tenshinoakuma | Entries tagged with !game-blog

So, even though I've said previously in chats that Okamiden is an alright game, I've slowly come to realise that I really don't like Okamiden. Maybe I'm judging too early, because I haven't even hit 10 hours on Okamiden, but this is, what, an Action-Adventure game, not a JRPG. I don't think it's wrong to expect Okamiden to get to the exciting stuff faster than, say, Persona 4.

( Anyway, here is far too much tl;dr about game mechanics + some story things and how these contribute to how I find Okamiden incredibly tedious to play. )

Crossposts: http://tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com/184123.html

NO. NO NO NO.

I CAN'T TAKE DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA 2 ANY MORE.

STOP TEARING MY HEART OUT.

I complete a dungeon in about 2-3 hours, usually less. The first heartbreak started yesterday. Then there was today. And because I spoiled myself, I know that every dungeon hereafter is going to be heartbreak until the final dungeon.

Every.

Single.

One.

Crossposts: http://tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com/181232.html

APPARENTLY.

YOU CANNOT BE AWESOME AND DEAL OVER 9000 DAMAGE TO HIM BEFORE HE SUMMONS PIXIE AND AHARABAKI.

BECAUSE THEN THE DEMI-FIEND MEDIARAHANS HIMSELF.

THE DEMI-FIEND MEDIARAHANS HIMSELF

I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE COULD DO THAT BECAUSE ALL THE FAQS AND VIDEOS SAY IT'S PIXIE/PARVATI WHO WILL DO IT. Pixie not mediarahaning is a side effect of the Red Star method, after all. BUT NO. APPARENTLY THE DEMI-FIEND CAN HEAL HIMSELF AND THAT IS HOW I DIED.

I THINK THE REASON NO FAQ MENTIONS THIS IS BECAUSE NO ONE DEALS THAT MUCH DAMAGE TO THE DEMI-FIEND IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. That and it's such a small window of opportunity to put him under 9k HP while he has no demons summoned.

And then in a later attempt, my entire party dies from a Mamudoon despite everyone having Death Resistance. I'm starting to think my friend is very good at jinxing optional boss fights. WE HAD A VERY PRODUCTIVE CHRISTMAS. No, really, we did. We made some cute papercraft decorations and chilled and then found a praying mantis chilling on my driveway.

/yeah I basically went and did the fight again because I'm a masochist apparently but it is so much fun.

Crossposts: http://tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com/180930.html

"You wanna chat with me? Tough break-- I'm married. Go flirt with someone else."

LMAO AT THE IDEA OF SERPH FLIRTING.

That said, here's my two cents on the whole LJ thing. I can live with the changes. Change happens all the time and you can either throw up your arms and complain about it or you can adapt. As much as I can see why these changes are terrible in the eyes of LJRP, you do have to admit that the LJRP side of things is a (vocal) minority.

Aside from the bad customer service, my real beef with LJ is how unstable it's been lately. Some of it is due to DDoS attacks, which are not their fault at all. The rest is due to LJ rolling out heavily bugged site updates. I expect there to be some bugs whenever there's an update, because that's just the nature of software. But when things like privacy and user money are compromised, that's just bad practice. (P.S. if you have a paid account, you'll want to check whether automatic payments have been turned on. Apparently the last update has randomly switched auto payments on.) The fact that users expect LJ to break whenever there's an update is really telling.

The long and short of it is: I'm semi-moving to Dreamwidth. I say semi because I'll still be checking my LJ flist and crossposting stuff from DW to LJ. I'll see what I decide to do about

inktrain later when I'm not doing other stuff. Honestly the main reason for the move is because whenever I want to type long tl;dr posts, LJ keeps being down.

If you want to add me on Dreamwidth, feel free to do so.

This post basically details how I defeated the Demi-Fiend without using the Red Star strategy. This isn't quite complete and I'm going to reformat this into a nicer to read format later.

( Terribly taken photo proof of my win! )

( Preparation. Aka how to minimise grinding for this battle. )

( Battle Notes )
Final battle time: 1 hour 05 minutes

GUESS WHO DEFEATED THE HARDEST OPTIONAL BOSS IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY ON THEIR FIRST TRY? Without using the Red Star method?

I DID.

Oh my goodness and I was tired when I did the battle, too.

According to my stopwatch, it took me just over 1 hour to beat the Demi-Fiend. I only had to survive two Gaea Rages, since I killed him like 1 turn before I was about to induce a third one.

I'll post tomorrow with ~*PHOTO PROOF*~ + preparations (and how to minimise the amount of grinding you need to do) + battle notes. I had a different setup to what I read on FAQs and the videos I watched for reference. I admit, if it wasn't for MasterLL's videos, the fight probably wouldn't have gone nearly as smoothly as it did.

Well except that one part...

( Including Serph's wimpy arms )

Critical and MAX/MIN Critical do not work with Physical attack skills (like Executioner, Venom Blade etc.); they only work with normal attacks.
Critical and MAX/MIN Critical do stack, but honestly MAX/MIN Critical kicks in so often I wouldn't bother stacking them for bosses.
Power Charge does affect Hunt skills that deal damage.
Hunt skills still affect enemies that may Null/Repel/Drain physical attacks. However, certain enemies are practically inedible (hunt skills deal 1 damage) unless you somehow manage to get them frightened (or use a hunt skills with high odds of fatal attacks?): Ongyo-Ki, Girimehkala, Arahabaki, and Temple Guards, as far as I know.
In Svadhisthana Waterways, Pixies seem to be easier to find on the path after the Large Karma Terminal before the exit to Ajna. If you want to farm High Pixies that are summoned by the Pixies for Luck Noises, you need to be able to kill the High Pixies in one round of turns, otherwise the Pixie will run. Tarukaja in the round of turns before Pixie summons a High Pixie will help a lot.
In the case of Cielo or an enemy that's weak to ailments (or a particular one like charm/poison), the bonus half-turn granted by hitting a weakness only comes into effect if they're hit by a skill that's specifically an ailment. Physical attacks that have the chance to inflict an ailment don't grant the bonus half-turn (that's because they're considered physical attacks, not ailment attacks). But if the enemy is weak to Poison and you use Poison Spray, then the chance to poison the enemy is increased.
TEN REALLY HATES NOISE GRINDING UGH.

Finished Digital Devil Saga 1! Took about 60 hours and final levels were about 67ish? Which is actually a bit overlevel? (TEN? BEING OVERLEVEL? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?) But that's mostly because I went to do the optional bosses, which gave me multiple levels on the way sob. They weren't too difficult for me, but let's see how long my cockiness lasts when I go to fight the Demi-Fiend in New Game Plus.

I have a piece of artwork that totally accurately (sillyly) sums up my end game experience but it's not done yet so that'll have to wait.

All in all, it was a really good game! THE ENDING ANSWERED ZERO QUESTIONS THOUGH, AND FINISHED ON A CLIFFHANGER FOR THE NEXT GAME gaaaaah DDS2 why aren't you on my doorstep yet?? What's really interesting is starting new game plus and seeing how different everyone (including NPCs!) were before they acquired emotions. Really hammers in how much their world changed from beginning to the end.

( On Serph as a silent protagonist. No real spoilers here. )

THIS GAME IS ALSO FULL OF BUTTS.

THIS TOWERRRRRR IT'S LIKE P3 ALL OVER AGAIN. ALL THE STAIRS.

( [VIDEO SPOILERS] I can't bring myself to kick Heat out of the party because everything is funnier with Heat )

( Gameplay Notes )

Gosh, forget about finishing 13th cycle; I could Quick Battle/Labyrinth Mode with Onion Knight all day now that I have his brave-HP attacks.

( In which Ten gushes about Onion Knight and some changed gameplay mechanics. Yep, sounds like a Ten post, alright. )

Oh my goodness how did Atlus manage to make a game about cannibals so adorable?

( Non spoilery stuff here. It's strange. Even though the world is so messed up, they are oddly child-like in their ignorance and lack of understanding. You also have not known video game poverty until you have played DDS. )

If 0:20 to 0:37 do not sell you on Digital Devil Saga, I cannot do much more to help. I'm not sure if they do PAL in general, but at the very least, if you live in Australia or New Zealand, you can get it from Ozgameshop for $14, free delivery. That's like, the same price as a meal from Nando's.

( Let me tell you about all the joygasms Digital Devil Saga gave me in the first 4 hours of play )

( Let's talk about P4A )

( Let's talk about RPing (specifically, Onion Knight) )

DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA IS AMAZING. THAT IS ALL.

I HAVE DISSIDIA 012.

ALL THE CAMERA RAGE. THAT IS ALL.

( Except not really; when does Ten ever make non-tl;dr LJ posts? )

Took me just under 30 hours according to the game clock and I beat the last boss at level 49 after wiping twice whoops. I'm pretty sure I missed out on a lot of skits because I didn't get all the cooking recipes or level the guild much, but seriously there is no way you'll be able to get 100% completion in the first playthrough of a Tales game. Heck, 100% completion in this game would be ridiculously hard because of the Monster collection, where you have to get both rare and common drops, as well as rare and common steal items. Including for the bosses. YYYEP.

( So! Final thoughts on this game. SPOILERS: There isn't a dude who was a girl in his past life, though Albert comes pretty close. )

tl;dr I feel Tales of Innocence isn't a bad game by any stretch, but its strength lies in its battle system. Its story's potential is let down by the general lack of significance anyone not Luca or Iria has to the plot.

Edit: Oh yeah, I should probably mention. I finally finished that Picture of Soma and his 117 monster souls [semi-NSFW]

Whoops I kind of ended up dropping everything just to play Tales of Innocence, which I started 2 days ago. I've clocked 17 hours on it in 3 days, despite the fact I also had presentations and went out during two of those days (and played SD3 with

levikitty during the third day). I thiiink the fact I am doing this thing where I can't stop playing even though I know I'll appreciate the game more if I took it slower is making some of its flaws stand out a lot more, which is exactly what happened with Crisis Core. But... I'm still really enjoying the game so whatever.

For those unfamiliar, Tales of Innocence is a Tales game for the DS that was released in Japan (and only Japan) in 2007. Absolute Zero Translations later released a fantranslation of the game in 2010 once it became clear Tales of Innocence would not be getting a localisation. Tales of Innocence follows the story of Luca, the somewhat timid son of a merchant, who had recurring dreams about a great leader named Asura. He lives in the city of Regnum, a peaceful city despite a long lasting war that is still raging. But people with a special power, a power granted by memories of their past lives, have begun appearing in the world. While the ordinary citizens of Regnum fear these people, all sides of the war have an interest in them for their own gains, and unfortunately for Luca, it seems like his undiscovered past life is at the centre of everything...

( So... basically my thoughts on Tales of Innocence so far. Spoilers, obviously. )

It's really weird though. While I genuinely do enjoy playing the Tales games I've experienced, I just... can't get into the world building or plot with the same level of enthusiasm I have for other games I've played. I love the aesthetics of TotA and the concept of everything being based on sound, and ToV is an incredibly pretty game. But I couldn't get into the plot and world building of both games, though the latter's may partially be due to the fact I've been playing it over the course of years.

Circumstances one way or another did not allow us to finish Tales of Vesperia, despite us (probably) being on the cusp of finishing it.

( So instead we finished P3: FES - The Answer. Some gameplay talk, but I'll actually be talking more about the story this time. Maybe. )
end thoughts on the Answer that doesn't actually have anything to do with it: I bet Mitsuru was behind the EXECUTION part of SEES' name.

In other Dissidia news, I beat up Chaos with Cloud, which was made infinitely easier by the fact Cloud gets good Brave-HP attacks (I did not know this!). This unlocked the Pretty Princess set. And a Cosmos Report but who cares about that.

Guess what I spent the next hour doing. Go on.

Sooo I went back to playing Dissidia to put off doing the escort quest in BBS. BBS does have a lot of good things about it, but I think just my general escort quest + camera frustrations made me focus on the bad stuff. I'll probably get to those in a later update, I guess!

( So then I played Dissidia and it took me a long time to remember what the button combination for dodge was )

We had some adventures at IKEA. We didn't end up buying the futon we went up north for; they actually hadn't stocked futons in a long time, despite what mum was told over the phone.

Taking a break from Birth By Sleep to do a post about it.

( Focusing primarily on Terra's path. This is ALL gameplay and no story discussion, btw. Mostly voicing frustrations I'm having with the game. )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29

megaTEN

HEY LOOK A NON-DDS POST

I don't have an appropriate icon for this

[DDS] DEMI-FIEND HORRORS

(no subject)

[DDS] Demi-Fiend Proof + Preparation + Battle Notes

[DDS] In which Serph gets the Last Word

[DDS] Demi-Fiend prep

DDS1 Gameplay Notes

DDS1 COMPLETE

DDS gameblog aka HEEEAAAAAAT WHY ARE YOU SO FUNNY

Dissidia 012 Game-blog

DDS game-blog

3 for 1 LJ post

PSA

ALL MY TABLEFLIPS

Tales of Innocence, COMPLETE

Tales of Innocence notes

The Answer

dissidiaaaaa >_<9

D:

Profile

February 2020

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags