RPG Progress Report

[Xeogred]

The political intrigue is lighter, and more focused in individual map vignettes. Many of your opponents are more interesting than "yargh, I am teh evulz", which is what leads to their recruitments. And you can see a lot of good story scenes by having specific named units fighting against specific bosses. But in terms of an overarching reasoning behind the bad guys, you mostly hear it in past tense. Ogre Battle 64 greatly enhances the storytelling.

Always hear great things about 64, but I don't think Matsuno worked on that one?

[Jmustang1968]

no, he didn't

[Ack]

What you want are liches. Evil, godless liches. Make sure you've got at least a squad or two ready for them that's composed of other evil bastards, because liches are absurdly powerful. When I played through the game, lich-based squads became my main hit squads. I'd often use mobile squads with hawkmen or dragons to weaken and paladins or valkyries to mop up. But lich squads generally didn't need help. They'd move in and annihilate whatever was in their way. I actually had to start pulling them back because they were too effective, so others could gain experience.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Died for the first time in PSOBB. Kinda ticked, as I was deathless for over forty hours.

My problem is that I decided to explore the absolute very final dungeon of Episode 4, despite the fact that I was grossly underleveled and not even halfway through Episode 2.

So yeah, got massacred. But I was surprised to see that there was very little penalty for dying. No loss of money or weapon - instead it was a simple transport back to the ship. I could waltz right back into the dungeon and all the enemies I had vanquished were still gone. Perhaps the rules are different in multiplayer mode?

[noiseredux]

loaded up Skyrim. In the intro the cart got stuck on a horse. The horse stretched like something out of Goat Simulator. The cart in front of us rode up a tree. I assumed this wasn't part of the game. Restarted. Things went better. I'm playing on Ultra settings. Things look great tho there are some weird graphical glitches in the way animals move or water sometimes turning invisible. Weird.

Great game so far though. Really impressed.

[pierrot]

I'm well into the back half of Ogre Battle, with only 11 of the original story chapters left, but I've taken a bit of a break from it after getting bogged down by the bonus Saturn maps. I have two of the five of them opened--for the other three: one requires recruiting Deneb, and I killed her almost immediately; one is unlocked after collecting all the gems; one is a secret map with a special Justice card ending, which I already finished. These two are pretty large maps, and the enemies' levels are well below most of my units'. Plus they just aren't that much fun. I finished one with the spirit of a master thief (who was betrayed by his "underlings") rotting in a prison. It doesn't seem to be related to the rest of the story at all.

Technically I finished the second one as well, but somehow I didn't end up getting one of the exclusive items from the map. I think I messed up something with Portia Mk II (aka Irene). So I decided to redo it, and actually liberate all the cities, as the map only payed out about 1000 Goth--most of my units cost 10k+ Goth each--which was unacceptable to me, even though I'm close to 2 Million Goth, total. I haven't touched the game since, though.

At any rate, I had picked up Yushis (who seems like she should have started out as a Seraphim, no?) and was intending to talk some sense into her sister after clearing the Saturn maps. I managed to get Warren off of 0 ALI by taking on some of the neutral Phantoms in Antalia with him. He became my second Lich, after Saradin, who is a total mega-beast who, by comparison, Warren could never even hope to be even close to as bone crushingly lethal as. Saradin is paired with Norn (Princess) and a random Bishop and Wyvern to round out my first shinigami unit. Warren is with Rauni, and another Bishop/Wyvern pair for the second unit. Even though it doesn't seem likely Rauni will get to be princess, she's still pretty beast as a Freya.


In lieu of Ogre Battle, I've been going hard at Dragon Slayer: Eiyuu Densetsu on the Mega Drive. I kind of dropped it like a bad habit about nine months ago, close the the mid-point of the game. I guess I just wasn't enjoying it that much--I'd like to blame Ro, or "Low," as I like to call him: because he has such a shitty personality. Something is clicking now, though, and I'm in the last chapter of the game, nearing the end. There's nothing really special about it, aside from the music, and where I picked the game back up at, it was making me run back and forth between towns, fetching things. it's pretty solid overall, though, and I'm breezing through it now, for some reason. The story is kind of nonsense at times, also, but can be kind of funny, and it's surprisingly involved considering the time of its original release. I'm a little upset that Deena is even a character in this game. She's supposed to be relatively important to the main character, but may as well be a log. She's made so unimportant that it's a little galling that she's even mentioned at all.

Anyway, I'm looking for the Sword of Light, and managed to escape being forced to give a guard half of my nearly 300k Gold by dumping some items and picking up a Battle Suit, which is super slick; guard ended up with 700 Gold, and liked it.

I'm also debating whether or not to sell this Gold Card, since it's worth 56k Gold, and I'm going to need three more Battle Suits (900k Gold) so every bit helps. I'm pretty sure I don't need it anymore, but--.

[noiseredux]

I've decided that rather than do a "proper" write-up on Skyrim for my blog, I'll take a page out of The Book Of Ack and keep a travel journal here that I'll later compile there. So...


The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
2011, Bethesda Software

DAY 1

My story begins in the back of a horse drawn carriage. I find that I've been captured – a story told to me by a fellow prisoner. Slowly the carriage makes its way through the woods. But suddenly our horse collides with the carriage in front of it. The horse stumbles, falls and gets stuck behind a tree. I get ready. I suspect that a prisoner revolt will be in order. I look up ahead to be sure that the other carriage hasn't noticed that we're falling behind. Nope, it hasn't. In fact it's... up in a tree? And wait. Our horse is now stretching itself like a giraffe. It looks gross and frightening. I don't think this is supposed to be happening. I restart the game.

My story begins I the back of a horse drawn carriage, again. This time we make to our destination. I go ahead and make my character: deciding to basically just recreate the character I used in Dragon Age Origins, because why not? Her name is Lyna. I watch a another prisoner get beheaded. Lyna's next, but a dragon interrupts her execution. What follows is a pretty great escape section through some underground passageways. My first impression is good. I quickly find some shabby armor and a sword. Combat feels fine in first person mode – although you can switch to third, which makes it feel more like the Dragon Age games – I think I'll stick to first person. I loot the trail of dead and find a longbow.

After the dragon-escape intro, the world of Skyrim opens up to you – or at least the map does. This is where things start to get really impressive. It's now that I can choose to either keep on the path of main story quests, or just pick a direction to go off and explore. I settle on a combination of the two. I follow a river, stumble upon a mine, and walk around aimlessly for a while before getting on with the story. In this way Skryim reminds me a great deal of my experience playing Grand Theft Auto V – a game that I spent nearly equal hours following its main story and completely ignoring it while just doing whatever I felt like. Both were fun, so I can totally see the appeal of Skyrim as a gigantic RPG sandbox.

There's also these strokes of brilliance within the way the game world works that I'm still getting used to. At first I'd just take EVERYTHING from a dead enemy. I mean, it's kind of funny to leave every victim in their underwear, right? But then I find myself in a situation where I can't move. OH! I get it. I'm carrying like a hundred and something pounds of crap. Of course I can't move.

And so one quest turns into two quests, and two turn into three. I manage to forge my sword into something better and level myself up to Level 2. The day turns dark and I find myself at a campsite. I don't see anyone, though. I start to look around and out of the corner of my eye I see a shadow moving. Without thinking I hit "R" and pull out my sword as I lunge forward. A quick swipe and – I'm thrown back hard. Dead in a single hit from a Giant. It's then that a Hint is displayed to let me know that most Giants are actually gentle creatures in the world of Skyrim. I contemplate ordering the strategy guide for coffee table reading.

[Betagam7]

I'm finally making progress at Tales of Phantasia (SFC) after long tedious dungeon crawling I'm now in the future going after Dhaos again.

So far very little seems to have changed. I'm kind of disappointed that the developer didn't do a little more as same areas are pretty much identical with exactly the same NPC's as the other time zones.

I now have to go and get another spirit to make some air-birds or something so I guess this game is going to do the stereotypical "lol, you can now fly anywhere quickly" trick that so many JRPG's pull in the last third.

I'm not sure what the point of the new weakling fifth member is supposed to be other than for story elements. Am I actually supposed to fight with him?

[ElkinFencer10]

Am I actually supposed to fight with him?

You're supposed to use him as a sex slave.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Baten Kaitos is really trying my patience now. The horrible, HORRIBLY long boss fight from earlier, they make you do it again. Then, they have a cut-scene where you actually lost that fight, but then get revived but more powerful so you can fight back. Know what happens next? THE SAME F***ING FIGHT AGAIN. Literally, exactly the same. Now I have no problem with a back-to-back boss fight with no chance for healing, that can be interesting and challenging. But when it's literally exactly the same, just again, that comes off as lazy to me, especially when I'm fighting dudes I just saw myself defeat.

From a game design perspective, I do not see any reason why they did this. When a boss fight is just tooth and nail for an hour like that, it just becomes tedious. Maybe it's due to the card-based battle system, but god damn, that wasn't fun. They very easily could've pulled a FF trick where at first it's an impossible fight you can't win (or maybe one you're not supposed to win and you get a Gades' Blade equivalent for winning), then you get supped up, and then it's a scripted fight where you're super strong and can't lose. That would've made that story moment far more impactful. The way it was, I'd just forgotten about the story because the battle was just dragging on, and on, and on. I know it'd kinda kill the battle system, but I really wish there were some way to skip enemy battle animations.