The NEW Game Journal

[Ranadiel]

So I'm currently going through some games that I have already beaten in order to platinum them in an attempt to keep myself from buying too much DLC while I try and save some money up. Just finished up with the Record of Agarest War trilogy. Got complete save files for all three also...except for Zero where I am missing one CG from third gen digest mode. I have no intentions of ever going back for that, but it is slightly annoying. >.>

Not sure what game I'm going to go after next. Maybe Tales of Graces f. I'm really not looking forward to playing through that storyline again though. Gameplay for th game is great, but I just cannot care about half the cast. >.>

[Akanbe-]

And it's interesting up until you figure out HOW to take them out and in which order. The execution itself, however, isn't that difficult -- you just need to be careful. And it's slow, and it takes forever.

Figure out how to get past one set of enemies, get to a new obstacle, die, repeat till you learn how to get past the new obstacle, repeat, repeat, repeat...

And my tolerance for repetition is... low. It's not a problem in Super Meat Boy, where the levels are incredibly short and very fast to play through. Dark Souls is a really slow-paced game though. And I can only blow through the same pattern of enemies so many times before I never want to do it again.

My issue as well.  Just felt like I was wasting time having to track back to where I died.  Agreed that it's not a big deal in SMB because you respawn immediately.

Beat Super Mario 3D Land normal stages and now on to the special stages.  Difficulty raised to a degree, but still fun.  Overall a solid game.

[Klyde Chroma]

So I'm currently going through some games that I have already beaten in order to platinum them in an attempt to keep myself from buying too much DLC while I try and save some money up. Just finished up with the Record of Agarest War trilogy. Got complete save files for all three also...except for Zero where I am missing one CG from third gen digest mode. I have no intentions of ever going back for that, but it is slightly annoying. >.>

Not sure what game I'm going to go after next. Maybe Tales of Graces f. I'm really not looking forward to playing through that storyline again though. Gameplay for th game is great, but I just cannot care about half the cast. >.>

Kudos to you sir.... if I were to entertain the idea of 100 percent-ing anything in my library I can  say, with certainty,  that the Agarest games would not be my first picks. I love agarest 2 but there is NO WAY IN HELL i would have the patience to trump Agarest 1 or Zero completionist style. Nice work :)

[GrimReality]

I'm really liking Xenoblade so far, but I wish they would stop making things more complicated than they need to be. The battle system is fast and fun, which rocks. But now we have this stupid "vision" business. Makes it hard to concentrate on kicking ass when you have to prevent the "vision" from happening. Please leave well enough alone.
They really should have given us the option to turn off after battle voices. I'm barely into the game, and I'm already sick of them.

[Fadedsun]

I'm really liking Xenoblade so far, but I wish they would stop making things more complicated than they need to be. The battle system is fast and fun, which rocks. But now we have this stupid "vision" business. Makes it hard to concentrate on kicking ass when you have to prevent the "vision" from happening. Please leave well enough alone.
They really should have given us the option to turn off after battle voices. I'm barely into the game, and I'm already sick of them.

Ryne's battle quotes are the best part of the game. "What a buncha jokahs!" "Let's not lose our heads though!" "Good thing I'm here! No? Anyone?"

[Aeolus]

I'm really liking Xenoblade so far, but I wish they would stop making things more complicated than they need to be. The battle system is fast and fun, which rocks. But now we have this stupid "vision" business. Makes it hard to concentrate on kicking ass when you have to prevent the "vision" from happening. Please leave well enough alone.
They really should have given us the option to turn off after battle voices. I'm barely into the game, and I'm already sick of them.

To summarize vision tags: when you break a vision tag your party's tension levels will skyrocket which is a very good thing. You can also issue a command for one segment of the party gauge to attempt to break or delay said vision (be careful not to drain your party gauge on doing this, especially if you're trying to go around and encourage your allies). And tags only show up when an enemy is calculated to wreck your shit in the next attack (even if it doesn't look like it at first due to having a buff running during the vision that's set to expire before the tag is up). Most of the time you wont even see one if you're fighting level appropriate enemies or weaker (bosses and UMs on the other hand...).

And the tag itself will tell you a) what kind of attack it is (red for physical, purple for ether, or white with a roman numeral for an attack that can only be blocked by Shulk's Shield Monado Art if its at the appropriate level or higher), b) the damage it'll do (which goes down as you break tags), c) the status the target will be left in (i.e. dead, toppled, bleeding, poisoned, dazed, slepted, burned, chilled, suffering from strength/phys. defense/ether/ether def./agility down, ect....), d) the area of effect (depending on the attack you can either misdirect it or sidestep it depending on if its targeting you or not), e) the obvious amount of time left to stop it, and f) the amount of breaks needed to stop the attack altogether.

[Blace]

Been gone for years from gaming despite a couple attempts at coming back, but I'm finally back in full swing. Within the past month I've accomplished the following:

1. Beat Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the first time EVER (through PSN) and loved it obviously!
2. Beat Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) for the first time. Not as good as Dawn of Sorrow or Symphony of the Night, but solid good fun. I shouldn't have played Dawn of Sorrow first years ago, but I wanted good DS games when it first came out and someone recommended it to me without realizing that it was a sequel since we both weren't into Castlevania at the time and it was both of our first games in the series.
3. Beat DmC: Devil May Cry. I posted my thoughts in the thread for this game, but long story short I loved it and people complain about change too much. I have 100% completion on all levels, beat all secret missions, and am now replaying on the Son of Sparda difficulty. SO GOOD
4. Playing through Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (PSP). Played for about 15 hours now, love the game and find if very deep and satisfying, but the story keeps getting lost on me. It's my first game of the series and apparently the 7th? in the story and alot of what they say I just don't distinguish because it's all still new to me. Other than that, outstanding game. I'm in chapter 2 where you have to fight 1 on 1 with Vyce and he beats my face in. I've tried a couple times and stand no chance. Time to go grind for a bit.

Ahh, feels good to be back. I missed this.

[Monsoon]

I finished Persona 4, but I'm still a little hungry for additional SMT goodness.  Started a new game+ of Persona 3 FES and did the first month, and now I'm looking to borrow a copy of Persona 2: Innocent Sin for the PSP. 

Also did some post-game janx in Pokemon White Version 2.  Beat a few tournaments in the PWT, but I've only beaten the World Leaders tournament twice.  Google tells me I need to beat it ten times to unlock the final PWT battles. 

[Aeolus]

4. Playing through Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (PSP). Played for about 15 hours now, love the game and find if very deep and satisfying, but the story keeps getting lost on me. It's my first game of the series and apparently the 7th? in the story and alot of what they say I just don't distinguish because it's all still new to me. Other than that, outstanding game. I'm in chapter 2 where you have to fight 1 on 1 with Vyce and he beats my face in. I've tried a couple times and stand no chance. Time to go grind for a bit.

Yeah. Don't pay too much attention to the numerical order of the series as the Tactics Ogre Battle series suffered the same fate that Xenogears and the Xenosaga games did. There are only five Tactics Ogre Battle games out there (six if you count the PSP TO remake separately) and that's counting a side story chapter that was made by an entirely different developer and the most recent one (again barring the PSP remake) was the GBA title Knights of Lodis which came out in 01/02.

[Lard]

Now on Chapter 3 of The Walking Dead.

"He's always blaming me for stuff"

"Like what?"

"Like putting a bug on his pillow"

"Did you put a bug on his pillow?"

"Yes."

:D

[Blace]

4. Playing through Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (PSP). Played for about 15 hours now, love the game and find if very deep and satisfying, but the story keeps getting lost on me. It's my first game of the series and apparently the 7th? in the story and alot of what they say I just don't distinguish because it's all still new to me. Other than that, outstanding game. I'm in chapter 2 where you have to fight 1 on 1 with Vyce and he beats my face in. I've tried a couple times and stand no chance. Time to go grind for a bit.

Yeah. Don't pay too much attention to the numerical order of the series as the Tactics Ogre Battle series suffered the same fate that Xenogears and the Xenosaga games did. There are only five Tactics Ogre Battle games out there (six if you count the PSP TO remake separately) and that's counting a side story chapter that was made by an entirely different developer and the most recent one (again barring the PSP remake) was the GBA title Knights of Lodis which came out in 01/02.

Yeah I kind of figured that's what happened, but thanks for the heads up.

[Aeolus]

Meanwhile all this SMT talk has finally convinced me to start me up some Nocturne, when, of course, one of my siblings just had to come by yesterday to borrow my PS2 for the indeterminate future. At least I still have Strange Journey and, if I'm really desperate, Persona 4: The Golden (not that I don't want to play this but it's intended as a gift in the near future and it would be kinda tacky to play someone's intended gift before I give it to them).

[Akanbe-]

I'm really liking Xenoblade so far, but I wish they would stop making things more complicated than they need to be. The battle system is fast and fun, which rocks. But now we have this stupid "vision" business. Makes it hard to concentrate on kicking ass when you have to prevent the "vision" from happening. Please leave well enough alone.
They really should have given us the option to turn off after battle voices. I'm barely into the game, and I'm already sick of them.

I kept the voices in Japanese and it was easier to tune out, but I'm sure you and most others here prefer English.  As for battle visions, like Aeolus said they will become less frequent as you level and get stronger.  I did a bunch of sidequests here and there which kept me equal to or above mob level which made visions occur less frequently.  If you do continue to see visions frequently, that may be a sign that you are under leveled and you should see a doctor if you have a vision lasting for more than 4 hours.  Ask your doctor if you are healthy enough for video game activity before beginning a Xenoblade regiment.

[Yoda]

I'm in the mood for some light-hearted gaming. Was thinking of getting one of the banjo games from xbla....

Kazooie or Tooie? I never played them on N64. Thoughts?

[MeshGearFox]

4. Playing through Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (PSP). Played for about 15 hours now, love the game and find if very deep and satisfying, but the story keeps getting lost on me. It's my first game of the series and apparently the 7th? in the story and alot of what they say I just don't distinguish because it's all still new to me. Other than that, outstanding game. I'm in chapter 2 where you have to fight 1 on 1 with Vyce and he beats my face in. I've tried a couple times and stand no chance. Time to go grind for a bit.

Yeah. Don't pay too much attention to the numerical order of the series as the Tactics Ogre Battle series suffered the same fate that Xenogears and the Xenosaga games did. There are only five Tactics Ogre Battle games out there (six if you count the PSP TO remake separately) and that's counting a side story chapter that was made by an entirely different developer and the most recent one (again barring the PSP remake) was the GBA title Knights of Lodis which came out in 01/02.

Yeah I kind of figured that's what happened, but thanks for the heads up.

The storyline is apparently inspired by the Yugoslav Wars of the 90s, if that helps any.