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Smash 3DS. Play it whenever I get the chance at school, still trying to learn more combos.
Runbow. Super fun indie game. I like it's colour mechanic, when a platform is a same colour as the background (which changes colour) you can't land on it. It also has online, but things can get laggy.
Super Mario Maker. I have two levels in the works an I'm trying to get them done, even though I know no one will play it, and those who do give up too fast. (Try to beat my level ID: EF49-0000-0105-9474)
Mibibli's Quest. An interesting platformer with alot of unique ideas, the humor and story are great and I love the shiruken attack, because it drops after a while and it drops automatically of ledges.
Mario Kart 8. Took a small break from competitive, but hopping to do some wars soon. Mostly just been wwing.
Picked up Fire Emblem Path of Radiance for another playthrough. After Awakening really soured me on the series, it feels good to relive one of the better titles. When I finish it, I'll probably jump right back into Radiant Dawn. I never did manage to finish the endgame without sacrifices, so maybe now's the time :P
If I can get some of my buddies over, I'll probably try to get Custom Robo fired up again. The best multiplayer game on the 'Cube, I hold to that even to this day.
Off Nintendo, I just finished The Last of Us Remastered, and now I'm waiting for Uncharted 4. I might drop Splatoon for Uncharted's multiplayer when that hits, we'll see.
I just finished Tales of the Abyss. It's very good, really a step up from Tales of Symphonia combat-wise. Mostly due to Free Run, having the ability to run in directions that aren't towards-the-targeted-enemy and away-from-the-targeted-enemy is very helpful, and the inability to do that in Symphonia was something of a pet peeve I had regarding that game. Mystic Artes are also quite nice (though I do wish they couldn't miss... especially Luke's, which the AI managed to miss with too), as is Over Limit being a controllable thing (instead of just sort of happening sometimes for some reason, like it did in Symphonia).
Bosses generally weren't pushovers, in fact I came pretty close to losing quite a few times,
mainly against Arietta and her monsters as the second boss fight and Arietta/Legretta/Largo before I figured out that targeting Arietta first didn't work because her teammates would drop my casters faster than I could drop her and then they'd triple-team me, Sync/Largo because Sync is ridiculously annoying, the final Sync fight because f*** Sync (oddly, the first solo Sync fight wasn't nearly as bad for some reason), and the final Van fight because f***in' Sync ate most of my Life Bottles so Tear dying would've f***ed me over pretty hard (which, luckily for me, only happened once) and otherwise was still tough because Jade couldn't figure out that getting into close combat with someone who kills him in like 2 combos is a bad idea (Anise I could understand, half the reason I use her is to have an extra melee fighter with some durability (unlike Guy) (the other half being to have another spellcaster in case Jade decides to be stupid, which is suprisingly frequent), but Jade has like no defense and was set to focus on magicing Van to death so I have no idea why he kept running toward Van's instant-death-by-Mystic-Arte-out-of-f***in'-nowhere bulls*** radius)
but it was always enjoyable. Especially when I won.
There weren't really any bad party members, either (unlike Symphonia, where I couldn't give you a reason to ever use Sheena (to be fair, if you could get Over Limit to happen frequently she'd probably be great due to her summons, but otherwise Lloyd, Kratos and Zelos are just better options for melee fighters) or Presea ever): Luke and Guy were both great melee fighters, although Luke was more durable while Guy had super speed and self-healing, Tear was the best healer, Jade was a magical nuke eventually and had good physical damage output too (though if he'd stick to the back row and cast spells more often, that'd be nice), Anise could do melee or magic and had good HP and defense, which was nice if only for the versatility she brought, and Natalia was a good backup healer and ranged attacker and she had buff spells, which I didn't use much but were appreciated regardles. Having said that, I found myself not using Guy or Natalia as much as the others (Guy because his defense is paper thin so unless I was controlling him he died frequently, and usually I was playing Luke so he was stuck keeping the bench warm, Natalia because Tear had better healing artes (entirely due to being able to heal multiple characters at once, and getting Resurrection. Never did see if Natalia's Revive worked like Resurrection or not tho) and Jade was a better ranged attacker when he remembered he could magic enemies to death from a distance) as the others.
Well, there is one exception to that: Asch. The guy sucked when I controlled him. Not very durable, and he didn't feel as strong or as fast as Luke either. Yeah, he had some magic, but I had Jade and Anise to handle all of my magical monster-slaying needs, and Tear could do that too when she wasn't healing so he wasn't needed for that either, and even if he was he only had midlevel spells that would be outclassed by Jade's output if they weren't already. At least Guy and Natalia had good points; Guy's crazy fast (seriously, dude just flies across the screen, he can be practically untouchable if you're playing as him) and still fairly powerful and his artes are the Tales series classics so they're generally pretty good, though he can't take a hit, and Natalia is a good backup healer with fairly good damage output and all of the buff/debuff spells, though she eats through her TP very quickly (not helped by her first healing Arte costing 20 TP, when she has only around 70ish when she joins) and her healing artes only targeted one person at a time (at least, the only ones I remember did, though they healed for a lot: Tear's AoE heals were just more useful). Asch just doesn't have any reason to use him beside the novelty of playing as a boss... which is why I used him both times I had him in the party.
I dunno if I can count him tho, since he's just a Luke substitute for a couple of times in the game between his two boss fights.
And he was a pretty easy boss fight too. Kinda disappointingly simple, to be honest, he's only even sort of hard because you only have Luke when you fight him and he can chew through sizable chunks of your HP if he hits you, but being even sort of competent with free run can make sure this never happens. I can see why he only picks fights with Luke, he'd get wrecked if he had to fight an entire party. Or just someone who could self-heal, really.
Gotta go back and 100% the New Game + soonish.
After finding the Shovel Knight amiibo, Custom Knight is drawing me back into Shovel Knight. The new abilities are quite fun to mess around with, even if they're not all new (Plague Knight's Fleet Flask and Bomb Burst show up, as do all of Shovel Knight's relics and the Troupple Chalice).
While I'm on the subject of Shovel Knight, Plague of Shadows was very well done. Plague Knight's gameplay feels like playing as his boss fight, except a bit less chaotic. His customization and Arcanas allow you to spend long stretches of time without touching the ground (especially with the Float Burst and the Vat) and destructive power (Spin Burst, Component Bombs, some other stuff I'm forgetting), and both (that cloak that gives you the bouncing-off-the-walls-Spin-Burst, so tricky but so much fun!). It's still recognizably a Shovel Knight game, but it feels very different at the same time due to the differences in the player character and their mechanical differences that make tackling the same challenges require very different approaches. All in all, very well done, will New Game + at some point.
Also, the Shovel Knight fights were very well done. He fights kinda like I did when I played as him, and it was quite annoying at times when he shoveled away my bombs, but the battles were fun too.
And also, the soundtrack is great, both for the original game and the new tracks for Plague of Shadows.
Up until recently, my computer could only handle Undertale for short periods of time before overheating (I fixed this recently, I think), so I haven't finished it (I'm right before the final boss), but it was enjoyable. I do wish the enemies-attack-with-bullet-hell was a bit more difficult (there were a couple of moments where it was tricky, like with Mad Dummy and Muffet, and a few moments that were interesting, like Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton and Muffet again, but mostly the bullet-hell-lite (bullet-heck?) wasn't very difficult or particularly interesting (the bar set by Papyrus is rarely met, and only really exceeded by Muffet's attempts to feed you to her cupcake-spider-pet and Mettaton EX's being spared through ratings and acting more like a shoot-em-up during his attacks), which was a bit disappointing; the only time I was seriously in danger of dying so far was against Muffet, and I'm used to battles being not-really-easy for the most part, bosses aside. Maybe Asgore'll be different?), and that the ACT-then-MERCY-to-spare-enemies-instead-of-killing-them system was a bit more complex (dunno how that could work, exactly... Maybe if you picked the wrong things and thus angered or offended monsters they'd get pissed off and use more difficult attacks for a bit while you couldn't get them closer to being MERCY-able, or maybe just have a few monsters you couldn't MERCY regardless of what action you took, and had to kill or run away from, and maybe some monsters would prevent you from running away until you MERCYed or killed them, I dunno, I'm just spitballing here), but overall it's fun, and one of the few games that's gotten laughs out of me. I like it so far, gonna hopefully finish it soon when I have a few hours.
Also I love the soundtrack. Probably more than the game itself.
Gonna fish out my Gamecube sooner or later, and when I do, I'm diving into Custom Robo. Remember loving it back in the day (except Rahu III, who was just so insanely cheap), wanna revisit it (and figure out how the hell I beat Rahu III; I mean, I remember using the sword-shooting-gun, but beyond that I forgot the parts that weren't me and my two backup fighters (mostly the other two, I generally was better at running away from the angry murderbot of mass destruction than they were) getting crushed by Ultra Brokenbot: 3rd Strike).
Also, need to finish Freedom Planet, it's damn fun. Especially the motorcycle cat :3
Not much to say about it, since I haven't beaten it yet, but it's fun.
I've got a few games that I'm playing simultaneously:
- Fire Emblem: Awakening. I absolutely adore this game and it's what got me interested in the series. I'm about to finish my male avatar playthrough and it'll be my third time completing the game.
- Splatoon. After a month or so break I decided to get back into it. I can't believe how much content they released whilst I was on hiatus!
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I bought this a while back so I could explore the series further. Currently playing Eirika's route to ease into the game, then I'll be going back to play Ephraim's route.
And *hopefully* soon I shall have my beautiful Fire Emblem: Fates special edition in my hands.
I just finished Tales of the Abyss. It's very good, really a step up from Tales of Symphonia combat-wise. Mostly due to Free Run, having the ability to run in directions that aren't towards-the-targeted-enemy and away-from-the-targeted-enemy is very helpful, and the inability to do that in Symphonia was something of a pet peeve I had regarding that game. Mystic Artes are also quite nice (though I do wish they couldn't miss... especially Luke's, which the AI managed to miss with too), as is Over Limit being a controllable thing (instead of just sort of happening sometimes for some reason, like it did in Symphonia).
Bosses generally weren't pushovers, in fact I came pretty close to losing quite a few times,
mainly against Arietta and her monsters as the second boss fight and Arietta/Legretta/Largo before I figured out that targeting Arietta first didn't work because her teammates would drop my casters faster than I could drop her and then they'd triple-team me, Sync/Largo because Sync is ridiculously annoying, the final Sync fight because f*** Sync (oddly, the first solo Sync fight wasn't nearly as bad for some reason), and the final Van fight because f***in' Sync ate most of my Life Bottles so Tear dying would've f***ed me over pretty hard (which, luckily for me, only happened once) and otherwise was still tough because Jade couldn't figure out that getting into close combat with someone who kills him in like 2 combos is a bad idea (Anise I could understand, half the reason I use her is to have an extra melee fighter with some durability (unlike Guy) (the other half being to have another spellcaster in case Jade decides to be stupid, which is suprisingly frequent), but Jade has like no defense and was set to focus on magicing Van to death so I have no idea why he kept running toward Van's instant-death-by-Mystic-Arte-out-of-f***in'-nowhere bulls*** radius)
but it was always enjoyable. Especially when I won.
There weren't really any bad party members, either (unlike Symphonia, where I couldn't give you a reason to ever use Sheena (to be fair, if you could get Over Limit to happen frequently she'd probably be great due to her summons, but otherwise Lloyd, Kratos and Zelos are just better options for melee fighters) or Presea ever): Luke and Guy were both great melee fighters, although Luke was more durable while Guy had super speed and self-healing, Tear was the best healer, Jade was a magical nuke eventually and had good physical damage output too (though if he'd stick to the back row and cast spells more often, that'd be nice), Anise could do melee or magic and had good HP and defense, which was nice if only for the versatility she brought, and Natalia was a good backup healer and ranged attacker and she had buff spells, which I didn't use much but were appreciated regardles. Having said that, I found myself not using Guy or Natalia as much as the others (Guy because his defense is paper thin so unless I was controlling him he died frequently, and usually I was playing Luke so he was stuck keeping the bench warm, Natalia because Tear had better healing artes (entirely due to being able to heal multiple characters at once, and getting Resurrection. Never did see if Natalia's Revive worked like Resurrection or not tho) and Jade was a better ranged attacker when he remembered he could magic enemies to death from a distance) as the others.
Well, there is one exception to that: Asch. The guy sucked when I controlled him. Not very durable, and he didn't feel as strong or as fast as Luke either. Yeah, he had some magic, but I had Jade and Anise to handle all of my magical monster-slaying needs, and Tear could do that too when she wasn't healing so he wasn't needed for that either, and even if he was he only had midlevel spells that would be outclassed by Jade's output if they weren't already. At least Guy and Natalia had good points; Guy's crazy fast (seriously, dude just flies across the screen, he can be practically untouchable if you're playing as him) and still fairly powerful and his artes are the Tales series classics so they're generally pretty good, though he can't take a hit, and Natalia is a good backup healer with fairly good damage output and all of the buff/debuff spells, though she eats through her TP very quickly (not helped by her first healing Arte costing 20 TP, when she has only around 70ish when she joins) and her healing artes only targeted one person at a time (at least, the only ones I remember did, though they healed for a lot: Tear's AoE heals were just more useful). Asch just doesn't have any reason to use him beside the novelty of playing as a boss... which is why I used him both times I had him in the party.
I dunno if I can count him tho, since he's just a Luke substitute for a couple of times in the game between his two boss fights.
And he was a pretty easy boss fight too. Kinda disappointingly simple, to be honest, he's only even sort of hard because you only have Luke when you fight him and he can chew through sizable chunks of your HP if he hits you, but being even sort of competent with free run can make sure this never happens. I can see why he only picks fights with Luke, he'd get wrecked if he had to fight an entire party. Or just someone who could self-heal, really.
Abyss!!!! I just finished that game a few months ago. Loved reading your thoughts.
In the beginning, I bounced around between Anise, Luke and Guy, but I settled on Guy about a third of the way through. His speed like you mentioned, is sexy AF, and I was able to string together artes and attacks way more efficiently with him than with Luke. Certain attacks that cause enemies around you to stagger, and BEAST. Man, Beast. I loved that move.
Also, I revisited a little Symphonia during my Abyss playthrough and was floored by how dated it was by comparison, even though I guess they were pretty close in terms of initial release? Free Run is a miracle. Besides that, Abyss is so much more fluid.
Have you played any other Tales games? One of my long term goals is to play them all, but some are pretty hard to get and a few arent even localized.
Besides ToS and TotA, I played Symphonia 2 (lol), Xillia and Vesperia (currently my fav) and I'm about 1/3 through Tales of Hearts R right now, which is so far an incredible entry as far as characters and combat. If only it didn't have random encounters....... sO ANNOYINGGGG and un-Tales-like. -.-
In the beginning, I bounced around between Anise, Luke and Guy, but I settled on Guy about a third of the way through. His speed like you mentioned, is sexy AF, and I was able to string together artes and attacks way more efficiently with him than with Luke. Certain attacks that cause enemies around you to stagger, and BEAST. Man, Beast. I loved that move.
Yeah, I bounced between Luke and Guy as well (not Anise, she was too valuable as a backup everything to play as), and I settled on Guy for most fights that weren't Asch (because Luke-only) or the final boss (because I was almost out of Life Bottles and I didn't want to risk dying to a Mystic Arte out of nowhere after Tear inevitably got wiped, and Luke could take hits better).
Never did like Beast though. Probably because it always ended my combo and gave enemies a bit of stagger-proofing after they got up, which kinda annoyed me.
Also, I revisited a little Symphonia during my Abyss playthrough and was floored by how dated it was by comparison, even though I guess they were pretty close in terms of initial release? Free Run is a miracle. Besides that, Abyss is so much more fluid.
I know, right? I wish I hadn't lost my copy of Symphonia. I'd love to go back, but my only option right now would be the Steam port, which...
Well, I've seen it, and... no, just... no...
Well, I've played Tales of Phantasia. The GBA port.
It was fairly solid. Bit weird after Symphonia, and I never found any way to get manual control so I could jump, but other than that it was alright.
Loved Arche especially, flying nuke is always awesome (even if, for some reason, she wouldn't just fly to the top of the screen before starting her casting. Would've been nice).
Never bothered to beat it though. I think I was in the last dungeon when I got bored and went to play... I don't remember, maybe one of the GBA Golden Suns.
Besides ToS and TotA, I played Symphonia 2 (lol), Xillia and Vesperia (currently my fav) and I'm about 1/3 through Tales of Hearts R right now, which is so far an incredible entry as far as characters and combat. If only it didn't have random encounters....... sO ANNOYINGGGG and un-Tales-like. -.-
Soooooooo I take it Dawn of the New World wasn't good? I never played it, but I heard it did some weird stuff (and what was with Lloyd's new voice? It just sounded kinda off to me).
I've seen videos of Vesperia...'s insane Yuri combos. Which were impressive. Not sure how it could be particularly difficult with that available, but I never played it so...
Never looked at Xillia or Hearts R, mostly because I never owned a PS3 or Vita. Are those any good?
Saw some videos of Xillia 2 tho, it looked neat.
In other news, I FINALLY FOUND MY GAMECUBE A WEEK OR SO BACK!
And it still works!
Custom Robo is still as great as I remember! I loved it the whole way that I got through so far (in Grand Battle at the moment).
Even if Rahu III is utter f***ing bulls***.
Also, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. It's quite fun, and kinda funny.
Special mention should go to the Bowser Jr. duo's challenge-you-to-a-paper-airplane-flying-contest-attack. I actually laughed when I saw Bowser Jr. challenge me to a paper-airplane-fly-off in the middle of a boss fight. In fact, I liked the Bowser Jr. duo in general, they were neat. Wish they didn't just sorta disappear from the story after you stomp them.
On a not-related note, the Koopalings were fun in this game as well. Wendy's ability to kill Roy for me (which happened the first time, but sadly not during the boss-rush at the end), Ludwig & Larry's use of Battle Cards (which was annoying, but gave an otherwise-standard boss-fight some cause for concern), and Lemmy/Iggy/Morton's chase-sequence battle (Lemmy's was annoying, but the other two were neat, and seeing a fight use all of the Paper Mario chase guards was neat, though it was over too quickly after that). I actually enjoyed fighting them, which is more than I could ever say about their appearances prior to this (jump on them, wait for them to come out, jump on them, wait for them to come out, jump on them, yawn).
Also, the final Nabbit chase. Dude is surprisingly tough. Also, he teams up with you to fight enemies, though his 3D Buzzy Beetle Shell being able to hurt you is annoying. It was still a neat sequence tho.
Shiny RoboBowser (who the f*** named this?) is currently wrecking me, mostly through dealing more damage than I can take in two hits (or one, with Paper Mario). I'll return to him after doing some level-grinding, at least enough to reach the level rank after Leaf.
I do wish Mario weren't like 2/3 of a level ahead of Paper Mario in experience, but that's just a personal annoyance.
Now I need to go back to The Thousand-Year Door. I remember being so close to beating it, so I need to finish.
Also, Bowser's Inside Story. Wanna replay that again, mostly because it's the best M&L out of all the ones I played (which is all but Dream Team), partly because Fawful makes me have chortles, and partly for the Giant Bowser fights (I GET TO PUNCH PEACH'S CASTLE IN THE FACE!). I do wish they had done one thing more, which would've made the game perfect to me:
I wish there were a boss fight where you fight Mario & Luigi with Bowser. Maybe as the true final boss, after finishing off Dark Bowser. Just picture it with me:
At the end of the game, Bowser goes to kidnap Peach again, and Mario & Luigi go to stop him. Now, put a battle transition there, and when you get to the battle screen... Mario and Luigi aren't the heroes you're playing as. They're the enemies you're fighting. As Bowser.
The Mario Bros wouldn't have to have the stats they had when you were controlling them, but they'd have similarish stats. Mario would have higher Attack and Speed, and Luigi would have more HP and Defense.
They could have action commands to counter your attacks like they would if you were controlling them, so you'd have to do your punches perfectly or get jumped on, and some of your Bowser Brigade attacks wouldn't work (like Magikoopa Mob just getting hopped over, or Bowser getting hammered away if he uses the Shy Guy Squad), or wouldn't do as much damage as they could (like having the bros hammer back the koopa shells from the Koopa Korps, but not always hammering them so you'll eventually get some damage if you do it well, or the Goomba Storm always getting jumped over unless you light them on fire, in which case the Bros will hammer some, but not all, of them away, or Bob-Omb Blitz requiring precise placement so the Bros don't just jump over all the Bob-Ombs, or Broggy getting hammered away by whichever bro he attacks, so you have to get an Excellent so the Blitties following Broggy can damage that bro). And you wouldn't be able to use fire-breath, since Starlow would just airlift the Bros over your flames until you stop.
And you'd be able to counter Mario and Luigi's attacks, of course. Getting them to jump on your shell is an obvious counter, but they could have a fake where they hop up, then land and hammer you unless you punch them. Hammering would require a well-timed punch to stop, since they bend over backwards which would let them avoid a punch and smack you over the head if you mistime your counter.
And the Bros attacks would see use, of course. They'd start with a simple Green Shell, which you would have to punch back at them (but if you got hit once, you'd get hit by the entire remaining Green Shell sequence of attacks). As the Bros lost HP, they'd add the Jump Helmet, which would be countered by a well-timed shell-counter... unless Mario lands on the edge of the helmet for the final jump, in which case he'd land in front of Bowser and hammer him unless punched away; also, the Yoo Who Cannon, which would be countered by punching Mario away and shelling the higher-arcing Luigi off.
Also, the Bros would heal each other, taking advantage of the fact that they get two turns to your one to heal during one of their turns (but never both, that'd be unfair) while attacking you with the other. They'd even use 1UP Mushrooms to revive one another if you take too long between KOing one and the other (say, one or two turns).
After defeating both Bros, Peach would use Wish Power to revive the Bros with a sizable fraction of their HP and also destroy your command blocks to prevent you from ever having another turn. At this point, the Mario Bros would perform a neverending string of Bros attacks, which you must counter to deal damage to the Bros (and thus, win, eventually).
During this sequence, the Bros would start off using the Bros attacks mentioned above, but after losing some HP (say, being brought down to 2/3), they would mix in a selection of attacks from Superstar Saga. These would include Splash Bros, which would require either using your shell to deflect Mario and Luigi as they came down on you, or punching Luigi before he could bat Mario back up if they do the Advance (which ignores spiky defenses, so you can't shell it off), Bounce Bros, which would require you to punch away Mario and shell-block Luigi in quick succession (and not necessarily in that order) as they fell toward you, Cyclone Bros, which would require you to punch the rapidly-spinning bros away from you as they tried to ram you, then punch them before they can attempt to step back and hammer you (in a rather tight window of time), and Chopper Bros, which would require you to punch away Mario before Luigi knocks him skyward (if you don't, he gets to hit you with his hammer a bunch of times).
After dealing enough damage to the Bros (who, for simplicity's sake, share their HP for this segment), they are defeated, for real this time.
Not sure how you'd end the game after that tho. I guess with the opening to most Mario platformers, "Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser. Go rescue", that sort of thing. Doesn't really matter too much tho.
That would've been neat.
Played a bit of Melee, and it's still fun. And I still suck at it.
And I still miss Ice Climbers.
Hopefully they can climb the mountain of other Nintendo characters to hop into Smash 5.
Finally, Sm4sh got its last characters, so I've gotten back into that a little. Corrin's fun, Bayonetta's neat, my online isn't as s*** as it was last time I tried it. I had fun.
I've got a few games that I'm playing simultaneously:
- Fire Emblem: Awakening. I absolutely adore this game and it's what got me interested in the series. I'm about to finish my male avatar playthrough and it'll be my third time completing the game.
Yeah, that one was fun. Not great in hindsight, but I enjoyed it during my playthrough. And a bit during my Hard mode run, but I stopped that... Don't remember where or why, though.
Which reminds me, I still have to get back into Splatoon, when I'm around while the new stages are up in Turf War.
And Mario Maker, if I ever find an idea I like and can make sort of work.
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I bought this a while back so I could explore the series further. Currently playing Eirika's route to ease into the game, then I'll be going back to play Ephraim's route.
And *hopefully* soon I shall have my beautiful Fire Emblem: Fates special edition in my hands.
Yeah, I suppose that's a good one to get started with, since it's mostly easyish (though I'm going off my memory of Eirika's route for that one. I remember Ephraim's being a bit tougher. Especially Chapter... 14, I think it was).
