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#178

Unfortunately, the Egg Dragon turned out to be basically just another Dragon Enemy pallet swap. He’s not all that hard if you can get past its huge numbers (with the Iris’ Sword and a bunch of tier 4 Mystic Stones, I was able to inflict reasonable amounts of damage with charged magic at level 2).

The 7th Dragon Egg can either be a royal pain in the ass to get (since you have to replay the unskippable cutscenes and entire boss rush up to that point to get another shot at it), or ridiculously easy to get if you’re not adverse to cheezing it (just take someone who has access to the No Fall Damage trait and let invincibility frames do the rest of the work). The 8th one is probably more challenging since Daos does not like to stand in one place unless he’s pummeling you or dropping meteors from above. He’ll also start countering your Za Waudo powers with his own which makes scoring hits later one even more difficult.

As for the NG+ ending. Its largely the same right up until [SPOILER]Maxim and Selan are about to take out Doom Island’s last Energy Core when first run Erim shows up out of nowhere and challenges Maxim to one last boss fight where Dual Blade changes form and you actually fight Erim proper. Once you beat her she reveals that now that you’ve beaten her Maxim’s power levels are [STRIKE]over 9000[/STRIKE] strong enough to smash the fortress’s core without him and Selan dying in the process and they get warped out while Iris/Erim dies instead (at least until Lufia 1 where she comes back along with the rest of the Sinstrals). You get the same ending sequence except its Iris’ energy/spirit/ghost/thingy floating around overhearing everyone who are talking about having a party to celebrate Maxim and Selan saving the day instead of mourning them/promising to protect the land they sacrificed themselves for with the scene with Jeros concluding with his parents walking in and finally settling down as a family. Then after the credits you have Arek conversing with Dual Blade again about the role of gods and yadda yadda.

Or in short, its Erim/Iris who dies at the end instead of Maxim and Selan.[/SPOILER]

(EDIT by Skankin’ Garbage: No spoiler tags? Just cos the game is old doesn’t mean it’s not a spoiler.)

(Double Edit: Welp. Looks like I don’t need to edit that spoiler tag in myself then. In my defense though, I’m only essentially spoiling the first 10 minutes of Lufia 1. :V)

#179

My gaming has been on hold for a bit. Been finalizing my second novel entitled “Legacy of Vullah” which is set to be released sometime this weekend on Amazon (with any luck).

But now that the hard work is over, I can take the summer off and go back to some gaming. My wife is getting Splatoon so I imagine she’ll be using the TV for a while, unless I can get in there as well. Other than that, thinking about playing Simon’s Quest again.

#180

Finally got myself the Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Gaming Edition and signed up for the Witcher 3 yesterday. For now… I’m powering on in Witcher 1 and loving it. :slight_smile:

#181

Hmmmmmmm…I think I like this explanation better.

#182

I’m pretty much waiting for the new Batman game (Arkham Knight) to come out. I’m a big Batman fan and can’t wait to be breaking the arms/legs of thugs for having the audacity to jaywalk.

'til then… I’m just working on this shrine, playing some emulators (Xenogears, recently).

#183

Im still debating Xbone or PS4… But until I decide I don’t think ill be playing anything besides Destiny.

#184

Started playing FF5 again, GBA version. Felt like it, since the Fiesta is coming up soon.

I might just try it this year for kicks, it’d be challenging.

#185

Been playing Pokemon Alpha Sapphire because I got it on sale and oh god, why did I get another Pokemon game? Why!?

Currently about to reach Mawville.

#186

Splatoon has been a blast so far, unique and colorful game mechanics combined with surprisingly good netcode considering the source. Even worked when tethered to a mobile connection, surprisingly.

In other news, Monster Hunter 4U, Killing Floor 2 and Pokemon AlphaSapphire in small doses.

#187

My wife loves Splatoon. The ranked battles seem to D/C her a lot for some reason, but she loves the game. Had me get her the amiibos for it as soon as it came out.

I haven’t played it yet outside the global test run.

#188

Witcher 3 is very good so far if you don’t hate the A in ARPG.

#189

Now that E3’s over, I can get back to playing through Alpha Sapphire. Currently starting out on the Eastern half of the region, scoring Mega Evolution functionality and Latias in the process.

#190

I don’t get that much time for games sadly. I was briefly enjoying Omega Ruby. Still am not even close to being done the story though. Prior to that was Bravely Default… same boat. I beat Pokemon X at least.

Last month I did a technical difficulty (read, FAIL) prone let’s play of the first chapter of Settlers 7. I plan to EVENTUALLY start doing those again but I have little time with the kids running around. I also plan to hand out a game key for it on my final episode of it. Here.

Other than that, my wife had a pretty successful Youtube channel before it got shut down in February 2014 by some fraudulent “offensive” reports. It featured a lot of animated music videos of the Heroes of Might and Magic series. So I have been at work more or less recreating them on my own channel. So I mostly have been playing Heroes of Might and Magic games lately.

I try to upload at least 1 game related video per day (typically these days 1 Heroes related animatic and a trailer for a random retro game). I also have a few sketches I have not uploaded yet because I only really get about an hour to myself at most per day and it takes much longer than that to edit a decent video… (I don’t got many descent videos :stuck_out_tongue: )

I also throw on random (mostly educational and/or propaganda) videos I find interesting that are related to special days on the calendar.

Assuming my channel gets popular enough I will start doing much more giveaways including my childhood toys (He-Man, Ninja Turtles, Battle Beasts, G.I. Joes, Thundercats, etc).

If you’re curious, here’s my channel.

#191

Shovel Knight.

I’m very impressed; for some reason, I really hate games that appear to ride the nostalgia wave, but I play them anyways. For once, though, I really am enjoying a game that’s a deliberate throwback.

#192

What version you playing? I ask as depending of the response, you get slightly different special stages.

For example, the XB1 has a Battletoads stage. PSVita gets Kratos, I don’t remember what specific things in other platforms.

#193

Shovel Knight is so awesome. It has an old school feel but it plays flawlessly. I strongly believe it should have just been outright GOTY last year.

I have the Wii U version, which lets you hot-swap your sub-weapons via the touch screen without having to open the menu. The 3DS version I believe has some sort of arena type game for online play.

#194

I played the PC version.

I did enjoy the game, even though it left a bad taste in my mouth at the end - there were a lot of obstacles or enemy placements where if you didn’t already know it was coming, you had a decent chance of being killed instantly. I also feel like this is a kind of lame product of platformer games that happen when you get rid of lives. “Ehh doesn’t matter if this part is instant-kill on the first time if they weren’t psychic - they’ll just restart at the checkpoint.”

Besides that, I loved the game though. It’s just easy for me to remember the bad parts cos they were at the very end.

#195

the unlimited lives thing is the only thing I didn’t care about the game. however, there were many NES games that gave you unlimited continues, so it acted as though you had unlimited lives anyway (Ghosts n’ Goblins and Ninja Gaiden come to mind, so in essence what Shovel Knight did was just skip a Game Over screen, but still penalized you for dying by taking 1/3 of your gold).

there is always ways to challenge yourself in the game. New Game+ is quite the challenge even though you start with everything you ended the previous game with. Getting all of the achievements is also a fun task to do that seems to be commonplace with all games these days.

towards the end, the game does take us back to the NES Bullshit days with the obstacles/enemy placement problems. but, looking back on the games I played as a kid, it wasn’t any different back then and I loved it then. it made me feel special when I finally figured out the pattern to progress just a bit further into the game. As far as the checkpoints, I love the fact that you can up the challenge yourself by destroying the checkpoints for gold. This is a common speedrun strategy for the New Game category, seeing as how important gold is.

#196

The checkpoints themselves aren’t necessarily the issue, though. Like, if you have unlimited lives, the levels are trivialized. Like, you don’t really need to be good enough at the entire level to beat it in, say, three lives or however-many. You just need to be good/lucky enough to get past a section of the level one time. I think it really defeats the purpose of levels in the first place, which ought to be a challenge to get from the beginning to the end within only a certain amount of fatal errors.

Granted, I don’t think this serves every platformer well. Like, Rayman Legends starts you almost immediately where you died, and that works for Rayman Legends, because the game is more about experiencing the wonder of the game than it is about being challenged. Honestly, I think Mario games would benefit from this as well, and I wish they would jump on the train already. On the flipside, games that intend to be challenging, like Mega Man games…checkpoints seem kind of pointless and almost insulting.

#197

I played it right when it came out around this time last year. Even though the last handful of stages were somewhat frustrating, I enjoyed the frustration for once. Especially damned Propeller Knight (I had missed the relic in the stage).

Yacht Club Game is CONTINUING to build on the game, though. They’re about to release Plague and King Knight’s playthrough soon, and not stopping there either. Also, virt’s listening party for the soundtrack was crazy huge.