"Sorry... The party's over."

That's what the game says when you lose the horse race against Masamune. I don't know how you can win the race because I'm really not sure about the route I'm supposed to take. And it seems near impossible against Kojuurou because he actively aims for the red boxes, which means less BASARA refilling for you unless you spend the time smacking around some enemies while racing. It's a lot harder than the SB1 version against Masamune alone since you can't knock him off the horse this time. The funniest thing about this race though? You can beat it without being on a horse. The guy for the job? YUKIMURA'S SPIN OF DOOM. He looks ridiculous on a horse in the first place... but so is the crazy spinning that's faster than a horse. What the hell guys.

Finished Ishida's Red and Blue routes. His Red route ending was a little... unnerving. He basically loses all purpose in life after killing Ieyasu. He starts crying a bit, but I couldn't tell if it was eyeliner coming off or if it was blood. His walk was also a bit strange, as if possessed. His Blue route is a bit better. Kills off Ieyasu and Masamune, but is still "sane." As for playing as him, haven't really mastered his flash step properties. His "DT" mode is a little hard to use as well. Funny enough, he's my highest level character, mostly because it's so easy to rack up kills with the guy. He can just slaughter everything... Quite befitting of someone filled with nothing but rage. Unfortunately for him, all I hear is a hot-blooded, very angry STAN. The country bumpkin from Tales of Destiny. Yeah. Moving on.

Did Magoichi's story too, but went with the Blue route first. I think she's the only one that branches on the first play since her group, the Saika Ikki, are mercenaries. Blue = team with Ishida. Red = team with Tokugawa. Oh, and she's freakin' awesome. I love using the machine gun! Switching between the different guns isn't too bad either. She can charge her magnum or shotgun, fill the enemy with machinegun fire just from holding the square button/Y. She's got a lot of options, mostly alterations to her S-string.


Holy crap, did Keiji get faster?! And I think I'm beginning to understand how to use his "Love Tactics" move. The timing's a little weird, and I can see the Kabuki influences in his moveset. Not to mention that you can cancel in and out of the move. I don't know if he's any good at chasing the enemy as he's the slowest of the SB2 mains. Although... I'm beginning to regret pitting him against Ishida for his first stage. It's a tough stage, but I love the stage music so I couldn't help it. The Winter Osaka campaign. Has a bunch of those mooks with really long spears, which are longer than Keiji's already ridiculous nodachi.




Hanzo: Fuuma's Blue path: Tsuruhime, Chosokabe, Ishida/Magoichi, Tokugawa.
Level up to find those basketheads for permanent stat boosts or an extra 10 000EXP. So far, only managed to kill them with using a BASARA attack...

Still need to unlock 3 more stages. One is Nobunaga's, and the other two are on specific character paths. 関ヶ原の戦い　謀略 and 金ヶ崎の退き口. KuroKan's Green or Keiji's Red. Honnoji route.

2 left
1 left
Done.

"Long time no see."

So I've been playing SenBasa3 through alternate means at the moment. Ordered the PS3 version since I've promised a friend to co-op with him and I've been waiting for the release for a while now. Just think of it as sampling. I'm still going to keep it around to play as Kojuurou though. I want my leek-using yakuza back, Capcom!

So the first character I used was Kuroda Kanbei, or affectionately known as KuroKan. Huge problem with this guy? He's slow. Combined with flooding the screen with about 50 mooks, the game slows to about 35~45fps, he gets a little hard to control. Still, even with the slowdown, he's a pretty fun character. Plus, he's quite the chew toy in the Basara universe. He'll never get free of his shackles! I still haven't gotten the rest of his special skills, so I can't really say what his potential is. But at least I unlocked the best grinding stage right off the bat! Oh, and holding Y/Square lets him spin round and round and round... until he gets dizzy enough to stop.

Next up is Masamune... because Kojuurou is an NPC. HOLY HELL HIS COMBO POTENTIAL. He can easily chain his skills into each other and you can now cancel War Dance without purposely getting hit! There was a vid with something about the ultimate Masamune set up... I know that it involves a bodyguard that gives an extra life, his joke weapon and something other things. Just got him to level 50, so he learned TESTAMENT. Wonder what that is...? Still a little annoyed that he doesn't have Phantom Dive anymore. He's pretty much got twice as many moves as everyone else because you can alter his normal skills based on 1-katana or 6-katana mode. Still want Kojuurou back.

Yukimura was up next, and he's gotten better...? It's either that, or I don't suck as much. He's got an interesting property, along with a few other units I think. He can dash right out of some moves. I don't know how to do it consistently yet, but maybe I'll figure it out when I get the PS3 copy. It's dash-cancelling, and Yuki's one of the easier characters to do it with. Holding Y/Square activates one of his old moves that involves a flaming punch or launching himself.

The next character I should probably play as is Kotaro since he unlocks Hanzo as a bodyguard. Great for hunting down basketheads as they give permanent stat boosts. Need to hunt down all 38 for each character. Hm. I'll do that for sure on the PS3 version since I'm sure that my friends aren't too keen on using "weak" characters. Plus, there's a trophy to be had.

Anyways, even with some technical difficulties, I'm quite enjoying it. Do I like it more than SB2:H? Not sure yet. I haven't touched 2:H in a very long time, but I still remember it being insanely fun with smacking things with a leek.

Oh, and this: ARE YOU READY GUYS?! (☄●∀´)☄

Last Ranker!

So I've been playing this for the past few days. It's not a hard JRPG to get into at all. It took a little bit, but I think I get the hang of using the Guard/Break combo. It's not really my style (I like to blitz my enemies), but some fights require the defensiveness of the Guard style while using the Break style to get decent damage in. I've also noticed that you shouldn't block everything and the SP recovery rate. The recovery gets faster the more you need to regain, but the rate resets when you perform any action. That includes guarding. By the looks of things, getting hit speeds it up slightly.

Most of the game overs I had were due to stupidity and not planning out when to use my buffs. Hagane Soul is a really dangerous skill. It lets you withstand attacks (not flinch) while the other Ranker counters you. Perfect against archers and explosives users. But the problem with the skill is that you can end up getting a little reckless with it. Sure, you're withstanding attacks, but you're still taking full damage. Watching your HP is probably a good idea when using the skill. Or at least combine it with Chakuling/regeneration so you won't die as quickly. It's not a constant regen effect, but a periodic gain.

Didn't really pay too much attention to the story... Mostly because the first half was practically barren of a story, then hits you like a ton of bricks at the second half. Didn't really like that kind of pacing since it's a little annoying dumping all of that info and having some pretty intense fights all around. The one thing I really enjoyed was punching out Bayger. That guy's so annoying...! Oh, and quite a few characters like to get touchy-feely with Zig. I wonder how he felt when he got a bunch of random hugs near the end of the game.

What I'm thinking of doing is recording my gameplay for a bit. Definitely going to grab those CG scenes because there aren't that many of them. I just want to get those funny scenes between Tylong and Zig. They're kinda cute, albeit a little embarrassing for Zig. I'm going to have to use my desktop for that since my laptop probably can't handle the load anymore and I don't feel like testing it on my netbook. It's already weak enough as it is.


Final note: Smiling Zig is beyond cute.

Yeah, enough with the notes.

A bit of a break from typing and summarizing notes. Been playing out my files, and I just finished the previous run out of pure frustration of forgetting to do a quest. I forgot to talk to the Duke between the Bases because I was a little preoccupied with gathering HP values for The Seven and Cyclops. Whoops. Wasn't too bad though, since I went ahead with killing The Fallen and trouncing almost everything in The Ancient Ruins. The Demigod would have killed the team without trouble, even with the help of an Assassin and 2 Cachexia unions. Didn't even try the Observer because I wasn't sure about how to rearrange my teams to deal with rotating them for my usual strategy. And to hell with fighting it in the Mystic Seal formation. While I do want to replicate that hellish encounter (it was fun, OK!), wasn't feeling too confident in my team.


Anyways, this time... FOR THE GLORY OF ATHLUM!

Yep. It's Athlum only. The team breakdown isn't exactly pretty, and starting on Hard Mode was probably one of the worst ideas I've had in a while. Just barely got through the beginning. Having only McGrady, Thelma and Oakes isn't what you would consider a decent strike team. Getting them started to go Combat to increase their damage output, because quite frankly? They're going to need it. Plus, the extra ATK on the Parrying/Shielding variety of weapons will help with their damage when using the WAs.

Anyways, the team.
Union of the Golden Chalice

Unit	Weapon	Skill
McGrady	Glaive	Remedies
Thelma	Tataraichi/Soulshield	Evocations
Oakes	Bladebreaker	Herbs
Marty	Bluesteel/Towershield	Combat Arts
Permia	Scythe/Targe	Combat Arts
Ripley	Javelin	Potions
Jodo	Tataraichi	Potions
Vega	Tataraichi	Remedies
Perneth	Tataraichi	Hexes
Hematea	Glaive	Invocations/Hexes
Liza	Bluesteel	Combat Arts
Demi	Scythe	Combat Arts
Aquarius	Tataraichi	Psionics/Wards

Ring of the Labyrinth

Unit	Weapon	Skill
Leonard	Demonblade	Combat Arts
Opus	Broadaxe/Soulshield	Invocations
Nielson	Tataraichi	Traps
Sycune	Blackjack	Combat Arts
Hyenn	Imperator's Axe/Buckler|Targe	Combat Arts
Swift	Quarterstaff	Evocations

No one in Athlum knows Lotions, so that means that I have to rely on Bards to deal with Status Effects. They're the only ones with Debuff Duration, and it only goes to [Debuff Duration] -4. Hopefully that will be enough to get rid of Curse since that ailment lasts 5 turns IIRC. The other option is to craft the Idol Amulet for someone to take, which gives [Debuff Duration] -5. The only problem with that is that it'll lock out other accessory requests since it's such a high level item (Rank 140). It's better off given to a mage, but most of the ones on the team are already combat-focused.

Went through Blackdale with some trouble. The only way they would have survived is if the David's and Torgal's unions were alive at the end of the first 3 turns and flanked a lot. If they die, it'll get extremely messy since it's not very likely that the union can revive yet (requires lv.3 Herbs, 70EXP needed, ~20 uses). The union practically fell apart, but made it out in the end. Lost track of how many times I had to restart. Was much easier on Normal. Did it on my first try.

Ran to Elysion after. No problems in the Catacombs after recruiting Perneth. And you needed to do was step foot into the area, get the Metal Black/Shadow Metal, run back to Athlum's guild, and recruit. Vega required the killing of 12 Quien, which was done after entering Numor Mines. Speaking of which, the power difference from Namul Niram was huge. Assault Energy Lv.5 and Shine Missile could nearly kill Emma on Hard, while it barely made much of a scratch on Normal. Not even Heavensflight did more than 300 on a crit. The only way she would survive any of that would be to have better equips and Rush constantly healing. If he were in the Healer class before the fight, then it would be much easier to get the "Recover your health!" command. It was also pretty much required to have Emma faster than Rush, both in formation and base stats to keep Rush out of deadlock. If he engages them, he's as good as an Overkilled corpse.

Then it's off to the Ramparts, then to Nagapur. Already did the meeting, so it's off to grind my team of 11. I already have all the healers, but only one reviver at the moment. It won't be until midway through the 2nd part that I will be able to use Divine Echo reliably. I think for end-game, I might need to rely on Speed Boost formations to get my mages to move faster. I currently have no idea how they're going to survive the Nest of Eagles. I need to keep Oakes alive for reviving (will probably go into the Belt or Unicorn formations), but I also don't have enough units to pull off Blackout. Will have to go about this the hard way then.


So... Why am I doing this? Because Grand laid out a challenge for me: Defeat Validus at BR7 with exactly one union. I just added to it by going to Hard Mode and Athlum only. I would have an easier time if I just went ahead with using Uniques, but it still would have been similar to what the X360 guys would do. At that point, they have access to 6 leaders. So they would deploy 5 (or less than 5 with heavy hitting soldiers like Pizza Paddle Parker). I think it would have been something like Rush/Emmy/Glenys/Caedmon/Baulson. So I decided to take it up. Should be fun. To add another layer of fun, I'm not crafting anything for them to take. Again, it's to mimic X360 progression. Wouldn't be fair if I gave them their Glaives and Tataraichis right off the bat, now would it? Actually, come to think of it, it's probably damn near impossible on Hard unless I give them end-game equips... An attack already does 1600 damage, while the breath attack outright kills the union if it hits everyone. I'll still continue my Athlum only challenge on Hard anyways.


By the way. Jhana Royals? They pulled out Blackout Lv.5 during the first wave. IT HURT. Holy hell that was scary. Then they died at the armor.


EDIT: Oh my. Japan still wants The Last Remnant on the PS3. Rank 14...