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

[SuperParadox]

Make sure to keep checkpoints and a checklist handy for the pigeons. I was missing one of 200 when i was through all of them and I hadn't the slightest clue which one. (Not that those were worse than the Pool minigame. I swear, i was running Jakob over a bunch of times after that)

Awh man, those pegions are terrible things. Im geussing I should print off a map of some sort.

[Zengeku]

Yeah you can do that. Either that, or just follow a youtube walkthrough. Its a boring process but its certainly less time consuming than simply following a map and trying to find them on your own.

[Suikama]

All 170 Layton puzzles cleared. That last one I had to cheat though cause it's just way too hard. :derp:

Anyways unlocked a picture where

Spoiler:

Layton, Luke, and Flora all go back to the village to visit Arianna and Tony.

A nice extra touch there :3

[Chaore]

Touhoumon (Aqua+Yui 1.5) Nuzlocke: HALF YOUR TEAM IS DEAD EDITION.

Also Digimon Masters online and why did you introduce this to me acidicks i have a grinding issue and this game just bleeds 'grind me for delicious digimonz'.

i can't stop killing all these flymons ;.;

[SuperParadox]

Yeah you can do that. Either that, or just follow a youtube walkthrough. Its a boring process but its certainly less time consuming than simply following a map and trying to find them on your own.

Might end up using a combo of the marked maps and youtube walkthroughs then. Whatever works out.

Also currently playing the Rayman Origins demo, I am so excited for this game its insane.

[lumber_of_the_beast]

Kirby: Mass Attack is the cutest game starring a bloodthirsty mob I have ever played.

Spoiler:

And yes, I've played both Pikmins.

[Sophilia]

I used the cards, but I didn't have that many of them anyway, and pretty much none of the good combos.  Enemies did not like dropping them at all for me.  What I didn't use was that glitch that lets you use cards you don't have yet.

Also, yes, indeed, fuck Dracula's last form.  Become invincible and body rush a random number of times, then oh he's an eyeball now, and you can't hit him because he's up in a corner and surrounded by rape bats.  Thank Yukari for the boomerang.

[Garlyle]

Kirby: Mass Attack is the cutest game starring a bloodthirsty mob I have ever played.

Spoiler:

And yes, I've played both Pikmins.

It absolutely, unstoppably is.

It is such a cute game and it's so fun and so honestly challenging, too, and I've been loving it to death.

When I haven't been replaying FFXIII, but I beat the final boss and still don't really feel like Postgame-ing, so... onto Disgaea 4.  Again.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Really, CoTM's drop rate was crazy enough that even using THIEF (which skyrockets Luck, which influences drop rate), I didn't get very many items at all. It's fun using FIGHTER though and tearing through Dracula in little time at all. (Jupiter (I think - whoever does shields) helps against the rape-bats, but Mars would be even better.)

A recent append patch for Kamidori came out recently, so I've been checking out the new scenarios. My shinigami was worse than dead weight in the map with her, since half the enemies are spirits (her attacks are Physical, which does 1 damage; and Dark, which heals every single damn enemy on the map) and the other half could only be taken out reliably with my main. I can't even suicide her, since the objectives state that all allies must survive. Now for the other scenario before I head back into the main game to check out the new stuff.

Also playing Call of Gods, a (badly translated) MMO on Kongregate. Not sure why - I already have the badges, I don't pay a cent.

I've basically given up on Harder, Faster, so I'm trying to Perfect Id. 1-4 always gets me early on, though, with the surprise black beat on the right.

[Omba]

Arcana Heart 3. Been ages since I've played a fighting game and damn do I suck. Haven't even managed to pull off a single critical heart in training mode yet. :V
KI seems ok, though a little weak on regular difficulty; still possible to win through button mashing, later levels of story mode aside. Voice acting isn't that good, but it's ok.
Anyway, I like it so far.

[theshirn]

Through the power of awesome I defeated the true final boss (but not the bonus boss, don't be silly) of Etrian Odyssey 3 a solid 10 levels below recommendations.

Now going back to hack my way through EO2 again.  I actually got pretty far in it once (22F), and I'm in an EO frame of mind.

[Anima Zero]

FF6 - Playing through a romhack of the game called "Is the Best Game Ever".  Yes, that's the name of it.  Minus the quotation marks of course.  FF6 actually becomes a rather high end level of difficulty with this romhack due to all the changes abound and I love it.  Currently using my team of Celes, Locke, Sabin, and Gau to get them all the spells I can grab from Espers while farming for gold in Zozo (Oh yeah, gold is very very sparse until you hit Zozo).  Everyone is lv16 right now except for Gau who's a couple levels behind at lv14.

[Zengeku]

FF6 - Playing through a romhack of the game called "Is the Best Game Ever".  Yes, that's the name of it.  Minus the quotation marks of course.  FF6 actually becomes a rather high end level of difficulty with this romhack due to all the changes abound and I love it.

That actually sounds interesting. The major issue with FFVI for me is the lack of difficulty. I should go find it.

[Garlyle]

Now, is this "You have to grind out your ass" difficulty, or is it changes invoked that make it more valuable to actually use strategy in battles instead of Spam The High Damage Button.

[Zengeku]

That is of course a pretty relevant question. Would like to know that as well.

[Anima Zero]

So far, I haven't needed to actively grind for levels because something is kicking my tail too hard.  There are some tough points early on (Imperial Camp in Sabin's Scenario...2x Templar + Soldier fight is nasty as hell), but strategy tends to play a larger role in your success due to the time some battles can last.  Battles are longer, yes.  Neither can you spam the attack option for instant win most of the time.

Example...TunnelArmr at the end of Locke's Scenario.  Using normal weaponry for Locke, you'd be lucky to do 10+ damage every hit at lv8 (That's the level my Locke & Celes were at for this fight).

However, if you have the Aquarius Spear from Sabin's Scenario (Located at Serpent Trench, 2nd cave section), Locke's damage suddenly goes up to a much more healthy 30+ damage a hit.  Beating this boss at lv8 now becomes viable with a bit of good fortune on your side.  The 10k xp each character gets from this fight will probably shoot them up from lv8 to lv12-13.

TL;DR - Strategy & planning > extreme grinds for levels in most cases.

Other random things that have changed/advice...

- New curves for everything.  HP growth, MP growth, XP requirements, and so on.
- Changed skills.  Sabin's Pummel for example now can inflict the Countdown status on enemies.  Incredibly useful early on for enemies with high defenses.
- Enemies that can basically murder front row characters with alarming speed.  Back row for everyone is highly recommended unless you are very confident in your abilities with said character (You do enough damage in the back row anyways).
- Gau's rages have been changed.  Ghost for example will have him casting either Ice or a new ability, Enervate.  That will heal the MP of whomever it targets.  Very very very useful when he's paired with Celes or Terra early on considering Tinctures are expensive & gold is EXTREMELY tight in the WoB (Zozo is basically the only place to get a decent amount of funds...or so I hear at least).
- Related to the above point...find those Elixirs, sell them.  They're worth 3750 gold each and can fund your equip and Tonic buying binges until you reach Zozo.

But yeah, I love this hack for the challenge so far.  I'm only hoping it'll keep up when I hit the WoR.  For whatever reason, I find most FF6 hacks seem to drop any sense of normal enemy difficulty when I reach that area and it kinda irks me.  JCE3000GT's hardtype hack for FF6 is a prime example.  WAY WAY too easy to break that hardtype hack into something EASIER than the vanilla game (230+ defenses for a team of 4 and max MBlock for 3/4ths of said team with the other character having 110 MBlock?  Yeah).

[Zengeku]

TL;DR - Strategy & planning > extreme grinds for levels in most cases.

As in, 'have the right weapon for the right boss' planning right? :V -
Although, it does sound like a good hack. Btw, i assume its the SNES version. Am I right?

[Anima Zero]

As in, 'have the right weapon for the right boss' planning right? :V -
Although, it does sound like a good hack. Btw, i assume its the SNES version. Am I right?

Correct, SNES version.

[DX7.EP]

Started L.A. Noire. Quite good, I'll say, so far.

However, the PC version is locked at 30FPS (probably to ensure good framerates, similar to Rage's automatic auto-config to keep the game running at 60FPS, and in response to the absurdly poor performance of GTA IV on PC) regardless of settings, and to make matters worse the file format and structure are, to my experience, nothing like the ones used in GTA IV, making modding difficult for the time being.

[Zengeku]

LA Noire was an awesome experience for me. Hope you have fun

[チソウ タイゼン]

More Nocturne asshattery

"You encounter a Hell Biker. What do you do?"
> Bring out two party members that are weak to fire

BRILLIANT

lol my healer and my debuffer are weak to fire what do

[triangles]

Speaking of "strategy > grinding" I picked up my copy of Final Fantasy Tactics on PSP again this week where I was towards the end of Chapter 2.  You know, because plugging 200+ hours into the original my sophomore year of high school wasn't enough.

Holy crap they must have tuned it from the PSX version because I was getting my butt kicked on the two Gafgarion battles before I realized "oh let me equip accessories to nullify most of the bad stuff!"  Of course, all the skill grinding I wound up doing to counteract the dumbass class choices I had made years ago meant the Lucavi battle was a complete joke :V

[DX7.EP]

Those Gafgarion fights were too easy just by taking his equipment :V

Then again, this was on the original PS1 version. I did play the PSP remake but the insane amounts of lag and the really dead-sounding OST (they killed the reverb :ohdear:) made it a very quick refund. On the other hand, running the original on the PSP's integrated PS1 emulator ran flawlessly.

[Reddyne]

Playing through Portal 2. I've realized that I enjoy horsing around with the portals as much as I do solving the puzzles. Again. I'm guessing I'm about halfway through the game right now since

Spoiler:

GLaDOS was turned into a potato, which I found so funny that I want to play through that part all over again.

Final Fantasy Tactics

This is the way. I wouldn't mind playing through the updated version, but I played through the original twice and was done with it when everything was over.

[Anima Zero]

Lost Odyssey - Nearing the end of Disc 2.  Just arrived in Saman.  Got a couple things to do before I go off to the last Disc 2 dungeon.

Skyrim - Started this today.  It is awesome.  Bumped the difficulty up to the highest, Master.  Yeah I want to get owned like I do in the OOO mod for Oblivion.  Just arrived at the first town, Ravenholm or whatever it's called.  Hit lv2 on my Argonian before calling it a day.

FF6 Best - Finally finished my grinding for spells from Espers and got a bunch more rages for Gau.  MTek Hound rage has Big Guard for one of its possible moves.  Safe + Shell for the entire team?  Yes freaking please.

Just offed Ifrit & Shiva.  Ifrit...didn't really threaten me much, especially with Big Guard up.  Shiva though?  I don't think she liked my Sabin & Locke's physicals because she countered with Blizzard that did like 180-220 dmg to everyone it hits...with Shell factored in...while everyone's max HP levels at this point were ranging from 380-ish to 450 something.  Yeah.

Took two tries for the duo because of Shiva's Blizzard trolling.  Ended up doing the brute force method by beserking Sabin & Locke in the front row and hoping for the best.

Shiva's Blizzard hijinks almost cost me my 2nd attempt...but what happens?

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1608/ff6best00000.png

Anima Zero, master of winning romhack battles by the skin of his teeth!

Something tells me this fight's gimmick is that Ifrit counters magic with a nasty counterattack and Shiva counters physicals.  That's my guess at least.

[Phlegeth]

Also Digimon Masters online and why did you introduce this to me acidicks i have a grinding issue and this game just bleeds 'grind me for delicious digimonz'.

I read this a couple days ago.  Looked it up, now Damn you Chaore!  Just had to take me down with you, didn't you!

[nintendonut888]

Still playing Persona 3 FES. I'm on September 17, and have 70 hours clocked. My god, I wasn't doubting I would like this game, but I wasn't expecting it to be sooo gooood. After a slow first two months, the plot really kicked off, and the social links keep plot intrigue going even during sparse sections. The battle system is a bit grindy, but even after nearly three days-worth of gameplay, I haven't tired of it. Really loving it, and I'll definitely get Persona 4 after this.

[チソウ タイゼン]

Good thing, too. Persona 4 is for many many reasons better.

Something I wish could have been kept was splitting up the team and the more interesting dungeon design though.

[Garlyle]

Go away Baldur's Gate II

I didn't want to remember I own you (because that will force me to play you).

Wild Mage/Fighter that looks like Revya from Soul Nomad is go.  Sigh.

[Dr.Strafe]

As promised, I've obtained my copy of Saints Row: the Third. :getdown: I'm loving every second of this game. I'm so so so glad that the storyline continues from the last game. The upgrade system is a welcome addition. Oh yes, I'm going to be having much fun with this one.