What games are you playing?

[Ashan]

In today's Golden Sun misadventures, I did the colosseum trials and seemingly got softlocked because I did a puzzle wrong. I pushed both the log and the pillar all the way to the left and then I literally had no way of getting past it. I ran around for about 10 minutes, but there's not many places to go. You can't cast retreat so literally all I could do was turn off the console and restart.
Thank you game, very cool!

[KobaBeach]

Still playing Lufia II. Got Artea (Arty) and

I guess this means Tia isn't coming back from NPC status. :c RIP Dekar btw, he was a cute himbo.

Taking a break at the Divine Shrine south of Eserikto because some of these puzzles and dungeon designs can get a bit complex at times. orz

Maxim's at Lv. 40, so I'm nearing the end of the game.

[Bean]

I've never, for the life of me, been able to get into Castlevania. Is there something I'm missing?

maybe it's just not my thing? certainly feels that way

I'm the same way about Pokémon. I get it and even enjoyed a semi-clone in World of Final Fantasy since catching monsters was the big part of the deal, but it's not my style.

I like platformers, and while the exploration ones like Metroid and Castlevania don't get into the hectic moments of Mario, DKC, Sonic, and Mega Man, they still can hold my attention when you're going all around the place looking for stuff. It probably helps that this is the first one of this style in years and does not hold back on referencing those past classics either.

[Awoo]

I've never, for the life of me, been able to get into Castlevania. Is there something I'm missing?

maybe it's just not my thing? certainly feels that way

I'm the same way about Pokémon. I get it and even enjoyed a semi-clone in World of Final Fantasy since catching monsters was the big part of the deal, but it's not my style.

I like platformers, and while the exploration ones like Metroid and Castlevania don't get into the hectic moments of Mario, DKC, Sonic, and Mega Man, they still can hold my attention when you're going all around the place looking for stuff. It probably helps that this is the first one of this style in years and does not hold back on referencing those past classics either.

I couldn't get into Pokemon either, like, at all. Most I ever had were the original trading cards way back in the day

[Ashan]

I wasn't allowed to watch Pokemon or play the games because my parents thought it was making kids worship the devil.

Relevant song:

[KobaBeach]

should have gotten into digimon instead like us cool kids
we have actual demon monsters

I beat Lufia II and I like how even knowing that ending was coming, the events afterwards still hit like a motherfucking truck.

Maxim and Selan are fucking dead and everyone expects them to still be alive and to come back soon except for Tia who feels that Maxim has died and bursts into tears, but isn't aware that that is the reason, and Maxim and Selan's child Jeros who feels Selan's presence as their spirits hover over Parcelyte.

Holy shit, Arc the Lad II and its depressing fucking ending has nothing on this.

The bit at the end with The Savior of Those On Earth playing was just a masterpiece. How did this game go from a poorly written JRPG for babies to this at the very end. what the Fuck

I'm gonna try Lufia 1 again now. I feel ready.

[Awoo]

should have gotten into digimon instead like us cool kids
we have actual demon monsters

Not to mention literal angels
Digimon ftw

[Ashan]

Digimon was a no-go too

Basically all anime is of the devil

[KobaBeach]

Philistines.

[Leet]

I can't think of a clever way to phrase the obvious "that's ridiculous, one of the most greatest animes of alltime is christian" joke so just imagine it for yourself

[KobaBeach]

to be fair superbook did get a lot of christian children in the 80s into anime

i know you mean eva that's the joke

[Awoo]

Digimon was a no-go too

Basically all anime is of the devil

[Alice]

Been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Ngiht a bunch when I can find the time. Easily one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played. Seems to combine the best aspects of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia which are my two favorite entries in the Castlevania series. Also the map is freaking enormous I'm only at about 40% map completion and it feels like I've already explored more than Aria or Ecclesia have in total. (And I'm still not too terribly far into the game. I'm only like level 23-24 or so.)

[Ashan]

Apparently at some point in Golden Sun they just decide to make all status spells never work as part of the "challenge" so that's cool

I'm fighting this stupid tornado lizard (the boss one, not the ones you fight throughout the desert trek) and he's like 10x harder than anything else out of nowhere. He's apparently got high agility cause he'll get like 3 turns in a row, and has a few attacks he can spam to just wipe my whole party out without me getting a turn. I've been spamming sleep and bind on him to stop him from doing that but they seem to have like a 5% chance of working. So my strategy has been resetting the system every time he kills me and hoping on one of these attempts the spells will actually work enough times to kill him. But I did that several times and still haven't gotten him down so I guess it's time to grind. Fun

[Awoo]

Apparently at some point in Golden Sun they just decide to make all status spells never work as part of the "challenge" so that's cool

I'm fighting this stupid tornado lizard (the boss one, not the ones you fight throughout the desert trek) and he's like 10x harder than anything else out of nowhere. He's apparently got high agility cause he'll get like 3 turns in a row, and has a few attacks he can spam to just wipe my whole party out without me getting a turn. I've been spamming sleep and bind on him to stop him from doing that but they seem to have like a 5% chance of working. So my strategy has been resetting the system every time he kills me and hoping on one of these attempts the spells will actually work enough times to kill him. But I did that several times and still haven't gotten him down so I guess it's time to grind. Fun

I don't remember how I killed that/anything in Golden Sun. Maybe I should dig up my old save file or something. Might be worth it to play through it again since work's been so damn slow these past few months

Status spells are generally not worth it in RPGs from my experience, *especially* on bosses. I always try to maximize damage with the heavy hitters, heal as appropriate, and account for any weaknesses on either my side or the enemy(s). It's definitely a thing.

[Ashan]

The game still has not explained any sort of weakness system. I assume there's one there because there's elements, but it didn't explain anything and I don't know how any of the elements interact, nor do I know what element anything is. I also don't have any spells that can heal more than one person at a time, so when this boss does two back-to-back attacks that drain my entire party to 20 health each, there's not really anything I can do to heal them before he finishes them off.

[Bean]

Been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Ngiht a bunch when I can find the time. Easily one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played. Seems to combine the best aspects of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia which are my two favorite entries in the Castlevania series. Also the map is freaking enormous I'm only at about 40% map completion and it feels like I've already explored more than Aria or Ecclesia have in total. (And I'm still not too terribly far into the game. I'm only like level 23-24 or so.)

Yeah. It's a long one. I had a free weekend to go to town on it after easing into it the day it released, so I did just that and beat it. Very good game that's only held back by a few technical flaws. The actual gameplay is as smooth and fun as can be.

[KobaBeach]

Status spells are generally not worth it in RPGs from my experience, *especially* on bosses.

The more Dragon Quest inspired ones tend to make them actually effective, knowing your way around status effects helps a lot in DQ1 for instance. It's just FF and the ones that take from it tend to go with the whole "status effects aren't worth it" schtick. It's honestly pretty dumb.

Also I just shut my brain off for a few hours the day before yesterday and binged through Lufia 1. Now I'm just grinding a bit and progressing through the endgame bit by bit.

[CrappyBlueLuigi]

i've been playing SO much baba is you because it's Good. my long-distance girlfriend is going to be here for two weeks starting tomorrow and we're planning to play seiken densetsu 3/trials of mana via collection of mana, which should be fun! i've played trials of mana a ton since my older sister was way into rpgs (especially squaresoft rpgs) when i was younger, so i experienced a lot of them through her and kept playing them after she moved out. besides, what's better for developing a relationship than playing co-op action rpgs together?

nothing.

[KobaBeach]

Beat Lufia 1. The ending was cheesy and an ass-pull but god if I wasn't on the brink of tears. It's a Dragon Quest clone that feels ancient due to the grinding but there's something about the characters that are just so dumb they're likeable.

i've played trials of mana a ton since my older sister was way into rpgs (especially squaresoft rpgs) when i was younger, so i experienced a lot of them through her and kept playing them after she moved out. besides, what's better for developing a relationship than playing co-op action rpgs together?

nothing.

my brother was into squaresoft rpgs too (mostly ff7, ff9, ff10, ff10-2, chrono trigger and kingdom hearts, i think he owned saga frontier 2 too. he'd later own ff12 and ff13, but he never played much of ff12 and he never finished 13) but i've never really played any of the mana games together with anyone. i'm jealous haha

[BurntTenda]

I got the Collection of Mana and started playing Final Fantasy Adventure.
I've never actually seen this game in action before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the combat is surprisingly fluid, and there are way more weapon types than I expected.

I also played a bit more of Dragon's Dogma.
I got close to beating the dragon when he appears in Devilfire Grove, although I doubt I'm meant to beat him at only Level 35.
I did get him around half health at least.

[Alice]

Very good game that's only held back by a few technical flaws. The actual gameplay is as smooth and fun as can be.

If they could fix up the technical flaws and maybe include a few QoL improvements (such as the map screen saving your zoom level or shops actually signifying what they're carrying that's new) and it'd be about perfect. It's kinda ridiculous how much effort they clearly put into the game.

[Bean]

Agreed on both counts with the map and items needing to be better specified and sorted. It got a bit tiring going to a list to make sure I crafted the right thing and wasn't something I had already used for something else, but all of that was extra, so I knew what I was getting into at that point. Either way, very good game and glad that another one of these titles was made. Just like Mega Man until last year, this series was missed!

Now then, on to Final Fantasy XV at long last. Just going to play the opening tonight and get to the first save afterwards.

[KobaBeach]

Restarted Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei at a whim. SNES remake.
Got lost in like 4F instantly because I'm extremely bad at dungeon crawlers.

I got the Collection of Mana and started playing Final Fantasy Adventure.
I've never actually seen this game in action before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the combat is surprisingly fluid, and there are way more weapon types than I expected.

FF Adventure is really good and I keep meaning to try out Sword of Mana and Adventures of Mana whenever I get the chance.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it.

Fun Fact: This was like the second Square game to be released in Europe after Rad Racer? But it was called Mystic Quest over here. We'd later get FF Mystic Quest (as Mystic Quest Legend), Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore. No Square games until FFVII afterwards tho.

[metasomnia?]

The game still has not explained any sort of weakness system. I assume there's one there because there's elements, but it didn't explain anything and I don't know how any of the elements interact, nor do I know what element anything is. I also don't have any spells that can heal more than one person at a time, so when this boss does two back-to-back attacks that drain my entire party to 20 health each, there's not really anything I can do to heal them before he finishes them off.

I'm a little baffled at this tbh. If you've been fighting everything up to this point and not running away much, the Tornado Lizard shouldn't be wiping your party that easily. Also, I don't remember where, but somewhere it explains what the different symbols mean in combat when you damage things; if the 'you did X damage to thing' sentence ends in (!!!) that means it's super effective, (!) means normal damage I think, and (.) means they resisted it. Something that's not stated anywhere to my knowledge however, is that monsters will give more EXP and coins, and have a higher drop chance for any items they may have if you kill them with a djinni that's opposite their element. If it cries twice and flashes, you got the bonus. As far as the elements themselves go, Mars is effective against Mercury and vice versa (Fire vs Water/Ice), and the same with Venus and Jupiter (Earth vs Lightning/Wind).

Fake Edit: dunno if I should have spoilered that but eh