RPG Progress Report

[Stark]

Wooo! Finally got around to beating Icewind Dale II, being the last of the Infinity Engine games on my backlog. The final fight is interesting; the first time I tried it I tried to zerg down the bosses and ignore the minions and I got trashed. Second time I cleared out the minions and discovered that the bosses don't really do that much damage (certainly less than a miniboss I had to fight shortly before them); they just have fantastic durability, giving the minions a chance to slice open my back.

Congrats!!! I loved Icewind Dale, but I never got around to playing much of II.

[Zing]

I forgot about the Black Isle games. Icewind Dale was great. I preferred the ability to create your own party over Baldur's Gate, but the character banter and story was better in BG.

I don't think I am playing any RPG's. I do have Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team unplayed. I'm busy with Zelda right now, and don't want to start another heavy game. The rest of my gaming time is spent on Mario 3D Land, Pilotwings Resort, and Animal Crossing.

[Wispmage]

My Diablo kick continues. I Finished Act III and triumphed over Mephisto last night. For a Prime Evil I expected him to be a bit more difficult, but I'm playing a Werewolf Druid with fast attack speed / cold damage which prevented him from getting many retaliations in.

That said, I'm thoroughly enjoying revisiting the game, and having been rushed through it in almost all of my past playthroughs, it's been nice to actually play through it and enjoy the story and scenery. Act III in particular was one that I'd never really played before, and it was interesting to see what I'd missed all those years ago. Mostly just little pigmy men. And awesome environments. Looking forward to playing through the next two acts and calling it beaten before Reaper of Souls gets released.

[MrPopo]

Finally beat Tales of Graces f last night. Well, I beat the main game a few days ago, but last night I did the Lineage and Legacies content that was added to the f version. I think this is the first Tales game where I've felt it necessary to use the All Divides on some of the final bosses, but that was probably because I was a bit underleveled and wasn't fully exploiting the dualize system. I was underleveled because I had grown to really dislike the battle system; they tried something pretty different from the system that's been used since Symphonia and I don't think it worked very well; it has a very different flow and really isn't that satisfying. I booted up Xillia afterward and was grateful to see that they're back to the standard battle system (albeit with the obligatory minor tweaks).

[Ack]

I started playing Lagoon on the SNES yesterday. I got through and killed the second boss and have reached level 13, so I think I'm about a third of the way through since this RPG is so short. There are a lot of hits and misses with this one, and I really wish I could have had a slightly longer range with my weapon, but the regenerating health and mana makes up for a lot of the problem. I'm wondering how challenging things will get in the later stages though, as so far the boss fights have consisted of me laying into them faster than they drained my health.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Way to go Ack!

And isn't the music awesome?

[Ack]

Yeah, the soundtrack is definitely one of the best parts. While gameplay has problems, the music successfully gets me pumped to play every time I start the game up. I remember when I first got the cart, I turned it on and was blown away by how intense the splashscreen music was. It's the kind of soundtrack I want to listen to while playing a run and gun.

[ZenErik]

Still playing FFXIV daily. Hit the level cap last Friday, I think. Got my relic weapon over the weekend and am about to get my item level 90 Zenith weapon tonight. My item level overall is only 68. But after tonight I think I can get to lvl71 or 72. Almost ready to try coil and hopefully soon enough Ultima and the extreme primals.

Here is my character: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone ... r/6112056/



Also left my FC and am joining a new one with a few guys that wanted me to be in their coil group. For whatever reason they think I have potential. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, haha. MMO addiction? Could be. Definitely have put more hours into this than the few other MMO's I've tried over the past 1 1/2 years.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I just fired up Orcs & Elves for the Nintendo DS. It is a port of one of the best RPGs for <gasp!> mobile phones, and it was designed by John Carmack, the creator of Doom and Doom RPG a/k/a the other great mobile phone RPG.

(Are there emulators for old mobile phone games? Not all of them were ported to Android or iOS and it would be a shame to lose some of them such as Doom RPG, Orcs & Elves 2, Castlevania, God of War: Betrayal, etc.)

Supposedly, Orcs & Elves is very short but very fun. It features first-person, turn based combat and exploration, and although I have spent less than 1 hour with it, I am enjoying it so far.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Did you get Orcs and Elves new? I heard it came with a special stylus. Speaking of which, my local Target has a bunch of copies of Shinobi for 3DS - all of which come with a Mario stylus.

I always wondered what happened to non-Smartphone phone games myself. As I recall, Tecmo had titles like Ninja Gaiden and Tecmo Bowl on "regular" phones a decade ago. No idea if that stuff got ported to iOS/Android or not.