Topic: Gaming Progress Thread

[Lenophis]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS)

I've been playing this like I'm on a mission, and I'm getting progressively better. My current best time is 38:19, and my previous best time was 39:38. I'm definitely getting better, but I fear I'm near the limit of what the PS can do. I can do sub-38 minutes, but it needs to be flawless.

[Lenophis]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS)

I've not only surpassed sub-38 minutes, but I'm almost to sub-35 minutes. My shield dashing is still hit and miss, but overall I'm pretty fast at the game now. I've even tried a non-Richter skip run thanks to a route suggested by romscout (who did this and this).

Final Fantasy (PS)

Team Pandora lives again! I'm attempting a new speedrun of this game, but on easy difficulty and without memosave. I'm currently saved at the earth cave, trying desparately to get a good Lich segment. So far, I haven't even made it to him yet, but one of these days I'll either get a good segment, or I'll accept a lesser-segment. One way or another, this foo-head is going down.



MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, TAKE THAT, LICH!

[xlom3000]

Nice SotN time. My current fastest is still around 48minutes. I'm still in the top 5 or so on the xbox leaderboards.

[Lenophis]

Final Fantasy (PS)
I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE the Ice Cave.

[Lenophis]

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)

I decided to not care about my hard difficulty play, and started over on normal. I destructored that g'fooker Quadraxis, and it felt great. Final time was 7:18, as well. New personal best!

I've been working on some potential sequence break stuff, and now I'm pretty sure I can get the Screw Attack without the Spider Ball. However, I still can't get to a power bomb without the Spider Ball* so I have to make a backtrack yet. On this playthrough, I at least managed to fight Chykka without the Grapple Beam, so I'm getting better at sequence breaking. I still pretty much suck though.

*: There's a power bomb in Transit Station which I can get to, but I can't get out because I can't get the bomb space jump to work there. I've tried various methods of bouncing off the walls with the screw attack, but so far only the spider ball can get me out. There's a power bomb at the entrance to Sanctuary, but without the spider ball I cannot get there.



3:07 is now my best time. My previous best was 3:08, but a better Emperor Ing and Dark Samus fight would give me 3:07. My time at the final save point is 3:01. Collection rate is 36%, also a new personal best. This particular run also produced an interesting side-effect. See this, this, this, and this. The four images are over a megabyte combined, so they won't get embedded.

No, I did not skip the dark suit, I'm not that crazy. I did manage to do a bit more sequence breaking though. I broke the Grapple/Booster/Seekers line, which is about the extent of what I can do so far. Oh well.

[Lenophis]

Final Fantasy (Origins) (PS)

Now that I HAS HD SPACE, I decided to resume my speedrun of this game. When I left off, I was stuck at the Hell Cave, errrr, Ice Cave. I have another blooper of that, too, and I'll upload it as I get the time (21 megs sucks to upload now).

Anyway, fast-forward to now, which is right outside the final dungeon. My time thus-far is 2:24. This means if my time inside the final dungeon is under 26 minutes, I'll break sub-3 hours, which will make me very happy. I know, that doesn't add up, but the ending credits runs almost exactly 10 minutes, and that is timed. Don't blame me, blame Origins.

In any event, the final dungeon is sure to test my patience, but I'll eventually get it done.

[Entroper]

What do you think of MP2 overall, Leno?  It's kind of the black sheep of the series.  I couldn't get into it the first time I played it, but the second time I got far enough that it became interesting, and I think it keeps getting better and better as you go deeper and deeper into the game.  Definitely the creepiest of the three.

I recently finished FF II (IV) on Virtual Console, after playing The After Years through to the beginning of the final chapter.  I didn't do the challenge dungeons at the end of all the character quests, so my party is terribly underleveled.  Still, I've managed to put down Baigan and the Magus Sisters, and levels are rising rapidly.

I think I'll be starting an FF1 run soon on GBA.

[Lenophis]

What do you think of MP2 overall, Leno?

It's definitely one of the harder games I've played. Hard enough to the point where the Boost Guardian and Quadraxis become completely unfair fights, and they are ones you will lose multiple times before you even get your foot in. That's just bad design.

Also, the Sky Temple keys are too well hidden. The hints should've been easier to get, cause you literally can explore for hours upon hours and not find anything. I caved in and used a walkthru for those...

[Entroper]

What do you think of MP2 overall, Leno?

It's definitely one of the harder games I've played. Hard enough to the point where the Boost Guardian and Quadraxis become completely unfair fights, and they are ones you will lose multiple times before you even get your foot in. That's just bad design.

Also, the Sky Temple keys are too well hidden. The hints should've been easier to get, cause you literally can explore for hours upon hours and not find anything. I caved in and used a walkthru for those...

Agreed, the Boost Guardian is one of the most unfair bosses out there.  Don't know what they were thinking putting him in the middle of the game.  I had to break out gamefaqs.com on multiple occasions, because you couldn't survive long enough to figure out a decent strategy against some of the bosses.

I've just gotten to Melmond in FF1: DoS.  This remake is like FF1 on crack, or maybe crystal meth is more accurate.  I love how cheap everything is, but boy do you ever level up quickly!  I remember now how much I wanted to make a version of FF1 that wasn't as unfair as the original NES cart (and with fewer bugs), but also not as much of a cakewalk as DoS.

I love that you can't get silver swords in Elfland, and that the were and rune swords are suddenly useful as a result.  I also enjoy having MP, but I think I have way too much.  Maybe that's just a side effect of leveling at warp speed.

I wish this version had ATB.  Seriously, they put everything else in, and they even use the enemies' speed or level to determine who goes first in battle.  Doesn't seem right.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Strange, the Boost Guardian or Quadraxis never gave me any real problems, even on hard mode.

[vivify93]

EarthBound (SNES}
Nothing much to say. I've just beaten the Titanic Ant and gone to Twoson.

Final Fantasy III (SNES)
I was playing this with my friend's little brother until her computer crashed. We got as far as the scenario split up. It's nice to just play a game and not follow a walkthrough or be concerned about translation differences.

Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
I was looking at mods for the PC version and decided I wanted to try it. I finally settled on the Remix patch, but I ran into some issues with it. When all was said and done, I still wanted to play FFVII, so I chose to play the PS1 game. Now all I need to do is keep telling myself that this is the superior version... At least my save was still on my memory card. I just finished the second mandatory Gold Saucer event, the one with the date. Now I'm headed to the Temple of the Ancients!

Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
I've so far put 106 hours into this. I'm amazing this game has kept my attention span for so long... I'm going to Giruvegan next, but before that I'm gonna take down some Marks. I'm really impressed with this FF so far. The characters are likable, the story is good, the graphics are pretty, and there's even a bit of exploration to be done. Needless to say, I'm impressed.

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
  What's this!? A current-gen console game, on this kid's list!? Yes, it's true! What I did was rent the game and take it over to my friend's house; her family owns a PS3, you see. I was impressed. Everything is just amazing, though of course it's not without its flaws. It's sort of odd how I first got into FFXIII, especially because I had no interest in it prior to realizing this. On the actual progress aspect, I was about to get into Palom Porom--er, I mean Palumpolum with Lightning and Hope.

Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals (DS)
"Wait," I hear a cry from the audience, "You just said you didn't own any new-gen consoles!" Ah, but a handheld isn't a console. See what I did there? Anyway, a friend of mine sent me a used DS and a copy of this wonderful game--for free! I know such wonderful people. This game is just...wow. Even if it was a budget remake, you can tell all those involved--except Square-Enix, but that's typical--put a lot of love and hard work into this game. I've beaten it once already, and I plan to beat it many more times in the future.

Lufia: The Legend Returns (GBC)
I beat this and finished my hack for it, too! I never beat the Ancient Cave, however, so I think I'll need to replay this in the future. Maybe after I've looked into flashcarts...?

Lufia: The Ruins of Lore (GBA)
The Pokemon-type aspect of this game is rather annoying, but it's interesting to see some of the larger changes Neverland made to Curse of the Sinistrals came from here--even if Neverland didn't make this side-story.

Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
I've almost beaten this! I'm at Hollow Bastion, and I've just beaten Riku. I was waiting to finish this with a friend, however, so I guess getting my copy of Final Fantasy X-2 back will wait until 2011.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PS1)
This game is vastly better than the first one. I'm about to go into the record store Giga Macho. Thinking about it, I'm sort of intrigued as to how the heck this ties into Joker's master plan to bring down Tatsuya, Lisa and Maya.

Revelations: Persona (PS1)
I got all the way to the final dungeon before I gave up. I don't care what the purists say, the battle music in this game is terrible. It gives me a headache and doesn't even have a melody to it. I'd like to play the PSP version--I believe the cool kids call it P1P?--but I don't have a PSP. I was undeterred, however, and decided to try the second game in the series.

Riviera: The Promised Land (GBA)
I completed Tetyth for the first time.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Tried this FF7 Hardcore mod. It sucked. First time, I died to a "robot" random encounter (new battery-like enemy, uses a skill that does ~150 damage to a single character) like three steps from the first save point. I tried again and had to run from every random encounter because they kept blinding both Cloud and Barret and I had no way of curing them. With a limited supply of potions, I'd only be able to kill the guard scorpion through luck, which is lame.

It's a shame, because the mod sounds really interesting. The OP there made me think it would be a fun mod where I got to use some of the neglected equipment and have the cool materia combinations I come up with actually mean something. Maybe it is and the opening is just completely unbalanced, but I'm not about to find out.

Here's a screenshot of the goddamn robot.

 

I felt like noting that this mod also exposes an amusing glitch with the bar-drawing code; the EXP and MP gauges fill slowly in large increments when their stats are too low.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I finished Deus Ex Human Revolution recently, and it's probably the best single player game I've played in years. In spite of all its flaws, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that came anywhere near it.

 

Forgot to mention, I started playing Mega Man X8 again recently. Hard to believe it's been eight years since this game out. I see now that this game was only good in comparison to X6 and X7; play control is horrible and the characters take up way too much screen space. I love that a non-Legends Mega Man game got a decent translation and voice acting, though, even if the dialogue is still pretty cheesy.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I suppose this doesn't really count, but I just started watching a LP of Haze, and I totally understand why Free Radical went under now. The concept behind the game is a good one, and making a PS3-exclusive Halo clone might've worked from a business perspective if they actually pulled it off, but this is just terrible. I honestly can't tell if this is supposed to be heavy-handed social commentary or a complete parody. FDR did humor well in the TimeSplitters games, particularly TS3, but here...I don't think it was at all intentional, and that's just sad. Also the graphics are incredibly ugly, muddy, and bare. They claimed this game would compete with Crysis visually.

[vivify93]

I restarted EarthBound with Tzepish's EarthBound Tweak mod. It's really good and the game had my interest 'til around Jeff joined Ness and Paula.

The kids and I never restarted FF"III".

I beat FFVII and it was pretty magnificent. I can totally understand how it revolutionized the genre.

FFXII is my favorite of the series, bar none. I clocked in at 226 hours. I'd like to try the Zodiac Job System version sometime.

I now own a PS3 and own FFXIII, which is amazing. I only wish that you could've fought Jihl and that the Fabula Nova Crystallis video was shown when you chose to start a new game. That and maybe the enemies dropped gil.

Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals is my favorite game of all time. I highly recommend it. It has new game +!

I gave up on Lufia: The Ruins of Lore around the time you went into the past. There was so much they could've done with that plot line and they didn't...

Kingdom Hearts was terrible.

I also got to beat the SEBEC route of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP, a handheld I now also own. It's a million times better than Revelations: Persona.

My computer crashed around the time I was about to finish Persona 2: Innocent Sin. We were in Caracol. I haven't restarted it on Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 - Innocent Sin for PSP because I'm waiting for news of Eternal Punishment's PSP port.

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I beat FFX, whose mini-games made me angry, FFX-2, which is my third favorite of the series, Wild Arms: 2nd Ignition, which could've been better but was still pretty good, and Makaitoushi SaGa for WSC, which I like more than The Final Fantasy Legend.

I also beat the main four games in the Phantasy Star series. The first Phantasy Star is okay, but the battle music sucks ass. Phantasy Star II is so, so epic. Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom is garbage. Phantasy Star: The end of the millennium is alright too, interesting gameplay. The English translation for Phantasy Star generation:1, PSI's remake, is out. I managed to figure out PS2 emulation and it works well enough for sprite-based games, so I was playing that. So far, I much prefer it to the Master System game. Did I ever mention I also finished the character adventure visual novels? I liked those. Those are how VNs should be. I tried to play Gaiden and failed, and Adventure was a snoozefest.

Speaking of VNs, I also tried to play the When They Cry / Higurashi no Naku Koroni sound novel, but I gave up. The anime was better because the VNs have so much useless padding.

I beat Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story and tried to do another playthrough of it, but I stopped. I did manage to finish the fan game Sailor Moon: Another Story II, though. I'll be reviewing the script eventually. Speaking of Sailor Moon video games, Destiny Revival's Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon came out, which is a great remake of their original fan-made beat-'em-up Sailor Moon Plus. They say they're still making more. PGSM was a fantastic Sailor Moon game, in my opinion.

I started Secret of Mana with the kids, but like I said, I don't hang out with them now that they're getting into that "teen phase." I had deleted it, but restarted it once I decided to release my patch to the public.

I beat Tales of Phantasia GBA again and made a patch based on Kajitani-Eizan's "TOPEUKE", but I won't release it without his okay. I sent him an email and don't know how else to contact him.

I've also cleared the Parasite Eve series, the first two games twice. I own PEI. PEII could've been better. I don't know if I'll ever do any of its "new game +" type things since I was never good at challenges. The 3rd Birthday is a lot better than PEII, and it's a lot more awesome than most claim.

I really, really enjoyed Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. It is such a fun game. It's definitely better than the rest of the series, and I'm only sorry that I never had the chance to play it before 2011.

Catherine is definitely on my top 20 games list, but mostly for sentimentality.

I cleared Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. I won't be playing Dragon Song. I liked these games enough to want to buy them.

Tales of Destiny was also beaten, and I liked it but thought the second half of the story fell flat.

Around the time The Complete Collection came out, my dad bought me FFIV DS so I could protest. It's probably the definitive version of FFIV, and I love the voice acting. I had to restart because I forgot the Darkness augment though, but I'm past that part again. I like how they included the Darkness augment, because it reminds me of how that command was taken out of FFII US and it seems to me like they're making up for it with this particular feature.

I finally beat Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. As much as I disliked it, I want to replay it sometime...

For the first time, I finished FFV legitimately. I used Jeff Ludwig's Custom Classes mod, which was super fun. I recommend it to everyone who plays FFV Advance.

Chrono Trigger for DS is really fun. I like the monster arena. I tried to do a low level game but it failed come time to do the endgame side quests.

I'm in the middle of playing Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Tales of Eternia, Wild Arms: Advanced 3rd, Tales of Symphonia, Vagrant Story, Riviera: The Promised Land, Tales of Phantasia PS1, Dissidia 012[duodecim] Final Fantasy, The Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy Legend II, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Star Ocean: First Departure, Dragon Warrior VII, CIMA: The Enemy, Lufia & the Fortress of Doom, Lufia: The Legend Returns, Tales of Innocence, Final Fantasy VI Advance, Lunar: The Silver Star (Whose opening song is BADASS I may add), The Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Trigger DS, Final Fantasy IV DS, and I've just barely started Legend of Legaia.

My top five games for now:
1. Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals
2. Final Fantasy XII
3. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
4. Parasite Eve
5. Tales of Phantasia

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I think that's my abridged gaming history for the past two years. Right now I'm mostly focusing on beta testing my FFIV project.