What games are you playing?

[Saturn Moriya]

*ahem*

IT'S FUCKING DONE

I took breaks after stage 3 and right before the final boss. I had 3 lives entering the final boss, breached the 13m 1-up and still ended with 0 lives.

I will get into normal mode SOME DAY, but it will be LONG time from now.

Now it's time for Okami and Dragon Quest 3.

[Rixithechao]

Ended up not going to the Smash Bros thing, spent the day playing Mario 3D World with my cousin instead. Fun was still had, but the gating was really annoying -- I was enough of a stubborn completionist that I didn't have to worry about the star limits on my file, but my cuz wasn't so we kept having to go back and scrounge up 10-20 of those things each time. Naturally the Captain Toad and mystery house levels were already done so we had to get them from the regular levels, 1-3 at a time.

They did the same thing with Galaxy 2, didn't they? Combining both the beat-level-to-unlock-level progression and the star gates. It doesn't work. Should've either handled the green stars the same way as the star medals in all the NSMB games or made them the primary goals of the levels like 64/Sunshine/Galaxy 1.

[KobaBeach]

Arakes is dead~♪

2 abyss gates and a few more quests to go~♫

[Sorel]

I'm getting back into osu! again.

BTW today I met DatLeon in osu!.

It was a nice coincidence to see a familiar face.

[pholtos]

So I just beat Phalanx... on easy... yep not playing that one again for a long while, it's dang hard. Course I might just be bad at horizontal scrolling shooters.

So I rolled Eets Munchies next... I have no idea what this game is about but hey! I'll roll with it.

Edit: Oh hey it's a neat puzzle game that reminds me a bit of the incredible machines.

[Saturn Moriya]

Easy mode? How lame! Only Kids play on easy mode! *hides data on just having beaten Ikaruga on easy*

In all seriousness, Phalanx doesn't deserve much more. It's sillyness. Though I wonder how "funny mode" would play out.

[Bean]

There. I finally started Chrono Trigger, and I'm enjoying it.

[KobaBeach]

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS

OH MY GOD

BATTLING BYUNEI WHILE RIDING GWAYNE

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IS THIS AWESOME

Really easy if your HP's high, though (just spam your best waza and Gwayne's Twin Spike and boom you win)

1 Abyss gate to go~♪

Aunas is down as well~♪
0 Abyss gates to go~♫

The jungle was a pain to traverse. Nice music though.
The Fairy Village was so cool! My favorite part is how everyone there, except for the fairy you saved in the circus quest, are just the biggest trolls ever. One of them even serves you drugged tea and dumps you in the jungle below afterwards.

Now all I have to do is save the young boy (or "Shonen" if you prefer to use untranslated Japanese for unknown reasons), go into the abyss (yes, it is related to that abyss), defeat the real Abyss Lords (the ones in the outside world were just clones) and defeat the Destroyer.

[YelseyKing]

Now all I have to do is save the young boy (or "Shonen" if you prefer to use untranslated Japanese for unknown reasons), go into the abyss (yes, it is related to that abyss), defeat the real Abyss Lords (the ones in the outside world were just clones) and defeat the Destroyer.

I always did dislike that part. You're ready to go to the final dungeon, and suddenly you have to swap out one of your characters for that snotty little boy you kept running into all over the place. Who is *so* incredibly "important" that the dev team didn't even bother giving him a *name*, and who comes in as one would expect a raw recruit to, with crap stats, no skills, etc. Fortunately, you can just stick the little shit in your reserve slot and be done with *that*, at least.

... also, I still need to finish Megaman X4. I finished the Maverick stages a few days ago, and got all the items/upgrades, but haven't even attempted the final stages yet. I wish that series would've, at some point, dropped the whole "can't save during the final stages" nonsense. I find it hard to make time these days for the hour and a half single gaming session these days...

Update: I just made an attempt at the final stages in MMX4. As seems to be the series tradition, everything was fine until Sigma's final form, which was all kinds of bananas. Two targets, two lifebars, little damage dealt from your attacks, few opportunities to actually attack, and a whole lot of attacks to figure out how to deal with. Good times! At least the first two forms are simple... but there's no way to refill your sub-tanks between attempts, so... yeah. Fun. Burned through 8 lives, and didn't even come close to victory.

[metasomnia?]

Man, Chapter 7 is taking forever to beat. I think I've been through the equivalent of four dungeons or something.

I guess this kinda balances out Chapter 6 being three seconds long.

[KobaBeach]

I'm fighting the Abyss lords to make the final boss less of a pain.

FUCK YOU FORNEUS.

FUCK YOU.

The lifesaver in this was a combination of Tatyana having a Life Cane (which has the "Shatter Staff" tech, it heals the entire party and destroys the weapon) and me giving her a spear and the Triple Thrust tech (Epees and spears share the same profeciency level, since she's been using epees the entire game...).

The SaGa series is concentrated hatred vacuum sealed into a cartridge/CD.

Next playthrough, I need to strategize better.
Or, in other words: put only the best characters in the game in my party and grind for magic like Shadow Servant and break the entire game.

I really should have grinded for Shadow Servant, maybe Quicktime and Reviver as well.

Maybe next time?

EDIT: ALL ABYSS LORDS ARE DOWN!!

FINAL BOSS TIME!!

(True Arakes and True Forneus are kinda cute~♥)
(Forneus can still go get run over by a train for all I care tho)

[YelseyKing]

The SaGa series is concentrated hatred vacuum sealed into a cartridge/CD.

Next playthrough, I need to strategize better.
Or, in other words: put only the best characters in the game in my party and grind for the most broken magic like Shadow Servant.

I really should have grinded for Shadow Servant, maybe Quicktime and Reviver as well.

Maybe next time?

I have a love/hate relationship with the SaGa series, as you can tell. It can be a lot of fun, and very rewarding once you get into it... but *damn* does it want you dead. You *really* have to understand the gameplay, which entails either reading up in FAQs, or experimenting *a lot*, in order to get to the point where the games cease to utterly destroy you. You need to find out who and where the best characters are, what the best skills are, who works best with what, things along that line. It's daunting, but damned if it isn't sweet once you finally assemble a winning team and get to turn the tables on those enemies that crushed you before.

Honestly, I think you're *expected* to have to restart the game a few times, trying new strategies as you go, before you stand a reasonable chance of beating the game. You're also heavily expected to grind, a *lot*, and to do every optional thing the game allows.

The funny thing is, despite all the hate it used to get back in the day, I actually found that SaGa Frontier was one of the more lenient games in the series. Scaled back to two weapon types and three weapon-based skillsets, with no "skill levels" for each, a much more simplified (but still effective) magic system, a large global party, no perma-death from losing all LP, weapons that don't break, and fewer overall chances to screw yourself over irreversibly. It's still rough around the edges, lacking a few features I wish it did have (such as the ability to remove party members you don't want/need), and smacks of a game rushed out the door and left unfinished, but I love it anyhow.

EDIT: ALL ABYSS LORDS ARE DOWN!!

FINAL BOSS TIME!!

(True Arakes and True Forneus are kinda cute~♥)
(Forneus can still go get run over by a train for all I care)

Congrats! Of course, the final boss is a pain, too... because this is SaGa. Of course it is.

[KobaBeach]

Of course, the final boss is a pain, too... because this is SaGa. Of course it is.

Heh.

But in my last attempt, I had it down to almost half of its HP!
Its total HP is 80000, and I had him pretty close to 40000.

Its darkness form took me down!

Fun fact: If you don't fight the Abyss Lords and fight its impossibly-hard "True" version, its HP is increased to 120000. I've heard of optional challenges but that's just absurd!

[YelseyKing]

Of course, the final boss is a pain, too... because this is SaGa. Of course it is.

Heh.

But in my last attempt, I had it down to almost half of its HP!
Its total HP is 80000, and I had him pretty close to 40000.

Its darkness form took me down!

KEEP TRY !!

Fun fact: If you don't fight the Abyss Lords and fight its impossibly-hard "True" version, its HP is increased to 120000. I've heard of optional challenges but that's just absurd!

Reminds me of SaGa Frontier 2, where if you elect not to defeat at least a couple of the Edelritter in the final dungeon, the final boss gains some attacks that are so broken they can take down even an overpowered team in just a couple hits. (Interestingly, one of the Edelritter battles has a special theme you'd never hear elsewhere, as I recall... but it's one of the weaker ones that most people recommend not fighting, since its effect on the final boss is minimal. Go figure.)

[Rixithechao]

Made some progress on Wind Waker HD yesterday while waiting for my computer to recover from two surprise bluescreens, got a couple of Triforce shards and finally started the Earth Temple.

Planned to get a Github repo set up today (see the Moonpepper thread) and then catch the other Smash Bros event... but long story short, an old friend ended up stopping by and we spent the time playing The Walking Dead Ep. 2. Got to

Larry's heart attack in the meat locker

before we had to part ways for dinner + last-minute Father's Day shopping, but I'm expecting him back soon so we'll be finishing that up.

Also got this for three bucks as a bonus gift, so it'll probably factor into tomorrow's events somehow.

[YelseyKing]

Made some progress on Wind Waker HD yesterday while waiting for my computer to recover from two surprise bluescreens, got a couple of Triforce shards and finally started the Earth Temple.

Just out of curiosity... I've heard rumors that the HD remake of Wind Waker added in some content that was cut from the original. Any truth to that, or was it all just pre-release speculation and wishful thinking?

[Icelink256]

Just out of curiosity... I've heard rumors that the HD remake of Wind Waker added in some content that was cut from the original. Any truth to that, or was it all just pre-release speculation and wishful thinking?

My neighbour has this game, and while I'm not sure about the cut content (very unlikely), I do know that they severely dumbed down the gameplay, to spoon-feed the last half of the game to people. Which is dumb. >.>

[Ashan]

No cut content as far as I know.

I do know that they severely dumbed down the gameplay, to spoon-feed the last half of the game to people. Which is dumb. >.>

Are you kidding me? They FIXED the last bit of the game. In the original they had you waste time running back to Tingle 50 times and paying him a trillion rupees every time just to make the game seem longer. It shouldn't have been like that in the first place. What they did in WWHD was a fix, not "dumbed down to spoon feed people."

[Bean]

In two days of playing Chrono Trigger, I've gone from "Good morning, Crono!" to standing at the foot of Magus' Castle. Frog's pretty cool.

[Rixithechao]

Yeah, most of the changes were just removing/improving the tedious aspects. Repeated animations like performing songs or using the grappling hook/salvage crane are limited or sped up, you can get a sail upgrade that makes it 2-3 times faster pretty early in the game, and it's much easier to complete the figurine sidequest because the Picto Box can store more pictures and it shows you whether the photo's good enough the moment you take it. Some folks will also pass along pics over Miiverse via the Tingle Bottle.

Regarding reassembling the Triforce, I don't know the specifics but from what I understand a number of shards don't have charts, you just find them in the chests you previously got the charts from. So, yeah, less running back to Tingle and paying him a king's ransom.

My only real issue is how they handled the "HD upgrade" -- the dynamic shadows clash with the game's vibrant colors, it really stands out in the beginning with most of Outset Island being overshadowed by the cliffs. And I really think they could've done without the bloom, and the softened character shading and ambient lighting... It almost feels like it's showing a lack of confidence in the game's initial art direction, like an apology of sorts. And considering this work was outsourced, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

But yeah, that shouldn't be a deal-breaker. You'll get used to the graphics, and all of the above points about the gameplay still stand.

EDIT: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questio ... d-waker-hd

Frog's pretty cool.

Verily!

[Medley]

In two days of playing Chrono Trigger, I've gone from "Good morning, Crono!" to standing at the foot of Magus' Castle. Frog's pretty cool.

Probably helps that he's got one of the coolest fatdanged themes ever.

[YelseyKing]

In two days of playing Chrono Trigger, I've gone from "Good morning, Crono!" to standing at the foot of Magus' Castle. Frog's pretty cool.

Probably helps that he's got one of the coolest fatdanged themes ever.

There's no such thing as a character theme in Chrono Trigger that *isn't* awesome, though!

[Medley]

In two days of playing Chrono Trigger, I've gone from "Good morning, Crono!" to standing at the foot of Magus' Castle. Frog's pretty cool.

Probably helps that he's got one of the coolest fatdanged themes ever.

There's no such thing as a character theme in Chrono Trigger that *isn't* awesome, though!

Well, I mean, yeah, but Frog's theme is the beeeest.

[YelseyKing]

Well, I mean, yeah, but Frog's theme is the beeeest.

Hah, yeah, it's definitely one of the highlights of the overall soundtrack... which says a lot, because that game has one of the best SNES soundtracks ever. I just wish they'd actually included that extra intro bit heard on the OST in the game itself. I was hoping it'd be restored, at least, in the DS version, which made use of two other previously unused songs, but sadly, no...

Fun fact: When I was a kid, one of my friends liked to say Frog's theme sounded "drunk" to him. Heh.

[Medley]

"Drunk?" What foolishness! It's the theme of a true man, on a quest for glory! What kind of clandestine fool would say such a silly thing?