Next playthrough.

Whee. Finished TLR! In about a week. The ONE thing I wanted to see were Bow techs. Seriously, I wanted Bow techs after playing Romancing SaGa. And maybe even flashier Arcanas. Oh, and the lack of Overdrive for the player's side made me a little sad. Now, to play through it again, not missing any side-quests (like I stupidly did the first time around because of the Base fights), using only generics (for fun) and trying to turn Rush into a Ninja (exclusive to the PC!). The 3rd time through would probably be a low BR run with uniques, and again, not missing side-quests. The 4th, and probably final, run will be on Hard Mode, getting all side-quests and generally disregarding the BR unless necessary. Hopefully. Oh, and changing the voices every now and then. Both casts are pretty good, so I don't mind either one.

Someone also needs to smack Rush on the head REALLY HARD. His slang is embarrassingly out of date by at least 20 years (... he's only "18"). Or at least he should stop talking to people while miming their speech patterns (see Khrynia's quest chain). And people seem to drop dead around David. First his mom, then his dad (from the Gae Bolg no less), a girl that he met at Fornstrand, Emma (mother-figure), who knows how many civilians and soldiers, and Rush (unless he's really not dead). Not to mention how much pressure he felt when he became Marquis at his age (19 at game start). It's kinda funny how he isn't completely/outwardly suicidal or depressed by the end of the game.

The game also falls into a lot of Wild Mass Guessing. So... the Conqueror is the Warden and Rush is the Activator? What's that supposed to mean? AND WHY ISN'T THERE AN ULTIMANIA TO EXPLAIN IT?! Maybe that official guide can help out... but only the Japanese one. 990 pages > 200~300 pages from here, so it's bound to contain more info, and it's sanctioned by Square-Enix... And if all the Remnants were activated, then they would go OM-NOM-NOM on everyone on the planet. Huh. That sounds... ew. And the page is pretty much on the spot about Rush's behaviour towards Irina. It's practically psychotic, kinda like Nero and Kyrie (only not quite as bad...). At least Irina can hold her own on the field, whether she has a polearm or the Nightbloom equipped.

Rush is... pretty dumb.

Holy crap I actually hit a wall in TLR. BR 40 and the command "Don't be afraid to die!" keeps popping up. I guess that's what I get for trying to keep my BR from going up too quickly. Probably should've stayed on that quest longer to grind out more stats. Well, got through it eventually. Hinnah and Hannah were the biggest stumbling blocks because of the fact it was a dual boss with them using Twin Snowpetal every few turns. It hurts, and freezes some of my units. Oh, and about 3000 damage per union per use. Surprisingly, it missed an entire union on one attempt. Switching in Emmy as Union Leader instead of David helped a bit. All the other ones weren't as bad...

Anyways, moved on. And screwed up while I was at it. Missed Duke Ghor's little quest so little Rush doesn't get to learn Traps. They don't seem that useful in the first place... Only the Land Mine does any sort of damage, and it could take a while before he can learn that. At least, until New Game++. Still learning the mechanics of the game, so it'll take a while anyways.

So... There's also a character that's a little on the kooky side. Wyngale. He's uh... quite the blood knight. Just check out his quotes and the quest "The Fallen." Not to mention his Union name? "Wyngale and Buddies." Uh... yeah. Only recruited him because he can use EVERY Arcana available in the game. He seems to be a little more broken than his 360 counterpart, but it's balanced out because everything in the PC version being stronger. He also lost 2 wield styles, which is a moot point when he has all those mystic arts to choose from. Just need to steer his equipment in the right direction (mystic focus) to get his effectiveness even higher when he's the union leader. But yeah, the unique leaders are pretty interesting.

SO. I'm going to try to finish the game as quickly as possible right now because I'm just running through it. The 3rd playthrough and beyond are probably going to be either Hard mode or low BR runs for fun. I know that I was doing that with RS.

RasuRemu!

So uh... It took pretty much the entire break and then some to get the thing assembled and running. In my main blog I also expressed my rather tame annoyance at how I had no sound. Not going to go into detail here, but it took some fiddling around before I got the right drivers I needed to get it working. As it turns out... I CAN HAVE 8-CHANNEL SOUND! THAT'S SO AWESOME *CONTINUES TO GUSH* *ahem* Problem is... I can't afford something like that, and neither do I have the room or patience to deal with the cables. I may need to look into a cooling system, or you know, close up the system already to ensure better airflow. Now to figure out what happened to DMC4's sound. Something up with the drivers I have, or are the configurations in-game a little botched?

Also, what's up with Athlum's barkeep?! Yeesh... Jealous of Rush and David's interactions? Although... I found it kinda funny (and cute) that David gave Rush a flower. Specifically, Irina's favourite. Well, I'm nearing the half-way point. Already got Emmy on the team, made 3 unions (still keep losing one or two in major fights), finishing up some side-quests before they close up. At least it's not as strict as Romancing SaGa's Event Rank system... where every fight you get into advances the story timeline. You just need to get them done before a specific story point! ... That's all I'll type for now. The fact that I've made it to that point in under a week with tons of item grinding and that little quest exploit?

Strawberry, melon, lemon, grape. Finally, Rodin answers the question about Bayo's lollipops. Well, I knew that the red ones were strawberry because Luka mentioned it to Cereza. Yellow is usually lemon (except for the odd time when it's BANANA) and purple is grape. The green could have been several different ones; melon/honeydew, lime, green apple. Yay, it's all cleared up now! Except for the story. Will probably have to play a few more times before fully getting it. And "The Gates of Hell" officially closed shop. Because of that, the downloads have been made available regardless of the number of points you have. Nabbed the screensaver and put it on the new computer. Not that it would matter since I put the system on Stand By or shut it down if I'm not using it.

Still going at Bayo

Alright, I have a bit of a "break" coming up so I'll try to get one or two more LP posts up on Sunday. HOWEVER... I'm thinking about restarting it because I'll be getting my new computer hopefully soon (within the next 2 weeks) so I don't have to contend with the crappy 320x240 resolution while editing. Still, I don't have anything that could help with recording stuff from the PS3. In fact, I'm afraid of blowing a fuse at this point. No idea how much power running both the PS3 and PC (graphics card and all) would eat up. Anyways...

Next up, getting through normal mode in under 3 hours to unlock an accessory. It's actually somewhat conflicting too. I want to get the time under 3 hours, but I also want to Platinum everything. Maybe I'll Platinum normal while speed-running through Hard? Sure, it's suicide, but it's for the Bangle of Time. I can skip the Alfheim gates since I'm not too concerned about ranking at this point in time and I'm completing them on Normal for the Platinums. I can deal with that at a later date, or just deal with it on Non-Stop Climax mode.

Also, holy crap I want to play Uncharted 2 just to look at the sparklies. No, I don't care that I happen to suck very badly at those types of games, I just want to explore what they've created in-game. And laugh at Nate's silly dialogue because it's actually kinda funny in and out of context. Much better than the narm usually present in the games I play since they're translated from Japanese. ... But I actually like some of the narm too. Hm.

I haven't even scratched the surface yet...

I'm going to have to try it out... Holding either L1 or L2 during a cutscene. Wonder what that does? Well, I tried it but I don't know exactly which cutscenes it affects. But at least I found all the pieces for the ice skates, Odette! Makes moving around so much easier~ OK, the controls do end up a little slippery for kicks, but oh well.

Well, I finished the game. Just farming around for materials to create more items for the higher difficulties. It's more of a "just in case" measure for the time being. Didn't finish on Normal because of those golden Glory and Grace angels. So... I just switched over to Easy Auto to blast right through it so I can take on the various chapters at my own pace. There are a lot more asshole-ish type enemies in this game than I thought. Kinship, Grace&Glory, Glorious&Gracious, and several others. The very last fight was kinda funny. It involves going into space... Much like the first part against Mundus. Sooooo.... It was a technicolour battlefield from out of nowhere! Not that I mind though.

It also seems that there are other weapons to discover. I still don't have the rocket launcher tonfas, the whip, GUN NUNCHUNKS, light saber, Ebony&Ivory, laser guns, and maybe something else I'm missing. Uh... yeah. Should really get moving on unlocking them and the costumes. Want to run around in a kimono~ ... Wonder what else is there to unlock.

Also, let the fan idiocy begin. Already comparing who would be better in a fight: Dante or Bayonetta. Thing is, if we don't go by the game mechanics binding them (for game balance issues, obviously), then it would probably be an even fight. But why would they want to kill/fight each other in the first place? Personally, I think that Dante could take the fight. Sure, Bayo's pretty strong herself, but she also lacks instantly healing from near-fatal attacks and gaining some amping from a transformed state. Chances are, she can't survive being skewered as many times as Dante while just shrugging it off like an annoyance. Oh, and he survived a headshot, at close range, by a handgun? Both have time-related abilities (Witch Time and Quicksilver/Time Bangle), which makes slowing down or freezing time a moot point. The 2 guns vs. 4 guns argument doesn't work that well considering how quickly both can fire their respective firearms. Although... I believe Kamiya said that Bayo would win, but that's probably because he doesn't want to say anything bad about his newest game. Or because he's not sure about how powerful Dante is now. Afterall, he doesn't change his appearance according to the Devil Arm he has equipped anymore. So... who knows. DMC1!Dante does have the possibility of losing though. Then again, it seems like the comparisons might have died down a bit now. They're going to start right back up in January, I bet.


On another note: 3D DOT GAME HEROES IS OUT IN JAPAN AND THEY HAVE A TEMPLATE SHARING THING! Well, more like you can share the Character Edit data. Looks like its region-locked, considering that the it's based off the save data and carrying the BLJM code. Come on already! Tell us who has it for the North American release! And I can already imagine players screaming "RICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!" because of the Metal Wolf Chaos reference.

What? THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN BE CREATED FOR THE GAME BECAUSE HE'S THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. OK, that made no sense whatsoever, but that game not being localized also doesn't make much sense. Too bad you can't just blow stuff up in a spectacular fashion just for the hell of it in 3DDGH. And some people got their mitts on a certain disc that contains limited edition character files, one named "green hat." Wonder who that could be...