Re: Game Talk (I'm putting this extra little bit here because the original title was too short)

[Haar_Dragon]

Well, if there's one company who can squeeze every dime out of a series like CAPCOM, it's Nintendo. Except, they go about it a different way. While CAPCOM releases games and assumes that'll be enough, Nintendo does things like Link Between Worlds, which, while a great game, I've decided gained most of its popularity by playing to nostalgia. Basically, they take something you already like and do something to make you like it more.

And of COURSE they're going to take a while to do anything with Megaman! This is the first I've heard about them getting his rights, and Smash 4 is their main project right now! They're not gonna just shift production from a MASSIVE sales point to one that's only big.

...Huh. Now I have to actually get the ZXA secret ending. *shrug* Eh, no complaints here.

That's the thing about Classic Megaman: They don't give you any indication of who's weak against what. Wind>Bombs? Bombs>Wood? Granted, Megaman 2 takes practically no skill since the player has the option to spam Metal Blades. Without 'em, sure, but overall, since they're included, not really.

Why wouldn't you want them to emulate the atmosphere of a game that swims in its atmosphere?

I'm glad you liked it, I was just being random and tired! 

[NebulaGregarZX]

You unlock said ending by beating the game on Expert, and once unlocked, it will play no matter what difficulty you win on after that first victory.

Sometimes it's more about how the weapon itself works in-game and how the boss fights, like how Crash Man jumps whenever you press the fire button, so a weapon that sweeps upwards is perfect for him. Wood Man is easy enough to hit with Heat Man's charged-up Atomic Fire, Air Man only has a weakness because that's how it works, since he's easily defeated anyway... yeah, so it's not always about the weapon being so much an elemental weakness as being highly effective for some other reason.

[Haar_Dragon]

You...make a very good point, actually. Still a little mean in that there's no real semblance of logic to it without actually playing the level. For example, you wouldn't know CrashMan jumps until you fight him. You wouldn't know WoodMan has a Leaf Shield until you get there. I mean...if FlashMan had a better name, it would make more sense, but when I think of Flash, I think of light. I don't think "stop time." If that were easily guessable, it'd be pretty obvious to take FlashMan-->QuickMan, and why am I only using MegaMan 2 as a reference for this?

...Because that's the only one whose Robot Masters I actually remember, bar the first game's. And I don't remember the weaknesses in the first game. All I know is that the stages I haven't beaten (ElecMan, IceMan, FireMan) are hell.

Anyway, all that out of the way, I'd say Battle Network was my favorite sub-series. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I'm trying to look at it objectively. I liked the strategic element and folder design...once I stopped being terrible at it. And after I got over my hump of "it's hard, it must be bad," I realized that lacking the Chip Codes turned Starforce from "Strategic battle" to "Abuse the most powerful cards you can." I'm not saying Chip Code removal was inherently bad, but it was handled...sloppily. I gotta wonder why I keep bagging on Starforce...but I digress. More on-topic, I also found that a lot of the minor villains (read: MINOR villains) were pretty decent characters. Regal was of course just copy-paste evil, which seemed to be played more for laughs in BN5 than anything else, but everyone else seemed pretty decent. Even your friends had a couple of awesome moments...despite being pretty much captured princesses most of the time. And...I like the characters' -.EXE designs, particularly MegaMan himself. Probably the proportions being...not sh*t.

The runner-up would be ZX. Model X looks cool, but Model ZX? I don't know why, but it just reminds me of incarnated badass. There's not much to say as a runner-up, though. It has an atmosphere that gets me and characters that I can't help but like. Hell, I even like the minor villains, outright! The only thing really "wrong" with it isn't wrong at all. It's the battle system, namely there isn't one. I just happen to prefer BN's battle style of "separate screen, limited movement and resources, use what you can, fight." ZX handles it a bit differently, of course, being an action-platformer, and I won't fault it for that. It does its job really well, I just personally prefer the BN style. And really, in a game that focuses on the premise of "Kill the evil robots/viruses," that's kinda the most important piece.

...That was really long-winded and turned into a pseudo-review. Sorry 'bout that, but I gush sometimes.

[NebulaGregarZX]

Mega Man is cool enough to deserve endless rants on how awesome his various incarnations are. And I'm just as bad about rants.

[Haar_Dragon]

Yes. Yes he is. I probably COULD say more if I wanted to, but it would be wholly unnecessary and redundant.

[NebulaGregarZX]

...Okay, then that's that.


So! I just found something neat out: ATLUS has a series called Etrian Odyssey, and it's a, exploration/dungeon-crawling game with elements from SMT. Like, it has Strike, Pierce, and Slash as the three Physical types with the same icons as in P3, and uses Ice, Electricity, and Fire as the magical elements with their icons from... well, I imagine they're just kind of an ATLUS mainstay. It makes me wonder if they crop up in Radiant Historia.

It has the first-person perspective that Persona 1 borrowed from SMT, and it feels nicer than I thought it would. There's a function wherein you have dungeon maps... but you fill them in yourself as you go. It's more fun than it seems. Plus, it has a nice difficulty to it. Well, the one I played, IV, was like that anyway. I only have the demo, though. Alas, I don't have the time or resources to go into another series. I have to complete MMBN5DS Team Colonel, beat my second run of KH3D, get moving in Pokémon X, continue on with Tales of the Abyss, and that's not counting various other things, like replaying the Star Force games now that I'm properly competent, or finishing my Ruby Nuzlocke.

...I really want to play SF1 or SF3 right now, to be honest... curses, this conversation keeps steering back to Mega Man, no matter what I do!

[Haar_Dragon]

I started another run of ZX. All I have to say? Prometheus is an A-class d*ck!

I have played some of Radiant Historia, and so far there's no physical-type damage. There are physical attacks, but there's no hierarchy. There is a magic system that has at least Fire and Thunder, but honestly, given the way combos work, I find that magic is usually pretty irrelevant.

As for Etrian Odyssey, I know of it, but beyond that, nothing. And I don't like first-person dungeon-crawling all that much, to be perfectly honest. I just don't really like the first-person perspective combined with tiles. But speaking of Persona 1...I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but it felt really slippery. Which is weird considering it was dungeon-crawling most of the time. And the story...is weird. It's not really on par with 3 and 4, but it's not really bad, just...really, really weird.

[NebulaGregarZX]

I found that Model Hx was pretty useful in dealing with him... mobility and elemental advantage, y'know.

Wait, you've PLAYED it!? Where did you get a copy!? And... why did you mistake Stocke for Guy Cecil once?

Well, Persona 1 was less its own thing and more an SMT game that was much easier, less demon-filled, and accessible to normal players. So then, it's like an SMT game, not like a Persona game. I'm sure Crem knows more on the subject.

[Haar_Dragon]

Hx has an elemental advantage? ...Now I feel really stupid, I was just blasting away at him with Zx's charge shots.

I've played some of it, yes. I got a copy from a GameStop, and...when did I make a mistake like that? The art styles aren't even remotely similar...

I suppose that's true, yeah. Still, you know something's up with your controls when the player can tell that they're slippery in the middle of dungeon-crawling. Thankfully enough, though, the game is turn-based, so for the most part, that doesn't matter too much.

[NebulaGregarZX]

Zero and ZX share the elemental cycle: Fire beats Ice beats Thunder beats Fire. Prometheus uses fire, Hx uses Thunder. Using his charged attacks is good, and if you got full-power Hx, using his secondary charge attack is devastating to ANY boss that stays in its range.

What the hell! I looked on the internet, where it sold for $80. ...And it was because he was a pony at the time. It was during that huge guess-who-this-pony-is game.

Well, Etrian Odyssey is much less slippery. It's kind of annoying that I can't figure out a way to move faster, actually, but not too much. It's very deliberate and careful. And there are powerful enemies who appear visibly on the map who can devastate anything but a fully-prepared party, even taxing them to their limits, and move every time you do. And in the final demo-dungeon, you can lure them into barricades to destroy them for you.

[Haar_Dragon]

Nah, I had one of each model, so no full-power anything. He took like seven lives from me before I did anything smart like start killing the skull-fires that shot the fireballs at me. By which I mean "before I figured out that I could kill those skull-heads."

Really? Huh. Cost me $35. Figures that the only time I actually have GOOD luck is the time I don't realize it. And that makes far more sense, I'm much less confused. Though that may have been before I got it. It might also have not been, my sense of time is pretty much the worst out of anyone I know.

Hey, sounds like the kind of thing I really hate! ...I'm not kidding. I hate it when the enemies are overpowered compared to the player. In a game like Devil Survivor or Fire Emblem, it's different, because you can strategize in such a way that you kill the enemy before it can hurt you. In most every other game, though, it's pretty much impossible at that point to get away without taking massive damage. It falls under the "getting killed before I can do anything" part of things I hate.

[NebulaGregarZX]

...Yeah, it's funny what you don't realize you can do in these games. Like MMZ4? The final boss's horn? You can grab on to it and hang on to avoid one of his attacks. As for the Biometal, it's generally practical to go for all four before getting their upgrades, but in the case of Prometheus, I'd recommend trying for both halves of Model Hx if you can handle it. I always liked Hx the best because it represented my favorite of the Four Guardians: Sage Harpuia. And it could Air-Dash and Hover, and it had a combo that could throw a slash attack, and had the overpowered-as-hell tornado charge-attack, and it looked badass, and...

My sense of time is the worst on TITAL, honestly. ..Er, as in when thinking of when something happened here, not I-have-the-worst-on-the-site.

Er, actually, no, not like that. If you prepare, you'll get through without being in danger, but your resources will be strained, and you'll have to strategize. Going in with low MP on your healers, casters, and buffers will result in a much tougher fight. If you strategize, it becomes mostly about trying to kill it efficiently, not struggling to survive. And you can avoid confronting these guys altogether easily... So, uh, you will take damage, but so long as you have a way to heal the one person who gets hit each round, you're good. You're still ganging up on one big enemy that has only single-target moves. But if you try to sneak past one and fail in a really bad way, without being ready for a fight, you'll get messed up. It's a level of difficulty that's downright merciful from ATLUS.

[Haar_Dragon]

...You can? Son of a BITCH, if that's the one I'm thinking of, it's the one that hits me every time!

I could easily see myself sacrificing Model Lx to get the other half of Hx. In terms of combat, I actually like Px the best, but I definitely like how Hx lets you access pretty much everything. I'll definitely agree on the air-dash and hover, even if I am a little clumsy trying to air-dash up. Though I haven't played enough of the Zero series to know about the Guardians period. Like I said, only played 4. Similar to BN3, where I played up to the final boss, who proceeded to hand me my ass on a plate.

I can't remember when a damn thing in my life actually happened relative to now. I mean, I know a few things, but I don't actually remember. Hell, I don't even remember what year any of my cousins were born. All I know is that I'm the second-oldest of them.

Oh, really? Well, that's a little different. Considering I usually keep my MP up to abuse enemy weaknesses, that really doesn't sound like something I'd hate at all, actually. Out of curiosity, do you have any feel for how common MP-restoratives are?

[NebulaGregarZX]

It's the giant laser beam one, so that's probably the one. He stoops down to fire, which is when the horn is low enough to grab. Well, the Four Guardians were in the first three games, so yeah. It's one of the reasons I dislike Z4, since they're some of my favorite characters. And, uh, Model Lx has the elemental advantage over the Model Hx bosses, so if the second one gives you trouble, you could get Model Lx first. And don't use Model Fx on them, they'll electrocute your ass.

And BN3? Same story with me. It's just not possible to beat both final bosses in a row with a badly-coded Folder without luck or a game-breaking strategy, thanks to the Life Aura the first one has, and the shielding on the second one. I'm amazed I came up with a strategy to beat them by breaking the game and abusing Reflect.

...Well, er, I haven't seen a single MP-restorative so far. There's an item called Ariadne Thread that lets you instantly escape back to town, and you can stay the night and heal for a minor fee, and there are Geomagnetic Poles that let you warp back to town and back into that spot in the dungeon, so I don't think there are any such items. Or they're just not available in the demo.

[Haar_Dragon]

Oh, no, actually, that's not the one I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of the one where he shoots his...what is that, his lower jaw? He shoots that at you. I know it's a simple attack, but it's like the only opening he has to get hits in, so I always take damage trying to hit him. Granted this is multiple years ago, so I could be very wrong about that bit...

It's not even that I had a badly-coded folder. It's more that I couldn't for the life of me get rid of his shield. I think the most damage I've ever done is about a tenth of his HP. The only time I've ever actually gotten to him, I had HeatTeam Style, so my charge shot took so long to build up that once I ran out of chips, I literally could not beat him. One of a couple of reasons I think BN6 is better than BN3. Strangely, though, LifeAura doesn't bother me after a couple of runs at it. It's kind of a pain in the ass, but it's not something I can't take out.

...Well, that bites. But hey, at least escape isn't hard. I'd consider it if not for the fact that I have many games, as you know, that I haven't played. Nor is it helped by the fact that the ones I'm currently playing are ZX and Melee. Yeaaah...still, I prioritize fun over new, so it might be a while yet...

[NebulaGregarZX]

Well, that sounds like it sucked. Honestly, I like Z2 better than Z4. It shows character development, has kickass music, introduced Forms that would be acquired depending on your playstyle and EX Skills, had a great villain, a fun and explorable Resistance Base, and plenty of neat little things, like using a Fire attack to burn away foliage, and the Chain Rod was fun if you could figure out how to use it.

Really? My problem was more that I couldn't take out the LifeAura and damage him, so I rarely got past him, so I couldn't figure out the final-final boss well enough to beat him.

...How is that run of ZX coming, anyway? I bet you're on Normal, since on Easy, you'd have beaten the whole thing by now.

[Haar_Dragon]

Still wouldn't know~

Well, it was a pain in the ass sometimes, but more often than not, I drew a Mega chip and used that to knock the Aura off him. But regenerating shields are another thing that I hate. They're not too bad in a lot of cases, but when you have limited resources, they just strike me as the devs twisting the knife.

I am on Normal, and Prometheus was the last thing I did. I got sick of dying, especially since sidescrolling platformers aren't really my forte, and especially not when combined with action-based gameplay.

[NebulaGregarZX]

...*Sigh* It's a shame, really. Ah, well, if you think Z4 is hard, Z2 would murder you good.

Well, if you happen to include FolderBack as your Giga Chip... and are playing Blue version, which actually has FolderBack, then it becomes an equal situation: sure, he's got infinite regenerating LifeAura. You have infinite chips to murder him with. But badly-coded folders make him hard to deal with even then, since you need to hit him to break his defense, then hit him again before it returns...

Ah, ZX, you and your absurd jumps between difficulty levels.

[Haar_Dragon]

Well, playing Z4 on Normal isn't bad. Until that Final Boss, at which point I'm just not quick enough. Playing it on Hard for the extra weapons...little more of a pain, but still not THAT bad. Probably about the same as ZX Normal, honestly.

Nope. I have White. And technically, you could damage him with your buster as long as his shield is down, but...well, it's still a massive pain in the ass.

Yep. There's a lot of games that I see having that problem, where Normal is really easy and Hard is ridiculously difficult.

[NebulaGregarZX]

The buster is only there in BN in case you need a backup damage source. It's not meant to be your main form of attack, though it can be extremely useful sometimes. Especially if you exploited some of the NaviCust bugs in BN3...

Weird difficulty jumps... well, at least it makes things interesting.

[Haar_Dragon]

I know it's not meant as your main form of attack, I only use it between having no chips and getting to the next Custom Screen, but when you're out of options...that's why your Buster exists.

[NebulaGregarZX]

...Now I want to do a run of ZX... on Easy, of course. In my current state, I'm not really playing very well. I actually took damage from early enemies in SF3, and I'm supposed to be an experienced player... ugh.

The reason I hadn't been playing handheld Mega Man games was because my shoulder buttons weren't properly working, and being unable to Pulse In/Jack In or being unable to Dash made the games frustrating to play. Now that I've got a 2DS to work with, I'm good. ...Maybe I'll play ZXA, then ZX.

[Haar_Dragon]

Have you tried blowing out the buttons? It might sound stupid, but if you cover the button with your mouth and blow, it'll usually fix the button for at least a few hours. And sure, it looks like you're eating your DS, but hey, results are more important in this scenario, right?

[NebulaGregarZX]

It works, but it's just unreliable enough to frustrate me. I sometimes have to try several times before it works, and when you need it to dash-jump across a gap, or escape harm's way, it can be... painful to have technical difficulties. Having the 2DS nullifies this, of course, by virtue of having a fresh, sturdy set of shoulder buttons.

[Maverick Entity]

Keep wanting to dig out my ps3 and play the original borderlands following the "ideal playthrough" guide (since the leveling environment of that game is so fubar), but I keep focusing on finals work instead, even though I have little over a week to do said work.

It is quite mindnumbing how crazy the original borderland weapon part generation system is. I tried reading about it and my head just shuts off.

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