Know what i always wanted to do? An actual gimmick in Pokemon. Like a bug catcher or something. One type like we face in the gyms. A lass. Black belt. But I never go through with it. Always the same rainbow colored team, even today I'm still eager to catch gen 1s and only branch out if I think they look KEWL. Entire types introduced since then, but I no sell them. Makes ya wonder, do "normal" types even exist? Or are they simply "TBD" because 3 gens from now what was once normal is now it's own subtype of pokemon. I struggled with Red's Snorlax because I didn't appreciate fighting types yet.

Like a less extreme version of "beating the game with only a weedle". I still was using Gyarados a few generations ago. Ugh.

Playing the newest Stardew Valley update. Cannot believe he keeps updating the game for free.

Apr 21, 2024 18:50:18 GMT @ness said:

Am I crazy or was that the easiest elite 4? Not that I completely ran through them, they took a few of my guys out... but usually I'm used to doing a lot of background healing. Did freak me out when the little girl already came out the door before I had a chance to clean up my team. I thought it was gonna be a legit endurance. Don't think I was overpowered or anything, not that any grinding is ever needed. Found I needed to avoid battling at times since I was always right at the badge's limit right when I got it. Still a bit to do. Turned it off before fighting Nemona, got whatever the crater deal is and there's also the DLC. I'm about 10 levels higher than my last update post give or take. Or yeah a few more classes to burn through.

Did Larry hold the position the whole time? It fits overworked salary man, but can you hold gym leader AND that post at the same time? It confused me since I thought longhair was #4 not champion. Nemona is "A" champion? Guess they hand them out like Pokemon Cards...

The little girl saying she hadn't been active in a long time, implying nobody gets past Ruby Rose. But wouldn't she be a literal fetus if that was true? I know it's like applying logic to wrestling...

They were dead-set trolling with that Elite 4. Yeah, you beat the Elite 4, but it was comprised of an infant and the worst trainer of all-time, Geeta. What did you win, really?

The Elite 4 seems to vary from region to region. In Gen I, it really was the best of the best, but in Paldea there seems to be a Lori Laughlin situation going where if you grease the right palms you too can be an Elite 4 member.

Otherwise, how do you explain Poppy? A literal nepo baby.

Have you completed Area Zero yet?

Apr 27, 2024 22:14:30 GMT Big Pete said:

Apr 21, 2024 18:50:18 GMT @ness said:

Am I crazy or was that the easiest elite 4? Not that I completely ran through them, they took a few of my guys out... but usually I'm used to doing a lot of background healing. Did freak me out when the little girl already came out the door before I had a chance to clean up my team. I thought it was gonna be a legit endurance. Don't think I was overpowered or anything, not that any grinding is ever needed. Found I needed to avoid battling at times since I was always right at the badge's limit right when I got it. Still a bit to do. Turned it off before fighting Nemona, got whatever the crater deal is and there's also the DLC. I'm about 10 levels higher than my last update post give or take. Or yeah a few more classes to burn through.

Did Larry hold the position the whole time? It fits overworked salary man, but can you hold gym leader AND that post at the same time? It confused me since I thought longhair was #4 not champion. Nemona is "A" champion? Guess they hand them out like Pokemon Cards...

The little girl saying she hadn't been active in a long time, implying nobody gets past Ruby Rose. But wouldn't she be a literal fetus if that was true? I know it's like applying logic to wrestling...

They were dead-set trolling with that Elite 4. Yeah, you beat the Elite 4, but it was comprised of an infant and the worst trainer of all-time, Geeta. What did you win, really?

The Elite 4 seems to vary from region to region. In Gen I, it really was the best of the best, but in Paldea there seems to be a Lori Laughlin situation going where if you grease the right palms you too can be an Elite 4 member.

Otherwise, how do you explain Poppy? A literal nepo baby.

Have you completed Area Zero yet?

Is that the crater mission Reed Richards sends us on? I just started, basically @ the first building. Been sorta dicking around since beating the main portion of the game.

Apr 27, 2024 23:29:21 GMT @ness said:

Apr 27, 2024 22:14:30 GMT Big Pete said:

They were dead-set trolling with that Elite 4. Yeah, you beat the Elite 4, but it was comprised of an infant and the worst trainer of all-time, Geeta. What did you win, really?

The Elite 4 seems to vary from region to region. In Gen I, it really was the best of the best, but in Paldea there seems to be a Lori Laughlin situation going where if you grease the right palms you too can be an Elite 4 member.

Otherwise, how do you explain Poppy? A literal nepo baby.

Have you completed Area Zero yet?

Is that the crater mission Reed Richards sends us on? I just started, basically @ the first building. Been sorta dicking around since beating the main portion of the game.

That's the one, it's not overly long but it's the highlight of the game. The story all comes together, the banter between the party members is on point and the zone itself is so eery.

So the Ai Prof battle may have been the closest I had to losing. I won and still had more in the tank but they did get me down to 2 Pokemans.

Playing Fallout 4 with the new next gen update that makes the game run at 60fps. I was skeptical as the game can run poorly on even some low end PC's from the footage I've seen once you are in the city proper...but man it runs pretty well! On odd hitch here and there when you are running to far ahead and the next part of the area didn't load in quick enough but color me impressed. Added a few new goodies to the game to boot, so there are a few new things to check out. A new set of trophies too which sadly means I can't play with mods cause that disables them.

Modded Fallout 4 is really broken now. They are rushing fixes to get Fallout London out, but this update like broke everything.

I got Lawn Moving Simulator: Landmark Edition on Switch as I’ve put about 300+ hours into the PS5 version and have a long flight coming up so figured why not.

How you fuck up this game I don’t know.

So if you get the Landmark edition it gives you the Ancient Britain and Dino Safari right off the bat. What’s the issue? They are huge areas with difficult terrain and when you start off you only have the cheap lawn movers.

So jobs that would take 30 mins take about 80 or it wants you to have an eco-mower.

Also the graphics look fucking terrible, I’m not a graphics snob but as sandylea said when she saw me playing it you can hardly tell the difference between mowed and unmowed grass.

Started up a game that came out under the radar Q3 of last year in Eternights on Monday and finished it in 3 days with the full platinum. Folks this is my 5th platinum in like 2 months, your boy is cooking. Spirit Hunter: Death Mark 2/Ender Lillies/Tails of Iron/Animal Well/Eternights. 

Back to the game though, what a pleasant surprise this game ended up being. Got it for like $10 bucks on a deal with Amazon so it was the right time to jump right in. I was just occupied with a lot of gaming at the time of this game's release that despite the $30 dollar pricetag out the gates, just could not fit it in but now? Perfect time.

I came in thinking this would be a small budget Indie JRPG with tons of Persona inspiration and came out completely fooled as this ended up being a Bayonetta/Devil May Cry clone with dating sim elements in the mold of Persona. Eternights borrows a little of each with the Witch time combat dodging mechanic of Bayonetta to the arena fighting enemies that both DMC & Bayonetta have(The main character of this game literarily can learn a move called "Stinger" which was one of Dante's infamous abilities, and it looks near identical!). The SMT: Persona similarities are more than just 18 year olds(Or in the Persona games, even younger) who fight together for a cause and can fall in love with the main character pending on how you answer them in social link moments. Much like in Persona, you have a specific date to clear out the main mission/story or else it's instant game over so you do have to plan a little bit accordingly on when you tackle the main mission, which can be done in 1 day used if you're good about things. What is going for Eternights favor Now of course as you'd expect, there's less social links like in say Persona where you have to prioritize on who and when to do them where as you have 4 romantic options(3 girls and 1 guy, you can only play as a male in this game) and nothing else to do as far as a social link goes. Eternights doesn't touch any of the 3 aforementioned IPs in their craft but all things considered, for what was a 3 person team who were behind the development of this game, it's a solid try at it. 

The story is pretty anime tropish and much of the game falls under this where a group of young kids have to save the world from destruction where the entire world has been taken over by an evil presence and have fallen under it's control. Stop me if you've heard this before. Where this game excels is in the form that you do care about the characters you stumble upon and this game makes you do some tough decisions for the most part. In addition, the game does get somewhat dark where people do get killed in cutscenes. It's a pretty standard story but it was simple enough to not lose track of and was easy to understand so it was simply fine for me.

The combat is dungeon crawling action combat so again Persona meets Bayonetta meets Devil May Cry. There's no combos in Eternights sure but you have a skill tree where based off points picked up from various ways(Training with an ally or doing scavenger hunts with them or finding items at a dungeon exploration), you can learn better abilities and further improve your chances of survival. Again it's a very simplistic combat system where you do a couple of hits before you can do a strike and or deathblow that each do compound damage to help your chances out. It does get a little repetitive, especially towards the end when you're required to do simplistic dungeon crawling and combat sequences to further rank a romantic partner in this game which is necessary for the trophies attached to each option. There's for sure some diversity shown in the dungeon crawling elements with this one with some decent enough puzzles but I wish they appeared more. There was also a random motorcycle riding in a tunnel scene that I thought was odd to only be featured a mere one time in the entire game. 

The combat does have a little complexity to it where you have enemies with barriers that must be broken with the exploiting of their weakness. See in Eternights, the characters you get travel with you in combat and offer support. One is the healer and does fire damage, one is the shield and does lightning, one is the AOE attack and does ice and you offer your own magic ability. Over time, you do. You build a meter based off your combat/dodging/parrying and when you do that you get to use one of these abilities and if you're doing it correctly, you can burn off that barrier and finally do damage to enemies. Weaknesses are like ICE and FIRE are effective vs each other and LIGHTNING/MAGIC(Not sure what the main character's ability is TBH) cancel each other out. Sounds simple but it becomes crucial to hit these exploits. In addition, this game has QTE's that take a little bit of time to get used to at first but become vital to add on more damage. Again it borrows from other games but isn't too overly complex which is a plus in my book in favor of the game.

The blemishes as there are a few with this game are....


1) One of the romantic options is practically useless as they don't help you in combat. They're a great buff if you put points into him where they can increase your HP/SP/DEF/ATTK plenty but they arrive late game so their impact outside of the story is bare minimum. Very important character to the overall story for sure but I wish they were a substitute for the romantic partner you choose who without spoiling anything you lose access to for a portion of the game, would have made more sense.

2) You can't replenish your SP at all in this game consistently. No items or any form of a pickup during your dungeon exploring. This is frustrating mostly because there's so many dead ends in this game which is always going to be an issue for any game of this genre. That's not a knock on the game itself but that there's only so much you can do when it comes to dungeon exploring games of this mold. Still though, I wish the game was better with giving you HP or SP replenishing options as often, especially in the early portion of the game I needed to use SP to heal and ran into the end boss of the area with no SP to use which meant the margin of error was razor thin. I get that the game is sort of poking you do fallback and use a quick travel to go back to your ship to replenish your stats to try at full health and energy but the game is all about utilizing time to create social links so I still felt there were better ways around this concept. 

3) The game really does feel low budget. I was worried at the beginning as there was not only no intro to this game but the font looked like something straight out of Microsoft Word. :lol: Again it's a small team and all things considered, I think they did a solid job with Eternights but yeah, you'll see right away what I mean. Very unintentionally hilariously awkward 5 second scenes that go into a loading screen that served no real purpose or the VTUBER look of the character dialogue avatar when they're speaking. Couple of other tidbits that indicate this but again low budget does not mean doom for a game but you can't help but see some of these pop up when playing Eternights.

The game has quite a bit of perverted humor so that's more of a take it as you come sort of thing where some will find it funny and some will find is nauseating. Count me in the former, especially as it made me laugh quite a bit. What can I say, that's just the type of humor that always gets me. It's what made A.I.: The Somnium Files so friggin epic for me. There's legit a dialogue option every other choice that has some perverted ulterior motive behind it so be warned that it's there.

Overall, Eternights gets an 8/10 for me. Was such a pleasant surprise of a game for me. It's not for everybody and you really should know exactly what you're getting into with this title but for what it tries to be, it's more than solid. It doesn't touch Bayonetta or DMC's combat or Persona's social link/romance simulation or dungeon crawling aspects but it does a respectable job of combined it all into one. I think for a first real attempt at this type of game for this relatively unknown studio from South Korea that they did a solid job and it gives me hope that they're taking the criticism and praise from this game to maybe combat and hit a sequel even farther than with this one. By no means, this isn't a game you stop and drop everything that you're doing but hey I had a good time with it. After all, I did get the platnium in 3 days! Game ran me over 15 hours to do everything so more than decent amount of content behind this one, especially at the price tag it's asking for. 

Dec 29, 2022 15:58:22 GMT Blindy said:

S(Excellent):
Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves(S)
Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season 1(S-)

A(Great):
Elden Ring(A+)
Sly Cooper & The Thievious Racoonus(A+)
A.I. The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative(A)
Cuphead DLC: The Delicious Last Course(A)
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark(A)
Archvale(A-)

B(Very good/Solid):
Pokemon Scarlet(B+)
Vampire Survivors(B+)
A Plague's Tale: Requiem(B+)
Tinykin(B+)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge(B+) 
Pumpkin Jack(B+)
Pokemon Legends: Arceus(B)
High on Life(B)
Overwatch 2(B)
The Forgotten City(B)
Road 96(B)
Signalis(B)
Mega Man 10(B-)
The Quarry(B-)
Splatoon 3(B-)

C(Average): 
Boyfriend Dungeon(C+)
Fall Guys Ultimate Edition(C+)
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice(C+) 
A Hat in Time(C+)
Kirby & The Forgotten Land(C+)
Last Stop(C+)
Coffee Talk(C+)
Horizon Zero Dawn DLC: The Frozen Wilds(C+)
Mega Man 11(C+)
Unpacking(C)
Bugsnax DLC: Isle of BigSnax(C)
As Dusk Falls(C)
Bayonetta 2(C)
The Medium(C)
Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined(C)
Beacon Pines(C-)

D(Mediocre):
Touhou Luna Nights(D+)
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion(D+)
Mighty Goose(D+)
Stray(D)
Toy Story 2(D)
One Night Stand(D)
What Remains of Edith Finch(D)
The Artful Escape(D-)
Travis Strikes Back: No More Heroes(D-)

F(Not good): 
Firewatch(F+)
Somerville(F+)
The Quiet Man(F)
Her Story(F-)

- I stand corrected, Her Story was the worst game I played in 2022. At least The Quiet Man made me laugh unintentionally a whole bunch.

This was a 2022 list, not sure if I did the games I played & beat in 2023 but for 2024 so far:

S(Excellent):
Lies of P(S)
Persona 3 Reload(S)

A(Great):
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2(A)
Ender Lillies: Quietus of the knights(A-)
Tails of Iron(A-)

B(Good/Solid):
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Rebirth(B+)
Stellar Blade(B)
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown(B)
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank(B)
Animal Well(B)
Cookie Cutter(B-)
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark 2(B-)
Eternights(B-)

C(Average):
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermssion(C+)
Cat Quest(C)
Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga(C)
Penny's Big Breakaway(C)

D(Mediocre):
The Chant(D+)
Little Kitty Big City(D)
The Coma: Recut(D-)

F(Not good):
Foamstars(F+)
Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk(F)
Silent Hill: The Short Message(F-)
Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk(F-)

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel (2022)

I finally made the plunge and crafted my own deck. For a year I've had a bad case of FOMO and wasting all my gems only to buy a deck that would go out of style or would be incomplete. However I noticed the latest set in the game included Salamangreat cards which had a structure deck, so I decided to dive in. Salamangreat's largely revolve around the Link summon mechanic and the name of the game is to summon this bad boy.

You essentially combo a dozen or so cards, in the hopes that you can have a board with both it and it's brother, Pyro Phoenix along with a couple of traps to limit your opponent.

I've essentially dived in and little by little thanks to YouTube videos been able to get a better handle on the deck. It's been a fun process and while sometimes the game can seem unfair, it's good to understand the limitations of the deck and the adjustments I can make to include more relevant cards. For instance, I based my deck on a YouTube video, but it appears it was just loaded up with basic staples and core cards - so being able to add some more variety should make my deck flexible. Currently it's very susceptible and if they can get through my Raging Phoenix I'm toast.

The goal right now is to complete the Dual Pass for the season. I figure it's a goal to aim towards and ensures I'm putting the reps in. Like with Pokemon Go, I refuse to spend money on it, even if that's really the entire point of it. I figure if I really want to play with other decks I can always use another YuGiOh simulator to get that fix.

Had some time to kill before SMTV:V, so I platinumed a little ditty called Dredge. It's a nice relaxing experience, just running a fishing boats, upgrading to get better parts to get better fish to get better parts until you get all the upgrades and catch all the fish. There's also a story involved, but was more of a backburner type thing, solid enough. It's like Return of the Obra Dinn, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but it's not something I'm ever going to play again. It's a nice little one off.

Oct 2, 2023 10:20:46 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Finished up Lies of P, great stuff, the best non-From Souls like just after the Nioh games. Start with my 2 major complaints, one, the "wish" cube felt mostly useless, too long to spawn for not enough buff. Then, there's the weapon durability, always tedious, but against some of the harder bosses, your weapon would break mid-way through. You repair it for free with a grindstone, the trouble is finding the time in the lightning fast boss fights to actually use the grindstone, as it takes a few seconds, several if you're going from almost broken to full. Just a mechanic that felt tedious pretty much every time it comes up.

Once I got ahold of the defense system, it all fell into place. Perfect parries are great for breaking enemy posture, but once I realized not to stress perfect parrying and worry about blocking more often, really started flowing. The way it works is:

If you get hit, you, of course, lose life. Now if you get hit while blocking, you only lose conditional life, which you can earn right back if you can hit the enemy enough times without taking direct (non-blocked physical damage). If you can get down perfect guard (parrying), you can gain back a little of the conditional life you have from blocking, AND it costs you no additional life. Parrying will break the enemy's posture for "Fatal Attack," which is of course a major attack to a stunned enemy; but had a unique bonus, as many (though not all) enemies had weapons that could break after so many perfect guards. That really helps take some range off a few of the tougher enemies.

So, all in all, it was a great system for a unique (but familiar) combat flow.

The game really shines with boss design, some of the best in recent memory, though a few are definitely HIGH challenge (King of Puppets, I'm angrily looking at you).

And I really loved the teaser at the end...

SPOILER: Click to show

Whether DLC or hopefully a a full sequel, they're going to be doing Wizard of Oz. YAY PUBLIC DOMAIN SOULS!

Yeah I just beat Lies of P a few days ago, I wish I stuck with the game when I played it at the time of release. I think I was burnt out on everything Soulsbourne related so I dropped it with the intent of coming back to it but I wish I played it sooner. One because it is a fantastic game where especially post Stellar Blade, I felt like my parries were on point and I was reading things so much better than I was last year(The true ending final boss is a parry fest and required you to hit your perfect controls). I saw they also nerfed a couple of bosses health, particularly

SPOILER: Click to show

King of Puppets 1st phase and Simon Manus 1st phase

, the latter in which I 1 shotted the entire 2 phase boss and said "That's suppose to be tough?". Felt like the people who played Elden Ring post patch Starscourge Radahn vs the people who played him pre patch, I was in the latter's boat here. The true ending final boss was pure 30 minutes of bliss though, it was such a fantastic final boss. 

South Korea is some kind of hotbed lately with the games it is putting out there, it has not gone unnoticed for me! 

Easy 9.5/10 game, practically Bloodborne's successor in so many ways. The 1st half had somewhat simplistic level design and I want to say up until maybe the Cathedral does the game open up with diversity of the levels rather than exploring through Krat for 2-3 times. This would have been runner up to RE4Remake for my GOTY last year and it's the best game I played this year although Persona 3 Reload is right there with it and still has the edge for 2024 rankings.

I accidentally started NG+ so it would kill me if they do Lies of P story DLC, would rather they do Lies of P 2 or as you said

SPOILER: Click to show

Lies of D.....as in Dorothy

, might as well tackle Alice in Wonderland after this since American McGee can't do anything with the IP under EA. 

Not sure, looks kinda the same with just a little polish.  The Repop mode details just don't make me want to play that mode.  Less gore for filters and shizz, I dunno.  In the video it talks about the digital edition but would suck if there is not a physical.  Wanted to put it next to my PS3 copy.

Jun 14, 2024 6:11:20 GMT G/B said:

Not sure, looks kinda the same with just a little polish.  The Repop mode details just don't make me want to play that mode.  Less gore for filters and shizz, I dunno.  In the video it talks about the digital edition but would suck if there is not a physical.  Wanted to put it next to my PS3 copy.

(Think it might be Japan only at first but eventually it will come to other countries)

Trailer felt a little low quality but the gameplay still looks solid. I hope there would have been some newer additions to help pad the length of the game, which is Lollipop Chainsaw's biggest flaw, as the game runs a good 5 or so hours. 

The loss of music sucks so much though, whenever I think of Lollipop Chainsaw I think of "Mickie". Think that's what the trailer was missing if anything. 

Blindy,
Well, to me the outfits is what added to the replayability. What is a short game, had me going for hours token farming. I do feel the game is going to be as is as adding things storywise would feel off. If they had intentions like that, why not just remake it instead? I worry the game`s look may drive any new playerbase away as it really looks dated.

Have they really confirmed the music will be gone btw? That would really suck.

Jun 14, 2024 17:10:01 GMT G/B said:

Blindy ,
Well, to me the outfits is what added to the replayability. What is a short game, had me going for hours token farming. I do feel the game is going to be as is as adding things storywise would feel off. If they had intentions like that, why not just remake it instead? I worry the game`s look may drive any new playerbase away as it really looks dated.

Have they really confirmed the music will be gone btw? That would really suck.

I just checked my PSN profile via PSNprofiles.com and yeah I only got 17/51 trophies for this one. I played this all the way back in 2017! wow and one of those trophies isn't the perverted one that you instantly get for trying to look under Juliet Starling's skirt.  

I might be willing to replay this one, just a week left until Elden Ring DLC day. I think the price for this Lollipop Chainsaw remaster is maybe $30? And they mentioned it's going to be original soundtrack









(I forgot they had the "Lollipop" song for this game :lol:)

The Zombie Baseball was fair in Normal Mode but too finicky for it too be fun in Hard Mode. Glad that that is getting rebalanced. Again, hate the music changes somewhat. You also had You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive while mowing zombies down which was pretty fun. Glad to see some new collectable stuff which means there will be indeed still the replayability aspect of the game.

With a sequel on the horizon and some time to kill before SMT comes in, plugged in my way back machine, and played Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. Actually holds up extremely well, my main 2 complaints were pretty minor. The first is, weapon wise, you get 4 slots, and guns go where they tell you, and not always in the same spots. This was annoying because I didn't really like the Vengeance launcher, but loved the shotgun and sniper rifle weapons...but both of those replaced the other, so I had to choose with 1 slot being wasted on the VL most of the game. Other is dodgerolling you'd often get stuck in place, this was especially trouble with tougher enemies who take a lot of damage, as your life bar, even with the upgraded shield, pretty much just melts away. But other than that, great stuff, fast and fun, a few quality of life improvements, an already pretty great game can be even better. Hope they don't end this one on a cliffhanger, just need to resolve the ending of the first.

Hopefully SMT arrives tomorrow.

Playing Sonic 2 atm. Wanted 3, but Switch gonna Switch. Anyways that was probably the best I've EVER done at the casino boss. As a kid I always went for the flippers so it was pure luck. Having seen a few boss rushes in the past 30 years I knew there was another way. Maybe I can finally beat Mecha Sonic. Sure I'll cheat using save states and rewind, but so is throwing 0 rings at me and requiring no vertical dome shots. Absent of SEEING things on YT I would've never known there was a boss afterwards.

Sonic Origins is like 20 bucks on Gamestop and Amazon IIRC, it has all of the Genesis Sonic games @ness. Or at least the main series, not the spinoffs like 3D Blast etc.

Hey I remember the fuck you starfish that trolled near the screws in Metropolis Zone. Still fuck you.

I beat you!

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

I blasted through INTERmission, the extra game starring Yuffie. The first chapter in Midgar is a lot of fun with some nice cutscenes showing the events are in parallel with the main game. Seeing Cloud and co. as a cameo is fantastic. The Fort Condor minigame is a lot of fun, a decent challenge but not too intense.

The whole episode chasing after whats-his-face got tedious but a good opportunity to test out Yuffie and Sonon's synergy. Some tough fights in there but the final boss was pretty easy.

Shinra HQ is a great chapter. We don't see much of Scarlet in either the OG or the remake so nice to see her character fleshed out. Some really testing fights in the dungeon, even some of the normal enemies took a few attempts. I don't feel at ease with Yuffie's combat style as I did with anyone in the main game. I have no idea how the Elemental Ninjitsu works, and I only figured out the nature of her Throw ability when playing the infuriating box smashing game (I beat it eventually).

Scarlet's big mech took two attempts to kill, and we move quickly on to the final boss: BROTHER NERO. It seems this whole chapter has a connection to Crisis Core/Dirge of Cerberus which I did some reading up on. Weiss makes a brief appearance. The Nero battle is insane. I somehow survived to the final phase after using a billion phoenix downs, but that his form wiped me out immediately. Only one attempt. I don't feel optimistic about future attempts.

When are you diving into Rebirth Emperor?

Also long over-due but congratulations to you and Empress!

When it comes out on PC :lol:

Thank you! How did I not think of the name Empress?

Just to vent, wasted an entire day today on SMTV:V, there's a boss called Onyankopon, his only physical weakness is physical, but he can endlessly spam a move that blocks physical, and when you take any reasonable amount of his life off...he gets a full heal.

Just randomly looked up any suggestions on taking him on (aside from coming back when I'm way strong), and the only one I saw was: "Nah, man uses tetrakarn EVERY ROUND to the point where I went through all of my demons and STALLED HIM OUT OF MP."

That "STALLED HIM OUT OF MP" bit was the part I glommed on to, as I take that to mean that he eventually ran out of MP, but if that is indeed the case, that dude had to play FOR-FUCKING-EVER.

Three and a half god damn hours, that's how long I put into this fight, yes it's my own fault so I'm mostly mad at my bullshit, but after the first hour you just figure "Well, I gotta be close." after the 2nd "I've put this long into it, I have be getting there, so, hour three rolls around...his MP bar hasn't taken even the slightest of knicks. He's spawn tetrakarn hundreds of times and full heal dozens, and not even the slightest fraction of that MP bar got diminished. So either I'm taking that line wrong, or that dude put some serious work in to empty that bar.

I might have even gone to ten (a 4th hour), but the thing that broke me was, he finally didn't use tetrakarn, so I figured I'd try to bum rush him, if I could get Seal to hit just twice in a row, I could kill him, because I decimate his life bar. Hit my critical booster, go to attack, IT MISSES. In all these hours of playing, not once did this basic attack miss when he hadn't cast tetrakarn, so I was pissed, like, no way I take his bar completely down now, but figured I'd see how far I could get it...IT MISSED AGAIN. All that time, no misses (on basic attack), when I try a last ditch hail mary, two in a row. Suck my dick.

Just had to give up and quit for the day, I'll come back to him when I'm strong enough to kill him in 8 turns (right now I can get him halfway).

Seems like that boss is a Vengeance exclusive, do not remember this at all.

I quit at the demon castle on the main game but I played this on Hard Mode which requires you to grind your ass off. Def. one of those games I would look to pick up on the right sale. That and in a year that I am playing Persona 3 Reload and it's DLC along with the upcoming Metaphor, this needs to be a future playthrough for me.

Finished up with SMTV:V, well, mostly, there was no effective way to level late game, not thinking to check it and burning my gospels as quickly as I got them, so I didn't get Shiva or the Demi-Fiend, since this is a game where anything more than a 5 level differential is damn near insurmountable, so 15 levels had me doing chip damage and watching my whole crew wiped out in one move (even though my main character resisted, nullified, or reflected ALL elements).

I did enjoy it, but it's definitely my least favorite of the 3 I played, P5R with a massive lead for my favorite, and rather enjoying SMTIII: Nocturne, this one, the story fell sort of flat at the end, the final two bosses were entirely anticlimactic, the one just before the penultimate boss felt more like a final battle. You beat Lucifer, and it just kinda ends. Much preferred Nocturne.

Need to get to Persona 3 eventually, just happened to drop when there was other shit I wanted to play more, as, even with a higher enjoyment of turnbased than when I was younger, I still don't enjoy it enough to be first on my list.

I've got some time to kill, have High on Life in the mail, so I'm jumping on Alan Wake in preparation for the sequel releasing physical in a couple months, already 2 chapters down.