The "What Are You Playing Today" Thread

[Anastasia]

Oh man, I forgot that even existed. >_>;

Are Kefka and Ghaleon still curb-stomping the upper tier?

Nah, tournament shut down a few years back. The site's still around as a general social/gaming thing.

[Dracos]

Added both Eb and Panda.

Friend code: 0619-3293-4488

Think we both have to add each other to show up in BD.

[thepanda]

... and my wifi is shot. Again.

Damn Comcast routers.

[Dracos]

Tried Nemesis hunting tonight.  Wiped 2 out, and then got mauled hard by Tax on Cupid, a level 30 nemesis that repeated the Merchant/Magic Fencer battle.

...But the Magic Fencer got Death as a sword effect.
And the merchant had a constant supply of +3 bp for him.

It was kind of an obnoxious slaughter, despite me being technically over-leveled.  I just didn't have an answer to him being able to do 4 death attacks a round.

[Anastasia]

I've been playing Castlevania Fighter recently. It's a Mugen product (I know, I know. Bear with me.) that focuses on a long string of upscaled boss battles from throughout the series. You pick one of 20something characters and see how far you can go. It's a lot of fun in a dream battle sort of way.

http://cvbla.dimondsoft.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_iveFe9fU

[Dracos]

Started the 'alternate' route on Bravely Default.  Lots of very neat/cool touches to the start.  Especially the title screen (Seriously, if you haven't gone and seen it Eb, go take a look at it on selecting your save)

But whoever decided it would be shielded under a rapid button pressing challenge was an asshole.  Rapid button pressing is a terrible design mechanic and the designer who put that in should feel bad.  I honestly had to fight with it to get it to register and try numerous button hitting techniques because my normal just simply wasn't up to the challenge.

I can easily see how Ebiris was wondering if it was even possible because frankly, I had the same wonder while doing it. 

I should not have to fight with my controller to communicate intent in a video game.  Pretty much every time this type of thing comes up, that's precisely what I have to do.

[Bezzerker]

I did the alternate route first, and I haven't even fully beaten the game yet, but they certainly wanted you to be very, very sure that you wanted to access the other route.

[Dracos]

Yeah, but they do that by the dialogue, not by a super shitty 'fight this control scheme' setup :\

[Ebiris]

Yeah, what I did was put my hand in a sock and then slide my finger back and forth across the X button so I could get up to the required speed of mashing.

Still it's pretty awesome once you get there! And the title change was very cute.

I'm in chapter 7 now on my way to the true ending, and I really like how the sidequests are getting mixed up with group boss fights. You only got one of those in chapter 6 which otherwise rehashed chapter 5 a whole lot, but now it's the norm and it's pretty cool.

edit: Not to mention some of the dialogue for the new groups is awesome. Eternian board of Girl Power!

[Halbarad]

Belated, but also playing Bravely Default. Friend code is 1134-7508-4351.

[Dracos]

I'm halfway through chapter 6, enjoying my current All Offense party.  I could probably go even better, but the core is a job 14 freelancer/job 14 Thief and at least one Job 14 Time Mage.  Basically I use round 1 to steal, and then round 2 "Godspeed strike->Mimic x15".  Even better if you have Slow and Steady on someone and a Brave Robe (you can lose the time mage with that).  This does 160k on round 2, and potentially 40-80k every round afterwards (depending on first round actions/brave robe).

It's not quite as obnoxious as as 4 Ninjas with Jump and 1 level 14 time mage hasten world combo, which basically is complete denial to any boss that lacks Slow and Steady or ridiculously high speed, but it's pretty amusing.  If there's no players to target at the beginning of the round, enemies simply do buffs/default or Nothing.  As long as you always go first (high speed), they basically sit around as you slowly poke them to death.  At high level, this just becomes a 40k a round silliness.

I still do enjoy Pirate/Swordmaster: Free Lunch -> x7 9999 and Dark Knight "Drain Blade, Rage, Rage, Black Blade" 99999 combo, but there's really just a lot of variety once you start getting the higher tier moves.  Silliness like for instance black mage group casting poison to build BP on the party (followed by Esuna) or Arcanist "Pardon me, you're poisoned, and now taking 9999 the entire rest of the battle from Exterminate".

[Dracos]

Still in Chapter 6, having now mastered all jobs on all chars and bought all costumes.  I've put together a random-hodge-podge group for chapter 7.  Strangely, ended up with no vampires, so probably won't keep it past 7, but I've got my absurd double shield thief of 300 defense, 100ish magic defense, and 60 evade, my freelancer/singer rocking out with an axe for BP spamming and some hasten world (because why not).  Dark Knight Ringabel basically to be the damage bringer with rage or black blade every round.  And a spirit master/salvemaker for defense and dark bane.  Probably not really a good team, but I'll see how it goes against the chapter 7 difficulty hike.  And also being able to obnoxiously steal as desired (Don't mind us, we're just stillness until we've robbed all your stuff).

[Ebiris]

Spoiler for the final battle

Spoiler: ShowHide

Gate's World was destroyed

I'm sorry man.

edit:

Aaaand finished. I doubt I'll new game+ it since half the chapters were basically that, but it was a fun ride. The teaser for Bravely Second after the credits was pretty aces too - using the gyroscope got me surprisingly immersed in it. Can't wait for that to come out.

[Dracos]

You may want to give the Nemesis stuff a try.  They can be kind of neat, but probably aren't enough to hold interest long.  They're certainly challenging puzzle fights.

[Dracos]

Ebiris:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Was your your ringabel a merchant?  Your Tiz a performer?

Poor Gate's world.  Always destroyed.

More blather later.

Spoiler: ShowHide

My affinity with ebiris has increased!

Anyhow, while the last boss was very neat in a lot of ways, Chapter 8 and end was an enormous drop the ball bit.  Seriously it only works if you went out of your way to avoid learning things and seeing the characters make decisions.  Really disappointing.  It's actually very clear that the game that we got that impresses was not the game that originally got made.  Repetition was built to create a game with minimal assets and cleverness made up for it, but at the end, meant that a lot of things started falling apart after a while.

The Vampire Castle.  The entirety of Bravely Default chapter.  The crystals.  Many things started feeling really cheap and artificial by the repeating of the same exact dialogue, despite changes or even 'Hey I've done this six times before'.

The three big flaws of the game to my thoughts are:
1)Repetition without development.  At least an entire world could've gotten cut out without much loss, and just frankly what happened in chapter Bravely Default with them acting surprised was painful.
2)Button Mashing Crystals.  God, so painful.  And that it hid the alt ending under a super button mash challenge.
3)Hidden passages were just sort of unreasonably difficult.  336 skills and zero of them are 'Show Hidden Passage'?  Really?  The adventurer boss fight is entirely hidden in one of those too.  I don't see how someone without a faq really FINDS him, much less beats him.

The mechanics and some of the clever plot twists and delivery angles are really the star of the show.  It does make me look forward to Bravely Second, for all that the last chapter really took the wind out of my sails for continued play.  Damn brainless yammering.