What are you playing?

[Ack]

Exhum, I love 7th Saga for the skullfucking.

[Exhuminator]

Exhum, I love 7th Saga for the skullfucking.

It certainly will provide plenty of that. It's a masochistic wonderland of player hating and skullfuckery.

At the same time, it doesn't take any real skill to beat The 7th Saga. I know I sound like I'm trolling now, but I'm being honest. The game's ludicrous balancing is diluted by merely grinding for hours, even if you pick the "wrong" character. If you're willing to grind your levels up and up, the difficulty equally waters down and down. That's not so much skillfully scaling a mountain as it is eroding it to a manageable height.

Contrast that design, with say Etrian Odyssey, Vagrant Story, and SMT: Nocturne. All of those games are considered difficult, because leveling up doesn't do much to help the player. You have to carefully exploit bosses' weaknesses and your own special skills to beat Etrian Odyssey, that means it takes tactics to win. You have to really understand the weapon crafting system in Vagrant Story to stand a chance,meaning it requires intellect and strategic planning to win. With SMT: Nocturne, you must intimately understand its elemental combat system, and fully exploit the Press Turn effect to stand a chance. Merely grinding for hours and hours won't solve your problems in those RPGs like it will in The 7th Saga. That's why I said The 7th Saga's difficulty is artificial and contrived. The only truly hard thing about beating The 7th Saga, is willfully throwing away hours of your life, just to grind through its bullshit monster stats and leveling sloth.

[Ack]

Actually merely grinding for hours in 7th Saga can severely hurt you, because as you level, so do the other characters, including any that are holding runes or serve as your main competition. You may end up facing off against the other player characters that are now ridiculously capable of battering the snot out of you, just because you leveled too much and gave them access to a spell which destroys you.

[Exhuminator]

Actually merely grinding for hours in 7th Saga can severely hurt you, because as you level, so do the other characters, including any that are holding runes or serve as your main competition. You may end up facing off against the other player characters that are now ridiculously capable of battering the snot out of you, just because you leveled too much and gave them access to a spell which destroys you.

I've run into that and easily countered it. Yes the rival rune seekers levels matched mine, but all I had to do was use B Power and B Prtct, which artificially raised my stats beyond their current actual level. I also had a few Mirrors in my pack which automatically countered spells. Using these simple tricks netted me victories against two rival rune seekers thus far. And that was before I even had Lux in my party.

[Ack]

Keep in mind, that won't always work though. Don't expect to always be able to rely on your runes...

[Exhuminator]

Keep in mind, that won't always work though. Don't expect to always be able to rely on your runes...

Alright, fair enough, we'll see how it goes. Let me say though, the only rune I routinely rely on is the Wind rune, just for warping around the world. But there's Winballs for that.

[Ack]

Yeah, that one is supremely useful. Also have you figured out the quirks with how character speed affects the targeting system for enemies?

[Exhuminator]

Also have you figured out the quirks with how character speed affects the targeting system for enemies?

I wasn't aware of that. I did figure out that when I defend before I attack, it raises all my offense stats for one round. But that does get to be tedious and extend fight times exponentially.

[Segata]

Played some Metal Slug 3 & Earthworm Jim HD. Dpad on 360 keeps messing me up. I press down it goes right. I press up it does nothing. I press left it goes down. No it's not a defective controller. I have a bunch of them and always been like this. I fucking despise this D-pad.

[dunpeal2064]

Played some Metal Slug 3 & Earthworm Jim HD. Dpad on 360 keeps messing me up. I press down it goes right. I press up it does nothing. I press left it goes down. No it's not a defective controller. I have a bunch of them and always been like this. I fucking despise this D-pad.

Weird, I've never had this issue. Maybe try a 3rd party controller? Oddly, the Gamestop wired 360 d-pads are pretty nice. Sounds terrible, I know, but its decent.