What games are you playing?

[YelseyKing]

RomaSaGa 2 and Unlimited seem to be the most painful from what I've seen/heard

I haven't played RomaSaGa 3, Frontier 2 or Unlimited yet though

I haven't played the first two Romancing SaGa games, due to their not being in English (and I have no patience to play through a game with text I can't read, even with an FAQ), and only briefly sampled Unlimited SaGa, so I can't really comment on those...

I've played Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Frontier 2, however.

Wall of text!

Romancing SaGa 3 basically feels to me like SaGa Frontier Lite. It has most of the same mechanics (albeit a lot more weapon types), but rather than being multiple different stories, it seems like there's only a single story, with slightly different viewpoints (especially considering six of the eight characters start in the same place). It's not too ridiculously hard, but since I only played it *after* SaGa Frontier, it had that distinct "little brother" feel.

SaGa Frontier 2 ... ahh, that game had potential. But it overcompensated for the series' usual non-linearity by being an *incredibly* linear and restrictive game. 90% of the areas you visit can never be returned to, including towns. Item management is also a real pain due to a few things that, alone, would be minor nuisances, but together, render the game a huge pain. Weapons can break. You have a limited inventory (64 spaces, and similar items don't stack). You have limited access to money (few enemies drop any). And you have limited access to shops. I basically had to rely on Quells (magical artifacts that don't break). There are also a number of points you can screw yourself over without even realizing it's possible. Despite all that, it's not an especially difficult game, and has some interesting gameplay ideas (if not necessarily utilized well), except for the last of the war battles, as well as the final dungeon and final battles, in which the game takes a dramatic difficulty spike.

I didn't greatly care for either, but if you're a fan of the series, they're certainly worth a look.

Edit: All right, screw Megaman X. In addition to seemingly needing six fingers per hand to reliably use the dash without horribly contorting your hand, I just tried out the Hadouken powerup, which fails spectacularly against bosses. You end up shooting a single shot from the X Buster before the Hadouken itself comes out. Which hits the boss, triggering its invincibility frame, rendering the Hadouken itself useless. Great.

[Ashan]

The hadouken isn't something you're supposed to rely on to fight bosses. It's basically an easter egg you can take advantage of if you're good at the game. And you're doing it wrong if what you described is happening.

Also to dash, what I do is swing my right index finger around and leave it on the A button. Unless you consider that "horribly contorting your hand" but I do that in SMW and Dark Souls too so I don't know. It doesn't bug me at all.

[YelseyKing]

The hadouken isn't something you're supposed to rely on to fight bosses. It's basically an easter egg you can take advantage of if you're good at the game. And you're doing it wrong if what you described is happening.

Also to dash, what I do is swing my right index finger around and leave it on the A button. Unless you consider that "horribly contorting your hand" but I do that in SMW and Dark Souls too so I don't know. It doesn't bug me at all.

Yeah, I'm... just fuming, really. I'll try again later. Though I've tried a few different dash button setups, and I just can't find one that feels "natural". Normally I just double-tap left or right and use it that way, but obviously it doesn't work when dash jumping off walls... The air dash in later games should take care of some of those problems, if I can *get* there...

[Sturg]

I for one like to have the dash on the right bumper and have X be a weapon switch with L.

Also the Lego games are pretty relaxing to go through.

[ultratowel112]

one mistake I made was stocking up on lives. Dying a lot wasn't really a problem in the first three stages, and there are no checkpoints to lose in the last one, so having fewer lives just allows me to get out of the final stage and refill my sub tanks for another shot a lot quicker.

Subtank filling in the final stage (can be done each life):

Charged Rolling Shield (Armadillo's weapon) can be used to lazily refill subtanks and get more lives on the final Sigma stage. Just keep walljumping by one of the enemy spawns. The shield takes out the enemies and they drop things pretty often.

Edit: All right, screw Megaman X. In addition to seemingly needing six fingers per hand to reliably use the dash without horribly contorting your hand, I just tried out the Hadouken powerup, which fails spectacularly against bosses. You end up shooting a single shot from the X Buster before the Hadouken itself comes out. Which hits the boss, triggering its invincibility frame, rendering the Hadouken itself useless. Great.

It seems like I'm one of the few people who deals with standard controls and just using different parts of my thumb for each of the three buttons. Then again, I got used to that way probably 15 years ago, so it is natural to me. I despise double-tap-dash because I like being able to do a couple bumps forward. For the Hadouken, I think if you wait a couple frames to shoot you won't have that problem, but I could be wrong. I never really focused on it since I didn't find out about it until a couple years ago.

[Picochilla]

Finally done with the Installation of Watch_Dogs... I'm pretty intrested how it is to play that.

[Bean]

I'm about a quarter of the way through Mirror of Fate right now. It's holding up as a game that exists, which isn't a good thing since the 3DS is actually a great gaming device. Hmm. Might as well keep going with it.

[Sorel]

I replayed most of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on hard mode yesterday. Still one of my top two favorite Castlevania games. Though I will pass on ever beating it on hard mode lvl 1 again. That was an absolute nightmare.

I was so good at the Lv. 1 Run... till that guy in Dracula's castle with the shadow...

Blackwell or Blackmoore, I forget which. He's absurdly difficult to get the medal for on hard mode no matter your level too. Beating him is easy enough even on hard at levels 40+ but doing it at any level can be really difficult without taking at least one hit on hard mode.

He can almost instantly kill you with one hit.

And I'm sure it's Blackmoore.

[KobaBeach]

I haven't played the first two Romancing SaGa games, due to their not being in English

Romancing SaGa 1 has a remake on the PS2, that also came out in North America (not Europe, however).

From what I heard, it's pretty much a 3D version of the original Romancing SaGa with features that the other games in the series introduced (Unlimited's art style, RS2's sparking, Frontier's combo attacks...) and two new quests: one involving Schirach (Saruin and Death's sister, whose quest was scrapped in the SNES version, but they did include her as a boss in the WonderSwan Color port) and one involving a character named Darque.

They also redesigned all the characters.

People tend to agree that the remake is one of the best of the series.

Also the characters in there are really realistic looking chibis and it's pretty weird ahahaha

[KobaBeach]

Been playing Alien Soldier, made it to Xi-Tiger (level 9 out of 24) on one continue.

This game is so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll try to play through the entire game some other day, I only played it just to try it out.
(And yes I am aware of the password function)

[Alice]

He can almost instantly kill you with one hit.

And I'm sure it's Blackmoore.

It is, I went and double checked after the fact. And one hitting isn't such a problem with him. The real issue, at least on hard mode, is trying to get his medal. He's easily one of the most absurd bosses to get the medal on because he's huge, likes to advance forward enough to give you basically no horizontal maneuvering room, then on top of that he attacks the lower area quite often while you only have double jump at this point. And if you manage to dodge his attacks with just double jump you then have to make a split second judgment call on whether you try to stay high and dodge his next attack if it's low or drop down and dodge that attack if it's a high one.

It is possible but it's one of the most absurd things I've ever tried to do. And I wouldn't recommend trying it under level 60 at the minimum just to make it end quicker. (When I successfully did it I was like level 180ish or so.)

[YelseyKing]

Well, third time's the charm. I beat Megaman X this time. I actually got lucky in the fight against Velguader, landing a Hadouken on him right away. For the first Sigma phase, I discovered an AI quirk, in that if you stick to the walls, he'll always try to climb up after you, both leaving himself opened to attack, and making his attacks easier to avoid.

For the final phase, once again, Bean's LP helped, showing me safe ways to avoid most of the attacks I'd probably not have noticed on my own (again, I'm awful at pattern recognition). Between the quick victories in the first two rounds, I still had plenty of health and three sub tanks remaining, so it wasn't *too* bad.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragements, hints, etc. Now it's on to Megaman X2. I remember that game having a lot of crazy stuff in it, but I also remember enjoying it overall more than the first game. We'll see how that goes.

[KobaBeach]

Hello, my name is David.

I also go by the aliases of: KobaBeach, FartMonster, and blink182s_enema (that's actually on 3:05, but I'm linking to the entire video itself because I think it's pretty funny)

I am currently playing Romancing SaGa 2 on the SNES, aka Super Famicom in Japan.
I am currently having issues with the Queen boss.
I found an "endless HP during combat" cheat in a Japanese website.
I used it to defeat the Queen.
Total of regrets I currently have: Zero.
I will refrain from using any cheats during the remainder of the game, however, I'll promise.
I apologize for being a casual.
In my defense, I'm playing this mostly blind and I don't really understand the mechanics all that well.

why am i talking so formal-like that's so lame
i sound lame (not that i don't sound lame all the time, but this makes me sound lamer than usual)

lame hakurei the shrine maiden of armpits and bearded turtles

Thanks to everyone for the encouragements, hints, etc. Now it's on to Megaman X2. I remember that game having a lot of crazy stuff in it, but I also remember enjoying it overall more than the first game. We'll see how that goes.

Congrats on beating MMX1! Good luck with X2.

YouTube Poopers seem to really like Wheel Gator for some reason?
(I haven't been into YouTube Poop for ages now so I'm pretty out of the loop (whoa a rhyme!!))

Out of the three SNES games, I always preferred X3. I don't know why.

P.S. There's a hidden capsule in one of the Sigma stages, can't remember which. It's behind a wall, you need full HP for it to appear, though.

[pholtos]

As a fellow casual, I understand if you truly get stuck at a part, using whatever is deemed necessary is all right, so no worries there koba, your honor shall remain intact for that small deviation.

[YelseyKing]

Congrats on beating MMX1! Good luck with X2.

YouTube Poopers seem to really like Wheel Gator for some reason?
(I haven't been into YouTube Poop for ages now so I'm pretty out of the loop (whoa a rhyme!!))

Out of the three SNES games, I always preferred X3. I don't know why.

I've actually played through most of 2 and 3, but never beaten them. I forget offhand *why*. But I did enjoy them, yeah.

P.S. There's a hidden capsule in one of the Sigma stages, can't remember which. It's behind a wall, you need full HP for it to appear, though.

The gold armor? Yeah, I know about that. You also have to avoid picking up any of the "chip" upgrades, since it gives you all four.


Also, like pholtos said, there's no shame in taking more drastic measures if a game is just being an ass. I had to GameShark my way through the last few scenarios of SaGa Frontier 2, because Battle of South Moundtop, as well as the final scenario, were just much too much. Arrgh.

[Ashan]

Got my first death in FFX. It was to Evrae, who actually killed me twice.
It was kinda dumb because the first chunk of the battle is manageable, you just have to pay attention to turns to watch for when the ship captain's turn is coming up, but once you get the boss' health low enough he casts haste on himself so he gets a million turns and can kill you super fast.
What's even dumber, is that if you use Slow on him to reverse his haste effect, he somehow gets another turn even if it's not his turn next and he'll recast haste on himself. If you scan him, he's not immune to Slow, he just has this cheap workaround where he cheats and gets an extra turn to cast haste on himself if you cast Slow.

Also, what's even scarier is that after that boss is a few pretty long cutscenes and then you have to do a bunch of other not-super-easy battles before another like 7 hour long cutscene (which looks super great but is hard to take in when you're crossing your fingers hoping you don't have to fight another boss before a save point) and then finally you get to save.

I don't like to imagine what it would be like to die to one of the enemies after fighting that boss because by the time I finally got to the next save point, I compared my previous save to my new save and there was 40 minutes in between them which I would have had to redo had I died.

[ultratowel112]

P.S. There's a hidden capsule in one of the Sigma stages, can't remember which. It's behind a wall, you need full HP for it to appear, though.

The gold armor? Yeah, I know about that. You also have to avoid picking up any of the "chip" upgrades, since it gives you all four.

That's X3, but I think it is still behind a wall. I'm much more familiar with the first two.

X2 capsule spoiler:

It's in Sigma 3 and you need every upgrade. After you do the climb with the direction-changing platform (you'll know what I mean when you see it), you'll see a ladder. You can either neon jump (if you want to learn that) or use Crystal Snail's weapon to freeze a bat to get to that ladder. This short section is pretty difficult, but make sure you have full health before dropping down the shaft at the end. Slide down the left wall to find the room.

[YelseyKing]

What's even dumber, is that if you use Slow on him to reverse his haste effect, he somehow gets another turn even if it's not his turn next and he'll recast haste on himself. If you scan him, he's not immune to Slow, he just has this cheap workaround where he cheats and gets an extra turn to cast haste on himself if you cast Slow.

...yeah, that's FF10. From Evrae onwards, nearly *every* boss is a huge pain, with some kind of cheap gimmick. Usually in the form of some quick way to kill your Aeons. I know *now* how to beat them all in a timely fashion, and in many cases, there's some trick you can do to deal with them easily, but... good luck figuring *those* out on your own. My first time through... gods, I wanted to throw the controller through the TV screen more times than I can count.

Incidentally, you even have to fight Evrae once more *after* that irritating fight. Fortunately, the second battle is much easier than the first...

It's undead. Phoenix Down time!

X2 capsule spoiler:

It's in Sigma 3 and you need every upgrade. After you do the climb with the direction-changing platform (you'll know what I mean when you see it), you'll see a ladder. You can either neon jump (if you want to learn that) or use Crystal Snail's weapon to freeze a bat to get to that ladder. This short section is pretty difficult, but make sure you have full health before dropping down the shaft at the end. Slide down the left wall to find the room.

Oh, the Shoryuken. Yeah, I know about that one, too. Never gotten it, but I've seen an LP of X2, where the player got it. Looks kinda weird and hard to use.

[Bean]

For the final phase, once again, Bean's LP helped

True fact: That final Mega Man X video is one of my least favorites I've done since at the time, I had no idea how to fix the desync. I absolutely buried that one almost right after posting it. Congrats on beating MMX all the same!

Nearing the halfway mark in Mirror of Fate. Somehow, I bet this one gets saved until June with Mario Kart 8 on the horizon.

[Ashan]

So when people were play testing FFX did they actually go through that stupid cloister of trials where you have to ride around on a platform and not go "hey this is kinda really stupid"?
Maybe they ran out of time and couldn't fix it.

The puzzle itself wasn't that hard, it was just that the stupid mechanic of getting around was dumb and just wasted time. Half the time you'd get to an intersection where you wanted to turn but you'd be going so fast and the timing of the arrow wouldn't be lined up so you could actually turn so you would keep having to try over and over again until the arrow timing was synced up properly and you could actually turn. It was just so stupid. And if you messed up, you'd have to sit there twiddling your thumbs while watching Tidus slowly travel along the path so you could turn around and watch it in the other direction.

[Bean]

Mario Kart 8. It's fun.

[Ashan]

Wow, the re-fight of Seymour sure is fun!
Especially his one hit kill move that all he has to do is use 3 times and he wins!

The only person I have stoneproof armor for is Yuna and she's useless on her own in the fight because he also has a one-hit-kill for Aeons that he'll use as soon as you summon one so she can basically do no damage. And I can't go anywhere to get stoneproof armor for my other characters, so yeah. This sure is pretty cool.

[YelseyKing]

Wow, the re-fight of Seymour sure is fun!
Especially his one hit kill move that all he has to do is use 3 times and he wins!

The only person I have stoneproof armor for is Yuna and she's useless on her own in the fight because he also has a one-hit-kill for Aeons that he'll use as soon as you summon one so she can basically do no damage. And I can't go anywhere to get stoneproof armor for my other characters, so yeah. This sure is pretty cool.

Oh, well, you're going to *love* the third Seymour fight, then...

[pholtos]

Just finished up 3-10 of super scribblenauts. Gotta say the game takes a bit of thought, especially when they have you think up three different things for one puzzle for the gold crown. I'll probably go for 100% on this.

I've gotten back in to guild wars 2, although I wish I had earlier in the month so I could aim for the monthly goal. Ah well.

[Eila]

Been playing UT2004 lately, I always loved it for the modding community it has.

Professor Farnsworth blowing apart Samus with handheld artillery is just something you take with you forever.