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Just finished Beyond: Two Souls with the wife, good fun, a bit better than Heavy Rain as the characters are more interesting.

Now finishing Wolf Among Us, also been very entertaining. Some good stories which really draw you in.

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'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

I finished Batman: Arkham City earlier today. It's very Batman, but it's also a rather unimpressive open world environment and a downright insane checklist of collectibles. When it's good, it's great. Unfortunately that's only a few hours of set pieces surrounded by dozens of hours of following waypoints and tracking down around 400 (!) Riddler clues.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Quote (laszlow @ 12th July 2014 22:20)

I finished Batman: Arkham City earlier today. It's very Batman, but it's also a rather unimpressive open world environment and a downright insane checklist of collectibles. When it's good, it's great. Unfortunately that's only a few hours of set pieces surrounded by dozens of hours of following waypoints and tracking down around 400 (!) Riddler clues.

Couldn't agree more, great game apart from that but for the reasons you state, I'd say the first games is better despite the poor final boss. Still two of the best games of this generation though. Excited for the last game in the trilogy, should be amazing.

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'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

I definitely enjoyed it, but it seemed like an emptier experience compared to Arkham Asylum. The only things Arkham City did better were its multitude of side missions (which were occasionally excellent) and better boss battles.

Oh right, what I'm currently playing. I'm thinking about starting up a big new RPG today. Leaning towards XenoBlade Chronicles.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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The transition to open world for any game basically means you're sacrificing pacing and a 'tighter' experience for scope and the promise of more player agency, but I agree I don't think it paid off for City. It never really felt all that 'open world' so much as they just spaced Asylum's levels farther apart and put empty cruft in between.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

All kinds old and new. Finished up Quelf, Cards against Humanity, MTG, Clue, Avalon, Skulls and Roses, and SSBM yesterday. It's all fun gaming or not.

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https://www.youtube.com/user/Greatermaxim

Terra - LV 99 - HP 9999 - MP 999

Equipment - - - Abilities

Illumina - - - - - Fight
Genji Shield - - Morph
Oath Veil - - - - Magic
Minerva - - - - - Item
Ribbon
Economizer

Started reading World End Economica. It's a visual novel about a boy who is living on a moon city in the near future. Written by the guy who wrote Spice and Wolf.

Just bought Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC. Played it somewhat. The version was somewhat buggy but a new patch has just been pushed out minutes before I started typing this. Seems like a very, very nice game. I enjoyed so much simply going around town and rotating the camera while doing so. And much more...

Also wasted more time playing Team Fortress 2 and 100% Orange Juice.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 30th July 2014 20:12

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Four games have basically consumed me at various times in the last two weeks. I'll really, really try to be brief.

XenoBlade Chronicles

Absolutely stellar Wii RPG. Lots of customization systems, each character feels very different to control, and combat is fast, fluid, and fun (...****ing fantastic) without using any form of MP, items for use in battle, or button presses for normal attacks. It's all about each character's skill bar and managing auras and cooldowns. That style of combat and the INSANE number of exclamation point sidequests makes it feel like a Western-made RPG at times, but the characters, art, and story are 100% JRPG. Characters are around level 30; probably less than halfway through the game.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Yeah, I bought a 3DS. Then I bought this. Five days later, it was finished. Immediately my third-favorite Zelda after Link's Awakening and A Link to the Past. Yes, it helped that 95% of the world map is recreated landmark-for-landmark from A Link to the Past, but there are enough changes to be interesting and I'm not complaining. The dungeons were a little short (some of them were only seven or eight rooms....) but beautifully made. Item rental is ingenious, and collecting rupees and baby snails (ALBW's most prominent collectible doohickeys) is meaningful, since the rewards are so great. I couldn't put it down until I was done; if you own a 3DS you really ought to give it a shot.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

I own this game digitally, as it came bundled with the 3DS skew that I bought on sale. So far the basic premise seems pretty interesting and the wacky dream mechanics are fun and fresh. I wish there were fewer tutorials and larger stages, but the game looks and sounds gorgeous and the writing is really funny. Only level 10 or so, definitely less than half through the game.

Bravely Default

Turn-based combat with dozens of ways to manipulate turn order, a deep job system, (mostly) entertaining characters and dialog, and (maybe) a pretty good story. My characters are only level 35-37 and trying to save the third crystal, but if it ends as strongly as it started then Bravely Default will be my favorite job-based RPG that isn't played on a grid of squares. Strong words. BD is definitely the game I'm spending the most time on right now.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I'd be curious to hear a bit more of your thoughts on Bravely Default, Lasz.

Though I'm still tinkering through Final Fantasy IX, I've recently started up yet another playthrough of its immediate series predecessor, Final Fantasy X. I've no good reason for doing this, as I've already beaten the thing half a dozen times, but since I've written a complete guide for it every playthrough gives me the chance to improve it a bit, which I find quite rewarding.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

I finally got around to trying out Cthulu Saves the World which Lasz gifted me on Steam like 2 years ago. It's actually quite enjoyable.

I've also been slowly playing through FFVII on the PSP. I'm near the end of disc 1, on my way to the City of the Ancients.

I've also been playing lots of Civ V because you can't just play a little Civ V. It just doesn't work that way.


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Wha? Thanks to me?

Randomly started playing Knights of Pen and Paper, +1 Edition yesterday. I think I just beat the main scenario -- or maybe just the first part of it.

This seems to be meant to be a...video tabletop RPG, if you will. It's more simplistic than an actual tabletop RPG, but it's also not meant to be serious anyway. Part of the point is to advance your characters but also get a feel of how far you can push their limit -- you play the role of GM part of the time, in choosing how many monsters to fight at once, for example.

The plot is very tongue-in-cheek and humorous, clearly framed in the idea of a stereotypical tabletop RPG: you have various quests that involve killing monsters one way or another and going to various other spots on the world map. Wander between locations named Default Village, Maya Me Beach, Middle Field ("a field in the middle of nothing"), and Wizards of the East Coast. (You get the idea.) Further into the game, the plot takes an interesting turn -- let's say the 4th wall isn't really safe.

The battles play out like simple generally effective JRPG battles, and have a similar skill advancement scheme -- each character has four skills, which can be advanced with one point per levelup. And this is a game where debuffs are useful, fwiw.

You get to choose characters and character classes. They're more like a "person" class and a "job" class -- pair up a "person" (e.g. nerd, pizza guy, lucky girl, kid brother, E.T., etc.) with a "job" (e.g. paladin, rogue, druid).

The unusual thing is, though, you can also buy goodies (the "shop" in the top left corner) that change the gameplay a bit. You can buy "food" (not in-game in-game, but in-game out-of-game), the style of table, the GM you have, the furniture in the rest of the room, the walls, the carpet, the door, and other accessories, you can get bonuses such as extra XP, attack, HP/MP regeneration, gold, or longer-lasting table food, even.

In summary: a nifty little videogame-format parody of tabletop RPGs. You won't be doing the RPing yourself, but you can imagine yourself as a bit of an overseer role, playing the PCs and the GM at various points.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Quote (Death Penalty @ 31st July 2014 00:40)

I'd be curious to hear a bit more of your thoughts on Bravely Default, Lasz.

When we record another CoNcast, I will talk about Bravely Default until Josh kicks me out of the Skype chat.

So yeah, over the past few days I've continued to play Bravely Default, and it's great. I've unlocked all but the final two classes, and I have to say that the endgame ones are all excellent. With a few notable early-game exceptions (Monk, Knight, Time Mage) the nine classes you get in Chapters 3 and 4 absolutely kick the asses of the twelve classes you get in Chapters 1 and 2. Basically the more I play this game, the more fun the job system becomes. I dig it. Right now I'm doing a sidequest to get one of the last two jobs.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Taking another game off of my backlog. This time, it's Delve Deeper, a strategy game where you control a team of dwarves trying to recover as much treasure as possible, within a certain time limit, from a cave network in the form of a hexagonal grid. Play against two to four other players (computer or human).

You'll need to deal with constraints like carrying capacity for minerals and treasure, as well as occasional (or by the endgame, frequent) enemies and rival teams, as well as the placement of treasure boxes (and mimics!) and minerals (gold, gems, diamonds). You also need to build tunnels that let you go down lower, which can simultaneously allow enemies to threaten you more -- you can alternatively also build tunnels that allow more enemies to threaten your opponents. "Death" is relatively cheap in this game, though -- your unit just temporarily loses the ability to fight or mine, drops all their treasure, and gets knocked out for a turn. But since turns are limited, that can be crucial. More importantly, you gotta lug your haul back up to your base camp at the top. The three different character classes that you can assign among your dwarves -- Miner, Fighter, and Scout -- have varying carrying capacity, fighting ability, and movement capacity per turn.

Each game will take you maybe an hour or two, depending on how fast you play, I think. I played on the map "Lurning Curve" and it has 18 turns. The game does have a few touches of humor like this, which is nice. For what it's worth, there's also an in-game tutorial, which you can turn off. You can also theoretically start on any of a large number of maps, but I purposely picked an (allegedly) easier one.

The game seems like a decent strategy game. I got second (of four) place on my first playthrough, on a relatively easy map. I did find a few minor inconveniences: (1) the sound/music is occasionally a little buggy (sometimes doesn't play, or keeps playing when it shouldn't), (2) the mouse interface takes a little getting used to before you learn not to misclick and direct a unit to the wrong hex, (3) F12 is this game's fullscreen toggle key (and is also Steam's typical screenshot key, which causes graphically-odd problems when you want to use Steam's built-in screencapper -- you'll basically have to screenshot everything twice, and (4) don't play the Starter map, or at least don't fight the goblins that appear under spawn -- it makes the game hang.

On the other hand, the game has a noticeably small filesize, compared to many games -- it says 43 MB for me -- and it doesn't look pixelated or otherwise poor at all. The music isn't anything particularly notable, but is generally okay. The game has "voice noises" representing the dwarf king, but is otherwise unvoiced. Doesn't seem to have a way to remap controls, though (I'd remap that F12 if I could!), but does apparently support an XBox 360 controller.

I don't think I'll be playing this much more, but then again I'm not really a big strategy person. I could probably learn the game system if I wanted to, though.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 13th August 2014 04:20

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Just got minecraft PC edition. Cant get off it! It's so addictive, and multiplayer servers are amazing. I love playing the hunger games aswell!


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Excuse me? Would you mind not talking while I'm interupting?

I've been playing Spelunky on the Xbox 360, and FFVI on iOS.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

^ Izzat Ico?

Anyway, went and played a few more interesting things.

Wanderlust: Rebirth - a co-op action RPG where you pick a class and you go around with what is something like hack-and-slash action (well I picked a mage so I guess more like shooting things from a distance for me lol). Pretty nice. I haven't tried the co-op part yet...maybe I will at some point.

Lunar Flight - a lunar module flight sim. Possibly the hardest game on Steam. I could barely fly and and land my module properly...and then the next time I tried, I ended up tipping it over and running out of fuel. And this isn't because of any control clunkiness -- or perhaps it is, specifically because it's supposed to actually simulate the basic controls of an object flying near the surface of the moon, via things like thrust, yaw, etc.. My suggestion: turn carefully towards your target before flying off -- don't you dare touch yaw when you are airborne, lest you drive yourself insane.

Astebreed - a highly cinematic shmup with 3D graphics, by Edelweiss, the folks who brought you another cinematic shmup, Ether Vapor Remaster. Have only played the prologue and the tutorial, which exhibits three different types of weapons -- a scatter shot, a concentrated fire, and a melee blade. All of them can be charged, to produce an auto-homing shot that deals constant damage to a target (and can target objects outside of your plane of movement) or to produce a blade rush. Looks quite nice...and the music sounds better than Ether Vapor's too (which was okay but nothing to write home about).

Unholy Heights - you are the Devil. By the Devil, I mean a bespectacled, mustached, bald-spotted man in a purple robe with epaulettes. You run an apartment building. For monsters. Get tenants to live there, set your rent, improve their apartments, call them out to defend against adventurers, help them attract mates and have children, and look to expand your building too! A very fun game, with a bit of cute humor (especially what with how the monsters all have jobs -- have you ever seen a water elemental lifeguard or a skeleton school counselor?), and correspondingly cute soundtrack.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 16th August 2014 06:55

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Well, I'm still sorta trying to play XenoBlade, but I'm currently in Sidequest Hell so it's been a non-starter. Hopefully will finish that game by the end of October. It's a long one. Also still playing Mario & Luigi, but I'm only playing it in tiny chunks. Not sure how far along I am. Hopefully can finish that one in a few weeks.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

I tried playing this game a few years ago, but got a little frustrated around the 3rd or 4th dungeon because creating new Personae was a pain in the rear and the narrative hooks weren't enough to keep me going. I started a new game a month or two ago and decided to use guides for getting tarot cards and fusion skills more quickly, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Really cool story and characters, but combat is nothing special and it's hard to do cool skill stuff without a lot of prep. Definitely interesting, but not as fun as Persona 3 or Persona 4. I want to have P2 wrapped by the end of September.

And worth note: I hit one of Persona 2's plot twists a week ago. It's very, VERY similar to one of the major plot twists in Final Fantasy VIII, but with a little more foreshadowing and a pretty interesting story connection. And before anyone thinks something silly, Persona 2 and Final Fantasy VIII couldn't have copied one another, as they came out a few months apart in Japan.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is awesome! I bought it right when it came out in July, but didn't get terribly far. I started it up again a week or two ago after talking about it briefly on the CoNcast and it's really satisfying NES-style platforming. It gets compared to the NES DuckTales, Castlevania, and Mega Man quite often, and justifiably so.

In addition to those, which are my biggest gaming "projects," I'm also messing around in Theatrhythm: Curtain Call and silly phone games like Threes! and 4 Thrones.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 24th September 2014 21:36

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Been playing Last of Us to keep ahead of a [url=http://www.shamusyoung.com/spoilerwarning/]Let's Play series I watch that's doing it. It's...nice.

It's well done as a game. All spit shined and polished, but since it's console only, I'm finding it very...sluggish, but otherwise it's just a standard AAA third person action game. Thankfully, the cutscenes are exceptionally well done, but they have almost nothing to do with the game yer playing.

I'm finding it very...not bad I guess.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Been playing more 99 Spirits. Definitely past the halfway point now.

I don't think I've ever described this game here, so I might as well.

This is a JRPG, with turn-based battles. But they're...a little different from the usual fare. Tsukumogami are ordinary objects possessed by spirits -- traditionally, when they've been around for long enough. You spend a lot of the game fighting them -- but you can't just fight them directly; first, you need to figure out what object they're possessing. You do this via a word-guessing thing, where the game provides you with associated words (e.g. "container", "square"; or "clothing", "body") or bits of the object's name (e.g. "B", "X"; or "CK", "JA"), and you use them to guess the word (e.g. "box" or "jacket"). Once you do this, then you can fight the tsukumogami like a standard one-on-one battle. Though do note that by default, you get three sword swings, or three defensive phases, every turn. While you fight the enemy, you can attack or defend, and you can also defend against enemy attacks in a timed-hits fashion -- though you'll need to be already defending if you want to fend off a "powerful attack".

Later in the game, you get the ability to capture tsukumogami, and then learn skills from them, which can use when you have them in your possession. These skills do various things, such as enhancing your stats, or allowing you to attack more times, or regenerate health, or guarantee your hits. Simply having certain tsukumogami in your possession can also clear certain obstacles.

You have an artifact sword that allows you to fight tsukumogami. It has several gems embedded in it, from which you get the abilities of getting clues on, naming, and capturing tsukumogami, as well as using their skills. You "charge up" these gems by attacking and/or defending, depending on the gem. You can also upgrade these gems -- you can get more hints out of a single hint swing, end your turn early to use a skill (rather than having to go through all three swings/defenses), or make a gem charge faster.

The story is set in fantasy feudal Japan, where you play a swordswoman who seeks to find out what happened to her parents, and also to control the tsukumogami outbreaks that have been happening in town lately. She also happens to have a special sword that lets her fight tsukumogami, and seems to be very much connected to the disappearance of her father, and other strange things that are happening in town... Along the way, she will receive help from local gods, who are also trying to unravel the troubling mystery behind the tsukumogami appearances. The story is well-presented by Fruitbat Factory (who also localized Human Tanks I: War of the Human Tanks, and 100% Orange Juice) -- the object names that you have to guess are mostly common (or sometimes uncommon) English nouns, but the game still feels pretty authentically Japanese (as it should, according to its setting). Best of all, the game has both English and Japanese voice acting for you to choose from -- and not only that, buying the English version gives you access to the original Japanese (text and all) version as well! (That version's just called "Tsukumogami".)

I'm finding this game surprisingly fun. Just make sure you get the upgrades -- though they're easily affordable as long as you've tried to discover all the tsukumogami along the way. There are also superbosses that I've actually been able to beat at surprisingly low levels, thanks to good prepping (choosing which tsukumogami to have on me, for their abilities, and taking advantage of things like "escaping" out of my turn).

A couple more tips:
1. Hunger doesn't do anything, except make you walk more slowly at 80% and above.
2. Clearing all the cursed skulls in an area lets you encounter one more "hidden" tsukumogami in that area. Make sure you don't teleport to the shrine, or else there's a little bug that doesn't cause that skull to spawn properly.
3. In fact, save often -- there are a few crash bugs left in the game, and the sometimes crop up. It may also help to keep a spreadsheet of the tsukumogami that you've seen, and whether you've mastered their abilities.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 26th September 2014 03:30

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

I've been playing a fairly recent Kickstarter game, Divinity: Original Sin, off and on for the past few months. Off and on partly cuz I restarted it twice, and partly cuz I've been distracted by other things along the way. It's been a great game so far.

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Console RPG Cliches

Currently playing a couple of games that i downloaded off the Playstation store. Final Fantasy VIII. I've never really liked this game because mostly of what i would hear about it but i downloaded it and actually started to play and now it's one of my Favorite Final fantasy games. I'm currently at the end of disc 2 and I love it. In my opinion the story and characters are better than VII maybe a little bit shorter in game play( I'm pretty much on disc 3 and I've only had the game for less than a week, it took me 2 months to beat VII) So yeah there's that and I also downloaded Chrono Cross. I loved Chrono Trigger so i thought i would give this a chance and i'm currently only 20 minutes into the game and so far so good.(although the battle system is kinda weird.) Other than that I'm looking forward for when Super Smash Bros comes out on the Wii U.

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Too be forgotten is worse than death - Freya Crescent

I've finally been playing Fez after buying it in the Steam sale this summer. I'm really enjoying it so far. It's nice to play a game that's purely a "puzzle" platformer without any enemies - it's a great gameplay experience.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

One game I've had a lot of fun with recently is System Shock 2. It's very old and hails from a time where shooter/RPG hybrids had plenty of lessons yet to learn. But it's fun!

Also recently started playing Deux Ex - Human Revolution. I dove pretty heavily into the first Deus Ex. This slick prequel is different in a lot of ways, but so far it's a fun game in many of the same ways the original DX is. I just wish they kept the references to our world; even though HR takes place much earlier in the timeline, it seems far more futuristic and speculative than the original DX.

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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

So a couple days ago, I promised laszlow that I'd go play Cthulhu Saves the World, but instead I went and accidentally started playing Sunrider.

Sunrider is a visual novel with tactical battling scenarios. Its story seems to exist in two segments: "First Arrival" and "the Mask of Arcadius". And fwiw, it's shaping up to a bunch of the (for better or worse) Japanese VN stereotypes, despite not being made by Japanese people -- main/perspective character (a male military spaceship captain) runs into a number of attractive female characters with a diversity of personalities, who join his team and become player-controlled units in battle, and (assuming the screenshots are truthful, and I see no reason to think otherwise) get their fanservice moments, though at this point I think I'll be happy if they aren't obnoxious and immersion-breaking.

The story seems to be quite a serious thing, though -- and it does make me quite interested to read on, despite the risk of being smacked with shallow fanservice.

Besides, the game is freeware.

The battle system uses action points, which can be spent to move or attack. Different attacks deal different amounts of damage depending on range, target's evasion, and target's armor.

Apparently there's also what's basically a crafting system, which lets you improve your weaponry or something. I haven't gotten far enough to see that yet.

...I'll get to Cthulhu Saves the World in a bit.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 12th November 2014 04:42

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins

Quote (Djibriel @ 11th November 2014 15:56)

One game I've had a lot of fun with recently is System Shock 2. It's very old and hails from a time where shooter/RPG hybrids had plenty of lessons yet to learn. But it's fun!

I tried about an hour of that a while back and found it very difficult to play. The difficulty ramped up extremely quickly relative to what I was prepared for or interested in - I might go back to it sometime, though, just to experience the story, which I've heard is top-notch.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I'm replaying Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9 for fun. heh I'm also replaying 9 to make an walkthrough.

Other games that I'm playing right now are:
The last Remnant (360)
Exit Fate (random suikoden like fan game)
Pokemon... a lot of them...
Magna Carta 2 (360)
Dot Hack//GU vol 1-3 (ps2)
...
and a few more that I can't think of.

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I'm lost in the darkness...
Not one soul around me...
Yet one floutly orb, won't go away.
-~-~-
randomish... might work for an ffau story... >w>

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 11th November 2014 17:09)

...I'll get to Cthulhu Saves the World in a bit.

It's fun, I'd recommend it! I'm really, really excited for their Kickstarter game, Cosmic Star Heroine. The pre-release screens have looked awesome.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

ALOT of smash bros 3ds.
I've enjoyed Fantasy Life alot recently, really fun little piece of awesome.
Also I replayed FE: Shadow Dragon
And also went back to a bit of Smash bros brawl

Love the new Theatrhythm avatars btw CoN! (I think there new or I'm just blind)
I picked Celes, obiviously!

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Excuse me? Would you mind not talking while I'm interupting?

After recently finishing my Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow enemy grinding guide, I remembered I had some unfinished business with yet another Castlevania game -- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

Specifically, I'd 100%'d the map and also gotten all the boss medals -- which you get for beating them without getting hit. But I still hadn't collected all the items, which was something I had wanted to do.

So now I checked the items I was missing:
* one hidden blue chest item in Dracula's Castle (easy)
* one item needed to complete a quest, rare treasure in Large Cavern or Training Hall
* the item resulting from completing that quest
* the item received for completing all the quests
* a couple rare treasures in Large Cavern
* a rare treasure in Training Hall
* a bunch of prizes from the Boss Rush mode, including the legendary L. Eye of God and R. Eye of Devil

Dealing with Large Cavern was a pain, but after a while I got used to it. Came up with pretty decent strats for every room.

And fortunately, I only had to do Training Hall once.

But then came Boss Rush mode.

After stumbling many times -- even on Boss Rush A -- I realized a few things:
1. I wasn't going to go under 4 minutes (to get the Eyes) by conventional means -- as in, fighting the boss normally. I would be forced to develop special strategies for each boss.
2. It actually saves more time to use Death Ring and dodge attacks than to try to power through everything and take damage to save time. This is because Death Ring's stats are really, really awesome.
3. It's okay to micromanage equipment and glyph sets. In fact, it's okay to take off the Death Ring when you know a hard-to-dodge attack is coming, and then put it back on after it hits you a few times.
4. Rapidus Fio sometimes makes it hard to get to that column of light to take you to the next boss fight...and every second you take getting there is counted.
5. Know when you need to change to which glyph set. Don't fumble over the controls.
6. The gem rings are really useful for boosting attack power.
7. Your items don't get used up when you load your in-game save, so USE ITEMS LIBERALLY.

Strats for each boss:

Boss Rush A:
* Arthroverta: Nitesco/Nitesco/whatever, probably Rapidus Fio. Spam double Nitesco; if you're at a reasonable level to finish the game, it will die very quickly.
* Giant Skeleton: it who does not appear in this boss rush
* giant enemy crab Brachyura: Globus/Globus/Magnes. Rush to the top of each segment ASAP so the crab will follow you up there ASAP. When you see crab, launch balls. They will multi-hit crab so much that it will SHOWWW and turn red quickly, saving you valuable time. 1st ceiling takes 3+1 hits, 2nd ceiling takes 2 hits, 3rd ceiling takes 3 hits. Last segment should consist of you Magnesing up four nodes; double-jump at the last one. Operate elevator near (but not quite at) its edge. DO NOT PRESS UP AFTER CRAB DIES, OR ELSE YOU WILL RIDE THE ELEVATOR BACK UP AGAIN.
* Maneater: Nitesco/Nitesco/Rapidus Fio. "Scan" it as it comes out of the ground. Focus your fire from one side (e.g. the left) and make sure to hit the tentacle as well so it doesn't get in your way -- though Nitesco's huge range will help. Should die quickly. Rapidus Fio is nice to quickly get to the side of the room (and back to the center to take the warp when you're done).
* Rusalka: Nitesco/Nitesco/Rapidus Fio. Read her carefully and dodge her attacks -- they are all telegraphed. Use RF to dodge her attacks and go back to lasering her ASAP. If she does use the big wave, take off your Death Ring momentarily and let it hit you if you can't find appropriate shelter. She mainly uses the hair and splash attacks.
* Goliath: Nitesco/Nitesco/Rapidus Fio. The only time you can't hit him is when he's about to punch. If you REALLY want to save time, you can take off your Death Ring, take a hit and go behind him (the punch always has knockback so it's not worth it to try to withstand it). Nitesco lets you keep a distance so he can't grab you either. It's also long enough to hit his butt even after he jumps. He should probably not get to the stomp-walk phase.
* Gravedorcus: Vol Grando/Vol Grando/Rapidus Fio. Generally appears on left side; throw as much ice as you can at it. Remember to equip the Sapphire Ring (or whichever one increases ice power); it'll make your attacks far more powerful.
* [spoiler boss #1]: YOU CAN WALK THROUGH HIM. Nitesco/Nitesco/Rapidus Fio. Run through him to get behind him before he shoots you. (Don't jump over him.)
* [spoiler boss #2]: He is a teleporting jerk. It may help to bring in one set of Vol Luminatio/Vol Umbra so you can throw the glyph union at him a few times -- I think it's quite worth the trouble, since he's never on the ground. Nitesco can multi-hit him, but he's in and out and thus hard to target. I suggest refilling your hearts via items and throwing the glyph union at him again, when you run out of hearts (it's an expensive 50 hearts per attack).

Boss Rush B:
* Wallman: Sir Not Appearing In This Boss Rush
* Blackmore: Nitesco/Nitesco/Rapidus Fio BUT DON'T ACTIVATE RAPIDUS FIO UNTIL AFTER YOU WIN. Just spam him with your beams. If you already got his medal, you should practically remember what his attack patterns and cues are. Double Nitesco should make short work of him, especially if you remember to jump to hit him (or rather his shadow) more often. You also retain some mobility even before your own Nitesco beam ends, so make sure you get the most damage out of it as possible.
* Eligor: is a horrible jerk with lots of parts and HP. Recommended strategy is complicated:
** first, Melio Ascis/Melio Ascis/whatever with Death Ring and Star Ring (MP recovery rate increase). Throw your axes at both the kneecap gems and the crossbow above -- the arc should take care of both easily. Get in between its legs, destroy the other crossbow while walking with Eligor's movement -- and don't forget to duck under the hoofkick. Slide twice to get out from beneath it. Melio Macir/Melio Macir/Volaticus with Death Ring and Blow Ring; hover at the rear kneecaps and wail on them; they should go down pretty quickly. Now hover up to Eligor's head (you may be able to get a couple potshots at it when it's down. It will try to push you toward the rear, so get used to very sudden motions on the part of such a large boss. Learn how the patterns are telegraphed, and then you can use Volaticus to wail on Eligor almost constantly. WARP TO NEXT BATTLE IS ON LEFT SIDE OF ROOM, FYI.
* Death: Nitesco/Nitesco Fidelis Medusa, Death Ring + Diamond Ring. I wasn't used to going that fast with this battle so I switched to the strategy I knew would work -- though sometimes sickles still somehow get between the medusa heads. If Death uses red spiraling attack, then switch out Death Ring for Ruby Ring, get hit, and use the opportunity to wail on him.
* Dracula: I haven't beaten him yet but I think I'm just going to try the approach of "use glyph unions, deal massive damage, refill hearts using items, repeat". Been trying to use sword glyph + Nitesco combo. Also, he really does not like it when you fly.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 13th November 2014 21:50

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins