomancer will be useful or not. Thoughts?

[Suwako Moriya]

But years still passed before we got FFIII so my desire to play the game grew.

In my case I just wanted to have a legit translated version of the game. When I learned that FF3 DS would fix many of the flaws of the original, I became even more excited.

I also had one advantage that some may not have. See I realized something. The fact it's called FF3 means it's supposed to predate FF5. Thus the idea of expecting FF3 to be more evolved than FF5 would be entire silly and unrealistic.

Heck when I played the original version of FF3, I was playing it after having completed FF7. I can say that I don't remember griping about the lack of materia, 3D polygons, or the fact I wasn't hearing "Sephiroth Sephiroth" repeatedly during the final battle. :P

[Suwako Moriya]

Ranger seems pointless, but I don't know if Scholar or Geomancer will be useful or not. Thoughts?

The main advantage to the Ranger is that barrage can in fact do rather nice damage. The problem is this. Until your job level gets high enough barrage will do less damage. Plus it can eat away at arrows. Still Rangers can fight decently in the back row. They can also take advantage of the various types of arrows.

Geomancers can be rather nice so long as you accept the fact you can't decide which terrain attack they'll use. However in general the attack is going to decent damage. Also the fact you're not spending any MP to use it kind of makes up for it. It's like having a Black Mage that casts random elemental spells for free. Something along those lines.

Scholars flat out rock! They're one of my favorite classes in the game. First of all their ability to scan is not only useful for finding out the weakness of enemy it also has the ability to destroy the positive effects enemies put on themselves. Even better the Scholar has double effectiveness with items.

What does this mean? Imagine potions healing twice as much. Imagine doing double damage with items. Heck attack item damage is based on your intelligence score and Scholars are rather intelligent. This works well with the double damage. So if you're willing to steal attack items with a Thief the Scholar can be a deadly part of your arsenal because of it.

Oh yeah by the way if you ever wondered what the heck the point of equipping two shields is I'll tell you. Knights automatically cover characters with low HP. So imagine a Knight using defend. Defend means guarding and thus no attacking. So why not have two shield equipped for extra defense. Another example would be the Viking which draws attacks to itself.

[tuffy]

After beating FFIII not long ago, I decided to give FFV a try to see if it could provide an even more enjoyable RPG experience. But so far I'm having trouble getting into it.

The random encounter rate in FFV is much higher. I wouldn't mind that so much, except that the battle system annoys me. I liked FFIII's "pick your actions, then everybody moves" battle system. This one seems closer to Grandia's "everybody's moving at the same time" battle system - which I also really liked - but FFV falls short of either.

Since the parties are mostly static (like FFIII) except for little action bars, I have little idea on which monster is targeting who or how long the actions I select will take to execute and so the whole battle is difficult to manage. But even worse is when a monster attacks while I'm planning my move. It pisses me off a little every time it happens. Why am I being penalized by taking damage just because the little hand icon didn't start in the right spot and I had to move it to who I actually wanted to hit?

Maybe FFV will grow on me later, but I've become addicted to Puzzle Quest in the meantime and have been giving that a lot more attention.

[Suwako Moriya]

I'll explain what's going on here in FFV. The games use the Active Time Battle system introduced in FFIV. As you already noticed when the action bar fills up the character is allowed to take action. This action bar fills up based on your speed.

Well pretend for a second here each enemy has its own action bar that's hidden. It will fill up based on their speed and they'll choose an action which eventually happens if you do not kill the enemy. Now here is where the key comes in.

You can adjust the speed of battle. Lower number means the bars fill up faster for everyone and higher number means it fills up slower if I remember right. So you may want to adjust this to give yourself more time to plan.

There is also active vs wait. If you keep it on active the bars of both friend and foe will continue to fill no matter what you do. Hence why you are getting attacked. However if you have it on wait the bars should pause while you decide your action. At the very least while going through say the spell menu or item menu.

If you're new to the whole ATB system of FF, you're much better off playing on wait. In fact even if you become used to it, you may want to play on wait anyway. Because wait will put the game closer to being a turn based RPG. Which some may prefer anyway.

[jecca-neko]

Geomancers can be rather nice so long as you accept the fact you can't decide which terrain attack they'll use.

When you're in Hein's Castle it seems better to have a very magic heavy group. So I changed Luneth temporarily into a Geomancer. He pretty much annihilated Hein by himself by randomly deciding to use ShadowFlare when I picked Terrain, doing about 3700 HP of damage. That combined with the item that lets you use Blizzaga for free killed him. Fastest boss battle so far.

Scholars flat out rock! They're one of my favorite classes in the game. First of all their ability to scan is not only useful for finding out the weakness of enemy it also has the ability to destroy the positive effects enemies put on themselves. Even better the Scholar has double effectiveness with items.

Yeah, my scholar (Ignus) was the one who used the blizzaga item. However, he had the downside that he didn't know any magic. I have now taught him a bunch of spells so he should actually be useful now.

I'm now off of the floating continent and I have the water crystal shard. I suppose this means I get more classes soon? I'm shocked since it felt like such a long time between the wind and fire crystals.

[Suwako Moriya]

Yeah, my scholar (Ignus) was the one who used the blizzaga item. However, he had the downside that he didn't know any magic. I have now taught him a bunch of spells so he should actually be useful now.

That reminds me. In the case of some classes the ability to use magic is more of a side thing. What I mean by that is simple. That you may be better off having for example a Knight use cure magic outside of battle as opposed to during battle.


I'm now off of the floating continent and I have the water crystal shard. I suppose this means I get more classes soon? I'm shocked since it felt like such a long time between the wind and fire crystals.

Well there's still the matter of the gap between the water jobs and the earth jobs. Still yeah it won't be long until you get access to the Water Jobs. Each having their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Hmm maybe I should just my thoughts on all the Jobs since I used them. Well assuming I can get my thoughts together anyway.

[juliant59]

Was playing Def Jam Icon for my PS3 but now for about a week and a half been playing Final Fantasy 12. It's been good so far. Just leveling up and trying to get as much license points as I can.

[jecca-neko]

Well, I do have the water jobs now. I now have a dark knight in the party. Undecided what I think of it so far.

The classes that seem least useful out of this set are the bard and the viking. I think I'd rather have pretty much any physical attacking class over the viking. I don't know why. And the bard feels the same way. Any other magic class pretty much seems more useful. The bard I have a reason though. Other magic classes have more useful abilities.

[Suwako Moriya]

Well, I do have the water jobs now. I now have a dark knight in the party. Undecided what I think of it so far.

Dark Knights are a mixed bag. Their special skill does damage all enemies, but since it eats away at your HP it requires keeping your HP up. Thus the class can be costly. Not to mention the fact they are rather picky about the armor they can use.

The classes that seem least useful out of this set are the bard and the viking.

The Viking is nice for a short bit because it can draw attacks to itself using provoke and it's supposed to have rather nice defense, but honestly the use of the class is not that great when facing enemies that use attacks that target multiple members and provoke can miss. So in reality its use is definitely limited.

The Bard through is meant to be a support unit. You're not supposed to use their normal attack at all. Instead you're supposed to sing. Early on the use of the Bard won't be much. After all you kind of need harps. Your currently equipped heart determines the effect of the song. For the record you can change your equipped harp in the middle of battle. Which is good because that's part of the strategy. This is where it gets fun

I'll get the negative about Bards out of the way first. The effect of each song will only last two rounds and of course their normal attack totally *****ing sucks. However who the heck cares? Because the positives outweigh these flaws.

1. The song will target all allies or all enemies dependent on the harp equipped.

2. The song is preemptive. It will be the first action each round.

3. There is no cost at all for using the song other than the cost of the harp. As well as making sure you have the harp equipped.

4. The higher the Job level of the Bard the more effective the support abilities of the Bard. This means more healing, more defense, more damage, and so forth.

By the way speaking of damage. The Lamia Harp does damage based on the remaining HP of the enemy. This means it does a LOT of damage to enemies with quite a bit of HP. Even more so at higher Job levels. It also means if you start seeing the damage drop it's a good indication the boss is getting much weaker.

Then there's the Dream Harp. Now the amount of HP it recharges won't cut out for much later bosses battle. You're better of using the White Mages healing spells. However while going through a dungeon it's the perfect thing to use to help keep your HP up. A trick I relied on heavily during the final dungeon.

During boss battles in the final dungeon my strategy actually became a case of alternating between Apollo Harp for increased defense and Lamia Harp to really hurt my enemies. Fear me as I do 9999 damage to all parts of the final boss repeatedly. Actually the damage can be higher than 9999, but it won't really show it. Lazy programming obviously...

So in short the Bard is essentially a very awesome support class if used properly. It's also one of the most improved classes compared to the original version. Trust me the Bard in the original version of FF3 sucks. However this one is just plain awesome.

[Ender]

I'm back to grinding my way through FF IX. Somebody wake me up when it's over. :sigh:

[hub]

After considering a number of different games I finally decided on getting Atelier Iris 2 for my first RPG since Valkyrie Profile 2 last year, and hopefully it won't let me down. In the end I went w/ it because the game and battle systems sound interesting, and I really dig the artwork (as expected of a NIS game). But now I'm just wondering what my next big game will be...

From your thread asking for reccomendations, you said you didn't play Atelier Iris 1, so I have to ask--why are you playing Atelier Iris 2 first? Atelier Iris 1 was one of my favorite games of the current system generation by the way.

Can't find AI1 at any of the places I checked, and I don't feel like paying ~$50 for it from some other places. Besides, overall the buzz seems to be more positive for AI2 than AI1...or at least from all the reviews I read (though I find the herione in AI1 to be a lot cuter than the one in AI2). I actually put 2hr. into the game tonight, and it's been alright. Nothing amazing but nothing boring either. However, one thing that does bug me is that the battles are too damn easy.

[ADC]

I'd say that was 50 hours well spent.

The graphics may be the best of what the Gamecube is capable of producing, but I was still … whelmed. Not bad, not great. Because they chose a pseudo-realistic style, the palette of the game was basically rustic: Greens, browns, faded reds, gray. The Goron Mine was visually the most interesting just because it had the lava and metals and what have you. There were some great designs, including the Shadow Denizens, the Light Gods, and especially the bosses; and the "people" — especially the Yetis and the Zora — were quite nice to look at, too. I would just like a brighter palette, especially after Wind Waker.

Sound was pretty much standard for a Zelda game. I did like how the music acted sort of as sonar — enemy draws near, the combat music starts. Very nicely done. I know there were complaints about Nintendo's continued use of MIDI instead of orchestra, but I don't think they could have accomplished what they wanted with the music using Red Book files.

Play control on the 3D Zeldas has always been a bit wonky, and Twilight Princess is no exception. It's not laggy, exactly, but it feels slow because of the insistence on realistic movement — this makes something as simple as turning around problematic. This is also somewhat of a problem with actions such as swinging a sword — it takes time once you hit the action button for the action to be carried out. It took me some time to get used to it, especially compared to the hyper-responsive control of the 2D Zeldas like Link to the Past and Minish Cap. I will also mention my complete adoration for the Iron Boots just because they kept me from going insane trying to change depth in the various water stages.

The story was also pretty much standard Zelda fare, which means awesome. Midna was a great character even before she got all sexy. Zant was a weak point for starting off hardcore and becoming Kefka's dimwitted half-brother. I loved the Yetis.

At the end of all, it was 50 hours after finding 42 Heart Pieces, 24 Golden Bugs, and 37 Poes, so there's a lot more to be done in this game, but I felt like I'd put in the time and was ready for it to finish. Is it a bad thing that I didn't want to linger? Not really. The main part of the game was excellent; these other things are just nice window-dressing.

Graphics: B+
Sound: B
Story: A
Fun: A+
Overall: ZOMFG (out of ZOMFG)

Yes, it was worth $50. Now … on to Super Paper Mario!

[jecca-neko]

I'm now juggling both FFII (PS1) and FFIII (DS of course). It's actually not so bad. FFII is a chore so when I get bored of that I can go to FFIII, which is actually fun. :D I haven't seriously started playing Pokemon D/P yet as I promised myself I'd finish FFII first. I needed to give myself an excuse to beat FFII. :sd: I don't have to beat FFIII to start playing Pokemon but I think I'm already at least halfway through FFIII so I'll probably end up beating both around the same time, if not FFIII first.

[Suwako Moriya]

All right then I have just completed chapter 4 in Xenosaga 3. I haven't progressed beyond that point yet. You know the longer it takes KOS-MOS to rejoin then the more she'll end up lagging behind. Also I have to say this and it's Xenogears related just as a warning in terms of a possible homage or whatever Mai looked like an older version of Maria and Mai's mech looked like Maria's gear. Then again maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there.

[Suwako Moriya]

FFII is a chore so when I get bored of that I can go to FFIII, which is actually fun.

Heh I take it you'll at least fight one battle and save before turning the game off. :P Well either way if you keep doing sessions of party improvement and pressing forward you'll eventually finish it or maybe not.

[pete5883]

Also I have to say this and it's Xenogears related just as a warning in terms of a possible homage or whatever Mai looked like an older version of Maria and Mai's mech looked like Maria's gear. Then again maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there.
No, definitely intentional :)

[Johnny]

Haven't posted in here for weeks so hey, what harm can an update do?

Currently in rotation with me is Super Paper Mario, Pokemon Diamond, DJ Max Portable 2 and the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo.

I'm a good 11 hours into SPM and just about to unlock Chapter 8. It's been an enjoyable experience so far, although IMO not quite as great as PM 2 for the Cube.
The layout in terms of unlocking new levels (read: backtracking to find heart pillars) annoys me but that's pretty much my only negative point. It's a bit on the easy side too but it's very well done in terms of the combat/humour/throw back to 2D Mario games so I can deal with it.
It's just a pity that this and Zelda are two of the Wii's best (or possibly the 2 best) games and both are essentially Gamecube games with some admittedly needless new controls. That's not to say I'm finding them a bad point - stuff like shaking the Wiimote to use an item is a nice touch IMO and the controller and button layout work very well.

Here's hoping that Mario Galaxy really shows what Nintendo can do with their first party Wii games, because I'm expecting something truly amazing with that game, kind of like Mario 64 all over again.

I'm only 4 or so hours into Pokemon Diamond but have reached the stage where I feel compelled to play more and more and get as many Pokemon as possible. I put a rediculous amount of hours into Red and that was the last Pokemon game I played (well, last traditional style one) so I'm expecting more of the same here.
I find myself playing for an hour+ each time I play and I haven't done that since God of War II so I'm thinking this game will end up being truly special and taking up hours and hours of my time.

Kinda finished with 4 Button Mode in DJ Max 2. The new stuff like the challenges are a nice touch and add depth to the game. Haven't put the same amount of time into it as I have with the first one, so the songs haven't stuck in my head just yet, but there are a few great tracks on here that I've already established as favourites.
The animation in the songs is also a lot better than the previous game too.

Got the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo yesterday as it took ages for my PS3 to update to 1.7, but, speaking as someone who only dabbled in Ninja Gaiden, I'm really, really enjoying this. I remember when I first played it on the Xbox a few years back I found it really hard but managed to finish hard mode on the demo on my first play through. Onto really hard I suppose...
Personally, I don't think it quite matches Devil May Cry 3 but the depth of the combat and the speed (not to mention amount of really fuckin cool moves you can pull off) is impressive and I can see myself playing this demo right up until the game comes out.
Got my JP preorder in a few days ago and I'm hoping that, as I d/l the demo from the Japanese store and it features English language or JP language/English subs, that the full game will feature the same options.

The start of last week was also spent playing a lot of Hokuto no Ken PS2. When I first got it, despite really enjoying it, I didn't play it a lot but going back to it I've found that it's definitely one of my favourite 2D fighters. Also inspired me to preorder Guilty Gear XX Accent Core which I was gonna pass on (I enjoy the GG games, but I'm not the worlds biggest fan) but as it shares similarities with HnK, I'm definitely in the mood for more quality 2D fighting action.

Aside from that though, nothing much else. Seems the summer drought has started early this year. There's a handful of games I'm really, really looking forward to coming in May/June (Forza 2, Ouendan 2, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Bleach: HtS 4, Trusty Bell, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Lair, Biohazard 4 Wii etc) but that's like 4/5 a month which, for me at least, is a rediculously small number.

So what is everyone else doing to combat the slow release schedule that is affecting pretty much all consoles at the minute? Nothing? Buying Virtual Console games? Buying/playing older stuff?
I think I'm gonna have a splurge on the VC later today as there's a few games released over the past week or two I haven't bought yet.
Here's hoping Streets of Rage 2 is on the US one tomorrow!

[DiGiKerot]

So what is everyone else doing to combat the slow release schedule that is affecting pretty much all consoles at the minute? Nothing? Buying Virtual Console games? Buying/playing older stuff?


I've got a least 10 RPGs I've not even touched yet, which is good for a year or so for me :sd:

[Suwako Moriya]

I've got a least 10 RPGs I've not even touched yet, which is good for a year or so for me :sd:

I can't say my situation is exactly the same, but more or less I also have already owned RPGs to play/finish. Not that I'll realistically get to them all. As well as RPGs I still need to buy. It's a matter of waiting for the right moment as it were. Hence forth I'm not that worried about a slow year right now. I can worry about what to do after I finish or drop the current game depending on how I feel.

[Johnny]

So what is everyone else doing to combat the slow release schedule that is affecting pretty much all consoles at the minute? Nothing? Buying Virtual Console games? Buying/playing older stuff?


I've got a least 10 RPGs I've not even touched yet, which is good for a year or so for me :sd:


Just out of interest, you still playing iMAS? I haven't played it in a few weeks but plan on finishing my Miki play through before moving onto a new one.
Did you ever get any of the DLC from the Marketplace?

[jecca-neko]

FFII is a chore so when I get bored of that I can go to FFIII, which is actually fun.

Heh I take it you'll at least fight one battle and save before turning the game off. :P Well either way if you keep doing sessions of party improvement and pressing forward you'll eventually finish it or maybe not.

Well, I did play FFII for a couple of hours yesterday. I ended last night getting the White Mask and I need to go to Mysidia. Apparently I need to find the Black Mask to get the Ultima Scroll, which obviously I want.

I did get frustrated enough with the game that I'm using a guide. NES-era FF games just give you small hints on where to go next so you can waste a lot of time wandering around figuring out where you need to go. I didn't feel like wasting that time. I want to finish the game as soon as possible. More interesting games, like Pokemon D/P, call me!

[DiGiKerot]

Just out of interest, you still playing iMAS? I haven't played it in a few weeks but plan on finishing my Miki play through before moving onto a new one.

On and off. I hadn't played it for a few weeks (since I'd been tackling Suikoden V), but I started a new unit yesterday and have clocked up two or three hours with them. Completing it should, hopefully, take my Producer Rank up to level 10 :D


Did you ever get any of the DLC from the Marketplace?

Not yet, but I'm getting to the point where it's difficult to improve my run through without some additional buffs to make things a bit easier, so it's getting increasingly tempting.

If they released a Xenoglossia-style penguin suit, I'd buy it :P

[Suwako Moriya]

Apparently I need to find the Black Mask to get the Ultima Scroll, which obviously I want.

It has been awhile since I played and I don't feel like loading up the save right now to compare damage especially if the spells are not at the same level for all I know. However if memory serves me right, I wouldn't get my hopes up. It's not a bad spell, but let's just say it's not exactly as ultimate as it should be. One of the gripes many have had about it over the years. Then again Ultima does have the disadvantage of being one of the later spells you acquire. So you may have already worked on other attacks spells instead or you may have been too focused on making people fighters.

[SpaceButler]

I'm not playing anything atm...and I haven't been for a while. I'm in a gaming funk right now. :( I want to play games, but everytime I start one up I get bored... This is what happened to me with anime, and now I hardly ever watch any anime at all.

Whats happening to me?!?! Am I growing out of all my favorite hobbies? Has this ever happened to any of you? Cause it's really bumming me out. I can deal with losing intrest in anime, but not being able to bring myself to game after being a hardcore gamer as far back as I can remember? That's depressing. :cry:

[Suwako Moriya]

It's hard to say because a lot of it depends on how you were approaching a hobby before "burn out" started to settle in. See the thing is you need to pace yourself properly. It's also a good idea to take a break from hobby X for the sake of hobby Y.

In fact if you're feeling a lack of motivation in a hobby then well just do something else for awhile. To what level is debatable. It could be as simple as just focusing on a different genre of games than you usually do. Or it could reach the point where you just take breaks from games in general to do whatever.

Also you may be losing your ability to commit and dedicate yourself to longer things. Honestly it's much easier to say give up on a game in the first five minutes than to play it for several hours (even spread out) to finish it. By giving up early as possible you essentially are able to avoid something that can take quite a bit of effort. Especially if you're deciding between multiple games.

One way to avoid this is go with the mind set of "I'll just make a bit of progress in this game today and see how things go" and not the mindset of "If I don't complete this game before sunset the universe will be destroyed". Which mind you only serves to backfire. Trust me I've learned from experience.

[jecca-neko]

Whats happening to me?!?! Am I growing out of all my favorite hobbies? Has this ever happened to any of you? Cause it's really bumming me out. I can deal with losing intrest in anime, but not being able to bring myself to game after being a hardcore gamer as far back as I can remember? That's depressing. :cry:

I had that a couple of years ago. For me it helped to start diversifying. Starting with the Genesis/SNES era I played more RPGs than I did before that and then by the PS1 era I was playing RPGs almost exclusively. But now I feel like I'm bigger into gaming than I ever was. I still play RPGs but I play other stuff too. Actually I'll try pretty much any genre now. I also play not just AAA titles but lesser known stuff too.

So I recommend to try something new. You never know, you might just like it.

Another choice is to just not play games very much for a while. During most of the PS2 era I didn't play video games very much as that was my burnout period. Like you I felt pretty bored by most games. The upside is now I can get good PS2 games for super cheap because people are moving on to the newer consoles. :D

[jecca-neko]

Apparently I need to find the Black Mask to get the Ultima Scroll, which obviously I want.

It has been awhile since I played and I don't feel like loading up the save right now to compare damage especially if the spells are not at the same level for all I know. However if memory serves me right, I wouldn't get my hopes up. It's not a bad spell, but let's just say it's not exactly as ultimate as it should be.

Yeah, makes sense. I recently got Holy and it's not doing as much damage as Fire/Ice/Bolt because it's a lower level. I worked it up to level 2 though.

Anyway, I've been working on the game pretty hard again today. I got the 2 masks, got the Crystal Rod, got eaten by Leviathan... now I have to go through the Mysidian Tower. From the guide I've been using it seems like it'll be a little rough. I'm taking a break from the game for now but I'll see if I can get through the whole tower by the end of the day, if not getting farther.

[hub]

Well for what it's worth, I d/l'ed a lot of the bonus costumes from Marketplace, and while they're nice they might not be worth the ~$10US per. If anything I'd just say d/l the school girl and buruma ones, because they give you significant stat boosts w/ very little negative impacts (120+ points for dance and image, respectively). That, and they look pretty nice as well. :blush: :D

But I'm on my 5th (6th?) play through w/ a trio made up of Miki, Haruka, and Chihaya, and I've gotten my stats worked out to the point where I should be able to hit S-rank between weeks 40-45. However I still can not for the love of god understand how some players can get 3+ million fans. On the rankings I think the highest so far is like 3.75 million. O.O

[ADC]

So now that I've put Zelda to bed, I'm back in the Mushroom Kingdom or thereabouts, and I have one thing to say:

Little help?

See, I spent like 20 minutes running around trying to hit the dragon at the end of 1-4, and there was no indication I could see that I was supposed to jump on its back. All I got from the Pixl was that the antenna was the weak point. Well, I figured that out the moment ERROR started going all batshit. And what was more frustrating than that was, this wasn't a hard boss! It's just that the 2D/3D design of the game makes some things sort of esoteric.

On the other hand, this game looks incredible! And Princess Peach is way too adorable. But, having reached 2-2 and now that I'm learning to think in … well, multiple dimensions, anyway … I think that this game won't take nearly as long as Twilight Princess did. And it should be a blast.

[jecca-neko]

Okay, after 2 days of a lot of hours playing FFII, I went from approximately 50% of the way through to approximately 75% of the way through. At this rate I'll probably start Pokemon pretty soon. Waiting is okay though. I'm still waiting for Nintendo to send me my D/P Player's Guide.

[Suwako Moriya]

Okay, after 2 days of a lot of hours playing FFII, I went from approximately 50% of the way through to approximately 75% of the way through.

Ah the fun of leaving a game dormant for an extended period and then making quite a bit of progress in a short period. I can't count the number of times it's happened to me. It often left me with a I should have just pressed forward in the first place feeling. However it's not my fault it wasn't the proper time to play a game. Nor is it my fault if I decide I have to destroy the rulers of this world for a 12th time. Or wait maybe it is.

[jecca-neko]

Okay, after 2 days of a lot of hours playing FFII, I went from approximately 50% of the way through to approximately 75% of the way through.

Ah the fun of leaving a game dormant for an extended period and then making quite a bit of progress in a short period. I can't count the number of times it's happened to me. It often left me with a I should have just pressed forward in the first place feeling. However it's not my fault it wasn't the proper time to play a game. Nor is it my fault if I decide I have to destroy the rulers of this world for a 12th time. Or wait maybe it is.

Well, for me the dormant thing is highly unusual. I can't stand stopping a game in the middle, leaving it like that for months, and then playing again. Usually I just start over if that happens. That's why most of the time I don't stop and just play the game until I beat it. FFII I originally stopped because the Wii came out and distracted me. But it was too painful of a thought to think of starting that game over.

The last game I actually forced myself to continue and not start over was, ironically, another Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. But considering that game also has very little story to speak of it wasn't so bad. I was playing that game multiplayer so I couldn't of started over anyway. The other person didn't want to. :sd:

[DiGiKerot]

But I'm on my 5th (6th?) play through w/ a trio made up of Miki, Haruka, and Chihaya, and I've gotten my stats worked out to the point where I should be able to hit S-rank between weeks 40-45. However I still can not for the love of god understand how some players can get 3+ million fans. On the rankings I think the highest so far is like 3.75 million. O.O

He is also only Rank C, so we can see where they cut out at least four weeks from their schedule.

Generally, though, I'd imagine it takes a lot of game reseting and getting good boosts. They probably try and get writer boosts constantly and probably have all the mail addresses as well. 35 weeks of doing nothing but the (rare) 700000 fan Idol Vision audition will land you in the mid-2millions, plus there'll be around 10-15% on top of that if they know what they are doing with the manual appeals during the TV broadcasts, plus a little extra due to the usual weekly fan gain. All that could probably boost you into the 3 million range.

If you really want to stress yourself, you could probably start on the Idol Vision auditions earlier. It would be very, very hard (you'd have to get to D rank quickly, and wouldn't have many memories to bank on), but if you are very lucky it certainly wouldn't be impossible to pass that audition.

3million+ is certainly not impossible, but you really would need to abuse every trick and loophole imaginable to get there. It doesn't really strike me as being fun - it can up to 30minutes of paging back and forth just to get that Idol Vision audition to appear :sd:

[Maru]

Well, I do have the water jobs now. I now have a dark knight in the party. Undecided what I think of it so far.

Dark Knights are a mixed bag. Their special skill does damage all enemies, but since it eats away at your HP it requires keeping your HP up. Thus the class can be costly. Not to mention the fact they are rather picky about the armor they can use.

Dark Knights are great, I have Luneth as one now. Just equip him with a Blood Sword, and you can do as many Souleaters as you like, he'll heal himself back up in no time :D

I'm still chugging through FFIII too, I just got through the Temple of Time. But there were no singing monks, Master Swords, or shiny stones here. Just lots of locked doors, Chimeras and Behemoths :( The Chimeras, in groups of three, would wipe out my party before I could blink with that lightning move of theirs. I ended up running away from almost everything; I got the lute but it didn't feel like much of a victory.

I'm also still wondering... Why hasn't anyone said anything about Goldor destroying the Fire Crystal? Isn't that, you know, kind of important? I feel like maybe I missed an event somewhere where people run around shouting "AAAAAAAAH, WE'RE DOOOOOMED!!"


Oh, and about the chocobo I'm raising.. When you get a chocobo egg, there's a very small chance the choco will have a color other than yellow. I lucked out - mine's going to be green (http://home.mchsi.com/~maru/green.jpg)! O.O

[Suwako Moriya]

Dark Knights are great, I have Luneth as one now. Just equip him with a Blood Sword, and you can do as many Souleaters as you like, he'll heal himself back up in no time :D

Heh I should try that next time assuming I actually found the Blood Sword and didn't accidentally get rid of it or something silly like that.

I'm also still wondering... Why hasn't anyone said anything about Goldor destroying the Fire Crystal? Isn't that, you know, kind of important?

Actually you mean the Earth Crystal in this case not the Fire crystal. The Fire Crystal was on the floating continent and the source of the second set of jobs Also let's just say you'll eventually find something interesting about that situation.

[Maru]

Actually you mean the Earth Crystal in this case not the Fire crystal.

Oops, you're right! :sd: Glad to hear something will come of it, though. :)

[SilverLuz]

I'm playing... way too many games :D
I'm pretty dang close to the end of Final Fantasy III DS. I've got all my summons, and I've done Eureka. Working on the Crystal Tower, but the dragons are a major pain. I've kinda been putting off playing this, because I know my next session is going to require a huge chunk of time.

I finally sat down and finished FFIIIDS. As expected, it took quite a while - had to run and grab the charge cable midway through the Dark World. Fortunately I only ran into one of those dang dragons on my way to get there. The bosses really weren't too bad, although having both a dedicated and back-up healer was pretty essential. Finished at level 56, with a party of Devout, Dark Knight, Sage, and Knight.

I did also manage to get to the end of Chapter 4 in Pucelle Tactics. I think this is going to be one of my back-burner games for a loooooong time.

Theoretically, I should be finishing up more of the games I've already started, but knowing me, I'll be jumping in to something new very soon. Perhaps Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, which I finally picked up recently.

[ADC]

And I beat Mimi without too much trouble. Because I suck at twitch gaming, I had to use a Shroom Shake to stay alive, but it wasn't as much of an outside-the-box strategic approach as was required to take out ERROR. So now it's on to Chapter 3-1! And it's turning out that Super Paper Mario is a pretty quick game to play. You can easily do a full chapter in one sitting (90–120 minutes).

[hub]

3million+ is certainly not impossible, but you really would need to abuse every trick and loophole imaginable to get there. It doesn't really strike me as being fun - it can up to 30minutes of paging back and forth just to get that Idol Vision audition to appear :sd:

I hear that; I usually just give up on the 70k Idol Vision audition once it gives me the 50k fans and 2 winners one. But I was able to hit S-rank yesterday (1.5mil), but rather than get some message from the girls, all I got was some crappy extended dialog from my avatar. Wtf? You'd think that they would be more happy or something. O.O

Anyway, all I have to do now is finish out the rest of this run (5 weeks left), and then work on my other team of Yayoi/Iori/Ami/Mami. But for some reason though I just can't work up enough interest to make any real progress w/ team loli. Maybe it's b/c they have the weakest voices out of all the girls (unless it's for one of those hyper/genki songs of course). :sd:

[Collectonian]

Now that I've finished both final projects for this session of school, I finally got in some Shadow Hearts FtNW. After hitting the Garland Mansion to gather in more Bream coins, I finished up Mao's side-quest. Also picked up Natan's best weapon (don't know how I missed doing it earlier, no work was involved LOL). Ninja boy's side quest is also done.

Now I'm after Shania's final fusion. After that, all that I'll have left is finishing up the Lovecraftian battles, Purgatory, finishing the snap collecting and doing the Gate. Wee!

I'm also playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 at random times. It drives me nuts, and I bought it thinking it was the one I loved playing a few years ago (but that was 3). Still, something good for when I don't have a lot of time to play.

[hub]

Now that I've finished both final projects for this session of school, I finally got in some Shadow Hearts FtNW. After hitting the Garland Mansion to gather in more Bream coins, I finished up Mao's side-quest. Also picked up Natan's best weapon (don't know how I missed doing it earlier, no work was involved LOL). Ninja boy's side quest is also done.

Speaking of which, I should really get around to beating this one too! Had is since it's release yet I'm still at the point halfway through the final dungeon. This is actually a weird habbit of mine, but whenever I get to the final dungeon or boss I always stop playing for some reason. I usually try to use this time to go and do extra side-quests and stuff, but before I know it I've completely left the game.

In fact maybe I should get around to wrapping up Valkyrie Profile 2 and Tales of Symphonia as well... :sd:

[indigo0086]

Jak II, got it from goozex yesterday, so far I'm liking it.

Rainbow Six: Vegas. Awesome game all around, the single player mode is tough as nails even on normal, and the multiplayer mode is probably the best online overall since halo 2. I love the cover system simply because it has a nice transition from first to third person perspective. The game overall is really fun online and has nice game-modes. Fast game seraches and host options. Probably the best Ubisoft/Tom Clancy game since Splinter Cell

[ZhenJi]

Zelda Twilight Princess is taking over my life. I wrote the crappiest paper for my class just so I would have more time to play...I'm sitting in class right now and all I want to do is go home and play. Is there a support group for Zelda adicts? :P

[ADC]

Zelda Twilight Princess is taking over my life. I wrote the crappiest paper for my class just so I would have more time to play...I'm sitting in class right now and all I want to do is go home and play. Is there a support group for Zelda adicts? :P
I'm here for you and I understand. The first step is to learn how to write excellent papers in a short period of time. The second step is to make liberal use of Midna's warp capabilities. ;)

[ZhenJi]

I'm here for you and I understand. The first step is to learn how to write excellent papers in a short period of time. The second step is to make liberal use of Midna's warp capabilities. ;)

I seriously want a Midna in my life. It would make my commute a breeze. I'm done with school until June so no need to worry about papers. Now if I only didn't have to come to work...

[Suwako Moriya]

*Stops being lazy and starts making more progress in Xenosaga 3 again* I just recently finished chapter 6. In any case it seems that more or less I've got the basic idea of what the battle system is like down now. I also discovered something evil so long as I use it right.

Run into enemy icon. Now kill all, but one enemy. Escape from battle. Gain some EXP and SP. Find the enemy icon is still there. Get into battle again to repeat the process. Granted this has its limitations. Such as it won't work too well with leveling up multi-target attacks and the fact I'm not sure I'd want to do it during actual dungeon progress too much. Still it could be useful for those instances I just want to learn something.

In regards to the story so far it's been interesting, but wow it will be a miracle if Shion's actions haven't completely screwed over the timeline. Then again this will probably turn out to be one of those time paradox situations. Where by going back in time you create the very future you wanted to prevent.

[ADC]

In the meantime, I took on the dreaded Mr. L and his mechanical minion, Brobot. It was awesome! Just like a Gradius boss battle, so much fun! I'll be moving on to 5-1 this evening.

[Noodle]

Zelda Twilight Princess is taking over my life. I wrote the crappiest paper for my class just so I would have more time to play...I'm sitting in class right now and all I want to do is go home and play. Is there a support group for Zelda adicts? :P

If there is, I don't want to go! I love that I love Zelda! XD Not that I wouldn't mind a little Midna warping power in my life either, mind you...

I really need to get to Tales of the Abyss (I keep putting it off because I don't have lots of time to sit at home playing games right now), but I've been playing A Link to the Past on my GB since I was traveling this last week. :) Never enough Zelda...? Heh.

[Jarred]

Gaming life lately has been all about the 360, and I'm really digging my black box. I love the Live Arcade and have already picked up a handful of games: Galaga, Geometry Wars, Frogger, Pinball FX, and Catan, the latter of which is just as terribly addictive as the original board game. Beat both the medium and hard AI, which do play quite competively, and I lost to both as well. Need to play more Catan online with friends, so if you are interested and have the game my tag is JarredPine.

Before Catan dropped, I was playing a lot of Crackdown which I struggled with at first but after a co-op session where all we did was jump roofs together, I got a lot of agility orbs and level up to 2 stars. Then I was able to easily maneuver the high rises and make my first two general kills. I think I have 4 of the Los Muertos generals down. It's definitely a fun game, but the roof hooping/exploration makes it a winner for me.

And of course Guitar Hero II. I'm currently trying to get through the 6th stage on Hard, recently beating "Killing in the Name". Picked up one DLC pack because I have to have Motorhead and Bark at the Moon. :D

[Kinomoto_Shinji]

Out of morbid curiousity I am playing GTA: San Andrea's now. I really suck at these type of games. I died five times before I could pass the first mission. I remember why I sold my other copies of GTA3 and GTA:Vice City now. <.< At least it's fun randomly killing everyone and I can make my character FAT now. lol

[SpaceButler]

Right now I'm playing a bunch of games. I have been playing FFX-2, FFVI Advance, FFIII, FF Fables: Chocobo Tales, Romancing SaGa, Radiata Stories and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. I've just started all of them and can't decide what one to focus on.

I'm leaning towards sticking with Radiata Stories and Romancing SaGa first, with maybe a little Chocobo Tales on the side, as all three of these games have exceeded my expectations so far. And besides, I think I really need a break from FF games.

[Isuzu Inugami]

Out of morbid curiousity I am playing GTA: San Andrea's now. I really suck at these type of games. I died five times before I could pass the first mission.

The very first mission, where you're riding a bike and getting drive-byed? I did the same thing. :sd: Actually, I really wound up enjoying this one; being able to get out into the country adds so much. I also did the vigilante mission cheat thing early on, to get upgraded armor, which made the missions a lot more enjoyable rather than frustrating.

[Zanza Hiro]

assembled gaming bretheren, i humbly come before you today to ask for your assistance *bows low*

recently, i downloaded the new Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo from the Playstation Network. i've heard in the past the NG series was difficult so i approached the demo with caution. i was pleasantly surprised to find that with practice, i could complete the first level on Normal without dying too often *heh*

that said, i am currently trying to complete the unlocked difficulty mode but am dying so quickly it is not funny. can i please have some advice on how to fight the ninjas in the armor that throw those explosive projectiles? the white shinobi are difficult but i have found by jumping off walls and slicing down, i can get through them pretty quickly. unfortunately, i have not been able to get past the rooms that have the armored shinobi. if anyone has a strategy or advice, i would love you long time. thx

[Johnny]

that said, i am currently trying to complete the unlocked difficulty mode but am dying so quickly it is not funny. can i please have some advice on how to fight the ninjas in the armor that throw those explosive projectiles? the white shinobi are difficult but i have found by jumping off walls and slicing down, i can get through them pretty quickly. unfortunately, i have not been able to get past the rooms that have the armored shinobi. if anyone has a strategy or advice, i would love you long time. thx

Hold L1 and dodge to high hell. If that left analogue stick ain't clicking like it's about to break, you're not dodging enough.
Seriously, just dodge and dodge and dodge. And attack too.
Learn some of the combos/specials as well and you should find it easier.

[Lovely]

I finished up Rule of Rose the other day. Beautiful game, in both story and setting. That's all I can say really. I know the game has a lot of flaws, but I enjoyed it a lot.
For people who want to play I would say it acts more like an adventure game than a survival horror. Knowing that going in probably helps :) .


I played a bit of .hack//GU vol.1 today in preparation for volume 2 that's coming out next week (!!!!!!). I really, REALLY, can't wait until volume 2 comes out.

[jecca-neko]

I just beat Final Fantasy II! :D This means that I can finally start playing Pokemon Diamond/Pearl for real this weekend. Woo! :D

[Suwako Moriya]

I'm leaning towards sticking with Radiata Stories and Romancing SaGa first, with maybe a little Chocobo Tales on the side, as all three of these games have exceeded my expectations so far.

In terms of Romancing SaGa I'll give you some advice in terms of playing the eight quests. Sadly the variety between the eight quests is lacking when compared to say SaGa Frontier or Unlimited SaGa. The main differences boil down to a few things.

First how the character's story opens. Second their dialog when reacting to what others say. Third would be certain restrictions. Such as Jamil is the only one who can't ever get Farah. However other than that there's isn't a great deal of variety.

However to be fair people have replayed linear single quest RPGs and believe no matter how many times I went through for example Final Fantasy IV it never changed the fact I was playing as Cecil and worshipping Rydia. Err that's another story. What I am doing is suggesting a way to help deal with this lacking variety.

1. Vary your party each time. Believe me this helps a lot because it at least gives you a different set of dialogue to look forward. It also gives you a chance to see what everyone is like.

2. Do NOT play all eight quests in a row. Once you complete any given quest in Romancing SaGa take an extended break from it. Play some other game(s) instead. This way your next quest will be a bit fresher.

Speaking of Romancing SaGa my original quest was Aisha which had the advantage of allowing me to play as precious girl first. However if you do X in an earlier play through you unlike Y in later play through. Obviously since Aisha was my first quest nothing was unlocked.

However since I now have a save that's replay of Aisha's quest I can in fact access stuff I couldn't do the first time. Which means I should probably get around to beating up certain bosses. Perhaps later on the side while I continue to work on the current game which is still Xenosaga 3.

[SpaceButler]

I decided to play as Albert first in Romancing SaGa. So far I really like it. I'm not that far in though. I just got done helping Sif clear the caves of monsters, and now she is taking me to the Knights Dominion or something like that.

That cave monsters mission with Sif was mildly hard for me. By the time I got to the last boss in the south cave the regular enemies were almost as strong as the boss was. I didn't die or nothin', but I came close a few times.

I really like the look and feel of the game though. The whole style is very unique, but in a way that's what I'd expect from a SaGa game.

So, to say the least, I'm enjoying it. I'ma go play more right now.

[Zanza Hiro]

johnny: thx for the advice, i just managed to complete the second stage yesterday. i learned that by flipping and rolling really quickly, they armored shinobi can't hit me with their exploding shruiken. unfortunately i had to cheat at the boss by using both my fireballs on him at the beginning to half his hit points :D

i've tried playing Ultra Hard today but i think i am just not good enough yet. these new purple ninjas are so smart, they roll when i'm about to slash, they attack in pairs and just seem damn smart for what they are. after dying three times, i need learn a better strategy against these new purple ninjas :D

[jecca-neko]

I played Pokemon for like 11 hours straight yesterday. O.O I think I'm pretty addicted to it but I forced myself to not play today (yet) as I had to write a paper for college and I wanted to do some things online. Now that I'm mostly done it tempts me.

I really, really like the improvements they've done to the game. Double battles occur at lot more often. The moves being split into physical and special the way they did makes a lot of sense, much more so than the old way IMO. Having day/night is pretty fun and I do like the Poketch feature. The bag being arranged better is nice. Also, WiFi is going to be a ton of fun. I've so far just done local WiFi trading, but it's still nice not having to deal with link cables. I'm looking forward to having all of my Pokemon in one game.

[ADC]

The Sammer Guys in World 6-1 aren't quite as annoying as the hamster wheel business back in 2-3, but this is still one of my least favored parts of Super Paper Mario. By the time I arrived at 6-2, I didn't have any restoratives left, so Mimi recycled my paper ass. So it's back to Flipside to buy some Shroom Shakes!

[Zanza Hiro]

hmmm, a lot of people are loving these two new Pokemon games. i've never played before, i wonder if i can just pick up Diamond and Pearl and jump right in

[Suwako Moriya]

By the time I got to the last boss in the south cave the regular enemies were almost as strong as the boss was. I didn't die or nothin', but I came close a few times.

I had a lot of close calls in my first play through of Romancing SaGa. Granted that's partially because I sort of screwed myself over in the several regards. Especially in terms of the classes. See the mistake I made was trying to level everyone in multiple classes.

Which is a very stupid idea because any given character can only use one class at a time and you can't exactly switch on the fly. This was made even worse by the fact since it was my first play through the jewels gained from quests was at the lowest amount.

Thankfully I learned the one class per character rule. Which ultimately made later play through(s) easier. It also helps that since I had gotten one of the classes to level 3, I could level up individual skills to supplement classes. Which definitely helps quite a bit if you use it right.

[Johnny]

hmmm, a lot of people are loving these two new Pokemon games. i've never played before, i wonder if i can just pick up Diamond and Pearl and jump right in

Easily. All the Pokemon games are 99% similar, just with some updated graphics and Pokemon so there's no story to follow or battle system to need knowledge of.

[indigo0086]

Jak II. Never in any other mission based game have I started a mission with the word "F***!".

I think it's mainly because it's hard as hell to navigate across the zones, plus you have to refer to the map a lot if, but since it doesn't have a quick button it's frustrating. Plus, I liked when Jak was silent, and Daxter stole the show. Now Jak is just an angry beatnik.

[Kinomoto_Shinji]

Out of morbid curiousity I am playing GTA: San Andrea's now. I really suck at these type of games. I died five times before I could pass the first mission.

The very first mission, where you're riding a bike and getting drive-byed? I did the same thing. :sd: Actually, I really wound up enjoying this one; being able to get out into the country adds so much. I also did the vigilante mission cheat thing early on, to get upgraded armor, which made the missions a lot more enjoyable rather than frustrating.


Eh, fate is against me on this one. After I played the mission where you have a kill a house full of drug dealers with bats, I walked outside to get in my car, and some cop was running up. I got in the car and drove out and killed my poor "niga"! >.< Then the next time we got in the car, then I killed the cop and couldn't get the stars down...bad luck. I think I'll move on to another game. ^^;; Don't know what yet.

[DiGiKerot]

3million+ is certainly not impossible, but you really would need to abuse every trick and loophole imaginable to get there. It doesn't really strike me as being fun - it can up to 30minutes of paging back and forth just to get that Idol Vision audition to appear :sd:

I hear that; I usually just give up on the 70k Idol Vision audition once it gives me the 50k fans and 2 winners one. But I was able to hit S-rank yesterday (1.5mil), but rather than get some message from the girls, all I got was some crappy extended dialog from my avatar. Wtf? You'd think that they would be more happy or something. O.O


I hit 2.34mil fans on my latest play though, which has put me at 27th place on the online rankings :D

That said, I presume groups are weeded from it after so long, so I have no idea how long that will last. Oh well, at least I hit P-Rank 10 with this play through, I've just got three Achievements left to unlock from the game now.

[HitokiriShadow]

So what is everyone else doing to combat the slow release schedule that is affecting pretty much all consoles at the minute?

Well, I haven't been playing much at all lately between school, work, and going through my DVD backlog, but I have 15+ RPGs waiting to be played or finished, not including some other games out now or coming soon that I am interested in.

My semester is coming to an end and I should have a couple weeks before my summer classes start and I'll actually have time to play. In fact, I think I'm going to play something tonight. I think I'm going to start Y's: The Ark of Naphistim tonight.

[Isuzu Inugami]

Well, it was cheap, so I thought, okay. And I've seen the first two seasons, so it's on my brain a little. And I'd seen the reviews, I knew what I was getting into, so it's not like I feel ripped off or anything.

But jeez, it would be nice to be able to finish the first fucking mission!

Yes, I am playing Battlestar Galactica. They weren't kidding about it being frustrating. It looks nice and it's fun flying around shooting Cylons out of the sky, but jeez, it would be nice at those points where I have to protect someone if they made some effort to defend themselves too! Hello Paulus, evasive rolls???! The suckiest part is the absence of any checkpoints, so Paulus keeps sending me back to the very beginning of the mission, where I get another chance to let Galactica get blown up (don't you guys have any antiaircraft fire?). Did no one do any playtesting?

When that gets to be too much for me, I go to my second playthrough of Suikoden V, where with the aid of the faqs this time, I mean to get all the optional recruits (Like the freaking cartographer! Ahem.)

[Suwako Moriya]

Since one of my brothers had gotten more Castlevania games recently I decided to mess around with one. Ie Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. Mainly I was playing the boss rush mode. Managed to beat easy and normal. As for hard I'll worry about trying that again later. At the very least given how lax I've been about it was good to play something on the portable side for a change. Even if only for a short bit.

[Noodle]

I think I'm going to start Y's: The Ark of Naphistim tonight.

WAAARGH! *headsmack* I'd completely forgotten about this game! How? Dammit, now I must go to the store. Wait, they're closed now. I must go tomorrow. :sd:

[Mateo_home]

I haven't done one of these in like...oh who cares.

I decided to give the monsters a little break and catch up a little on Super Paper Mario. Got past chapter 4 which was an okay chapter, but in a couple of them I felt like I was playing R-type, not that it's a bad thing of course. Chapter 4-4 was a bit confusing with the controls. Simple, but confusing. The chapters are short or hopefully they get a little longer sooner. :P

[ADC]

Chapter 4-4 was a bit confusing with the controls. Simple, but confusing.
I don't remember the last time I had so much fun with a platformer as Chapter 4-4. That said, I got the logic of the controls pretty quickly. You don't usually have to think that way, but the direct model of Up=Up is a million times better than the relative model of Left=Up or Right=Up. The real trick for me was getting used to aiming jumps to land correctly on enemies. Well, that and living with a very small viewable area ahead of and behind Mario because of the axis change.

[HitokiriShadow]

I think I'm going to start Y's: The Ark of Naphistim tonight.

WAAARGH! *headsmack* I'd completely forgotten about this game! How? Dammit, now I must go to the store. Wait, they're closed now. I must go tomorrow. :sd:

Glad I could help you remember.

So, I started actually playing it and here is my progress report:

So far, I've played about 5-6 hours (there is no in game clock, so I can't say for sure), I'm around level 25 with all three swords on level 6.

1st Boss: It knocked me down to 6 HP (out of about 70) and since I had forgotten to equip healing items, I thought I was screwed. Another hit would have certainly killed me. But then I was able to figure out his attacks and their ranges and killed him easily.

2nd boss: A bit more of a challenge. I had to use up all of my equipped healing items (the 50HP ones) and still nearly died.

3rd boss: Was a cheap bastard and took me 3-4 tries. I swear, it was shear luck that I won. He only had two attacks, but one of them was a jumping attack which both destroyed the tiles he landed on AND sent out a shockwave that was difficult to dodge without landing in lava. When he used this attack seemed to be random (he started out doing it 3-4 times in one or two tries and started out with his spinning attack in others), but when I got him down to below 100 HP in my last try, he started to JUST this attack about 8-10 times before I killed him.

I've also completed the first level of Alma's trials.

[Suwako Moriya]

In terms of the portable side I've decided why not, I will work on "Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance" over time. Although since I'm working on it slowly not much progress is made yet. I did recently kill a second boss though. Of course part of the fun is finding dead end after dead end along with locked door after locked door. :sd:

In terms of the console side I have finally made some more progress in Xenosaga 3. I'm actually on the second disc now. I'll say one thing. Watching one of the longer cutscenes in a Xenosaga game can make you feel like you've accomplished a lot. :P

[Collectonian]

I'm still playing Shadow Hearts: FtNW. I have now finished every side quest except getting purgatory open and getting the last stellar from the professor. That dude in Chicago just won't tell me about purgatory! Argh! I'm hoping going and getting one snap each of the 5 I had none of after trading was done will fix it.

I've already cleared Beyond the Gate up to the last fight (almost pathetically easy after building up for Purgatory LOL). Once Purgatory is done, I can finish the game at last!

[AbeChinchilla]

I'm still playing Shadow Hearts: FtNW. I have now finished every side quest except getting purgatory open and getting the last stellar from the professor. That dude in Chicago just won't tell me about purgatory! Argh! I'm hoping going and getting one snap each of the 5 I had none of after trading was done will fix it.

I've already cleared Beyond the Gate up to the last fight (almost pathetically easy after building up for Purgatory LOL). Once Purgatory is done, I can finish the game at last!

And then you can replay the game via New Game Plus, unlock the additional ending and try and make the final boss challenging. You must be in the late 50's. Maybe 60's.

On my very first file, even with a party average of 62, the final boss could take me out with a Double Combo.

[Collectonian]

And then you can replay the game via New Game Plus, unlock the additional ending and try and make the final boss challenging. You must be in the late 50's. Maybe 60's.

On my very first file, even with a party average of 62, the final boss could take me out with a Double Combo.

Hmm...I'll keep that in mind! Glad to hear it will be more challenging than Malice Killer (so sad and sweet!) and Malice Gilbert. Those two were so easy I had to hold back so I could get the snaps for them. :P Hopefully purgatory will level me up some more. My party's levels run across the board: 48 (Frank), 52 (Hilda), 53 (Natan), 54 (Ricardo), 56 (Shania), 57 (Johnny).

I did finally manage to get that darn purgatory open last night...so now I just have to wait till I have a nice clear block of time to run through it. Wee!

So there is another ending besides the good ending you can get on the first run through? Interesting...no idea when I'd have time to replay though since I have 5 or 6 more games waiting to be played in the queue :sd:

[Pachi]

I've finally started a game in Super Paper Mario. Gotten through all of Chapter 3 so far, and from this I can safely make some opinions on the changes in the Paper franchise.

One thing I DON'T like is how there aren't a whole lot of concrete towns. The side-scrolling/flipping expanses are fun in their own way, but I really liked the towns in Paper Mario 1 and 2 that actually made me feel like I was in a particular place. I am thankful for the size of Flipside, though - so I'm not completely dissapointed.

I also don't like how the "END CHAPTER" markers are arranged. In Thousand Year Door, which I recently played through again to prep myself for SPM, I always felt an extreme sense of accomplishment when I would finally get the Crystal Star and recieve the "END CHAPTER" message. In this game, it does "END CHAPTER" at the end of every section of the entire chapter, so it doesn't feel as special when I get the Pure Heart at the end of the 4th section.

My other complaint is that I don't feel as much life from my partners. I am glad that the Pixls all have different personalities, but the only one who seems to talk occasionally so far during cut scenes is Tippi and I don't care for her that much. Your secondary Pixl never seems to say anything once they've joined your party. All in all, I like the partner system better from the earlier games, when they were all various enemy creatures. I liked the variety.

Now, what I like about the game. I really like the battle system. I throughly enjoyed the innovation of the stage-show battle style system, but sometimes it just took too long to get through some of those fights. The fights in SPM feel more up-front and active. Stylish moves are still available, which I'm quite happy about, as I love doing Stylish moves. And in this game they're even simpler to do, since there aren't any set times when you have to press the button to pull off the right move. My only beef with the battle system is that without special moves or badges to heal myself during the longer style fights, it seems I take damage a lot more often. So the game is definitely more difficult. Which is a little annoying at times, but acceptable.

A side thing I really like is how many more recipes you can make. When I first heard "not a lot of real towns", I was worried recipes would be scrapped in this game, but they're still here, and even GREATER numbers of them. 96! I'll be looking forward to having fun with those for a good while.


And now I'm rambling. As for the story and what I've been through so far in the game, I'm overall pleased. The 3-D flipping is very cool. At first I felt a little awkward with it, but I've grown to learn when to best use it. My favorite chapter so far has been Chapter 3, which actually felt like a chapter akin to the earlier Paper games, not just bland "make it to the end"-action like in Chapters 1 and 2, although Chapter 2 was much better than 1 in that regard. The Peach-Francis 'Pokemon/Final Fantasy Battle Style' conversation was the funniest thing ever. And apparently after being throughly trashed by Mario, the X-Nauts got involved in television! But I wonder how good an actor Grodus could be considering he's just a head right now. :D


But I can say, overall, out of all three Paper games, Thousand Year Door is still my favorite. Doesn't mean I won't have fun with SPM, though.

[Zanza Hiro]

i have also just started Super Paper Mario and am loving it!!! is it just me or does the game look amazing? so bright and vibrant colors

anyway, just finished chapter 2 last nite. the game has been really easy so far, hopefully it gets a little harder. i haven't lost more than 1 hit point through two chapters, kinda makes me wonder why i have 20 hit points and a backpack full of veggies and shroom shakes that restore 10HP each :D

[Johnny]

anyway, just finished chapter 2 last nite. the game has been really easy so far, hopefully it gets a little harder. i haven't lost more than 1 hit point through two chapters, kinda makes me wonder why i have 20 hit points and a backpack full of veggies and shroom shakes that restore 10HP each :D

Doesn't really get any easier to be honest. Gets pretty frustrating in some of the later levels and finding some of the heart pillars though.
Like PM 2 on the Cube, it feels like those sections exist only to frustrate/drag the game out.

[Isuzu Inugami]

Yes, I am playing Battlestar Galactica. They weren't kidding about it being frustrating. It looks nice and it's fun flying around shooting Cylons out of the sky, but jeez, it would be nice at those points where I have to protect someone if they made some effort to defend themselves too! Hello Paulus, evasive rolls???!

Made it to mission three! I'm so happy! Now I seem to be getting cut up while I shoot down transport ships--I guess I should try making some effort to defend myself too... maybe those evasive rolls??

[jecca-neko]

Much Pokemon has been going on for me. Despite getting the game on release day, I didn't start until a week (or was it two? I forget) later thanks to wanting to finish Final Fantasy II. In a short amount of time (considering I've only been playing on weekends so far) I've already gotten 7 badges and have seen about 120 different Pokemon. You have to see (but not necessarily catch) all 150 in the Sinnoh Dex to get the National Dex and, of course, I want to do that.

Random comments about the game:
- I was happy when I found out Flash was no longer a HM (it's a waste since it's not very helpful) but then now DeFog is an HM and it's equally pretty pointless. I hope for the inevitable 5th generation that DeFog gets replaced with an actually helpful HM. Oh, and Waterfall's stupid too. Either get rid of it or put in more waterfalls.

- I love the Poketch. It needs to stay. It fixed all of the things that annoyed me about Pokemon, like planting berries and forgetting where I'd planted them, putting Pokemon in the day care and occasionally forgetting about them, etc.

- Multiplayer was greatly expanded and that's a good thing.

- It feels like there's now so few Pokemon without an evolution that I wonder if it's going to get to the point that everything gets an evolution except most legendaries. I'd say all but Manaphy has an "evolution".

- I should have named the rival "THUD!" :D

[ADC]

It's a bit unfortunate that Super Paper Mario is structured as it is. There's a lot of back and forth to the game, and not just for the purpose of exploration. You have to retrace your steps quite a bit in the later chapters. It's kind of a bummer. Still, when you're making progress, the game's a blast. I made it to level 30 of the Pit of 100 Trials before I realized it was past my bedtime and I was going to fall asleep with the controller in my hand.

Later in the game, you will be glad for the extra HP and restoratives. At least, if you're an impatient gamer, which I'm.

[jecca-neko]

At least, if you're an impatient gamer, which I'm.

I don't know whether that's bad grammar or not. I've never seen I'm used in that way before. I'll give you benefit of the doubt though, just because you're ADC. :D

I want Super Paper Mario but to me it looks like a game I don't want to spend $50 on. I'm wondering if it's a game like Warioware and Elebits, where I want to wait for a price drop or a sale.

[AbeChinchilla]

I did finally manage to get that darn purgatory open last night...so now I just have to wait till I have a nice clear block of time to run through it. Wee!

So there is another ending besides the good ending you can get on the first run through? Interesting...no idea when I'd have time to replay though since I have 5 or 6 more games waiting to be played in the queue :sd:

Just the bad ending. Since you've already worked to get the good ending, save the bad for the next playthrough (the trigger for it, aside from maxing out all 16 fetishes, is that you had to receive the Sun Spirit again, basically, you had to make sure Shania got rid of all her tattoos). Next game, if you avoid that quest, as long as Shania still has her tattoos, you'll get the bad ending.

[ADC]

At least, if you're an impatient gamer, which I'm.
I don't know whether that's bad grammar or not. I've never seen I'm used in that way before. I'll give you benefit of the doubt though, just because you're ADC. :D
Let's see. It's a sentence fragment — one big subordinate clause. So yeah, it's terrible grammar, and deliberately so. As for the I'm, I heard it once on Looney Tunes, which is a compendium of grammar on which any teacher should rely. ;)

I'd call SPM a $40 game. It's not a AAA title like Twilight Princess, but it's not one I'd lump into the budget bin like Warioware or Elebits. Of course, as soon as those games (and Pangya) hit $20, I'll be all over them like stink on shutchomouth. Mario Party 8, too. (Mario Party 8-2? Maybe I shouldn't give Hudson any ideas.)

[Pachi]

(Mario Party 8-2? Maybe I shouldn't give Hudson any ideas.)

My god, man, game developers could be surfing these forums RIGHT NOW. You'll doom us all!

[hub]

Been in a nostalgic mood lately so I popped in Final Fantasy Chronicles for the PS1 so I could play some Chrono Trigger. Surprised me to re-discover that I had finished the main story and all of the sidequests (minus the Black Omen) in just over 14 hours(!). Guess that's a testiment to just how many times I've played this game, huh? O.O

But anyway, I tried to beat Lavos' second form but he pwned the shit out of me, but I guess it was b/c my levels were too low (party average was about lvl.45). So after trying that about three times I said f' it and so decided to go and do the Black Omen sidequest so I could charm somemore uber equipment using Ayla. I completely forgot how long that damn dungeon was, because all told it took me about 1.5 hours to finish it, and I came damn close to running out of supplies (completely ran out of shelters and was almost out of revives as well).

Picked up some nice equipment (got another Haste helm!) as well as a couple more speed/power/magic tabs (maxed out Chrono's speed stat), but the boss battle against Zeal was such a pain in the ass b/c of those stupid hands of hers: I was using a party of Chrono, Magus, and Ayla, and if I tried to attack her hands I'd get counter-attacked w/ a MP->0 or HP->1 move. Oh, and I actually began the battle by using one of Chrono and Ayla's dual-techs. :sweatdrop:

Anyway, I had Chrono basically doing all the damage via straight physical attacks (I *love* the rage band!) while Magus and Ayla joined in whenever they weren't healing my party via mega elixers. So after a while she finally went down, and when it came time to fight the Mammoth Machine I completely pwned the shit out of it b/c I could actually use Magus' magic attacks (yay!).

So now that that's done I'll hopefully stand a chance against Lavos' second form tomorrow. Still not decided if I want to go w/ a party of Chrono/Frog/Magus (my fav. all-out attack team), or Chrono/Frog/Marle (better balance between offense and support).

[HitokiriShadow]

A bit more progress in Y's: The Ark of Naphishtim.

4th boss: Took me a dozen tries, but at least beating this boss felt like it was a result of me figuring out what to do and my own abilities. I still think the 3rd boss was a cheap bastard.

Also, I completed the second level of Alma's trials.

[SpaceButler]

I've switched gears a bit, though I'm still trucking along in Romancing SaGa, I have given up Radiata Stories for now. There are just too many charecters to collect in Radiata, and I just don't have the patience for it right now.

I've also been playing KillZone: Liberation for the PSP, and all I have to say is, Man!, nobody told me how fucking awesome this game is! It's prolly hands down my fav PSP game now besides Metal Slug Anthology.

Also on the PSP side of things, I picked up a copy of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. I've barly played it (But that's partially due to the fact that after the Prologue and the intro scenes I was bored out of my mind, and had lost all intrest in playing.) and I've already decided I don't like it. I like the battle system, it's fun, but the 2D side-scrolling in the dungeons and cities really sucks. I'm gonna see if it grows on me though, because there are some really good things about the game. Like the sprite animation, it's awesome, and as I said before, the battle system is fun. So here's hoping...

After reading that Clover Studio was shut down, I opened up my still-factory-sealed copy of Okami that I picked up a while back. This is another one that I'm not too far into, but I am absolutly loving it so far. I think Okami will most likely be my main focus for a while.

And to top it off, as if I hadn't already filled my gaming plate, I've also been dabbling in Tales of Symphonia. This is my first Tales game. I'm only about four hours into it, but it's pretty fun so far even if it does seem like they could possibly be biting off bits from FFX's plot a little. Hard for me to say though at this point. Either way though the game is fun and easy on the eyes. I'm also really enjoying the char designs alot, and Loyde gets to dual weild swords. How cool is that?

[SpaceButler]

A bit more progress in Y's: The Ark of Naphishtim.

Cool. I hope your enjoying it. I loved the game personally. I even double dipped, buying it for both the PS2 and PSP.

I really enjoyed the simpleness of Napishtim. Most RPGs today have so many things to collect and so many levels of character management that they feel more like homework than recreation to me. It very nicely sidesteps the flaws of the genre I think.

[Suwako Moriya]

I've switched gears a bit, though I'm still trucking along in Romancing SaGa, I have given up Radiata Stories for now. There are just too many charecters to collect in Radiata, and I just don't have the patience for it right now.

I never found the character recruiting to be that much of a headache, but to be fair I wasn't interested in trying to collect them all. So that probably helped a bit. I was mainly checking an FAQ to get characters that sounded and/or looked interesting to me. If anything the real fun was deciding who to use. I still wish the active party size in Radiata Stories was larger.

[Johnny]

After reading that Clover Studio was shut down, I opened up my still-factory-sealed copy of Okami that I picked up a while back. This is another one that I'm not too far into, but I am absolutly loving it so far. I think Okami will most likely be my main focus for a while.


Sounds like you have enough games on the go at the minute but another Clover gem worth looking into is God Hand.
Parodies/makes good again the roaming beat 'em up genre.

[SpaceButler]

Sounds like you have enough games on the go at the minute but another Clover gem worth looking into is God Hand.
Parodies/makes good again the roaming beat 'em up genre.

Yeah I really want to check out God Hand now. I mean I had a casual intrest in it before, but now it's deffinatly on my radar. Just need to wait till I have some more money. I just blew a ton of cash on games last week, so it might be a few weeks before I get around to buying it.

[Johnny]

Sounds like you have enough games on the go at the minute but another Clover gem worth looking into is God Hand.
Parodies/makes good again the roaming beat 'em up genre.

Yeah I really want to check out God Hand now. I mean I had a casual intrest in it before, but now it's deffinatly on my radar. Just need to wait till I have some more money. I just blew a ton of cash on games last week, so it might be a few weeks before I get around to buying it.

If it helps, since it unfortunately sold very little, it can now be found in bargain bins everywhere.

[SpaceButler]

I never found the character recruiting to be that much of a headache

I mean, it's not too bad, but I'm not in the mood for it right now. I just got sick of it.

, but to be fair I wasn't interested in trying to collect them all. So that probably helped a bit.

I must collect them all. I'm a semi-completist, so I sometimes force myself to do the menial tasks that RPGs offer up even if I hate them.

I still wish the active party size in Radiata Stories was larger.

I concur.

Another thing that bothers me about the game is it seems to be hard, at least at the part I'm at, to find a good place to lvl up. And any of the good spots I find are really far from a save/resting point, so I just end up running around in Radiata city kicking people to lvl up, which proves to be a very dangerous business sometimes.

[jecca-neko]

, but to be fair I wasn't interested in trying to collect them all. So that probably helped a bit.

I must collect them all. I'm a semi-completist, so I sometimes force myself to do the menial tasks that RPGs offer up even if I hate them.

Word. You can't play Pokemon without being at least a semi-completist. Thus I am a semi-completist. :D

[PhilipReuben]

You can't play Pokemon without being at least a semi-completist.

I disagree. When I got the Japanese version of Pokemon Diamond, I quite happily just played through the main game and decided that was enough without even attempting to complete the collection.

[jecca-neko]

You can't play Pokemon without being at least a semi-completist.

I disagree. When I got the Japanese version of Pokemon Diamond, I quite happily just played through the main game and decided that was enough without even attempting to complete the collection.

Okay, I'll agree, but I will say that I believe you're in the minority. Most people who play Pokemon, fans of the series or not, want to collect all of the little monsters.

[PhilipReuben]

Okay, I'll agree, but I will say that I believe you're in the minority. Most people who play Pokemon, fans of the series or not, want to collect all of the little monsters.

I wanted to when I played Red back in the day. By this point of there are so many of them, and the methods required to get them so involved, that it's prohibitively difficult for someone like me who is probably starting to get bored of a game when it reaches 50 hours. I'd like to in theory, but in practice I'm just far too lazy =)

[Pachi]

You can't play Pokemon without being at least a semi-completist.

I disagree. When I got the Japanese version of Pokemon Diamond, I quite happily just played through the main game and decided that was enough without even attempting to complete the collection.

Okay, I'll agree, but I will say that I believe you're in the minority. Most people who play Pokemon, fans of the series or not, want to collect all of the little monsters.


I've always wanted to, but have almost never been able to. The only person I know and see on a regular basis that has ever played Pokemon was my brother, and we only bought opposite versions for the purpose of trading for Red/Blue and Gold/Silver. He's never bought any since, so I've been unable to catch them all in Sapphire and Leaf Green.

[Suwako Moriya]

Word. You can't play Pokemon without being at least a semi-completist. Thus I am a semi-completist. :D

Heh then it's a good thing for me I don't play it. Sorry, but the whole idea of catching hundreds apon hundreds of monsters sound more tedious than fun. Still when it comes to being a completionist in any form is having the proper motivation. For example I would be more motivated to complete the spell list of a character I like than a character I didn't care.

Of course being too much of a completionist can backfire. When you spend more time worrying about getting everything under the sun and less time enjoying the game. Well the games goes from being a hobby to being work. Which just completely ruins everything.

[NickFalzarano]

So I beat Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess last night. Final time was about 42 hours. I enjoyed the game, though I didn't do everything that I could have. Bosses were way too easy. The only part of the final boss that gave me trouble was the final form of the final boss. Or, at least, that was the only one I got a game over on. I beat him on my second try, though. Loved the battle against Zelda though. Well, maybe not the battle itself, since it was kinda recycled from other battles, but the idea of it I liked. Wasn't too impressed with the ending, but i'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. Midna is quite the babe, isn't she? :)

After I beat Zelda, I picked up Monkey Ball: BB for a bit. I'd gotten perfects in all the worlds available except world 7, the lava level. And I proceeded to (after many an attempt) get perfect in that level. So world 9 is now open, but I haven't played it yet.

In the handheld front, I'm progressing in Pokemon: Pearl. I have 6 badges, over thirty hours, and need to head to that lake in the north. I think I need that rock climbing HM, but I've no idea where to find it. So, I'm leveling my team to level 40 now, and then we'll see.

[jecca-neko]

So, I'm leveling my team to level 40 now, and then we'll see.

I have 7 badges and none of my Pokemon are level 40 yet. I find a sick enjoyment in being underleveled in Pokemon. That or maybe I'll too lazy to level up enough critters that high to fit the situation. You take your pick. :P

So far on average I've been around 5 levels lower than the levels the gym leaders' Pokemon are at and don't have too much trouble. However, I've got a pretty good hard hitting team. I currently mostly use Staraptor, Luxray, Gyarados, Alakazam, Bibarel (my HM slave, typically doesn't battle anymore), and then one of the starters. I have acquired a fondness for Torterra.

[NickFalzarano]

However, I've got a pretty good hard hitting team. I currently mostly use Staraptor, Luxray, Gyarados, Alakazam, Bibarel (my HM slave, typically doesn't battle anymore), and then one of the starters. I have acquired a fondness for Torterra.


My current team is Torterra (Twiggy), Wiscash (gonna be named Whiskers once I find the renamer), Staraptor, Luxray, and Bronzong.

I wasn't planning to use all of them, but the Pokemon I want aren't (all) avilable until after getting the national-dex, so...

Anyway, my current plan is to have a team of about 10 that I can use at my lesure. Twiggy and Whiskers are in, but Bronzong I may breed and use the egg, since I got him at level 15. I'm also thinking of using a Rapidash, Houndoom, Spiritomb, Xatu, and Lanturn as well. We'll see how it works out.

[jecca-neko]

My current team is Torterra (Twiggy), Wiscash (gonna be named Whiskers once I find the renamer), Staraptor, Luxray, and Bronzong.

I haven't used my Bronzor so it isn't a Bronzong yet. Does it have good offensive moves? I know it has ridiculously high defense from fighting trainers with it so I have seen it as a potentially very useful Pokemon. I did have a lil' bit of trouble with the last gym leader hitting so hard so I'm thinking I may want a good defense capable Pokemon as part of my team to go against the Elite 4.

[Randall Flagg]

Midna is quite the babe, isn't she? :)

Oh yes.

[SpaceButler]

Well I played Okami till late last night, and shit man, this game fuckin' rocks. I can see why this was IGN's GotY for last year. I think this might now already be my new belated pick for GotY for last year. Which would be taking the place of my previous pick of Gears of War.

Anyone who likes Zelda games should play this game. I mean shit, not only is Twilight Princess not the best game of last year, TP isn't even the best game with a dog char in it from last year.

It's just sad to know that Clover won't be able to make a sequel to this game...

[ADC]

Well I played Okami till late last night, and shit man, this game fuckin' rocks. I can see why this was IGN's GotY for last year. I think this might now already be my new belated pick for GotY for last year. Which would be taking the place of my previous pick of Gears of War.
I've heard this kind of thing before, but I never got 'round to picking up Ôkami because … well … I just didn't. Wasn't on the radar. Might do it one of these days, but I have so much in the games backlog that the PS4 might be out before I get to it. :sigh:

My Game of the Year for 2006 is still Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and I don't think any game will unseat it. Nor Twilight Princess nor Final Fantasy XII (despite putting over 100 hours into that game) nor Ôkami once I get it. Now's the right time to throw a :P at you, methinks.

[SpaceButler]

My Game of the Year for 2006 is still Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, and I don't think any game will unseat it.

Hmmm. Interesting choice. I own that game as well, but I never really got all that far in it. Maybe I'll put it on my list of games to play in the near future.

Also I was completly expecting your post to scathe me about the Twilight Princess comment, heh, but I guess I've gotten away with it unharmed so far.

[ADC]

Also I was completly expecting your post to scathe me about the Twilight Princess comment, heh, but I guess I've gotten away with it unharmed so far.
It's not worth my time to point out your obvious errors, as you make so many so frequently. ;) Anyway, my tastes run pretty weird, so I shouldn't be talking too much shit about other people.

I reserve the vitriol for the Xeno.* geeks. ;)

[SpaceButler]

It's not worth my time to point out your obvious errors, as you make so many so frequently. ;)

Lol, ya. I'd dispute this statement, but it's true. :sd: That's why I have to surround myself with people who know wtf they're talking about. Hence, why I'm here.

[Suwako Moriya]

That or maybe I'll too lazy to level up enough critters that high to fit the situation. You take your pick. :P

Ah laziness can be the ultimate motivator for challenges. How do you think I defeated Emerald Weapon despite the claims one needed a KOTR? It's because I was too freaking lazy to breed a Gold Chocobo in FF7.

Of course in the case of Xenosaga 3, I'm probably over leveling. It's not that I want to be a high level. It's rather that I'm anxious to learn the skills. Especially for MOMO. Who has now completed her B Skill line and will work on the A one now. Also during those times I know I'm going to be playing for a short while I'm probably better off just leveling up as opposed to accidentally starting an army of cut scenes.

[Collectonian]

new thread started! (http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/20580/)

[ape2020]

new thread started! (http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/20580/)

Well then I guess its time to lock this baby down.

Play on!