Ultimate Paradise

Well, since everyone else is doing it, I figured I might make a blog of sorts. As I live a rather uninteresting life, I figured I’d do a blog about my progress in the game I’m playing the most at the moment: Dissidia Final Fantasy. However, I may expand it to cover other games in the future. I hope you enjoy reading this topic for however long it lasts.

First entry: Friday 4th September - Saturday 12th September
Well, it’s been just over a week since Dissidia was released, and therefore since I got my copy, and I’m greatly enjoying it so far. Since I want to start posting current events as soon as possible, this first entry will just be a sort of catch-up.

The first thing I did, after the required PSP update, was to use the Data Install function to speed up loading times. I chose the middle amount (373MB) and waited for it to finish. This has actually made a very noticeable difference, especially when compared to my other PSP games. I now only have to wait a few seconds on the loading screen, rather than over a minute.
After the tutorial, I had to decide what order I was going to do the Destiny Odysseys in, since I’m a bit OCD like that. This didn’t take long as I had already come across an order that I was told made the best chronological sense. This order is as follows, along with the difficulty ratings:

1. DOVII (Cloud – 1/5)
2. DOIV (Cecil – 1/5)
3. DOX (Tidus – 2/5)
4. DOII (Firion – 2/5)
5. DOVII (Squall – 3/5)
6. DOIX (Zidane – 3/5)
7. DOV (Bartz – 4/5)
8. DOIII (Onion Knight – 4/5)
9. DOVI (Terra – 5/5)
10. DOI (Warrior of Light – 5/5)


Destiny Odyssey VII – Fate (4th – 6th September)
So after going through the Prologue, I started on Destiny Odyssey VII, Cloud’s story. For the most part it wasn’t too bad, and I agree that it’s a good one to start with if you’re a total beginner like I am. I encountered my first boss fight on stage 3, against Firion. It was a fairly easy battle, but still a step up from the regular enemies.
The only problems I had in this story, apart from the final boss (I’ll come to him later), were against the “Phantasmal Girl” enemies, which are copies of the character Terra. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except they both spammed Terra’s Meltdown attack, which hurts. Especially when they’re firing them off in rapid succession, giving me barely any time to recover. The second Phantasmal Girl (on stage 5) was worse, because not only was she a higher level than the previous one, but she also dodged very easily, which is bad news when you’re using Cloud. Still, with a little luck, I eventually managed to beat both of them. They only had 1HP each, so it was just a matter of actually being able to land a single HP attack.
The final boss of Cloud’s story, Sephiroth, was another matter entirely. I’d fought copies of him (called “Imaginary Champions”) in the earlier stages of Cloud’s story, but those fights just lulled me into a false sense of security. All of those fights took place on pretty open stages with a lot of room to move in, unlike Planet’s Core, which just consists of lots of platforms that were all small enough for Sephiroth to be able to hit me with melee attacks but still stay out of my range. It also didn’t help that I was very poor at blocking and dodging at this point, so after being massacred a couple of times, I decided to quit.
I decided to buy Sephiroth from the PP Catalogue so I could fight some practice matches against him at a lower level, but these matches were just as bad. They might have actually been a little worse, due to him now being able to use my newly acquired Magic Pot summon. Whenever I got a decent amount of BP, the summon would activate and he’d immediately gain a equal amount of BP, effectively cancelling out any advantage I might have had.
Still, I levelled up some more, got a bit better at dodging/blocking (and stopped trying to block HP attacks… >_<), gave Cloud some better equipment, and eventually, on my first attempt the following Sunday (6th September), I managed to beat Sephiroth and finish Cloud’s story. Next up: Cecil’s story.

Destiny Odyssey IV – Moonlit Knights (sometime between the 6th and 10th of September)
Overall, like Cloud’s, Cecil’s story wasn’t too bad. Although Cecil himself took a little getting used to after Cloud’s very straightforward play style. The first couple of stages passed without incident, except that the Phantasmal Girl I came across in stage 2 was a much more sensible fight than the ones in Cloud’s story. At the end of stage 3, I came across Cecil’s first boss: Exdeath. I was nervous about this fight, mostly due to my bad history with its stage, Planet’s Core. But it was actually surprisingly easy.
As in Cloud’s story, my biggest problem with Cecil’s story came with the final boss, Golbez. He was just as bad as Sepiroth, if not a little worse. I was completely new to his unusually attack style, plus he had a nasty Ifrit summon which boosted his already high BP to 150%. Basically, constant hard-to-avoid attacks + Ifrit = total ****. As with Sephiroth, I was forced to retreat in order to level up some more.
I bought Golbez from the PP catalogue for practice. I also practiced quite a lot against Warrior of Light, for a more “normal” battle experience. I levelled up quite a lot and got a bit better at avoiding Golbez’s attacks, though I was still far from perfect. I also learned to stay well away from him if he ever got into EX Mode until it wore off. Finally, probably more out of luck than anything, I was able to beat him and finish Cecil’s story. Next up: Tidus’s story.

Character Impressions 1: Cloud and Cecil
So here’s how it’s going to go: after every two Destiny Odysseys I beat, I’ll do another section containing my thoughts and opinions of the two characters whose stories I’ve just beaten. So first I’ll do Cloud & Cecil, then Tidus & Firion, and so on.

Cloud
Cloud was pretty straightforward to play as, and I agree that he’s probably a good one for beginners. However, he did feel a little clumsy, and it seems like his attacks, while they hit hard, are fairly easy to dodge, meaning you have to catch your opponent off guard. As I said above, his fight against Sephiroth on Planet’s Core wasn’t fun. Still, I haven’t really tried out his EX Mode bonuses properly, and his EX Burst is probably one of the easiest in the game to pull off (just hammer the circle button).

Cecil
Cecil took a little getting used to after Cloud’s very straightforward play style. His Brave attacks are useful, but I personally keep forgetting that I can use his Paladin form for Brave attacks as well, and not just his aerial HP attack. Speaking of HP attacks, I found Cecil’s a little difficult to connect with. Soul Eater has a very short range, and Saint’s Fall is pretty easy for opponents to dodge and counter if you don’t catch them off guard. Still, his EX Mode bonus of being able to switch jobs at will instead of just when doing HP attacks is kinda nice, but I found his EX Burst to be difficult to get a Perfect on.

And now, back to the story mode.

Destiny Odyssey X – The Road To Tomorrow (11th September)
Once again, Tidus’s story wasn’t too bad. My biggest problem with it as a whole was that the enemies didn’t yield much EXP, which meant that I was forced to engage as many of them as possible, and due to the layout of Tidus’s stages, each one having two paths, it was hard to do this and still get a positive DP count. Bad DP counts mean less good post-story bonuses. Tidus himself controlled fairly well, however.
This time, my biggest problem came from the boss at the halfway point, rather than the final boss. This fight was against the Emperor, and was a nasty experience for me. Similar to Cloud’s fight against Sephiroth, I think the stage played a fairly large part in my losses. Pandaemonium is a pretty cramped stage with lots of small corridors, which just made it harder to avoid the Emperor’s trap-like attacks. I had to be very careful when attacking, otherwise I’d just end up running headlong into one of the Emperor’s Flare attacks, which, after being caught in numerous trap-like Brave attacks, hurt a lot. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve just quit and levelled up a bit before trying again, but I eventually managed to beat him. I can’t quite remember how, though…
The rest of Tidus’s story passed without much incident, and then it was time to face the final boss, one of the epitomes of videogame manliness: Jecht. He actually wasn’t too bad. He’s the only final boss so far that I haven’t had to quit and train for, only taking me two or three attempts to defeat, despite me being a lower level than him. His attacks were fairly easy to dodge, despite the stage (Dream’s End) not having a lot of space to run around in. I knew I had to stop him from getting any EX Cores, though. His attacks were already bad enough when they connected, I didn’t want them to get beefed up. Eventually I was able to take him down with a well-timed EX Burst, and Tidus’s story was done. As a reward to myself, I bought Jecht from the PP Catalogue. Next up: Firion’s story.

So that’s it for now. I’m actually halfway through Firion’s story right now, so I’ll be posting my experiences of it, along with character impressions of Tidus and Firion, later today. So I hope you’re enjoying this topic so far, and I’ll see you again later. Thanks for barely paying attention.

I plan on buying the game... but I don't own a PSP. Is it worth the investisment?
Note: Huge FFFan since SNES era

Well, it's not like Dissidia is the only Final Fantasy game for PSP. There's also Crisis Core, the remakes of FFI & FFII, FF Tactics: War of the Lions, and the upcoming FF Agito XIII. Plus you can now get FFVII as a downloadable title from the PSN shop. Not sure if there are any others available on there, though...

Ultimately, you should do some research and see what other games are on PSP that might interest you. For example, two games I'm looking forward to are LittleBigPlanet and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep.

I never think a console is worth getting for only one game, but Dissidia is very good, IMO. You just need other reasons to get one.

I don't like VII in general, FFI and II I am replaying on GBA right now, I have FFTactics original too (damn summoners!). But yes, Kingdom hearts I am waiting for it. I just hope it's going to be released over there.

*shrugs* Well, I don't know what games are going to interest you. All I can say is that you should look around for more games that will interest you. You've already got two (Dissidia & BBS), so it shouldn't be too hard. What are your thoughts on Agito XIII?



It most likely will. 358/2 Days has gotten a western release, hasn't it? The only one I think hasn't been released in the west is Coded, and that just because mobile gaming is only really big in Japan.

Quite an interesting read. Keep it up.

Oh, there are some Tales Id'like to play, the Wild arms serie, and so on... But I can't afford multiples games right now.

Thanks. Is the writing style okay?



Well that's all you really need to know right now. I'm not saying get all the games you want at once, it's just good to have a decent number of games you're interested in before actually getting the console they're on. And it sounds to me like there are quite a few PSP games you want to get.

Yes, but I need to know if this game is good on the long run, as I fear a fighting game become boring after a while. Seeing your comment, I guess it's good enough, but I wanted to ask anyway.

Yeah, I like the writing style.

Also, by the way.

Ah, I'm not really the best person to ask since I've only had the game for just over a week. Still, it looks like the story mode goes for a long time, and then there's various other game modes I havent really tried out that offer different challenges, like Arcade Mode and Duel Colosseum.

Plus, Dissidia isn't really just a fighting game. It's like a cross between a fighting game and an RPG.



Thanks, both of you.

Thanks for everything, and good luck for your blog!

No problem, and as I said, keep it up.

New entry: Saturday 12th September – Sunday 13th September
I thought I might as well post my experiences in Firion’s story thus far, then come back later with my experiences of the end of the story & my character impressions. Basically, this entry is my experiences from yesterday. So, without further ado…

Destiny Odyssey II – The Unending Dream (Part 1 – 12th September)
Thus far (as of stage 3), Firion’s story has been pretty good. The odd layout of his levels and placement of enemy encounters makes it difficult to get positive DP counts, so I ended up being more strategic about the level boards than I have been in previous Destiny Odysseys, and started going after the DP bonuses in certain battles. I’ve also found Firion himself to be surprisingly easy to fight with.
The only difficult bit I’ve come across so far was a very aggressive Imaginary Soldier (Cloud copy) in stage 2. Like the Phantasmal Girls in Cloud’s story, he only had 1HP, but he was ridiculously good at dodging. He could also Break me in just one combo, and a couple of said combos later, he’d be ready to OHKO me with a Braver. So I was left frantically dodging and blocking as best I could, and firing off Staightarrow attacks (Firion’s only current HP attack) as often as possible. He beat me a couple of times, but I eventually managed to hit him full in the face as he dashed towards me after an unsuccessful Braver. Jecht, the boss of stage 2, was easy in comparison.
Stage 3 brought with it a boss fight against Ultimecia, and an optional fight against a Fallacious Tree enemy (Exdeath copy) that was about 7 levels higher than me. He had a lot of HP, so the fight lasted a long time, my health descending into double digits at one nerve-wracking point. It was during this fight that I started truly appreciating Firion’s EX Mode bonus: Blood weapons. Whenever I performed a successful HP attack in EX Mode, I would regain health equal to the damage I’d done. Thanks to a couple of EX Bursts (lots of HP damage there), I was back up to full health by the time I struck the final blow. I even went up two levels for my trouble. Similar to stage 2, the Ultimecia boss fight was easy in comparison. Although that might have also been because I was two levels higher than her, and we were fighting on a stage I’m pretty comfortable on: World of Darkness.

So that’s it so far. The only thing I’m really worried about now is the final boss fight against The Emperor in Pandaemonium. As you may have read in my entry about Tidus’s story, I haven’t exactly fared well against him in the past. On the other hand, I’ve done pretty well against the various Imitation Despot enemies (Emperor copies) in Firion’s levels, but those fights were all in pretty open arenas, making it easier to avoid the traps. Ah well. I’ll just have to wait see how it turns out, I suppose.

Next time: Firion’s story concluded! Gar’s opinions of Tidus and Firion! I'm gonna be king of the pirates!!

*cough*

There's nothing better in any RPG than to defeat a higher level'd enemy and go up a few levels.

Beating it without any effort?

I'm having a great time reading this.

I wish I still had my PSP, Dissidia sounds like a blast to play...;_;

Nope. And the Fallacious Tree was the first enemy I've faced so far that was that much higher a level than me. Normally I try to avoid such enemies. But in addition to that, I'm pleasantly surprised by Firion. Until now, he was never really a character I was that bothered about, having never played FFII.



Well, you have to bear in mind that so far I've only done the easiest bits of the story mode. And as I said, there've been some nasty enemies. But I'm starting each Destiny Odyssey with the respective character at level 1, and the levels of the enemies get progressively higher as you go through the stages. I've really only been able to get as far as I have by levelling up sufficiently, just like any RPG.



Thanks. And it is. It can be frustrating at times, but nothing too terrible. Then again, I'm still in the earlier levels...

So you like him?

Yeah. Until now I was never really that interested in Firion. Plus he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, which is pretty cool, though I keep half-expecting him to shout "Bankai!" when going into EX Mode.

Heh, lulz.

Johnny Yong Bosch is like a voice acting machine. Off the top of my head:

Guy Cecil
Ichigo Kurosaki
Emil something-or-other (Can't remember his last name)
Almaz Almandine Adamant (or something like that)
Daisuke Ono form Lucky Star

And I think he was a power ranger at some point.

Yeah, he was the second black ranger in the original Mighty Morphin lot. And the green ranger in Zeo. And the first green ranger in Turbo. And I think he made a guest appearance in one of the more recent series...

But yeah, as I don't really remember him that much from Power Rangers, he'll always be Ichigo to me.

Oh, and I think he also voiced someone in Devil May Cry.

Ah, that's right. I think he's Nero, but I'm not sure.

To me, he'll always be Guy Cecil. That's where I first remember hearing his voice. Ichigo was the second I think.

Where's Guy Cecil from?

From the game Tales of the Abyss.

New entry: Sunday 13th September

Destiny Odyssey II – The Unending Dream (Part 2 – 13th September)
The rest of Firion’s story went by without much incident, apart from hitting a Capricious Reaper enemy (Kuja copy) right in the face with Straightarrow at point-blank range. The final boss fight against the Emperor, while not as bad as Sephiroth or Golbez, certainly wasn’t easy either. I was able to beat him on the first try, but it was a very close match.
The main problem was that he was very good at dodging my Straightarrow attacks, so even when I went into EX Mode, I was never able to regain any health apart from the small amounts granted by the “Regen” status. I didn’t manage to land a single EX Burst on him either. And it didn’t help that he has a very annoying, almost mocking, dodge noise. The fight wore on for quite a while, though not as long as the earlier one against the Fallacious Tree, before I was finally able to deal the finishing blow. I would’ve managed it sooner, but he had accessories that left him with 1HP after my attack instead of him dying.
Anyhoo, I was able to finish Firion’s story and I bought The Emperor from the PP Catalogue as a reward.

Character Impressions 2 – Tidus and Firion
Tidus
I thought Tidus controlled pretty well, and his movement speed was noticeably faster than Cloud or Cecil (as I ended up using his Dark Knight class more often than his Paladin class). I also found it easy to get in the first hit of the match due to his quick attacks. The only Brave attack I had trouble hitting with was the aerial attack Stick & Move, as I kept misjudging the range. As for HP attacks, I rather liked the ground attack Spiral Cut, since even if the opponent dodged the first couple of hits, they would usually be caught by the final one due to the attack “tracking” them. Energy Rain also worked rather well. I didn’t really manage to work with his EX Mode bonuses very much, but his movement speed definitely increased. I found his EX Burst hard to get a Perfect on, but that was more a matter of bad timing rather than fiddly controls, unlike Cecil’s.

Firion
Firion might just be my favourite character so far. His main strength is his ground game, as many of his attacks have a fairly long range and can drag opponents toward you, often catching them off guard. By contrast, however, his aerial game is rather poor, with his only aerial Brave attacks (thus far) being some fairly slow magic attacks. He also suffers a little by only having a single HP attack (Straightarrow) for quite a long time, and although it has a long range, it can be difficult to land a hit on an opponent that’s good at dodging. I found his EX Mode bonus, Blood Weapons, to be useful in a pinch, but that does rather depend on actually landing an HP attack. Once you do, however, you can often regain all your health by using said HP attack to trigger an EX Burst. I found Firion’s EX Burst to be in the middle ground of difficulty: Harder than Cloud’s, but easier than Cecil’s & Tidus’s, as it’s just a matter of rapidly entering a series of commands. Plus, I personally think it’s an almost ridiculously cool animation, as it ends with him firing all of his weapons from his bow at the same time.

Next time: Squall’s story begins! The brooding loner with the roaring blade!

Teehee, the peepee catalogue.

*Cough*

I've always liked playing characters with bows and arrows, so I'd probably like Firion as well.

Yeah, he's pretty cool. And when you do manage to hit someone with Straightarrow, it's pretty satisfying. Especially when you get them right in the face (as I described) or when you've just slammed them against a wall.

I can imagine. Headshotting with arrows are really awesome.

Yup. Also, when you KO someone in Dissidia, there's a slow-motion shot of the enemy being hit, then a slow-motion shot of the winning character. When Firion KOs someone with Straightarrow, the slow-motion shot of him shows him slinging his bow back over his shoulder in a rather cool way.

It's kinda like when you win a match in Metroid Prime: Hunters with the Imperialist.

That sounds pretty badass.

It is.

BTW, what did you think of my "next time" bit?

It's good, it sounds like the title of a shounen anime episode.

Thanks. That's what I was going for. Of course, the only real experience I have of that (that I can remember) is One Piece. I even hear Luffy's voice saying it.

Yeah, One Piece follows that trope to a point I think.

Yup...

Bleach doesn't do it. Not in the actual episodes, anyway. They just have "Bleach" and whatever number the episode is.

They do have very stylized ways of writing Bleach *insert number here* though.

Oh yeah, definately.

Dissidia from what I've seen is DBZ: Tenkaichi with FF characters and less cutscenes, but I'm probably going to main Emperor.

Having never played a DBZ game, I wouldn't know.

But I was under the impression that you hated JRPGs. Or is that someone else?

This isn't a JRPG though....=P

Well no, but it's a fighting game based heavily on one of the most well-known JRPG series, and has a lot of RPG elements itself.

New entry: Monday 14th September

Destiny Odyssey VIII – The Lion Stalks The Savannah (Part 1)
Well, I’ve now done two levels of Squall’s story, and I thought I may as well check in and post my findings so far. Granted, my PSP ran out of power just as I was starting level 3 and I’m waiting for it to charge up again, but that’s not important.
So! Destiny Odyssey VIII… Well, it’s certainly a little weird to go from Firion, who was a mid-to-long-range fighter, to Squall whose attacks are almost entirely close-range. His levels also require a different strategy to Firion’s, as most of the battle pieces are hidden and only reveal themselves once you’ve defeated the original ones, so it’s more difficult to chain battles and save DP, even when you have a guide map like I do. Still, it hasn’t gone too badly so far.
The only nasty bit so far was an aggressive Fallacious Wanderer enemy (Bartz copy) on level 2. You know the type, I’ve talked about it before. 1HP, spams a particular attack… The main difference this time was that, instead of being ridiculously good at dodging like the previous ones have been, this enemy had a stupidly high BP count: almost 2500 right from the start. Needless to say, he would easily be able to OHKO me, and he did a couple of times. Luckily, however, I was able to develop a strategy of sorts and take him out. I waited until he had just finished attacking, dashed close, slammed him into the ground with a Brave attack (Heel Crush), and hit him with an HP attack while he was recovering. I got a lot of EXP for my trouble. I still need quite a lot of practice with Squall, but I think I’m getting better.

So that’s all for now. I’m hoping to finish Squall’s story as soon as my PSP has finished charging, so I should have part 2 up later today.

Laters.

One would imagine Squall could fight at Mid-range, considering his weapon is a gunblade.

Ah, contrary to the name, the gunblade doesn't actually work as a gun.

It just works as a blade?

Yeah. Pulling the trigger fires the gun mechanism & sends a vibration/pulse through the blade, increasing the damage done.

Still, that's just the original FFVIII gunblades. Later ones in the series do also work as guns, leading up to the protagonist of the upcoming FFXIII, Lightning, whose weapon actually transforms between a gun form & sword form.

So in FFVIII it was like a work in progress?

I suppose. But I think the FFVIII ones are the only one that are officially called gunblades. A lot of the other ones, like the ones that appear in the FFVII compilation, are more like guns with blades attached to them.

So like bayonettes, only much cooler?

Yeah, I guess.

Right.

New entry: Monday 14th September (2)

Destiny Odyssey VIII – The Lion Stalks The Savannah (Part 2)
Well, I’ve now finish Squall’s story, so I can give you a run-down of my progress through the last three levels.
I came across another 1HP Fallacious Wanderer like the one in level two. Despite now knowing how to deal with him, the fight was still around the same difficulty due to being on a very cramped stage: Pandaemonium. There was a boss battle with Kuja at the end of level three, which I actually found surprisingly easy. I didn’t lose much health and I went up two levels for my trouble.
Level 4 passed without much incident. Though there was an Ephemeral Phantom enemy (Jecht copy) that unexpectedly used a Magus Sisters summon on me. The Magus Sisters summon halves the opponent’s BP for a brief time. Unfortunately for him, my BP, even when halved, was still high enough to OHKO him, rendering the whole process rather pointless. The only other major thing on level 4 was a fight against a high-levelled False Stalwart enemy (Garland copy). This guy was five levels higher than me, and the fight was much more brutal than Firion’s similar battle against the Fallacious Tree enemy, mostly due to the fact that the False Stalwart didn’t just stand there. I was down to just sixty-something HP when I managed to deal the final blow. The boss fight against Warrior of Light was easy in comparison.
And so I progressed to the final level, where I found yet another 1HP Fallacious Wanderer. This battle, however, was much easier than the other two, as I had perfected my strategy for dealing with these enemies (they all even spammed the same single attack) and this battle was also set on Order’s Sanctuary, a very easy stage to navigate & fight on. The final boss of Squall’s story, Ultimecia, was by far the easiest final boss I’ve faced so far. It only took one try and even then I barely lost any health due to all her HP attacks missing me. The only drawback in the fight was when she used her Lich summon to reduce my BP to 0, but even then I quickly built it up again. And so I finished Squall’s story, and purchased Ultimecia from the PP catalogue as a reward. Oh, and I also encountered one of my favourite moments in a Dissidia cutscene so far: Zidane tackling Garland when the latter was about to attack Squall from behind.

Next time: From lion to monkey! Zidane steals the show!

Zidane kicks ass.

I'll reserve judgement until after I've played as him.

I just like Zidane as a character basically.

Not having played FFIX, I wouldn't really know. Still, I'll get some insight when I play through his story.

Zidane kicks almost as much ass as Tidus.

New entry: Tuesday 15th September

Destiny Odyssey IX – Melodies of Life
A new day, and the start of a new Destiny Odyssey. Playing as Zidane was a pretty new experience for me, as he’s primarily an aerial fighter. All the other characters I’ve played so far have either been ground-orientated (like Firion and, to a lesser extent, Squall) or pretty neutral between the two.
The first two levels in Zidane’s story were pretty straightforward, but the final three required strategic thinking, as certain locked areas could only be opened by defeating certain enemies. You had to recognise the pattern on the level and figure out which enemies would open which locked areas. Level 1 passed without incident, mostly being used by me to get used to Zidane’s fighting style. Level 2, however, brought with it the first 1HP enemy of Zidane’s story: a Delusory Knight (Cecil copy). Unlike previous 1HP enemies, this one was rather easy, despite the cramped conditions of the stage I had to fight him on (Kefka’s Tower). He was rather good at dodging, so I had to corner him before taking him out with an HP attack. The level 2 boss was Kefka, which meant I finally got to see him in a proper cutscene, which was pretty awesome. The battle itself was nothing too bad. I didn’t get totally pwned, at least.
Level 3 brought the first real example of the strategy required in Zidane’s levels, as the boss was totally surrounded by locked areas. I also completely got my ass handed to me by a Delusory Warlock (Golbez copy), as he was 8 levels higher than me. Even when I managed to land a hit on him, Zidane’s combos barely seemed to make a dent in his BP. Eventually I had to flee and restart the level, avoiding him on my second attempt. I know I should have expected to be owned by this enemy, but the guide I’m using said that Zidane should be able to win “without too much trouble” and that CPUs “generally have a hard time avoiding Tidal Flame”. The latter statement was total garbage, as the Delusory Warlock would often just jump over that particular attack. ¬_¬
So with Level 3 restarted, and my self-esteem several notches lower, I made it to the boss. I got to see the pre-final-boss cutscene from Squall’s story from Zidane’s perspective before taking on Garland. He was pretty tame compared to my fight with his copy in Squall’s 4th level, though that was probably due to him being 8 levels lower than he was in that fight.
The 4th and 5th levels of the story passed without much incident for the most part, although in level 5 I had to be careful not to lose much health in the matches, as there wasn’t a Potion on that map to bring me back to full health before the final boss. The fight against Kuja was in the middle ground of final boss difficulty: not as bad as Sephiroth or Golbez, but not as easy as Ultimecia. I didn’t have to flee & level up some more, but I did have to retry a couple of times, which puts him roughly on the same level as Jecht. Kuja also had a pretty annoying Carbuncle summon (which would instantly lower my BP to the same level as his) and he would often activate it when he’d just performed an HP attack, when his BP was just building back up to base level and was in single digits. This wouldn’t have been too bad if I had been able to land a Brave attack, but inevitably he’d always get in the first hit, sending me in Break status and letting him take the stage BP as a result. Still, at least he didn’t have an annoying dodge quote, like The Emperor. I was eventually able to win the fight, finish Zidane’s story, and bought Kuja rom the PP catalogue as a reward.

Character Impressions 3 – Squall and Zidane
Squall
Squall took a bit of getting used to after Firion, as Squall is primarily a close-range fighter while Firion fights from a distance. His Brave attacks mostly revolve around combos and often end with Squall slamming the enemy into a wall or the ground. However, he also has a couple of magic attacks for ranged combat, one of which draws the opponent closer.
He has the most initial HP attacks out of any character I’ve played so far, although two of them (Fated Circle and Aerial Circle) are almost identical. However, if used correctly, they can both block an opponent’s magic attacks. The other HP attack I tried out, Rough Divide, is strong and fast but has a slow start. This makes it fairly easy to dodge unless it’s used properly, like Firion’s Straightarrow attack.
I didn’t really notice Squall’s EX mode bonuses, but I found his EX Burst one of the easiest to pull off so far, and I have yet to fail in getting a “Perfect” on it.

Zidane
Out of all the characters I’ve used so far, Zidane has been the most different. This is because he is primarily an aerial combatant. He’s kinda like the opposite of Firion in this respect, having lots of aerial attacks, but only a few ground attacks. I found myself initiating Chase Sequences a lot more often with Zidane as well, something I previously tried to avoid with the other characters.
As I’ve just said, most of Zidane’s Brave attacks are aerial ones. And his only current ground-based Brave attack finishes by knocking the opponent into the air, leading to a chase sequence, which in turn can lead to another aerial attack. Which could then lead into another chase sequence… and so on, allowing of course for the possibility that your opponent might dodge or block.
I found Zidane’s most useful HP attack so far to be the aerial attack Free Energy. It has short range, but it’s possibly the fastest-acting HP attack I’ve used so far. The other two HP attacks I tried, Tidal Flame and Shift Break, were both often dodged by my opponents due to their fairly long wind-ups.
As with Squall and Tidus, I found myself not noticing or using Zidane’s EX Mode bonuses very often, but his EX Burst was pretty easy to pull off as it followed the same idea as Cloud’s (hammering the circle button). However, as cool as some people might think Zidane is, I’m afraid I simply can’t take him seriously thanks to his EX Mode appearance. Yes, I know it’s his “Trance form” and is supposedly uber-powerful, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s bright pink, fluffy, and almost as revealing as Kuja’s outfit.

Next time: Bartz takes the stage! The adventure of the lost Mime!

*Wait for some copy pasted ... err I mean mimicked infos*

Eh?

As in ... use mimic, copy last post. Try to be fun...

Man I can't wait for Terra and Kefka infos...

Well I won't be doing Kefka info for a while, I'm afraid.

I know, Terra is last and you will unlock him after this. But I have something interesting to read while I wait... all the needed info to counter everyone... Mhuhuhahaha!

Yeah, Zidane in his trance form is quite lame looking.

It's not just that. I'm not sure yet how what I'm going to do once I've finished the Destiny Odysseys. I might even end up taking a bit of a break from Dissidia.



Yeah. His alternate costume is a little better, where he has silver fur in EX Mode instead of pink, but still...

Still looks ¨kind of lame.

New entry: Wednesday 16th September

Destiny Odyssey V – Journey, Courage, Friends
Finally, we reach the last part of the Squall/Zidane/Bartz trio of storylines. Bartz’s levels don’t seem to have any specific gimmick that requires a certain strategy, but they do have a lot of enemy encounters. This can make the later levels difficult to get positive DP counts on.
The first two levels passed without much incident, although I did get to see quite a lot of the villains interacting in cutscenes, which was pretty cool. Level 3 brought the first 1HP enemy of Bartz’s story: an Imitation Liegeman (Firion copy). This enemy’s gimmick was to summon Tiamat immediately after the fight begins, which would then triple his BP after a certain amount of time had passed. He would then try to OHKO me with a Straightarrow attack. This wouldn’t have been a bad strategy, if it weren’t for the fact that I managed to take him out with a single HP attack before the summon’s effect kicked in.
Level 3 also had a Capricious Reaper enemy (Kuja copy) that was 8 levels higher than me, but I’d learned from my experience with the high-level Delusory Warlock (Golbez copy) in Zidane’s story, decided that the extra EXP wasn’t worth it, and avoided it. The boss of level 3, Golbez, wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. Considering my track record of getting owned in Golbez (real or copy) fights, this battle actually went pretty smoothly. Granted, he got me down to less than half my full HP, and at one point he dealt me an instant Break with his EX Mode’s Black Fang ability, but I managed to get my own back with Bartz’s own special EX Mode attack: Goblin Punch. I managed to beat him without needing any retries, and gained two levels for my trouble.
Level 4 passed without incident (except for another 1HP Imitation Liegeman, which was also quickly dispatched), but it had a very awkward layout, which meant I ended up finishing with -1DP. Level 5 was pretty much the same deal, just with more going on and less starting DP. I failed to get most of the extra DP chances, so I ended up finishing the level with -5DP. I found the final boss, Exdeath, to be almost as easy as Ultimecia. He did have an Atomos summon, which would drain my BP if I damaged his HP for a period of time, but since the stage we were on (The Rift) is a pretty large one, it was easy to avoid him until the summon’s timer ran out. He did manage to hit me with a pretty hefty HP attack after blocking one of my own strikes, however, bringing me down to about half my full HP. I won all but one of the Chase Sequences that were initiated, which helped me Break him twice over the course of the battle. This gave me enough BP to finish him off with a Goblin Punch leading into an EX Burst. I won the fight, levelled up twice, and was able to finish Bartz’s story. I then bought Exdeath from the PP catalogue as a reward. Only three more villains remain!

Next time: The Onion Knight’s quest! Cosmos’ youngest warrior!

Are you sure the bosses are getting easier? Because I think it's you getting better.

I don't know... I still think some of the pairings are less balanced than others. Then again, I've only tried a few of the heroes' attacks. Plus I'm not sure Exdeath counts, as I've never had much trouble against him or his copies. I mean, he's supposedly deadly in the right hands, but I've heard the AI doesn't use him very well.

It's kind of sad when a game has bad AI...

Though if it's only for one character, that's okay.

I think Exdeath is just the kind of character that's tricky to use right. He moves slowly and his fighting style is mostly based around counterattacks.

Oh, I see. And the AI isn't that good at counter attacking?

It's more that, with the AI the way it is, every character can trick it into teleporting right in front of them and getting owned.

New entry: Thursday 17th September

Destiny Odyssey III – The Pride of Youth
Unlike those found in Bartz’s story, Onion Knight’s levels have a very clear strategic gimmick: hidden board pieces. All pieces on each level (apart from the Stigma of Chaos and one or two enemies or a chest) are hidden from view until you engage them. This would’ve been pretty difficult, but I have a guide that told me what all the pieces were. Yeah, I guess it was kinda cheating, but still…
Level 1 was pretty easy, and helped me get to grips with Onion Knight’s combat style. There was a 1HP Capricious Thief enemy (Zidane copy) on level 2 that was pretty annoying. He used a Cactuar summon to reduce my BP by 1000, and was really good at dodging my attacks, making it hard for me to land any Brave attacks, let alone an HP attack to finish him. With level 3 came a high-levelled Imitation Despot (Emperor copy), but I decided to play it safe and avoid him for now. I managed to get a decent amount of EXP in that level even without taking him on, and was able to master some of Onion Knight’s attacks, something that I haven’t yet managed with any of the other characters.
Level 4 brought another 1HP Capricious Thief, which was more annoying than the first one because of the awkward stage the fight takes place on: Planet’s Core. This made it even more difficult to land attacks. The boss of level 4, Terra, was pretty easy. I did accidentally get caught in a couple of her HP attacks, but thankfully she seemed very hesitant to use her EX Burst. I was able to wear her down and win the fight, levelling up twice in the process.
On level 5, I managed to beat a level 12 Imitation Despot without sustaining any damage whatsoever. Brave or HP. Though this was partly because the stage (Order’s Sanctuary) gave me lots of room to run around and manoeuvre in. The final boss, The Cloud of Darkness, was pretty easy. She had a pretty nasty-sounding Iron Giant summon, that would halve my BP whenever she hit me with an HP attack during a certain period of time. However, like Order’s Sanctuary, the boss stage (World of Darkness) also has lots of room to move about in, so I was able to effectively avoid her and her huge number of HP attacks (she has more than any other character in the game) until the summon ran out. I finally finished her with Onion Knight’s Sage EX Burst, and went up five levels in the process. And so, Onion Knight’s story ended, with a rather cute image of him and Terra sleeping on the ground next to each other, exhausted by the story's events. I finished by purchasing The Cloud of Darkness from the PP Catalogue. Just two Destiny Odysseys left!

Character Impressions 4 – Bartz and Onion Knight
Bartz
Bartz was pretty interesting to play as. In a way, it was a bit like a retrospective of the characters I’ve already played as, and a preview of sorts for the characters I have yet to use.
Most of Bartz’s Brave attacks combine two attacks from the other Warriors of Cosmos. For example, Reel Impulse starts by him throwing Firion’s axe to draw the opponent close (which I think may even have a longer range than Firion’s attack), then unleashing a combo with Zidane’s Mage Masher weapons. The only Brave attack that doesn’t follow this pattern is Holy, which is entirely copied from Terra. The Brave attacks I tried were good mixture of combos and attacks that start Chase Sequences. Another thing about Bartz’s attacks is that they all have added effects like increasing certain kinds of damage or boosting certain stats, but I personally didn’t really notice any of these.
His HP attacks all come directly from other characters without being combined with any other attacks, similar to the aforementioned Holy attack. They too come with special effects, but again I didn’t notice them. What I did notice, however, was Bartz’s voice changing in tone when he used certain attacks (both Brave and HP). For example, he sounded a bit like Cecil when he used Soul Eater, and his voice became lighter (like Terra’s) when he used Holy, which I thought was a nice touch.
Bartz’s EX Mode was the first one I’ve used that’s had a special EX Mode-exclusive attack. In this case, Goblin Punch. It’s a short-ranged but powerful attack that does Brave, then HP damage, and it’s activated by pressing the R and Square buttons after activating EX Mode. Apparently, if your level is equal to you opponent’s level while using it, the attack becomes even more powerful. His EX Mode also involves him gaining three retro-looking stars over his head to show his Job mastery, which is pretty cool.
Finally, his EX Burst. It has a pretty cool animation that involves Bartz striking his opponent with two weapons at a time (Cecil’s spear & Zidane’s daggers, then Tidus’s & Warrior of Light’s swords, and so on), before combining them into his own Brave Blade for a final strike. In order for the EX Burst to be pulled off perfectly, 4 pairs of D-Pad commands must by input quickly, otherwise he’ll strike fewer times. It wasn’t too bad, but I often found myself getting muddled with the third or last pair. Stupid thumb…

Onion Knight
Playing as Onion Knight was fairly interesting for me, as the very first full fight video that was released after Dissidia’s first trailer was between him and The Cloud of Darkness. Granted I didn’t get to use all of the moves that were in that video, but still… Anyway, Onion Knight’s attacks all revolve around multiple fast strikes (reminiscent of the attacking style in the DS remake of FFIII), and all of his Brave attacks can be chained into more powerful ones or, eventually, HP attacks. Because of this, and because of his relatively small number of “starter” attacks, Onion Knight is able to master most of his initial attacks in roughly half the time it takes for any other character, unlocking more chaining options. Onion Knight’s regular HP attacks don’t chain into anything, but are still pretty good. Their main downside seems to be their relatively short range.
His EX Mode is pretty interesting, simply because he has two of them: Ninja and Sage. Each one also has their own EX Burst, though both attacks follow the same idea. Which form he takes in EX Mode depends on the attack you use, kinda like Cecil changing Jobs when he performs certain HP attacks. Onion Knight becomes a Ninja when he uses close-range sword-based attacks (which increase in power during EX Mode), and becomes a Sage when he uses long-range magic attacks (which fire more projectiles at a time in EX Mode). The EX Burst he uses also depends on what HP attack you used. The “minigame” for both EX Bursts is pretty much the same: select either “Magic” for Sage or “Throw” for Ninja, and then select Holy or Shuriken from the menus of spells and items that appear. Provided you have a decent eye, they’re not hard attacks to pull off.

Next time: Terra’s redemption! A struggle for control!

Go Bartz! I would main him if I had this...

Plan to have a collector edition in motion... yuk yuk yuk!

Also, GO TERRA!

So Bartz is kind of like a clone character?

Eh, kinda. He sort of puts his own spin on the other characters' attacks. Plus his attacks come from all of the other heroes, so he's not just a direct copy of another character.

Ahh, I see.

New entry: Friday 18th September

The one you've all been waiting for...

Destiny Odyssey VI – Strength For Whom?
For me, the main challenge of this story was properly using Terra’s fighting style, and not the levels themselves. Being a long-range magic user, she’s very different to all the other characters I’ve used so far. Still, I got to see Kefka play a bigger role in cutscenes, which was cool.
Level 1 passed without anything major happening, and I just used it to try and get used to the way Terra plays, like I did with all the other heroes. Level 2 was pretty similar, but it brought a pretty nasty Transient Lion enemy (Squall copy). This guy had only 56HP, but was good at dodging and had a pretty high base BP value. First he would activate his Mandragora summon (which temporarily speeds up BP regeneration after an HP attack), and then come at me spamming his Blasting Zone HP attack. I had to dodge to the side and use an HP attack of my own as soon as possible. I had to do this twice because he had accessories that would leave him at 1HP instead of being killed in one blow.
 There were a few enemies on Level 3 that gave me trouble. First was an Imaginary Phantom (Jecht copy) that kept blocking all my attacks unless I caught it by surprise, then pummelling me unless I could get away quick enough. The biggest problem came from a high-level Transient Witch (Ultimecia copy) that repeatedly owned me. It was here that my opinion of Terra really started to drop. It just really annoyed me that I was getting beaten so easily by an enemy I normally have little trouble dispatching, even if she was more than twice my level. Eventually I was forced to flee and restart the level, avoiding her the second time around.
The final problem of Level 3 came from a Capricious Reaper (Kuja copy). I just found it difficult to avoid his attacks, and he would often easily dodge my own HP attacks. Thanks to him, and the fact that there was no Potion in the level, I was forced to engage the boss with less than half my full HP. Actually, all things considered, the boss battle (against Cloud) could’ve gone a lot worse. I was able to catch him off guard quite a few times, though I also unsuccessfully tried to regain some HP by activating Terra’s EX Mode and taking advantage of the Regen effect. It was unsuccessful because he hit me with an HP attack almost straight after I got out of EX Mode.
Level 4 passed with nothing major happening, but Level 5 had a very similar gimmick to Squall’s levels. There were only a couple of battle pieces and chests visible (along with the Stigma of Chaos, of course), but engaging one of these pieces would reveal an enemy piece right next to your square, forcing you into a battle. In Squall’s levels it was just a way of progressing, but in this level it was more like a trap.
The final boss, Kefka, was actually surprisingly easy, even though he was about five levels higher than me. I mean, he got me down to less than half my full HP, but I was able to avoid most of his attacks just by keeping my distance. He also used up his summon, Magic Pot (which increases your BP so it’s the same level as your opponent’s), very early in the match, so it wasn’t very effective as I still had less than 500BP. I was also able to take advantage of the numerous cramped spaces in the stage (Kefka’s Tower) and hit him with HP attacks where there was much less room to move and dodge in. I didn’t even need to use EX Mode, but I did so anyway to strike the final blow with an EX Burst, just for a more epic finish. And so, Terra’s story came to a close, and I purchased Kefka from the PP Catalogue as a reward.

Next time: Cosmos’ most loyal warrior! The conclusion of Destiny Odyssey!

So you don't really like to play as Terra?

Not really. My full opinion of her will come later today.

Right, I'll wait until then, then.

New entry: Saturday 19th September

Destiny Odyssey I – The Guiding Light
Warrior of Light’s levels are mostly pretty straightforward. The only real gimmick seems to be the number of bosses, five, which is the highest of all the Destiny Odysseys. Another thing that’s rather unique is that Warrior of Light is the only hero to face his primary villain twice in his story.
As always, Level 1 was pretty simple and allowed me to get to grips with Warrior of Light’s fighting style, which I’d already had a taste of in the Tutorial and Prologue levels. The boss battle against Garland was pretty tough, but I managed to win on my 3rd attempt by keeping my distance, wearing his BP down until I inflicted Break on him, then finished it with an EX Burst. Level 2 brought the first 1HP enemy: a Counterfeit Youth (Onion Knight copy). This enemy’s gimmick was to use Carbuncle to reduce my BP to 0 right at the beginning of the fight. I would then have to chase him around trying to land an HP attack (he has very good at dodging, as usual) while trying to avoid his own attacks. The Sephiroth boss fight at the end of Level 2 was much easier than the final boss of Cloud’s story, despite him being 5 levels higher than me, and I finished him off with an EX Burst.
Level 3 was pretty unusual, in that the boss fight was midway through the level instead of being at the end. I had to retry this fight against Ultimecia because I’d been brought down to about half my full HP by other battles in the level. I didn’t need to resort to an EX Burst, and I found that Warrior of Light’s Shining Wave HP attack useful, as it seemed to cancel out most of her attacks. I went up 2 levels after beating her. I was almost finished off by the following Imaginary Champion (Sephiroth copy) and Ephemeral Phantom (Jecht copy) enemies that followed the boss fight, and the Ephemeral Phantom was particularly nasty. This was because he had accessories that converted any EX Force he gathered into BP rather than filling up his EX Gauge, so if he managed to hit me with an HP attack, which he did, he would recover his BP much quicker than usual, allowing him to go for another HP attack almost straight away. This also made him hard to Break, and I had to retry the fight a couple of times. I eventually walked away with 1HP, and got a very poor level score as a result.
I was forced to flee yet another high-levelled opponent on Level 4 and restart the level. This time it was a Counterfeit Wraith enemy (Cloud of Darkness copy). Since this enemy was right next to where a Potion would appear, and I would then be forced into a fight against her if I took the Potion, I then had to be careful to lose as little HP as possible before the level boss. This was made very hard by the presence of another Ephemeral Phantom, like the one from Level 3. This fight was even worse than the previous one because the stage (Crystal World) was a lot more difficult to navigate than the stage in the previous fight, which was a pretty open, flat space (World of Darkness). I eventually beat him after numerous retries and was taken down to around 300HP as a result. After taking out the last couple of enemies (and going down to around 200HP in the process) I decided to go for the Potion anyway and just flee the Counterfeit Wraith fight. I’d get a -2DP penalty, but I was already going to get a bad level score anyway thanks to the retries from the Ephemeral Phantom battle. The boss fight itself, against The Emperor, wasn’t too bad in comparison, though I did have to finish him with an EX Burst. I found that his only HP attacks, the two Flare attacks, weren’t that useful in the narrow spaces of Pandaemonium unless I accidentally ran headlong into them, which I admit I ended up doing a couple of times. The main problem was his Light Crest Brave attack, the shots of which would rebound off the walls, so even if I managed to block a couple of the shots, some others would probably end up hitting me from behind. As predicted, I got a rubbish level score, but I was just glad to get it behind me.
Level 5 wasn’t bad in comparison to the last two levels. It did the same thing as Terra’s final level, having lots of hidden enemies that would ambush me if I engaged any of the visible enemies or chests. I came across another 1HP Counterfeit Youth, which was more annoying than the first one due to being on a more complex stage. The 2nd boss battle against Garland wasn’t as bad as I feared, but just like on Level 1, it took me three attempts to defeat him, levelling up twice over the course of the battles. Like Kefka, he used up his Magic Pot summon when I only had around 500BP, so it didn’t give him much of an advantage, other than making him a bit more difficult to Break. Eventually I finished him with an EX Burst, finished Warrior of Light’s story (also finishing Destiny Odyssey as a whole), and bought Garland from the PP Catalogue.

Character Impressions 5 – Terra and Warrior of Light
Terra
If I’m really honest, I’m not overly keen on Terra. I don’t mind her as a character, she has her ups and downs like anyone else from Final Fantasy, but I found her play style pretty awkward. Maybe I’m just too used to close-range fighters, I don’t know. She’s definitely one of the slowest characters I’ve played as (if not the slowest) and she has poor aerial ability. She just feels generally sluggish overall.
Her Brave attacks could be worse. Most of them have good range, and the only one that doesn’t (Blizzard Combo) knocks her opponent a fair distance away, even if I didn’t find myself using it very often. Most CPUs seemed to have trouble avoiding Blizzara and Fire for some reason (especially Blizzara), which made them pretty useful. I also recognised her Holy attack from playing as Bartz, but I think Terra’s might have a longer range. Holy seemed to be pretty easily blocked, though.
On the other hand, her HP attacks aren’t great. I was only able to try out two of them: Tornado and Flood. Tornado is only really useful in close range, and even then it’s pretty easily dodged. Flood has a better range and is harder to dodge, but it’s still not the best. It’s easier to catch enemies off guard with Flood than Tornado, though. I’ve heard that both attacks are good guard breakers, but as all CPUs tried to dodge away instead of blocking the attacks, I never saw any evidence of that.
I didn’t really use Terra’s EX Mode often, as I didn’t find her Chainspell ability very useful. All that would usually happen is that my opponent would just dodge two attacks instead of one. I never used her Glide ability either. Her EX Burst, Riot Blade, is performed just like Cloud’s (hammer the O button) except that you also need to hammer the left D-Pad button as well. I didn’t use it very often, but I haven’t yet failed to get a Perfect on it. The attack animation is a bit underwhelming, though.

Warrior of Light
Warrior of Light was a nice return to a familiar fighting style after my discomfort with Terra. He’s the general well-rounded character that’s present in just about every fighting game, and he mostly relies on close to mid-range attacks.
The only Brave attack I was able to try that was long range was Red Fang, basically his version of the Fire spell. For some reason, similar to Terra’s Blizzara, a lot of CPUs seemed to find it difficult to block or dodge the attack. It didn’t do as much damage as his more close-range attacks, but it was still a handy thing to have. His other Brave attacks relied on fairly basic sword and shield combos, and some of them could initiate Chase Sequences. One of his aerial attacks actually initiates a Chase Sequence after hitting the opponent downwards…
As for his HP attacks, I could only try out two: Shining Wave and Shield of Light, although Shield of Light could be used both on the ground and in the air. Shield of Light is pretty quick, but has a rather short range, making it best to use when catching an opponent off guard, like after dodging or blocking an attack, or after slamming them into a wall, or while they’re recovering in mid-air. I found Shining Wave to be a bit more useful, and it was the attack I tended to finish most of my fights with. It’s reasonably fast-moving, has a long range and it can hit opponents in the air if they’re low enough, but as it’s a pretty thin attack, it can be avoided by dodging to the side if the opponent has enough time. I found that a good time to use it was if the opponent had just used a ranged magic attack, as Shining Wave would often cancel out the opponent’s attack and hit them before they can recover from casting.
Once again, I didn’t really notice Warrior of Light’s EX Mode bonuses, but I found his EX Burst pretty easy to use. All you have to do to get a Perfect is input 6 D-Pad commands when they come up on the screen one at a time.


So that's it. The Last Destiny Odyssey beaten, and also my last blog entry from a while as I'll be taking a little break from Dissidia. I plan to eventually document my experiences in Shade Impulse (the next part of the Dissidia story), but before I do that I'll want to level up the heroes a bit more, not to mention choosing a character to actually do Shade Impulse with. But before I do even that, I have plans with the villain characters I've unlocked...

Watch this space...

Ooooh plans.

Yup, plans.

*Watches, his copy of the game playing music for him as he write*

Awesumz.

New entry: Tuesday 29th September
Okay, so here’s how it’s going to go: Before I attempt the first chapter of Shade Impulse, I want to get all the Heroes up to at least level 30. And since I don’t want the Villains to get left behind, I’m going to level them up to at least level 30 as well. Now, since all of the Heroes are already between levels 10 and 20 as a result of their respective Destiny Odysseys, I’m going to start by getting all the Villains up to at least level 20, and I’m going to do this by going through the enemy lists for Destiny Odysseys and simulate those fights in Quick Battle mode. Now, on the one hand this will be easier than the actual Destiny Odysseys as my health will be completely replenished between each fight, but on another hand I won’t get any EXP bonuses (just the EXP I get during the actual fights) and I won’t be able to build up a full EX gauge over a series of battles, as it will always be empty when I start each fight. Also, because of the rules of Quick Battle, every opponent I fight will have a summon, while in the Destiny Odysseys summons were usually reserved for Bosses.
To make up for the lack of EXP bonuses, I’m going to make the fights a little more difficult by only fighting opponents that are at least the same level as me, unless it’s for practice purposes. As another twist, for each enemy encountered in each Destiny Odyssey, I will instead fight its respective opposing character. To explain: If the character list was to say that I was going to fight a level 7 Imaginary Soldier enemy (Cloud copy), I would instead fight a level 7 Sephiroth. If I was meant to fight a level 12 Capricious Reaper (Kuja copy), I would instead fight a level 12 Zidane, and so on. As I do this, I will also be posting character impressions of them here, two by two like the Heroes. I’l also be doing them in the same order as the Heroes, so it’ll go Sephiroth, Golbez, Jecht, The Emperor, Ultimecia, Kuja, Cloud of Darkness, Kefka, and Garland bringing up the rear.

So yeah, that’s the Villains. After that, I’ll set about levelling the Heroes up, and possibly going through some of their stories again to pick up Summons and stuff, or get better ratings and scores. After that I’ll level up the Villains some more. Once all my characters are up to at least level 30, I’ll be starting Shade Impulse.

I’ll be posting my first set of character impressions, Sephiroth and Golbez, tomorrow, and I hope to post my impressions of Jecht and The Emperor soon afterwards. So until then…
0:15 - 0:21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWrRGExtg8

Sounds like a very good plan does that.

Thanks.

BTW, I wanted to find a shorter video, but I couldn't find one of the little bit I wanted, so I had to get the whole sketch.

New Entry: Wednesday 30th September

Character Impressions 6 – Sephiroth and Golbez
Sephiroth
So here we are, the first of the Villains. Sephiroth is a good character to start the Villain side with, as he seems to serve as a bridge of sorts between the straightforward fighting styles of the Heroes, and the more technical styles of the Villains. This is because while he’s pretty much a regular melee fighter, albeit one with a great attack range due to the length of Masamune, his Brave attacks rely on timed button presses to maximise their power. Take his most basic attack, Reaper, for example: It requires you to press the O button (or whatever command it’s assigned to) three times, but as each of Sephiroth’s strikes hits multiple times, you need to press the button right at the end of each strike but not waiting so long that the combo finishes prematurely. If you press the buttons too close together, he only gets a couple of hits for each strike, and the attack as a whole only gets a fraction of its full strength. It’s pretty easy to get the timing though, hence why I said Sephiroth was a good introduction to the Villains, just as Cloud serves as a good introduction to the game’s basics.
Now, being a melee fighter means that Sephiroth relies on sword attacks, but his reach makes up for his relative lack of ranged Brave attacks. However, he does later learn some moves that release energy waves from his sword. Should these waves connect, he then teleports closer to the enemy and strikes them again. Yet another of this Brave attacks involves him suddenly dashing through his enemy from a mid-range distance and striking them. The only non-sword-based Brave attack of his that I’ve come across, and his only primarily ranged attack, doesn’t do a huge amount of damage and is pretty easy to avoid.
As for HP attacks, I was only able to try out three of them: Octaslash, Scintilla and Hell’s Gate. Octaslash (which can eventually be used both on the ground and in mid-air) was the attack I used most, as it seemed to be the hardest to avoid (and it looks pretty damn cool). The main gimmick of Scintilla seems to be the fact that it starts with a Guard, so it’s good for catching opponents off guard if you can get the blocking timing right. Hell’s Gate was probably the least useful of Sephiroth’s HP attacks, and it’s his only aerial one until he gets the mid-air Octaslash at level 13. It consists of a downward stab reminiscent of the attack he uses to kill Aerith in the original FFVII. The main problem is the it’s easy to dodge, especially in mid-air, but it’s pretty satisfying when you do manage to connect with it. You also need to remember to hold down the Square button (or whatever it’s assigned to) for as long as you want to attack with it, otherwise he’ll just pull out of it all and you won’t even reach your target.
Sephiroth’s main EX Mode bonus is his Heartless Angel attack, activated by pressing the R and Square buttons while in EX Mode. This attack has a pretty long casting time, but if it’s successful, your opponent’s BP will immediately be reduced to 1, setting the up for an easy Break. Easy provided you can hit them before they hit you anyway. You can move around while using it (Sephiroth hovers in the air while casting), but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know your opponent won’t catch up to you in time to interrupt the move. His EX Burst is pulled off in exactly the same way as Clouds: Hammering the O button. Should you get a Perfect on it, and there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t, then Sephiroth will not only strike the opponent, but also knock them into a huge fireball that expands as Sephiroth poses in front of it, echoing the classic image from the original game with him standing in front of an inferno as he burnt Nibelheim to the ground. Say what you like about Sephiroth, but you can’t deny he practically oozes cool.

Golbez
Golbez was quite a bit more complex than Sephiroth. All of his Brave attacks consist of two parts and attack at multiple ranges at once. Not only this, but most of the (four out of six, to be precise) can chain into HP attacks upon mastery, though I haven’t managed to see this yet. Golbez’s Brave attacks are pretty hard to describe, as each has its own patterns and controls, but you have to be careful using them, as most are pretty easily dodged. I personally find it’s best to treat Golbez primarily as a melee figher, since all of his attacks can be used close- range as well as mid/long-range, but that’s just my preference.
Golbex only has two non-chained HP attacks, and both are available right from the beginning: Nightglow and Genesis Rock. Nightglow, the ground-based attack, can be dodged fairly easily, but if it does hit, it sends the enemy flying straight upwards, often smacking them into the “ceiling” of the level and adding Wall Rush damage. Genesis Rock, the aerial attack, is harder to dodge to the point of being inescapable at close-range or when used directly above or below the opponent, unless of course they activate EX Mode to break the combo. Even if they dodge the spinning rocks of the initial attack, they’re still in danger of being hit as the rocks fly outwards from Golbez in the second part of the attack, though that part is easier to dodge. Plus, Golbez has a pretty cool quote when using that attack (“Time to part…” *the rocks spin and fly outwards* “Farewell…”).
Like Sephiroth, Golbez has an EX Mode only attack: Black Fang. The nature of the attack is also very similar to Sephiroth’s, except that it causes an instant Break on the opponent instead of just reducing their BP to 1. As a downside, however, it has a longer casting time and you only gain the accumulated Stage BP instead of gaining any of the opponent’s BP. His EX Burst, Twin Moon, is pulled off in the same way as Cecil’s (inputting three pairs of commands) but for some reason I found it easier, and I only failed to get a Perfect once. Maybe I just got more practice, I don’t know. It’s a pretty cool animation though, as the Shadow Dragon he fuses with during EX Mode freezes the opponent before Golbez himself bombards them with flaming meteors.

Next time: A burning brawler and a cold-hearted schemer!

Okay, since no-one seems to have commented on my last entry...

New entry: Friday 2nd October

Character Impressions 7 – Jecht and The Emperor
Jecht
And so we reach one of the epitomes of videogame manliness: Jecht. He’s actually one of the most difficult-to-use-properly characters I’ve played as so far, and from what I hear, he’s second only to Exdeath in difficulty to master. Jecht has by far the fewest number of attacks of any character in the game. Even when he’s learned all his moves, he only has three Brave attacks (one of which can be used both on the ground and in the air) and three HP attacks (one of which can, again, be used both on the ground and in the air). However, this is made up for by the fact that Jecht’s fighting style revolves around combos. The strength and nature of the attacks Jecht Rush and Jecht Stream depends on the commands entered and the timing of their entry. If done correctly, with spot-on timing, each combo can lead straight into an HP attack, making it very hard for the opponent to attempt to dodge or block. The initial attack and HP finisher can also be charged to make them more powerful, though this naturally makes them easier to dodge. The timing of the command inputs is why Jecht is such a hard character to get used to, as the window for entering the next command is very small, and it’s not made easier when you happen to Break an opponent or a summon is used in mid-combo. Jecht’s other attack, Jecht Block, is a guard that’s apparently almost impenetrable, even against attacks that would normally cause a Defense Crush. It’s not invincible, though, and requires you to know the correct block timing.
As for Jecht’s HP attacks, I didn’t find them very useful unless they came at the end of one of the aforementioned combos. They’re both relatively easy to see coming and Triumphant Grasp, the aerial HP attack I tried, often only really works if the opponent is right in front of you, as Jecht drops fairly sharply towards the ground during the attack.
Jecht’s main EX Mode bonus is that he can carry out full combos even if he misses a hit. So even if the opponent manages to dodge the first attack, he can carry straight on and do the rest of the combo. I didn’t find myself using this very often, though. His EX Burst, is carried out just like Tidus’s: pressing the O button at the right time on a gauge, except that Jecht has to do this twice. It’s a pretty badass-looking attack, though, and it definitely suits him. To summarise, Jecht is a decent character if you use him right, but doing so takes a lot of practice. I personally think it’s worth it, although that could just be my Jecht fanboyism shining through. Come on, how can you not like a guy who finishes some of his combos by saying “Don’t cry, now!”, throws meteors at people like they were footballs, and has a possible defeat quote where he says “I gotta sober up…”?

The Emperor
Emperor Mateus of Palamecia, to use his full title, was a very unusual character to get used to. His play style revolves entirely around laying traps for his opponents, such as mines or magic crests that ensnare the opponent or fire projectiles. You really have to take advantage of any mistakes your opponent might make. After a few shaky battles, I eventually developed a strategy that was able to carry me through the rest of my fights with him. I would basically stay a reasonable distance away from my opponent and wait for an opportunity to catch them in his Thunder Crest technique, such as when they were dashing toward me. This Brave attack is a magic circle that’s “drawn” on the ground, and if the opponent gets too close to it, it traps them in the circle and constantly drains BP for a few seconds. I would usually follow this up by laying a Landmine on top of them just before Thunder Crest released them. Most battles basically consisted of doing this multiple times, sometimes using his ranged aerial Light Crest from a distance if necessary, until I gathered enough BP to finish them off with a single HP attack or EX Burst. The only HP attacks I was able to try out were his two Flare attacks. In the air, the Flare is orange and stays where it is, hanging in mid air, but on the ground the Flare is light blue and slowly tracks the opponent for a long time. I tried to use them at close-range as often as possible because otherwise they’re fairly easy to avoid. As a result, I often used the ground Flare in conjunction with Thunder Crest. I do think maybe I rely on Thunder Crest a bit too much and I get the feeling I’m not really using him properly as a result, but hey, I get by.
The Emperor’s EX Mode bonus is just like Firion’s, except that he has “Blood Magic” instead of “Blood Weapons”. Since none of The Emperor’s attacks seem to release much EX Force, I often had to hang around and wait for EX Cores to appear to build up my Gauge properly. Once I’d done that, however, I’d catch the opponent in Thunder Crest again, enter EX Mode, then deal them a Flare attack right in the face. This would of course lead to an EX Burst where I’d hopefully deal a lot more damage and, as a result, regain a lot of health. His EX Burst is carried out by inputting button commands as they light up on the screen, which is pretty easy as the indicators are pretty big. It’s a rather cool animation as well, but I’m still not entirely sure what actually goes on during the attack. Instead, here’s a video to show you and round off the entry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Jgdo5y-N0

Next time: The sorceress of time and a graceful poet!

. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_9QhRzJEs

I'm currently playing them too, now that I finished the game (Terra rules!). So far, my preference is for offensive characters (Exdeath can go to hell the Void).

Exdeath is probably the hardest character I've had to use so far (his section is coming next), but I have to say I didn't find Terra much better. I really don't see what all the fuss is about with her.

Let's say she makes the final battle a breeze...

I have yet to master everyone, so I may change my point of view. For now, I found the other two extensively played character of mine either boring (Kefka, winning every match the same way: fire>fire>trine, EX mode for 95% accuracy) or just not my style (Warrior of light. I don't like his attacks, but I haven't unlocked everything, so...).

Next one I will try extensively are Bartz, Jecht, Kuja and Sephiroth, are they were the ones I liked the most after tests.

Well isn't Terra pretty much just Blizzard>Blizzard>Flood? You could say that about any character.

Sorry, overlooked the entries...

Sounds good, they're still good reads.

I actually have a deeper approach with her, senting meteor from close range is something even the computer doesn't compute, as using holy combo but not using Ultima (as they tend to get out of it, don't ask how) but instead double meltdown (short charge then instant) them afterward as they are too high up to dodge a medium speed followed by a fast attack (there's a roof where they want to dodge)

And someone else could equally have a deeper approach with Kefka. It's simply personal preference.

And I haven't started Shade Impulse yet, so my highest character (Jecht) is only level 24.



Thanks.

Shade impulse is 4 chapters long and you will finish level 60 or so. Then, three new chapter will be opened, two rather easy, another completely insane (Lowest level is 95, highest 110!).

About Kefka, he lacks options in close combat, at least with computer, as they block like god. I am pretty sure a fight against an human player would be better as you can mess with them, but seeing as fighting online is out of the equation, I only have CPU to fight against.

I already know about Distant Glory and Inward Chaos. And actually, from what I've heard, Exdeath is a great character to use against the level 110 Chaos.

And doesn't Terra only have Blizzard Combo as a close combat attack?

New entry: Monday 5th October

Character Impressions 8 – Ultimecia and Kuja
Ultimecia
Ultimecia was rather like The Emperor, in that it took a while for me to get used to her. You have to constantly keep some distance between you and your opponent because all of her attacks are mid to long range, but this is made a bit difficult by the fact that she’s one of the slowest characters in the game. I’d say only Exdeath has a slower walking speed. It also took me a little while to grasp the controls of her three Brave attacks (yes, she only has three, but she can eventually use all three both on the ground and in the air) as each one has a different effect depending on whether or not you hold down the O button. Take Knight’s Axe, for example. If you just press O once, Ultimecia will fire off three axe-shaped projectiles that slightly home in on the enemy that will often initiate a Chase Sequence, but if you hold down the button before releasing it, she will instead fire a single larger, slower axe that can’t be reflected. The second option is easier to dodge, however. Another thing about her attacks is that she can move while she’s casting them, making it a little easier to both hit the opponent and avoid them.
Her HP attacks were okay. Shockwave Pulsar can be charged for greater distances, but I found it’s best used at close range to catch the opponent off guard. Great Attractor is harder to hit with, as you need to hold down the Square button for a few seconds for it to have any effect at all. And even when you do fire a decent shot, it’s pretty easy for the opponent to dodge. Your best bet is to charge the attack and wait until they’ve just finished a dodge before you release the button, as the actual projectile itself is pretty fast-moving. On the subject of HP attacks, what I normally tend to do is wait until I’ve built up my BP a bit, usually Breaking the opponent at least once before I go for an HP attack, but with Ultimecia I often found it best to fire off more, weaker HP attacks then finish with an EX Burst once I’ve built up my EX Gauge. I also seemed to get more EXP for it, overall.
Like Sephiroth and Golbez before her, Ultimecia has an EX Mode-exclusive attack: Time Crush. I only remember using it once so I can’t remember how long it took to cast, but instead of attacking the opponent’s BP, like Heartless Angel and Black Fang did, it freezes your opponent for a period of time, presumably to make it easier to hit with an HP attack. I can’t remember how long it lasted, though, since I went straight into an EX Burst after the HP attack I used. Ultimecia’s EX Burst is basically like a harder version of Squall’s, except that you press the O button instead of the R button. It’s harder because there are more hits and they come faster than Squall’s did. I managed to get a Perfect on it about half the time, but I got a bit better the longer I was using her.

Kuja
Once again, Kuja was a character that took some getting used to. The main gimmicks of his fighting style are that he can freely move around while using any of his Brave attacks (unlike Ultimecia who moves a little slower when attacking), and that his Brave attacks change in effect and power depending on your distance from the enemy. Kuja is also the only character to be able to glide without being in EX Mode, which comes in handy on stages without much ground, and when it comes to gathering the EX Force left over from his attacks. I’m not sure I was able to utilise his Brave attacks properly, as the combos following the original attack seemed to be pretty random, but I did alright overall. I didn’t find his aerial attacks as useful as his ground attacks, as they seemed to be harder to hit with, with one being a slow-mover and easily blocked, and another had to be used pretty much at point-blank range. Of course, like Ultimecia, all of Kuja’s attacks, Brave or HP, can eventually be used on the ground or in the air, it’s just that the various attacks become available for ground or aerial slots at different times. Attacks that are available for ground slots from the start become available for aerial slots at later levels, and vice-versa. Had the game been built differently, I’d probably be saying his aerial attacks were better than his ground ones.
As for his HP attacks, they could’ve been better. The only ground attack I was able to use, Seraphic Star, which later became available to use in the air, would only hit at long distance and was pretty easily dodged. So often I’d find myself firing the attack, the enemy would dodge towards me and attack while I was recovering. And when it became available to use in the air, it just became harder to hit with. The other HP attack, Flare Star, which was only available in the air and will continue to be until I reach level 24, was more useful. The only real disadvantage was that it required me to get close to my opponent, so it was best used just after dashing towards them. Once I unlock it as a ground attack, I could probably use it as a counterattack following a successful block.
I didn’t find his EX Mode bonuses very useful. One is that he can maintain his altitude during a glide for longer than usual, and the other is that he apparently automatically casts Holy and Flare when he performs certain actions. Kuja is constantly surrounded by five orbs that seem to be what he attacks with, and in EX Mode, according to my game guide, these orbs automatically cast Holy and Flare whenever Kuja is “jumping, falling, touching down, or gliding”. However, I never noticed any of this. His EX Burst, like so many other villain characters, is carried out in the same basic way as his respective hero, in this case Zidane. You basically just have to hammer the O button to fill up sections on a gauge. So basically it’s also the same as Cloud’s and Sephiroth’s, really. It’s just that their bars don’t have sections on them. It’s a fairly cool attack, though, when you watch it without having to concentrate on the gauge, as Kuja “conducts” the attack like a piece of music. A major plus of his EX Mode, however, is that thanks to the fur, it’s much less revealing than his normal outfit. It’s also red in colour, and overall seems to make him look a bit less… fruity. This is in contrast to Zidane’s EX Mode, as his is more revealing than his normal outfit and is bright pink in colour, as documented in an earlier entry in this blog. Oh, and a major pro for playing as Kuja is that you see him from the back for most of the time, so his cape covers up his evil, evil man-thong… *shudder*

Next time: A Tree that covets the Void, and a Cloud that comes from it!

For Terra, you can uses Blizzard too, if you know what you are doing (actually better, as it is fast enough to counter some moves from a distance after a dodge, avoiding the repelled animation in case of guarding opponent). But of course, She is way better at keeping the enemy at bay than anyone, as rushing toward her mean exposing to some tornado ass kicking! And of course, Meltdown.

As for Ultimecia's time compression, the duration is "long enough", enough say!

Actually, Terra's best attack period is Meteor, and Holy Combo is only just behind it.

Reflected meteors happen way too often to my opinion at high levels. Also, counter based character WILL **** you (Firion, I hate you)

Have you softened up to Kuja a little then?

Playing as him? Yes. As a character? No. I'll admit that I'm a little biased though. I've heard so many people going on about him being "teh best FF vilain eavar!!" and FFIX being "teh best FF evare!" that I don't think I'm ever really going to like him. And his design really doesn't help his case.

He does wear almost no clothing... except a thong.

Yeah.

I think the fanboy prejudice is also partly why I don't like Terra. Plus in this game I find her battle quotes really annoying...

I have to agree on that part...

And I start to like Sephy as a character, while I hate the man as much as you dislike Kuja.

So... does that mean you dislike the character, but you enjoy playing as him?

Err, yes... I suppose I wasn't as clear as I expected.

Right.

I think it's called staying away and hitting him in the lag from his moves. Besides, Meteor rapes dodge, and it combos into Holy Combo.

If I hit in my opponent's lagging time, then I am either in the air (and countering with an ice block for more damage) or too close (short ranged opponent). I never got it to work past level 80 without a wall between them and me as they do dash / block / dodge like a Pampa. This combo works, but you just cannot use it reliabily in the end game.

New entry: Thursday 8th October

Character Impressions 9 – Exdeath and The Cloud of Darkness
Exdeath
People have told me that Exdeath is the hardest character in the game to use properly, and having played as him I’d have to agree. For starters, he’s by far the slowest character in the game. Seriously, it’s almost ridiculous. It also explained why CPU Exdeath opponents dodge around so much, because it’s actually a faster way of moving. The fact that he can teleport around the arena with his Reverse Polarity move somewhat makes up for this, however. Exdeath’s fighting style is almost entirely defensive, and four of his Brave attacks consist of four different levels of blocking. There’s Low Block (a quick move that guards against frontal magic attacks), Mid Block (similar to Low Block except that it guards against most frontal Brave attacks, magical or physical), High Block (which lasts for as long as you hold the O button and guards against almost all frontal Brave attacks), and Omni Block (a surrounding guard that blocks all Brave attacks and most HP attacks, but only for the instant that you press the button). The idea behind Exdeath’s fighting style is to use one of these block to guard against an attack and quickly launch a counterattack by pressing the O or Square buttons straight afterwards. I’m not sure how which attack you counter with is decided, as they seemed to be pretty random. What’s interesting though is that you can counterattack with moves that you don’t even have equipped. Anyhow, Exdeath only has these Block moves available as aerial attacks until he reaches level 20, when he finally learns Low Block as a ground attack. The other Blocks follow later, but I wasn’t able to get any as I’m just levelling the villains to level 20 for the moment. This meant that if I wanted to block an attack, I’d have to quickly jump and then use the command, which was annoying. It was satisfying when I did manage to land a counterattack, though. One of the main problems was that a lot of my CPU opponents had a tendency to spam HP attacks, which I wouldn’t be able to guard against until I learned Omni Block, and even then my timing would have to be spot-on. The final problem came from one opponent in particular: Ultimecia. Normally I have little difficulty against her, but I found it almost impossible to block against any of her attacks. Her projectiles just come too fast in rapid succession. Maybe I’ll do better against her now I have High Block, but still… it sucked.
Exdeath’s HP attacks are decent enough. Delta Attack pretty much doubles as a guard, so you can potentially guard and counterattack in just one move. It’s rather quick as well, so it’s pretty good for catching opponents off guard. The other move I tried, Almagest, involves him moving quickly (quickly for Exdeath, anyway. About normal running speed for other characters) towards the opponent and engulfing himself in a field of energy, causing an explosion. It’s dodgeable even at point-blank range, when the enemy is actually inside the energy field (something I don’t really understand, but whatever…), but it still hits pretty often, and sometimes the enemy accidentally dodges before the actual impact, so they still get caught in the blast.
I didn’t really notice Exdeath’s EX Mode bonus. According to my game guide, the time necessary to perform a guard (which probably includes his Block attacks) decreases, it allows you to counterattack more quickly and more times, but I didn’t really notice anything… Exdeath’s EX Burst is one of my favourites in the game. This partly because of its awesome name (The laws of the universe mean nothing!), but also because of the animation should you succeed. What you have to do is hold down the O button until the bar on the screen to reduce it, and release the button when it reaches zero. The timing has to be accurate otherwise he’ll cast the weaker Grand Cross attack. If you get it right, however, he casts Neo Almagest, which involves sending the enemy into the Void and sealing the entrance by crushing it in his hands. This animation combined with the lines he says makes for an awesome EX Burst.

Don’t believe me? Check it out and judge for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiu7MY_Q_Og

The Cloud of Darkness
Cloud of Darkness was a refreshing return to form after Exdeath. Sure, she has gimmicks of her own like any villain character, but she’s much more normal than he is. Unlike most characters, Cloud of Darkness’ fighting style revolves entirely around her huge number of HP attacks. She has a larger HP movepool than any other character in the game, nine including a pair of the same attack, but by contrast she only has two Brave attacks. These Brave attacks are where her gimmick comes into play, as she can pull off one of four different attacks depending on the timing of your button presses. To explain better, let’s take her ground Brave attack, Tentacle of Pain, as an example.

Option 1: Pressing the O button once
Her tentacles will swipe at the enemy 3 times. If you don’t press O again until the attack finishes, that’s all that happens.

Option 2: Pressing the O button again at the first swipe
If you press O again straight after the first press, around the time of the first swipe, her tentacles will dart forward a bit and strike the enemy a few times, initiating a chase sequence. This has better range than the normal attack.

Option 3: Pressing the O button again at the second swipe
If you press O again around the second swipe rather than the first, her tentacles will rush forward and slam into the opponent, often causing a wall rush. This also has the bonus of damaging the opponent for as long as they have contact with the tentacles. This attack has better range than both the previous ones.

Option 4: Pressing the O button again at the third swipe
If you press O at the third swipe rather than the first or second, CoD will conjure several dark energy bolts over the opponent. This is the long range attack of the group.

The aerial attack, Tentacle of Suffering, is basically the same but with a few differences. The first option (no extra presses) is exactly the same. The second option (first swipe) only hits the opponent once, but still starts a chase sequence. The third option (second swipe) causes the tentacles to whirl wildly around her, causing a lot of damage (this is one of her best attacks, IMO). The final option (third swipe) sends to balls of energy at the opponent.
As for her HP attacks, I got to try out five of them. Every single one of them is a form of Particle Beam, just with different effects: [Anti-Air] Particle Beam creates four thin beams that shoot upwards around her, [Long-Range] Particle Beam sends out a long semi-homing line of energy beams similar to Warrior of Light’s Shining Wave attack, and [Wide-Angle] Particle Beam fires a mid-range wall of energy that sweeps over the enemy. Those are the ground attacks I tried out, and were the most immediately useful, though they had fairly long start and finish animations. The aerial HP attacks required a bit more tactical thinking. Aura Ball sends out a large, slow-moving energy sphere, and CoD can lay up to five at a time by holding down the Square button. These energy spheres do nothing but home slowly in on the opponent until you release the button, at which point they detonate and cause damage. If you hold down the button for too long, namely a few seconds after the last ball is deployed, they’ll explode automatically. CoD can move slowly around while deploying the spheres, so you need to try and “trap” the opponent in them, otherwise they’ll just dodge the blast. It’s a pretty circumstantial move, but it’s satisfying to pull off properly since CoD laughs when the sphere’s explode, so if you use it as a finishing move, you get her laugh playing over the enemy’s death scream/quote. The other aerial move I tried out, [Wrath] Particle Beam eventually becomes available for use on the ground, and is very reminiscent of Exdeath’s play style. It simply consists of a small burst of energy that can block frontal Brave attacks if timed right. If the “attack” is successful, CoD will retaliate by summoning a beam that shoots up directly beneath the opponent, causing HP damage, kinda like [Anti-Air] Particle Beam.
Cloud of Darkness’ EX Mode involves her becoming a green-skinned/haired version of herself that’s similar to her in-game appearance in the DS remake of FFIII. She also loses her cape so you can see just how revealing her “outfit” really is [/perviness]. Her main bonus, called [Null] Particle Beam, basically means she can cancel the recovery times of her attacks simply by performing an HP attack, so this essentially means that you can pretty much chain her HP attacks together if you use it properly. Her EX Burst, Ultra Particle Beam, is pulled off exactly the same way as Exdeath’s, just going the other way. Instead of holding the O button down to reduce a bar to 0%, you’re holding it down to increase the bar to 120%. If you release it too soon or too late, she’ll perform a much less impressive attack. The trick is to actually release the button around 119%, when it just crosses into 120%. If you do it right, you’ll get Ultra Particle Beam in all its shoop da woop-esque glory. If you’re a fan of that meme, you’ll love this attack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjY4Srur9Kk

Next time: A Mad Mage and a Knight of Chaos!

About Exdeath, there may be a way to control which counter you uses, as the computer seems to use Algamest a lot. Maybe like Terrra's second Meltdown in EX mode, with a direction when used... I don't know for sure, I didn't played him much yet, but I may test this later.

Yeah, that was the only thing I could think of. But there rarely seems to be enough time, he counters so fast...

New entry: Tuesday 13th October

I've actually had this written up for a while, but there we go.

Character Impressions 10 – Kefka and Garland
Kefka
I’d like to start by quoting Kefka himself and saying that I now hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE Terra. I’ve discovered why the Kefka boss fight in Destiny Odyssey VI was so easy: because Terra seems to have been designed in this game specifically to make things as tough as possible for Kefka users. Or maybe Kefka’s been designed specifically to lose to Terra, I’m not sure. Maybe I just suck at playing as him, but between her irritating battle quotes (“Get away!” “Get away!” “Malevolent Winds!” “Malevolent Winds!” “Sorrowful Waters!” “Get away!” “Malevolent Winds!” etc.) and CPU attack-spamming, the fights against Terra were some of the most annoying ones I had to play while levelling him up. But enough about that…
Kefka’s villain gimmick is that the vast majority of his Brave spells have erratic attack patterns, making them harder to avoid. Unfortunately his attacks tend to have a lag when used or leave him stationary while he performs the attack, making him a fairly easy target. However, his moves seem to have very high attack strength, especially if they score a critical hit. The attacks all have weird names to go with their patterns such as “Waggle-Wobbly Firaga” (Kefka shoots a slow-moving fireball that homes in on the enemy in an erratic way and damages their BP repeatedly when it hits), “Zap-Trap Thundaga” (Kefka conjures lightning bolts around the enemy. The more you press the O button, the more bolts are cast), and “Twisty-Turny Blizzaga” (Kefka shoots a ball of ice that travels along the ground and bounces off walls). Like many other mage characters, all of Kefka’s considerable number of Brave attacks can eventually be used both in the air and on the ground. I found the best way to use these attacks was to fire off as many of them as you can in various combinations as fast as you can to really put pressure on the enemy and eventually trick them into dodging straight into the path of another attack. Also, if you’re feeling brave, you can wait to block a melee attack and counter with one of his faster moves (I found Twisty-Turny Blizzaga to be the best for this). My main complaint about his attacks is that, like so many other mages, it’s fairly hard to gather a decent amount of EX Force from his moves. Also, though this is a movement issue, it might just be me, but Kefka seems to fall very quickly. This is irritating on levels that don’t have “floors” like Dream’s End, Planet’s Core and Crystal World.
I only got to try out two of Kefka’s HP attacks: Havoc Wing and Trine. Havoc Wing is a close-range attack that involves Kefka flipping around and sprouting his EX Mode wings to stab the opponent. It’s fairly fast-moving and he can jump up to hit opponents a fair distance above him as well. I found it to be a good attack to use if you’re brave enough to attempt a close-range “block and counter” manoeuvre. Trine is an attack that, as far as I’m aware, can hit from anywhere on the stage. Kefka summons three triangles to converge on the enemy, the main downside being that the triangles move fairly slowly and your opponent could potentially just jump or dodge out of their reach.
Kefka’s EX Mode is one of the best I’ve used thus far. His main bonus, “Exhilarating Magic” causes all of his attacks to become even more erratic and hard to dodge, which is bad news for the enemy. Projectiles multiply, spells rebound in different ways, and Trine gets cast twice from just one attack, making it harder to dodge. This puts even more pressure on the opponent and makes it more likely that they’ll make a mistake. His attacks also get a boost in power and he scores critical hits more often as well, but those are just general bonuses shared by all characters. His EX Burst, Light of Judgment, is one of the easiest ones to pull off, IMO. All you have to do is memorise the three commands that flash up on the screen then enter them in order. Of course, some people prefer to mess the attack up deliberately as they feel his “failed” attack, Forsaken, looks cooler than Light of Judgment. I’d like to finish by saying that I think Kefka has been very well portrayed in Dissidia. His voice was always going to be one of the hardest to get right, but Dave Wittenberg pulls it off excellently, IMO. Kefka also seems to have developed a Deadpool-esque level of insanity during the years since FFVI’s release, as he now breaks the fourth wall by humming the Final Fantasy victory theme as one of his victory quotes.

Garland
After playing as the fairly technical Kefka, not to mention lots of other mage characters, it was nice to cross over to just smashing things with Garland. While most other villains cast spells or have a weird play style, Garland just beats the hell out of his opponents with a giant sword-thing. It’s a satisfying thing to see. He also seems to be the most basic of the villains, with a playstyle not very different from most of the heroes, just straightforward attacks. Only two of the attacks I tried out had anything technical about them, and that was just a matter of pressing the O button again at a certain point in the attack.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, Garland is the pretty much heavy-hitter of the villains, kinda like Cloud is for the heroes. If he manages to land an attack, it’s going to hurt, especially if it’s a critical hit. A couple of times at later levels, I actually ended up Breaking the enemy with just one critical strike. A lot of his attacks can cause Wall Rushes as well, so that just adds to the hurt. Of course, the payoff for this is that he’s a pretty slow mover (though not nearly as slow as Exdeath, thank god…) and his attacks are reasonably easy to dodge unless used right. He also has no ranged attacks apart from his Blaze HP attack, though he has some physical mid-range options, either by swinging his weapon on a chain like a flail or suddenly charging pretty quickly with his weapon like a lance. Still, it’s pretty satisfying once you do get close enough to crush mage characters. Especially Terra.
One of my favourite attacks of his ended up being Lance Charge, the aforementioned move where he suddenly dashes forward with his weapon pointy-end first. The move by itself usually does very little damage, but if you follow it up with another quick press of the O button, Garland will follow the charge by quickly turning his weapon into a sort of deformed axe and slamming them into the ground, adding Wall Rush damage every single time. Voila, possibly his weakest move becomes one of his best. There was also Round Edge (the Brave attack I mentioned at the end of the first paragraph), a basic three-hit combo unless you press O again right after the last hit, upon which he’ll split his weapon in two and serve up a further combo, often causing wall rush damage if you’re close enough to one.
Garland’s HP attacks could be a bit better, though I did only really try out two of them. I was a bit disappointed with Blaze, as I found it pretty hard to avoid whenever I faced Garland myself, though that was probably just me trying to avoid it the wrong way, as most CPUs seemed capable of dodging it just fine when I actually used it. I must try harder… The other HP attack, Earthquake, was a bit more reliable provided I was close enough to hit the opponent with it. I thought it was quite a good block-and-punish move, even if it was only to hear Garland shout “IMBECILE!” as he countered with it after blocking the opponent’s attack or using the EX-Guard manoeuvre.
Garland’s main EX Mode bonus has a pretty awesome concept, IMO. Indomitable Resolve, for that is its name, allows Garland to pull of all of his attacks even if he’s interrupted mid-flow by your opponent’s attack. He still takes damage, but he doesn’t stagger, flinch or get knocked back unless it was an HP attack. This made Blaze a bit more useful against mage attacks, as I could wait for them to use a ranged move (like Terra’s Blizzaga, for example) and use Blaze while they were still casting. I’d still get hit by their attack, but it’s a small price to pay for damaging the opponent’s HP and possibly going into an EX Burst. Garland’s EX Burst, Soul of Chaos, is another one that’s pulled off by hammering the O button, like Cloud and Sephiroth. If you get a Perfect, Garland strikes the enemy with each form of his weapon (twin swords, flail, lance, axe, and finishing with the basic “sword”), and he finishes it all off by calling his opponent a “miserable insect” while performing the final strike.
I’ve become a bit of a fan of Garland after playing as him. This is partly because of his great look (redesigned from the ground up for Dissidia) and so-ridiculous-it’s-awesome weapon, but also because he’s a breath of fresh air amongst the mage-filled villain side. I know there’s Jecht and Sephiroth as well, but they’re just not the same (though still awesome in their own way). And it doesn’t hurt that he has a great voice actor as well. My only main complaint about him? As far as I’m aware, at no point in the game does he ever say he’ll knock anyone down.


So there we have it. That wraps it up for the villains. I’m not really sure what to do about the blog now, since I won’t be attempting Shade Impulse for a fair while. It could well be that I simply won’t post any new entries unless something significant happens. Significant to me, anyway.

As for kefka, I just found how to use him. In close combat... so it explain why Terra is hard to fight, by the way.
Also, interesting fact about Trine: if the opponent is hugging a wall in an angle corresponding to the triangle's approach, insta hit!

But it is not a true ending, as would Taito say in Bubble Bobble... Let's wait for the Character Impression 11!

There isn't going to be a Character Impressions 11 for a long time.

Kefka humming the victory theme is pure win.

Also, as I think you said in the first post in the topic, if you aren't planning on playing Shade Impulse for a while, you could write about some other game you're playing, if something interesting comes up.

I suppose... Trouble is, I'm planning to play Dissidia fairly solidly for a while. Other games just don't interest me as much right now.

Well, you could just write about something that you found interesting in Dissidia, then, if something comes up. Doesn't have to be that long, maybe just a little experience you found amusing or something.

I guess... It's just that all my previous entries have been very structured. I don't know how I'd go about writing down just random things that seem to happen...

True... I don't have the brain capacity to think right now, but I'm sure there's SOME way to make it seem structured.

Minor Entry
So I'm levelling up Exdeath and Bartz right now. My god, you would not believe how much of a chore Exdeath vs Exdeath fights are...

Fighting against Terra isn't too bad, though. She's a good character to practice Exdeath's various blocks on. So's Cloud, actually. Then again I've really only been using High Block against them. I should probably try to learn the timing of Omni Block...

Minor Entry: October 17th 7:10pm
YOSH! I just used Omni Block properly to counter an HP attack for the first time ever! It was against Terra's Tornado. That'll teach her not to spam HP attacks...

Minor Entry: October 17th 7:48pm
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Okay, Bartz is officially joining my list of most hated opponents. I could just be my poor skills, but the AI with him is horrible to fight against. On the ground it just constantly spams Soul Eater, and on the rare occasion it comes after me into the air (since I can currently only use Exdeath's decent blocks in the air. Thanks a lot, Square Enix... ¬_¬) and I manage to Omni-Block it's spammed Wind Shear attacks, it instantly gains all the BP I took by spamming Holy. I've always hated that attack, but now it's jumped right to the top of the list.

Why? Because in my most recent fight, I was finally doing well. I'd inflicted Break on him and hit him with an HP attack, doing just under 2000 HP of damage, and I had a near-full EX Gauge ready to finish him with my EX Burst. the HP attack had slammed him into the wall and dealt extra damage which, combined with a couple low-damage HP attacks I'd used earlier, brought him down to around just 40HP. I went after an EX Core which totally filled my gauge, and I'd thought I'd managed to dodge his Holy attack. Nope. One, just one, of the projectiles hit me from behind and inflicted Break on me. Of course, Bartz's Ifrit summon then kicked in and multiplied his BP by 1.5, sending it into the 2800's, enough to finish me off. I tried to get out of the way in order to finish him off first, but then he used Flood (another really annoying attack) and OHKO'd me.

I was so close!

And its not just against Exdeath. In most of the matches I've fought against a CPU Bartz, it spams its HP attacks and Holy, which initiates a Chase Sequence where he can inflict another HP attack.

I! HATE! FIGHTING! BARTZ!!

Lulz are to be had here.

Eh, I've literally just got my own back on him. He really shouldn't use Wind Shear and Holy so much. With Wind Shear I've gotten pretty good at blocking it (I just need to get used to the various counterattack commands, since I keep pulling off the wrong one), and with Holy I just need to wait until all the projectiles have hit the High Block shield (which stays in place until you release the button) and then counter.

Holy is really only annoying when you're just moving around, since the projectiles home in so well. If you're facing him head on, they're not so bad. though there have been incidents in the past where he's hit me with an attack, and kept spamming it so I was pretty much being juggled.

Flood is still a horrible move, though...

*read it*

.....lulz, Final Fantasy.

Find it at all interesting?

As best I can with me having no clue what's going on.

I'd be happy to provide some explanations, if you like.

Nah, I got it well enough.

Fair enough.

Any questions?

None that I can think of.

Okay then...

Oh! Did you watch any of the EX Burst videos I posted in some of my entries?

Some of them.

Like the one for Tree Dude.

What did you think of it?

So Bartz is a cheap character?

When you're fighting against him, yes, I think he is. It's one of the unfortunate downsides of Dissidia's AI. Sometimes, I think depending on what behaviour is selected for opponents by the Random option, they will spam HP attacks, and Bartz seems to have been the one that this most often affects in my experience. And some of the characters, like Terra, are made more annoying by their repetitive battle quotes.

Characters with annoying voices are annoying.




Obviously, but true.

They really are... Thankfully pretty much all of the characters I actually cared about have rather good voice acting.

Only Terra's voice seemed annoying to me.

The only other voice I can think if that's a little off is Cloud's, but that's only because he pauses at odd times in some of his sentences during cutscenes. Then again, that's less of an issue with dubbing and more to do with lip-syncing. His battles quotes are done well, IMO.

From the video you showed me, it sounded like it.

I agree on the annoying IA part with Firion, OK, Bartz, Terra, Kuja and Golbez (well, CoD too, if having a block or two). These are the most annoying to fight against for me.

Personally, I prefer to fight some other character than Ex-Death for levelling, just because of all these items you need to sythetize/steal. But that's just me.

I don't actually mind fighting Firion, OK, Kuja or Golbez, even when they're spamming HP attacks. The only one out of them that actually has a fairly hard-to-avoid HP attack right now is Golbez with Genesis Rock. Firion's Straightarrow is just laughable (though I've heard Shield Bash is nasty), neither of Kuja's current HP attacks (Flare Star and Seraphic Star) are that hard to avoid, and Onion Knight often falls short with Blade Torrent and misses with Comet, though Firaga is a bit more dangerous.

They all have their annoying moments (what character doesn't?) but for some reason they just don't annoy me as much as Bartz or Terra. I just don't know why that is. Terra has an annoying voice actor and quotes, but I don't know what it is with Bartz...


As for levelling up, I fight against all the different characters I can because I think it gives me better experience than just fighting Exdeath all the time, since he's just an easy target in the hands of the AI. I don't even do the Exdeath levelling-up trick, because I want to get properly used to each characters' moves and master them while levelling up. I'm not even bothering with getting certain items yet...

Shield bash IS horrible, OK can hit fast and hard, as all his brave goes into HP at higher level, Terra is just annoying, you will learn to hate Kuja's Ultima and Genesis rocks does rocks indeed.

Some mage (no spoiler here) has a way worse voice and chained HP attacks.

Even so, I'd rather level up at my own pace and deal with those problems as they come, rather than level up to 100 and get thrown into the deep end with those moves right from the off.

And if you're referring to Shantotto, I'm already aware of her Manafont ability and I actually like what I've heard of her voice.

After 12 dodges in a row, You WILL mute your system.

Good luck with that!

I can already tolerate Exdeath's "HUR HUR HUR", Kuja's "WELL, NOW!", Ultimecia's dodge laugh and the Emperor's "Oh!". I'm not too worried.

Was that a sarcastic "good luck with that", or a normal one?

A real one. 70 hours and only 2 chars at level 100. Next one is level 30.

Most of my characters are currently around level 30. I'm currently levelling up Terra and Kefka to that level (which is a bit of a slog), then it's just WoL and Garland to go.

At the time of posting, I've logged in almost 130 hours...

130 hours? Holy crap... you must really like this game (meant in a positive way of course). 130 hours is my standard time for an RPG game I get really into.

Well to be fair, I've played it at least a little pretty much every day since I got it.

Ahh, yeah that could explain it.

And it's probably going to last for a lot longer. Especially when you consider the sheer number of story modes.

First there's the ten Destiny Odysseys, one for each hero, each one five levels long.

Then there's the four Shade Impulse chapters which can be attempted by any of the ten heroes (and include cutscenes exclusive to each hero's playthrough). Each chapter is also five levels long apart from the final chapter which only has two (but ends in a three-stage boss fight).

And that's just the main storyline.

After that there's the two Distant Glory chapters, also five levels long each, that can be attempted by all the heroes and villains, and the whole thing finishes with Inward Chaos, the hardest story mode, which is also five levels long and features enemies ranging from level 92 to the level 110 final boss, which is also in three stages. Inward Chaos can also be attempted with all playable characters.


And then there's Arcade mode, the Duel Colosseum, getting certain equipment and accessories... so yeah.

That's a pretty good amount of content, especially for a fighting game.

Well I like to think of Dissidia as a hybrid of a fighting game and an RPG.

Minor Entry:
Okay, I think the Exdeath AI has reached new levels of stupid. I was fighting against him as Terra, and he teleported right into my Tornado attack. Twice. In the same match.

*facepalm*

Maybe he likes gusty winds that much.

Eh, maybe...

Ooooooorrrr...y'know, Exdeath trick.

Eh?

You know how Exdeath will never block coming right out of his teleport? People abuse that for leveling.

Oh, right... Eh, I've never used that trick. I'm levelling up my characters the old-fashioned way.

I'm saying it was probably responsible for him teleporting into your attacks as Terra.

Yeah probably. It's still a result of stupid AI, though.

Minor Entry
Okay, so I've got all my characters up to at least level 30, and I'm now playing through each of the Destiny Odysseys one last time before I attempt Shade Impulse, just for that extra EXP boost, to help me master more attacks, and to get more summons/equipment if possible. I'm basically using it as a final training run before attempting the next difficulty level in story mode.
Anyway, I've really been enjoying just plowing through enemies that had previously been a bit of a challenge. I know it's probably only so easy because my characters are much higher levels (and the enemy levels in story mode always stay the same), but I like to think it also shows how far I've come since starting out. It's particularly satisfying to come back up against opponents that had previously given me a lot of grief, like Expert battle pieces and some of the Bosses, and absolutely pwn them. It's like I'm coming back and saying "Hey, remember me? ;)".

Oh, and to everyone who is immature enough to snigger to themselves whenever I've mentioned "PP", it gets better. I've recently unlocked a summon called "PuPu".

And on a less immature note, at the time of writing, I've literally just noticed that one of the pieces of equipment I can unlock for completing a level in DO5 with a certain amount of DP left is called a "Flame Shield". It just made me lulz a bit.

I have to admit....


I snickered at PuPu.

And I agree, there's almost nothing better than pwning something or someone you had trouble with earlier/on a previous playthrough of a game.

I have to admit...


The PuPu comment as partially directed at you since I remember you saying "lulz PP" or something to that effect earlier in mah blog.

And it's not just the fact that I can pwn most of the enemies, it's the fact that I can now pwn a lot of them with a single HP attack. This makes some DP Challenges easier, like "Win within 10 seconds" or "Win without taking damage/without losing HP" or "BRV Break within 10 seconds", but sometimes I have to drag matches out and build up my EX Gauge for later fights that require me to, say, perform an "EX Burst within 10 seconds" or a "Critical hit within 10 seconds" (critical hits come much easier in EX Mode and I don't have to waste time trying to block effectively).

Ahh, right I remember I said that...

So you're getting all the challenges and such done now, before taking it to the next level?

I'm mostly doing it for a last-minute EXP boost. The new summons, items, etc are just bonuses.

But they're nice bonuses.

Oh yeah.

New Update: OH THIS IS BULLSH*T, MAN!!

To those of you that don't know, Dissidia will be re-released soon in Japan as a new "Universal Tuning" edition, including all the changes made for the PAL release and the English voices.

At first I thought this was nothing to worry about. It was just Japan getting the game game we did. But then this happens:

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/509/stp62544.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3064/stp62545.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7397/stp62550.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3609/stp62556.jpg

Okay, so maybe there might be a slim chance of western territories getting this re-release as well, but like the Final Mixes of Kingdom Hearts, I'm not holding my breath. It seems Japan doesn't understand the word "Universal"... ¬_¬

Of course, this could all turn out to be fake, but it looks pretty damn real to me...

Quick
> Inviz
> X-Zone
Target: Japan

Why did I sent my money on a collector again?

I mean, due to FFXIII's upcoming Japanese release, there's small hope for something like this to happen in the west when FFXIII makes it to these shores as an advertising thing, but still... It's very unlikely...

Does the PSP have DLC?

'Cause if it does, this would be prime DLC material.

That's what most people are hoping for right now. Trouble is the developers said a while ago that there wouldn't be any DLC for Dissidia.

And it doesn't really help when lots of people are saying that people are stupid for getting upset over this because SE do it all the time with their "International" versions and "Final Mixes"...

Just because SE does it all the time, doesn't mean it's stupid to be annoyed by it...

It's like Europe and Australia getting games much later than the US. It constantly happens (Although lately I haven't really experienced it, at least in Europe. Don't know about Australia), but that doesn't mean it's bullshit.

Exactly. And even without bearing that in mind it's still not really the same.

Take the Final Mix version of KH2, for example. What did that add? A couple of new keyblades and some new bosses. For that situation to be the same as the Dissidia one, they'd have to throw in the option to play through the story as Riku or something. Or give him his own smaller story mode like Chain of Memories did, 'cause from the looks of things Lightning might also be getting her own Distant Glory chapter.

She even gets her own story mode?

I wouldn't be at all surprised. Trouble is those pictures aren't very clear...

What would have been interesting would be villains' stories, with a final showdown against Cosmos. But no...

Eh, I made my peace with not having that ages ago. I was disappointed, but not exactly devastated.

It'll probaby be revealed soon.

Well since it gets released tomorrow, yeah, I'd say pretty soon.

New Entry: Well, this is humiliating...

Turns out this whole thing was a hoax.

The guy who posted the scans just made a topic with this in it: http://www.dissidia-france.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3195

To think the a** that did it live in MY country. I feel ashamed. Doesn't even know what does trick mean in "trick or treat".

Ahh...

Seems the guy mistook halloween with april 1st.

It is, yes. And everyone is calling him a ass for this, people leaving his forum for good and all.

Seriously, what would you do if Sas would post false information about a new Super smash on purpose?

Personally, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVplOKEKaAI

Seriously?

I don't understand French, so...

Yes, the guy Luciole for example, as he feels that the admin was "full of himself for some time", "Doesn't understand what his joke had as an implication (people cancelling their resevation, thus ending without the game for nothing)" and so on.

BTW, I remind everyone, as I think it isn't clear in my previous post; I would be the unwiling to fight french one, not actually punching Sasori in the face. Before anyone misinterpret my post.

In that case, I don't get it.

Wait, that was supposed to be Lightning? I thought it was Ashe for a second...

Also.

Startled, unable to answer and more or less KO (losing will to post) because of this.

It was pretty convincing until I saw the pictures up close.

I just immediately assumed it was Lightning when I saw it...



Also, if anyone from FFXII should get in, it would have to be Bar... something. The air pirate, can't remember his name. Vaan the "main" character has no impact on the main story from what I can recall.

You mean Balthier. And someone from FFXII did make it in, but I'm not revealing who just yet.

AND I'D PREFER IF NO-ONE ELSE SAID ANYTHING EITHER. I WANT IT TO BE A SURPRISE.


BTW, Vaan wasn't even in the original story plan for FFXII. In the sequel, however, he actually is the main character.

Balthier, yes.

It shows... he has no impact at all. The entire plot revolves around Ashe and I think her bodyguard as well. Vaan and Penelo are just... kind of there. And is the sequel that DS game? I'm really bad at remembering names today... Something with wings, I think?

Actually Basch, Ashe's bodyguard, was originally going to be the protagonist.

And yeah, its called Revenant Wings.

He was? Why did they change it? I mean, I don't mind Vaan nor Penelo, but what would the problem be with having them as party members, not main characters?

I think it was because they didn't think he'd appeal much as a protagonist. Stupid reason I know, but...

Yeah, they didn't want to try to use an older guy as a protagonist, after the last game they tried that in (Vagrant Story) failed. Also, Vaan is more of a viewpoint character than a main character, and coul actually be called more of an antagonist than a protagonist, as he is instrumental in the character development of Baltheir, Ashe, and Basch.

Also, GabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranthGabranth.

Aaaaaand he suuuuuuuucks.

Isn't an antagonist a villain?

Yeah, that's kind of a silly thing to do, changing the focus to another character, because the original main character is older... This is of course only speaking as a gamer, but as long as a main character is well developed, I don't really mind how old they are. I could play an old geezer if he was well developed. It would actually be awesome to go around and kick ass as a really old man.

Not necessarily.

Kain, FF4
Magus, Chrono trigger
Jowy, Suikoden 2
... these are example where it doesn't work.

I don't know who the other two are, but Kain isn't a great example. He's only an enemy for part of the game. Vaan is in your party for the whole of FFXII, isn't he? And it's not like he contributes in any way to the villain's plans. I just don't see how he could be counted as an antagonist, unlike, say, Cid or Ba'Gamnan.

Hell, as far as I can see, a Flan is a bigger antagonist than Vaan.

That's because you've got your definitions mixed up. Villain/Hero and Pro/Antagonist are two seperate things, though they are usually associated with each other.

Alright then, what does antagonist actually mean?

A character who is either opposed to the protagonist in both goals and means, or a character who causes the protagonist to change.

And how does Vaan cause any of the characters to change?

I haven't played FFXII, so...

New entry: Sunday 15th November (Part 1)
Right, I'm about to attempt the first Shade Impulse chapter with the first of my heroes so I figured it would be best to tell you my plans of how I'm going to lay out my main entries from now on.

As I've stated before, I play through characters' story modes in a certain order corresponding to the difficulty level of their original Destiny Odyssey stories. So it will go Cloud (*), Cecil (*), Tidus (**), Firion (**), Squall (***), Zidane (***), Bartz (****), Onion Knight (****), Terra (*****) and finally Warrior of Light (*****). This order applies to levelling up the villains as well. Now, all upcoming story mode chapters will be the same for all characters, so I'm only going to go in-depth with the levels themselves in my write-up of Cloud's runthrough. For all other characters I will only write about noteable fights, like particularly difficult or interesting/fun ones. Once I clear Shade Impulse and unlock Distant Glory, this will apply to the villains as well since they can attempt those chapters along with the heroes.

Okay, I think that's everything. I'll hopefully be posting my first Shade Impulse entry later today.

Good luck! Even if this is not the worst part.

Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to Inward Chaos. And I don't plan on taking on any of the more difficult Duel Colosseum courses any time soon.

New entry: Monday 16th November

Shade Impulse 1 – A Truth Lost (Cloud playthrough)
Let’s get straight into it. Level 1 wasn’t too much trouble, though it did introduce me to the collective gimmick of all Shade Impulse battles: Omega Stages. Every battlefield in Dissidia has an Omega version, which is the same for the most part but involves some kind of gimmick, usually to do with the stage’s BP pool. Some stages move elements around, changing the layout of the stage, and some introduce more hazards. Other simply mean the BP pool will change when certain conditions are met. I will be listing the gimmicks of each Omega stage as I play them. In level one I fought on Old Chaos Shrine, Pandaemonium and World of Darkness.

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Old Chaos Shrine
The gimmick of Omega Old Chaos Shrine is that the BP of you and your opponent is constantly slowly drained into the stage’s BP pool, so it’s increasing all the time. It wasn’t too bad to deal with, but it’s geared towards a more offensive play style than I usually employ.

Pandaemonium
The gimmick for Pandaemonium is a bit nastier. It causes certain areas of the floor to sprout damaging spikes from time to time, though only when the floor bricks turn from blue to red. There are also “safe zones” in the form of grey bricks. When someone is hit by the spikes, the stages BP pool increases, so it’s kinda like the stage itself has just used a Brave attack on you. Ideally you need to try and knock your opponent into the spike zones, I suppose, but I just found myself staying in the safe zones or in the air, despairing the fact that Pandaemonium has become even more cramped than usual.

World of Darkness
The gimmick for Omega World of Darkness is that the stage itself completely changes depending on how far away from your opponent you are when darkness falls over the stage, so there’s essentially three stages in one: the default stage, the stage that appears if you’re close to your opponent, and the stage that appears when you’re far away from your opponent. The stage BP pool continually rises whenever you’re playing on one of the two non-default stages. The close-proximity stage basically reduces the floorspace and turns the level into a more vertical one, with large cuboid structures piled on top of each other. The long-range stage consists of a large amount of big crystal-like platforms in two layers linked by thin beams of light that you can grind up and down on.

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Level 2 brought the first “Strange” battle piece of Shade Impulse. You know the kind. 1HP? Often spams attacks? Is often stupidly good at dodging? Well that was this guy. It was a Tidus copy that kept spamming Energy Rain. Combine his insane evasion with all Cloud’s HP attacks having pretty long wind-up times and you have the beginnings of a headache. The only nice thing about this fight was that I was able to see the close-proximity version of World of Darkness. The rest of the level passed without much incident, including the boss fight with Kefka. The new Omega stages I got to try out are as follows:

Lunar Subterrane
Nothing changes apart from a few more destroyable structures, as the stage BP pool increases as stage structures are damaged/destroyed. The fight was over before I really got to experience it.

The Rift
This is another stage that changes physically as time goes on, so I’m looking forward to trying it out properly. I think there are three outcomes including the default stage, like World of Darkness, but I think it’s totally random which stage you’ll get. Another similarity is that the BP pool continually rises while the stage is transformed.

Kefka’s Tower
This stage is rather like Omega Pandaemonium in that it’s more hazardous than the normal stage. Small jets of steam gush from certain areas of the stage that cause damage, and the stage BP increases whenever steam is vented.

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Level 3 provided me with fights long enough to see the changing stages of The Rift and World of Darkness properly. It was pretty interesting, especially on The Rift where structures could simply disappear from under your feet. Level 3 was a little annoying, however, as it had an awkward layout that severely limited the number of opportunities to chain battles together and therefore save DP. Level 2 had this problem as well. It’s not necessary right now to get high DP scores, but it’s still irritating…
I’m really starting to dislike fighting Tidus. I fought a nasty copy of him on Level 4 that was really good at dodging and kept spamming his Jecht Shot attack. The bad thing was that he had a normal amount of HP, so… Actually the battles are generally getting harder now. The enemies are nearer my own level and its getting harder to get DP chances. The boss fight with Jecht wasn’t too bad, though. And it gave me the only new Omega stage this level.

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Dream’s End
Dream’s end is one of the stages where the gimmick hasn’t (so far) altered my matches very much. The basic idea is that the stage BP pool rises as attacks connect, so it’s kinda like the opposite effect of Omega Old Chaos Shrine.

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And so we enter the final level of Chapter 1. One thing I discovered is that trying to build up a full EX Gauge (for an upcoming DP challenge) while fighting a high-levelled HP-attack-happy Jecht copy and keeping him away from EX Cores (for another DP challenge) on Omega Pandaemonium is an absolutely hellish experience. It also really doesn’t help that the enemies are now starting to make pretty heavy use of Accessories while I still have no understanding at all of how they work. Many retries later I finally managed it, and all without throwing my PSP across the room. What’s not so good is that I’ll now have to do it at least nine more times… I’m really dreading fighting on Omega Pandaemonium with Firion, as he has possibly the worst aerial game of any character. The final boss fight against Exdeath was a total walkover in comparison.

Well, that’s the first chapter of Shade Impulse, and I survived my first playthrough without too much trouble overall. As I said in my previous entry, I’ll only document events from the rest of the heroes’ journeys through Shade Impulse if I feel they’re major enough, so I really don’t know who my next entry will be about. It could have a bit about Cecil, or it might skip ahead further down the list, depending on how their playthroughs go. In any case, my next major entry will be about Cloud’s playthrough of Shade Impulse 2.

Just curious, which level is your Cloud?

After finishing Shade Impulse 1, he's now level 48, although at least two of those levels came from the numerous retries of the aforementioned hellish Jecht fight.

Just to tell you, when you level up while losing but retry without fleeing, you do not retain the earned experience.

And level 48... if your equipment, follows, then good, but else... good luck for the end!

After I'd done enough retries to guarantee myself a negative level score, I'd flee the battle and restart the level instead, so that's where some of the levels came from.


And yeah, I try to update my equipment. I have yet to try using Accessories, though.

For accessories, I guess (Physical) attack+ and every multiplier you can get (being close of opponent work good on Cloud, for example, executing brave attacks is a good idea too, maybe maxHP if you have it...). Since getting level 50+ equipment requires some arena battling anyway, you'll need it.

Don't the really useful accessories break though?

Forget about these for now, you don't really need these anyway. There are accessories that remove / diminish the chance of breaking. Useful for any XP bonus accessories for Lvl 100 characters.

Good read. The jecht fightsounded hard though.

New entry – Saturday 5th December

Shade Impulse 1 – Other Playthroughs

Cecil
I forgot to mention another nasty enemy in the form of a “Strange” Terra copy in level 4. This one has 1HP, is insanely good at dodging, spams Meltdown, and her DP chance is to land a critical hit on her within 10 seconds. Not an easy task when she can dodge so brokenly. The Jecht copy battle in level 5 was a bit easier with Cecil, only taking me a couple of retries. Maybe it was because I’m more experienced, maybe it was because Cecil has a better aerial game than Cloud. I’m not sure. I didn’t have to waste DP getting chests either, as I’ve already opened most of them during Cloud’s playthrough.

Tidus
Having done Chapter 1 with two characters, I’ve now gathered enough points to gain a 4-star rating for the chapter. This means I now have to be more strategic with the levels. Not only am I avoiding the “Ultimate” battle pieces that spawn in certain levels (which can be upwards of level 78), but I’m also getting all the new chests and summonstones that I can gain access to. I also got to see two Tidus-exclusive cutscenes in level 4, one before the Jecht boss fight and one after. See, all the heroes face each of the villains in the same order as they progress through Shade Impulse. When a hero faces his or her corresponding villain in a boss fight (Terra vs Kefka or Tidus vs Jecht, for example), you get to see cutscenes exclusive to that hero’s playthrough. I’m not sure what happens when the villain is the final boss of an entire chapter, though. When a villain is a final boss, like Exdeath is to Chapter 1, the cutscenes play out no matter who you’re playing as. I have yet to see whether playing as the corresponding hero (in this case Bartz) would change anything.

Firion
I’m very glad I no longer have to rely on Straightarrow as Firion’s only HP attack, as that would make this a horrible experience. His other HP attacks are much more useful, and I now even have some attacks that can chain directly into an HP attack, so that’s very nice. Something I’ve noticed with Firion, and other characters I guess, is that when he’s in a chase sequence, whenever you use a Brave attack to knock the opponent “upwards”, it just looks like he’s kicking them in the nads. I’m also very grateful for his Blood Weapons bonus in EX Mode. Healing with HP attacks? Yes please. Fighting the Jecht copy on level 5 wasn’t so bad either, partly because Firion’s most useful attacks involve reeling the opponent in, then either knocking them away again or chaining into an HP attack. As long as I stayed away from the spike areas, I was fine, despite Firion’s ground-heavy moveset.

Squall
Not much to say here, really, except that I really like his Beat Fang Brave Attack. I found it highly useful in this chapter, especially against the Jecht copy on level 5. Then again, Squall’s BP game in general is brutal, especially in EX Mode, where he seems to score a ridiculous number of critical hits. Though that may just be due to the sheer number of strikes in his combos.

Zidane
Nothing to report. Sorry if that disappoints anyone…

Bartz
As it transpires, nothing different happens when you face a certain hero’s respective villain as the final boss of a chapter. Or at least, nothing happens in the Exdeath cutscenes, since Bartz does most of the heroes’ talking in those cutscenes no matter who you’re playing as. In other news, I was able to fulfil a DP requirement against a Golbez copy in level 5 with just 0.03 seconds remaining.

Onion Knight
My main hope for Onion Knight’s playthrough was to Master as many of his attacks as possible, and thereby opening up new attack options. As I mentioned in my impressions of him, Onion Knight only has four Brave Attacks, but each of those attacks can later be chained into another Brave Attack, or eventually into HP attacks. I basically want to unlock al these options as soon as possible.
It might just be due to all the practice I’ve been doing, but the Jecht copy in level 5 was quite a bit easier this time around, despite Onion Knight’s attacks being a great deal weaker than the enemy’s. Though I will admit I had to use EX Mode to even the odds, forcing me to gather a full EX Gauge again. In the end it came down to sudden death. Each of us had enough BP to ensure a one-hit kill. He dashed towards me and tried to use Triumphant Grasp, but I just managed to get in there first with Wind Shear. The match was mine, and I only lost less than a quarter of my HP.

Terra
Finally, after eight playthroughs of this chapter, I finally get to see the proper cutscenes before and after the Kefka boss fight. It was pretty cool, especially his “death” scene after the battle. Once again, getting used to Terra’s ranged style was tricky, particularly as I’ve started trying to master Meteor (a widely acclaimed attack) and Graviga (a widely criticised attack), neither of which I’m used to yet. Same with her recently acquired HP attack, Meltdown. I’ve just learned that it has three different levels of attack, so I’m trying to get used to those as well. Overall, however, Terra’s playthrough could’ve gone a lot worse.

Warrior of Light
Again, not much to report. However, I have become fond of activating an EX Burst with his Bitter End Brave-to-HP attack combo, simply because the animations seem to flow into each other so smoothly. He’s also a bit of a beast in EX Mode, as more hits are added to each of his strikes.

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Well, that's it for now. Stay tuned for possible minor updates while I level up the characters some more, and I will eventually document my experiences in Shade Impulse 2.

Alls fair in love and war. Even in FF games.

Nut kicking is totally fair as well. So you've gone through Shade Impulse with all heroes now?

The first chapter, yes. Three more to go. And that's not counting the levelling up between each one.

How much of a level difference is there approximately between each chapter?

I've already made a note of it:

Is Shade Impulse 4 easier than Shade Impulse 3?

For the most part? Probably. However it does have the regular story mode's final boss at the end of it.

Ahh, okay.

It just confused me that the level drops by 20.

Yeah. And there's the fact that Chaos has to be fought three times in a row whenever you face him.

And he's difficult?

Yup. You first fight him at level 48 in Shade Impulse, then at level 110 in Inward Chaos, then you can fight him again in one of the other modes at level 130 (I think...).

Level 130? Wow...

And level 130 Chaos is brutal... *Cries for his missing fingers*

Yeah. And the highest you can go with any character is 100.



Yeah, I'm not planning to fight him for a long time, even after unlocking the Blackjack Course.

So no matter what he's 30 levels above you? Jesus...

And better equipped, with triple your HP, completely broken attacks and on a really small arena without cover.

Though I've heard some characters can beat him more easily than others. Provided you can use them properly, that is. I've heard that Exdeath in particular, when used properly, is a beast when fighting Chaos.

And can you use him properly?

Meh, so-so.

Okay. Who's your best character?

I'm not really sure yet.

Terra have an attack that cancel one of the worst one Chaos have and lock him down to almost spam this attack over and over again. Oh, did I mention it's a HP attack?

Sephiroth can outrange him with brave attacks but you still need to land a HP one.

As for the other I havent tried much.

That HP attack of Terra's wouldn't happen to be Tornado, would it?

And am I right in thinking that Cloud's supposed to be decent against Chaos as well?

Tornado is it indeed.

But Cloud isn't that good, at least for me. Oh, yes, Omnislash V5 does hurt, but that's it.

Well, to each their own, I suppose...

I'd imagine the Emperor and Ultimecia completely suck ass against Chaos.

Chaos have some trouble figuring what to dodge against the Emperor, actually, but I tend to spam traps to begin with, so that may explain it.

Ah, I take it you're not a big Emperor player?

No, I only do this against Chaos, because it work well on him. But I didn't use him much as I lend my game to a friend... who deleted my save without noticing.

Right...

So who would you say is the worst character to use against him? The one I should look out for?

From my mains, Terra hands down! I think Kuja's mobility isn't going to help and Gabranth may end up more or less difficult to use depending on builds (hint, boost his Ex gauge). I have yet to test if you can counter with Firion or Cloud of Darkness with ease, but if so, it should be a breeze. But basically, learn to evade every HP attacks and it's just a matter of landing enough of yours.

Well I've heard that Gabranth with the proper build could be one of the strongest characters to use against him. Still, as I have no knowledge of accessories whatsoever, I'll be saving him for later. Then again, I'll probably be forced to learn about accessories before then...

Well, as long as you have an idea of what you need, putting a single accessories and every multipliers you can works for me (Terra/Kefka with Magic damage + 25% x 8 or so does hurt!)

Well I suppose I get that much, but don't accessories break after a few fights?

No, not every accessories, only those marked as such.

So the majority of them don't break, then?

99% of them, right. And the only one "breakable" worth noting (I had) is the Exp plus ones, as it is really powerful at level 100 and XP -> Ex Gauge ability.

Well that won't really help me at this stage...

How do I get Rosetta Stones? There aren't enough for all the characters in story mode, are there?

Good guess! Try the colloseum and the shop (you do sythetise new equipments, right?)

I haven't so far, no. What ingredients are needed for a Rosetta Stone?

Elementals stones, as far as I remember, but I cannot remember which one; It's like the jobs items.

And I'm guessing you have to battlegen them? Because I have no idea how that works either.

In the colloseum, you win... token, I suppose in English... that you can trade for chest. Various items/rare equipments can be found there, depending of the course. For rosetta stone, aim the Level 90-100 one. I heard you can gain the actual stone at the last one, but I haven't tested this yet (case of being slaughtered to death by agressive opponents, like, worse than in Inward Chaos!).

I'd rather work at getting the ingredients than the stone itself. There's no way I'm going up against a level 90-100 opponent just yet.

I have to add that sometimes, you can haves "reports" there (like Ansem's in Kingdom Hearts), revealing some parts of the story. So it's actually interesting story wise.

Yeah, I knew about those. The Cosmos Reports are gained in Story Mode and the Chaos Reports are in Duel Colosseum, right?

That's it. Good hunt!

So are there specific accessories I should be using for different characters? Like increasing wall rush damage for Cloud or something.

More or less, even if I tend to stick with pure damage bonus, while Ex bonus and attraction goes along well too. Defensive accessories requires micromanagement (depending on opponent, mostly), wall rush does help some chars like Cloud, Squall and Jecht, and so on... it's up to you to create your playstyle with these.

Okay... And how does Battlegen actually work? There are some DP chances that require it and it seems pretty random to me...

You've got your answer! I never put much attention in it as I saw some equipment increasing the drop rate in the shop (that I haven't unlocked), while I already have Luck + 4 items. Just fight in various situation and try to grab as much as you can, but it's not the hardest part anyway.

For DP, aim for multi hit, crash attacks if possible, but really, it's luck based.

That's a bit of a rubbish task, then...

It's a bonus for those who play much... and the key for some equipments.

I still think it's a stupid way to unlock something.

You're not alone here...

I leave for 16 hours to read and write about the vietnam war, and there are like 3 new pages.

STOP BEING ACTIVE D:

(http://msp5.photobucket.com/albums/y196/dannydude182/smiley-300x300.png)

Damn it, can't argue with the awesomeface.

And that's what's so great about it.

Yeah. That, and it's exploitable.

(http://th08.deviantart.net/fs32/300W/f/2008/231/1/a/Awesome_Smiley___Sniper_TF2_by_Sitic.png)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs31/f/2008/206/e/b/Awesome_Face_Alucard_by_kevino13.gif)

(http://www.brawlsnapshots.com/snapshots/161295.jpg)

That Jigglypuff one is great.

Another great smiley? I don't know the name of it, but it's in the bottom-right panel of this comic: http://booter-freak.deviantart.com/art/Avatar-Discovers-Shipping-2-115972801

I think I've seen it used in relation to "What has been seen, cannot be unseen" pictures, but I'm not sure that's it's name.

I believe that's another version of angry. Of the "That's so stupid I can only stare at you" variety.

Minor, non-Dissidia-related entry
Okay, so I finally, finally, got round to finishing the story mode of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, and I must say it's very well-handled. Y'know, with Zack's death and everything.

So it was satisfying?

It was. It's really quite touching.

In addition to brief scenes of Zack trying to get an unconscious Cloud back to Midgar and certain people within Shinra, friends of Zack's, trying to find him before the army does and save him (as well as finally give him all the letters Aerith sent him over the four years he's been gone), there's an unwinnable battle which sees Zack gradually being gunned down by a huge number of Shinra forces. This fight is interrupted from time to time by Zack remembering major figures in the game via the DMW (a battle mechanic in the game where three slots in the corner of the screen continually spin and randomly activates Limit Breaks, Summons and other bonuses). The characters used for the regular Limit Break slots are all major figures in the story/game, so the slots stop on their faces as Zack remembers them, and brief scenes play out in a distorted, fuzzy way, like there's interference.

Eventually (once you reach 1HP, I think) it shifts to dark and heavily overcast weather, and Zack is only fighting three enemies. He moves sluggishly, and every movement seems to be a huge effort. The only face left on the DMW slots is Aerith's, and they move in an erratic way as if they're broken. Finally he collapses and there's a final burst of distorted memories about Aerith.

And then...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6hBcdicBws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_i6gk9-3_M&feature=related

So there you have it. The voices and dub might not appeal to everyone, and I personally wasn't keen on the ending song, but all in all, it's pretty damn good.

That is handled pretty nicely, I must admit.

Yup.

That's one thing I don't like about prequels. You can tell they'll end on a downer or at least on a bittersweet note, y'know, to set the scene for the "original" installment. That happened a lot in this game. It's like the Star Wars prequels. You can see Anakin performing all sorts of heroic deeds, but you still always know he'll eventually become the guy in the black helmet with the breathing problems. You can like the Jedi all you want, like Mace Windu, but you will always know that something bad will happen to them because they don't appear in the original stories. It's the same deal for quite a lot of prequels. However, if it's handled well enough, the ending can still be enjoyable, despite all the doom and gloom.

That's true. The problems a prequel faces are quite big, since it has to stay true to the original, without creating plot holes.


Also, poor Mace Windu...

That's true.

Mmhm.

New Entry: Monday 8th February 2010

Wow, has it really been over two months since I last updated this properly? Apologies to my readers (both of you), but I got distracted by other games over Christmas. And a little bit afterwards...

So, without further ado, here’s the next part of Shade Impulse.

Shade Impulse 2 – The Schemers (Cloud Playthrough)
The first battle was a little shaky at first as I was a bit rusty with the controls. Now that I think about it, Playing as Exdeath and Jecht could be rather unpleasant next time I try it… Anyway, the first level allowed me to try out the remaining Omega Stages, but none of the initial fights lasted long enough for me to properly experience them… Still, here are some explanations.

Ultimecia’s Castle
The gimmick of this stage is that every so often, it will be affected by “Time Compression”. During this time, the stage BP randomly changes, broken stage elements rebuild themselves, and the gears in the level spin wildly, damaging anyone who touches them. The blur effect during this time is annoying, though…

Planet’s Core
As far as I can tell, this stage’s gimmick is very similar to The Rift. Every so often the stage will change, and the stage BP will rise. Unlike The Rift, Planet’s Core only has two variations. One is a group of medium-sized platforms, similar to the normal stage, while the other consists of two tall pillars floating in mid-air and lots of grind rails. The central platform at the bottom of the stage remains in place in both versions of the stage, however.

Crystal World
The gimmick in this stage is very simple. Crystals continually appear in set areas around the stage, and the stage BP rises as they do. They are easily broken, and new crystals appear in their place once they are destroyed, causing the stage BP to rise even more.

The regular enemies of the stage fell quickly, and the end of level Boss, Kuja, only fared a little better due to his Magic Pot summon. All that levelling up I did was paying off so far. I didn’t manage to get a decent DP bonus, but that’s not my main priority right now.

The opponents of Level 2 didn’t cause much trouble either, apart from a rather stubborn Garland copy. However, I did manage to inflict a full 9999 damage with Cloud’s EX Burst against one foe, which is a bit of a first with me. Another lousy end-of-level score, but you can’t have everything…
In fact, the rest of the chapter passed in much the same way. Some of the levels had variations, such as “hidden” spaces, or fights that trigger the appearance of other enemy pieces later n the level, but nothing too terrible. Along the way I also became able to try out Cloud’s Brave-to-HP attacks: Finishing Touch and Omnislash Version 5. They’re both suitably flashy and sealed my victory on numerous occasions. Eventually I made it to the Final Boss of the chapter, The Emperor. With all his talk of ruling everything and the Heroes of Cosmos just being pawns in his game, it was very satisfying, and a little funny, to smash him to pieces in just under a minute.

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So there we have it. Shade Impulse 2 is done. Sorry it wasn’t more interesting, but levelling up so much has proven to be a little bit of a double-edged sword. Still, I’d rather have a game that’s easy and fun than hard and frustrating. Maybe I’ll have something more interesting to say after I play through the chapter with the other Heroes.

Which level are you with Cloud? Also, he is a beast against computer.

After finishing the chapter, he was about level 63. But I did get a load of EXP bonuses via that playplan thing. Y'know with the Chocobo. I started the chapter at level 55.

... You're overleveled for this, then (poor Chaos...)

*shrugs* Better to be safe than sorry. I tend to go by the highest level enemy in a given chapter, minus the Ultimate Battle Pieces. In Shade Impulse, it's level 51, so I decided to go for Level 55 for my own characters.

NOTICE
I was hoping to post my playthroughs for the other Heroes before I left on Saturday, but it doesn't look like I'm going to have time. Expect the next update next Wednesday when I return.

New Entry: Thursday 18th February

Sorry, I was intending to post all this before I left, but it just wasn't plausible.

Shade Impulse 2 – Other Playthroughs

Cecil
Things played out much the same in Cecil’s playthrough, though some of the DP bonuses were trickier to get, as Cecil lacks Cloud’s raw attack strength, making it less easy to inflict Break status on the opponent. There was a rather nasty Golbez copy on level 5 that I had to retry against, however. The fight took place on the Planet’s Core stage, so when the stage changed, the BP pool could raise to almost 5000 at a time. He used his Lich summon to reduce my BP to 0 after a short time, then I got caught in his Genesis Rock attack, and the rest is history. I managed to beat him on my second attempt, though.
The real Golbez at the end of level 4 was a much easier fight, but there was the bonus of cutscenes before and after the boss battle that are exclusive to Cecil’s playthrough, so that was nice. The highest amount of damage I was able to do with a single EX Burst was 7137 HP.

Tidus
Tidus had the same problem as Cecil, though it’s probably only because I got used to playing such a heavy-hitter as Cloud. DP chances were equally tricky to gain, but there was the added complication of a lot of the enemies seeming to be really good at dodging my attacks this time around as well. Maybe I was just using Tidus incorrectly, maybe I’m just not used to the odd movements of his attacks. Who knows? Tidus’ first line in the pre-final-boss cutscene made me laugh a little, though (“My dear tools of war… Do you come to your master, finally tired of the struggles?” “We’re here to sock you one!”). The highest amount of damage done with a single EX Burst was a full 9999 HP, against a Garland copy in Level 2.

Firion
This chapter took on a little more significance during Firion’s playthrough as the main enemy of the chapter is clearly shown to be The Emperor. The pre and post-final boss cutscenes seemed more important as well as a result.
Firion is a bit more of a heavy-hitter than Cecil and Tidus (in my experience, anyway. His Rope Knife Brave attack came in very handy for inflicting Break status). The only times he really suffered were on the stages with little floorspace. Planet’s Core and Ultimecia’s castle were horrble to play on, especially against Kuja copies as Kuja is one of the best aerial fighters in the game, while Firion’s aerial game is almost non-existent. To be honest, though, Firion has a better time going through these levels than other Heroes simply because of his Blood Weapons EX Bonus. Speaking of which, the highest amount of damage I did with a single EX Burst was 7398 HP, against a Firion copy in Level 5.

Squall
Squall might not have the most raw power, but the sheer number of hits he can get in definitely makes up for it. I had no problems Breaking the enemies during his playthrough, though I did have trouble landing his HP attacks a couple of times. The CPUs can be annoyingly good at dodging sometimes… Still, I managed to try out his Revolver Drive HP attack for the first time. If you can actually manage to hit with it, it’s a really nasty move…
The highest amount of damage I managed to do in a single EX Burst this time was 9137 HP, against an Onion Knight copy in Level 5.

Zidane
I was surprised by how easy Zidane’s playthrough was. I new he was a fast attacker, but I don’t remember his hits doing so much damage. Breaking enemies wasn’t a problem, and thanks to his Meo Twister Brave-to-HP attack, winning within a time limit was rarely an issue either. The only enemy I had trouble against was the Golbez copy on Level 5 that I mentioned in Cecil’s section. This guy managed to get me down to 1 HP, and probably would’ve beaten me if it weren’t for Zidane’s uber-fast Free Energy attack. I also finally got to see the proper cutscenes before and after the Kuja boss fight at the end of Level 1. I’m not exactly the biggest fan of FFIX, but it was still quite nice to watch, as they’re one of the only pairs that end on relatively good terms.
I also managed to deal a full 9999 HP of damage with a single EX Burst again, this time against a Cecil copy on Level 5.

Bartz
I had very few problems with Bartz. He has a pretty good moveset, does a decent amount of damage, and in EX Mode he gets the fastest-deployed HP attack in the game: Goblin Punch. That move comes in very handy against the more dodge-happy CPUs. I can’t really think of any enemies that gave me any major problems, and the most damage I was able to do in a single EX Burst was 7700 HP against an Onion Knight copy on Level 3.

Onion Knight
I didn’t have many problems with Onion Knight, either. I’d forgotten how much of a beast his Ninja EX Mode could be at gathering BP, and I even had to resort to using it a couple of times for DP chances. Finally, I managed to see the last remaining character-exclusive cutscenes in this chapter, this time between Onion Knight and Cloud of Darkness at the end of Level 3.
Because of Onion Knight’s dual EX Modes, I was able to get two high scores with this playthrough. The top amount of damage caused by a single Ninja EX Burst was 6971 HP against an Onion Knight copy on level 5, and the highest amount caused by a single Sage EX Burst was 7976 HP against a Bartz copy on Level 2.
As a final note, after defeating a Cecil copy on Level 5, I was awarded with 9000 EXP, and a bonus of 1 EXP. You probably don’t need to think very hard to work out why I’m bothering to tell you about that…

Terra
As anyone who’s read my previous blog entries regarding this character will know, it’s probably safe to say that Terra is my least favourite Hero to play as. She’s slow, she has pretty poor jumping ability, she has an annoying voice, and it seems to be rather difficult to fill up her EX Gauge without constantly going after EX Cores or spamming her Blizzard Combo attack. However, I have to appreciate her for the amount of damage she can dish out if her attacks actually hit their targets (that’s not to say she’s inaccurate, it’s just that some CPUs are very good at dodging and/or blocking). To give you an example of this, the aforementioned Blizzard Combo can deal over 1000 Brave damage with the final strike alone if it’s a critical hit, enough to Break most opponents in a single attack. Yeah…
To be honest, since the Kefka boss fight already took place in Chapter 1, there isn’t much for Kefka to really do in cutscenes anymore. However, I did have a pretty cool battle against a Cecil copy in Level 4, where I achieved a DP bonus with just 0.06 seconds remaining on the timer. The most damage I was able to do against a single enemy was 8055 HP against a Bartz copy in Level 2. To make matters worse for him, I ended up doing 9999 HP of damage against him just with the HP attack that triggered the EX Burst. And guess how much HP this enemy had to start with? One. He was one of those “strange” battle pieces, so he had a grand total of 1 HP. Overkill on my part? Just a tad…

Warrior of Light
Ah, good old WoL. Definitely one of the more straightforward and reliable characters to use. I’ve become very fond of his Bitter End Brave-to-HP attacks and now use them to finish most of his fights, partly because they’re effective attacks, but also because they just look pretty cool. I didn’t really have an problems as WoL, except for the few enemies that pretty much all the Heroes had trouble with, like the Golbez copy on Level 5 and the Kuja copy on Level 3. Then again, these matches were also on fairly nasty stages (Planet’s Core and Ultimecia’s Castle respectively) and were two of the higher-levelled enemies in the chapter, so I’m taking that as a sign that it wasn’t simply my incompetence.
I ended up using WoL’s EX Mode (and therefore EX Burst) quite a lot, so there was a fair amount of competition this time around. However, the highest amount of damage I was able to do with a single EX Burst was 8522 HP, in the boss fight against Cloud of Darkness in Level 3

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And so, with a final “UNGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!” from The Emperor, Chapter 2 of Shade Impulse draws to a close. Time to go about levelling up the Villains now, and I’ll try not to have such a long hiatus before I attempt Chapter 3.

A good read, as usual. I also hope for a shorter hiatus before the next update.

Zidane is awesome

Well for a start I'm not planning to level the Heroes up as much before the next chapter. Hell, Bartz and Firion only need to go up one level each before they reach my goal. The only thing that'll be very time-consuming is the Villains.

Haven't used them much?

No, it's just that they seem to take longer to level up than the Heroes.

Ahh, I see...

That seems kind of lame.

*shrugs* Could just be my perception of it.

Things'll go more smoothly once I unlock Duel Colosseum and gain (relatively) easy access to ingredients for making better weapons & armour.

Yeah, when in doubt, synthesize better gear.

Yup. I've been a bit of a miser when it comes to synthesis items so far, but they're easier to gain once you unlock duel colosseum.

How deep is the synthesis system?

How do you mean?

Like, how many things are there to synthesize? Just a few specific ones, or are there many different ones?

Quite a few. I don't know exactly how many, though. But in addition to the "regular" items, each character also has a few exclusives to synthesise.

Ah okay, it seems the system is quite deep then.

Yeah, I guess it is.

Mhm...

Minor Update:
There are few things in Dissidia as satisfying as using Ultimecia's Apocalypse HP attack to counter Exdeath's Reverse Polarity BP attack. That is all for now.

That update was tl;dr

I know, I really need to stop rambling so much...

Minor Update:
Okay, I'm levelling up Exdeath, and I just went up 3 levels from a single attack > EX Burst. Woah.

Minor Update:
Now levelling up with Kefka. Hoo boy, this could take a while...

I forget, is it because you don't like playing as Kefka, or is it for another reason?

Kefka's okay, it's just that some levels are harder for him to play on than others as he has very poor aerial maneuverability. Add this to the fact that I currently have a rather sub-standard moveset assigned to him...

Yeah, I see how that could turn out to be quite annoying.

Yeah... The main problem with his aerial maneuvering is that he drops like a stone for some reason. This is particularly annoying in Ultimecia's Castle, and I'm not looking forward to fighting Kuja.

Of course, you could probably save yourself a lot of trouble leveling if you just abused all the EXP multipliers.

With this game I want to level up normally so I can get proper experience with all the characters. Hence why I never used the Exdeath/Magic Pot trick. Not to mention "mastering" all their attacks in the process.

So whenever he does an aerial attack, he falls down almost instantly?

Pretty much, unless you fire off this attacks in rapid succession, like I suppose you're meant to.

I'll say one thing for Kefka, though. His EX Mode is a monster. And I'm not referring to the fact that it's his One-Winged Angel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneWingedAngel).

Well, his EX mode is based on when he was pretty much god, so it'd make sense for it to be a monster.

Yeah, I know, but it's still nice.

Minor Update:
Okay, I've finished levelling everyone up, so I'm going to take a short break before attempting Shade Impulse 3. And it actually will be a short break this time. I just don't want Dissidia to wear too thin, especially after the frustration of levelling up Terra & Kefka.

Funny thing that these two are my two favorite characters... I guess we have different style.

I think that's mostly because Gar plays in a mostly conventional manner, and those two characters are not only magic/range based, but also fairly low-tier.

Hmm, I have to agree, I tend to take the air and dodge counter instead of blocking which is better with close combat specialist. That and having two heat seeking fireball around someone when releasing my wings always worked as a combo.

Don't get me wrong, Terra and Kefka are by no means bad characters (I don't believe in tiers, never have, never will), they're just more hard work for me than the others. Still, it probably doesn't help that CPUs are often rather broken when it comes to dodging. And most of the Bartz's I fought as Terra tended to spam Holy, which of course is more accurate than when I use it... ¬_¬

New Entry: Friday 5th March

Told you it wouldn’t be such a long break as the last time.

Shade Impulse 3 – While Time Grows Short (Cloud Playthrough)
Well, it’s certainly nice to have a proper mix of stages again. I’ve only been using Kefka’s tower and upwards for ages, and some of them *coughUltimecia’sCastlecough* *coughPlanet’sCorecough* wear particularly thin after a while.
Anyway, I smashed through Level 1 in record time, probably due to a mixture of Cloud’s raw attack power and me overlevelling again. Somewhat bizarrely, Cloud’s Base BP was over 3000 against two of the earlier foes. No idea what caused that…
Level 2 passed in much the same way. Ultimecia was as easy an opponent as ever in her boss fight. Two notable things happened, however. In a battle against a Kefka copy, I managed to inflict Break on him just before his Tiamat summon (which triples the fighter’s BP 20 seconds after activation) kicked in, rendering it completely useless, and I also managed to get the correct amount of DP by the end of the level to win this chapter’s summonstone without even trying. Convenient, huh? The space between Level 2 and Level 3 was occupied by a cutscene between Chaos and Garland, showcasing more of Chaos’ awesome voice-acting (courtesy of Keith David).
Level 3 went rather less smoothly than the previous two. Of particular note was a very annoying Emperor copy, but I’ll get to him in a moment. The level itself consisted of a thin pathway to the Stigma of Chaos with six alcoves containing a battle piece each (one is empty until you get a certain star rating for this chapter). All but one of these five battle pieces provided a chance to win 2 DP. Sounds easy, right? Not for me it wasn’t. Three of them had to be beaten within a certain time limit, which required me to either use an EX Mode or just be spot-on with every single attack. One enemy in particular, a Sephiroth copy, was rather broken at blocking, so that was annoying. The other two fights had to be won without taking any damage, Brave or HP. The first one against a Squall copy wasn’t too bad, but the second battle was against the Emperor copy I mentioned earlier. This guy kept dodging, running away, and spamming his Dynamite and Flare attacks. And he would often let loose a Flare just as I was dashing towards him, so I’d run straight into it. I completely forgot about the DP chance until after the battle, by which time of course it was too late. So, I retried battles about ten times overall, lost two DP chances (and therefore was declined 4 extra DP), lost more than half my HP, and wasted moves going after chests and summonstones, resulting in my lowest end of level score thus far: 15. In summary, Level 3 went pretty badly. Still, I got to see another part of the Chaos/Garland conversation afterwards.
Level 4 was one of those ones filled with “?” spaces, so I had to keep consulting my guide when choosing a route. The first DP chance battle, against a Kefka copy, was pretty brutal. I had only 20 seconds to beat him in, and the guy kept dodging brokenly. Not wanting to have to retry several times, I gave up and fought him normally. Not that that helped matters much. I had already lost over 2000 HP, and I had only just finished my second fight of the level. To make matters worse, I was then forced into a battle with the Garland copy right next to me on the level board, who had to be beaten in 10 seconds for the DP bonus. I had already wasted my EX mode on the Kefka copy, and this guy was also stupidly good at dodging and blocking. I’m just glad he only used Brave attacks before I was able to kill him… The rest of the level went a little more smoothly, apart from a Blasting Zone-spamming Squall copy and an Ultimecia copy that had a Magus Sisters summon (which halves the opposing fighter’s BP when used) that basically made beating her in 20 seconds impossible. Finally, though, it was time for the boss battle. I finally got to see the boss cutscenes exclusive to Cloud’s playthrough, as it was time to face Sephiroth. The cutscenes are pretty cool if you’re a fan of Cloud & Sephiroth, but the battle itself was a bit of an anticlimax. A curbstomp due to my overlevelling. Oh well…
Level 5 had a very odd layout. The only pieces on the board were myself on one side, the final boss on the other side, and a single treasure chest in the middle. When I opened the chest, however, I was surrounded by four enemy pieces and forced into chained battles with two of them right from the off. Thankfully none of them had to be beaten within a certain time to get their DP chances, I just couldn’t take any damage. Much more doable. Or so I thought… I had to retry repeatedly against the first enemy I fought (an Onion Knight copy) and eventually started the whole thing over from scratch. Twice. It didn’t help matters that the fight was on Ultimecia’s Castle, which has very few decent places for Cloud to fight in at the best of times. But the Omega stage has the added nastiness of sometimes turning the gears in the stage into a hazard from time to time, so I had to be extra careful.
The next fight wasn’t much fun either. I had to fight an Emperor copy on Kefka’s Tower. Now, the stage itself wasn’t as much of a problem as I thought it was going to be. It was more the fact that this enemy was (AGAIN!!) really good at dodging and blocking and would, once a fight, reduce my BP to 0 with his Shiva summon. I retried quite a lot of times, but I wasn’t willing to do the Onion Knight fight all over again, so I didn’t restart the level. Instead I could look forward to another poor end of level score. The other two fights weren’t great either. In fact, I’m just going to summarise and say that the four battles as a whole were a horrible experience. And I get to do it nine more times! Awesome!
Anyway, defeating those four opponents spawned two more enemies further along the board, guarding a new chest. And, surprise, surprise, they were high level opponents that required me to either take no HP damage, or no damage whatsoever. Ooh, the fun, fun times… After retrying against a completely broken Garland copy for the 4,000th time, I finally gave up on DP chances, feeling like a complete loser in the process I might add. Of course then I had to retry even more times because he completely owned me time after time. Literally none of my attacks would work, no matter how quickly I moved after dodging one of his own moves. Eventually I managed to get in a lucky shot with Omnislash V.5, so at least a little of my pride was restored. Then, finally, came the final boss battle against the real Garland, which went much more smoothly.
And so, with a pretty cool speech from Garland, Chapter 3 ends. It was a slice of hell, and I still have to endure nine more pieces…

If you find them hard to hit, then I suppose it will be useful later... *Gives a straightjacket*

Maybe I'll have a slightly easier time with the others. Cloud's moves have a noticeable wind-up, after all.

Believe me, 10 minutes long matches already happened for me at higher level.

Oh about this:
You have BP bonus when of a higher level than your opponent. You can see their when they are stronger than you, below the base equipment (not accessories).

Oh, thanks. I figured it might be something like that.

I don't think I'm going to bother with DP chances in the other playthroughs. As I said, I already got the summonstone for the chapter, so there's not a whole lot of point...

It seems like the enemies are starting to rely on the good old dodging skills.

Yeah, seems that way.

New Entry: Tuesday 9th March

The following playthrough was actually done on Monday, I just decided to post it by itself as it’s pretty long.

Shade Impulse 3 – Cecil Playthrough
Cecil’s playthrough wasn’t that much better than Cloud’s. He might be able to deploy his attacks quicker, but he lacks Cloud’s raw strength. Another annoying factor was the fact that Cecil always starts fights in his Dark Knight class. I find it a lot easier to inflict damage quickly in his Paladin class, which meant I had to waste a few seconds at the beginning of matches with time-dependant DP chances switching to that form. Oh, and the CPUs didn’t seem to have much more trouble constantly dodging Cecil’s attacks than they did with Cloud’s. Still, I didn’t expect some miraculous solution just by changing characters…
The Onion Knight copy on Level 5 that I mentioned in Cloud’s playthrough was much more bearable when I wasn’t going for the DP chance. The Terra fight on the same level (one of the two “other battles” I mentioned but didn’t go into much detail with), on the other hand, was much worse than in Cloud’s playthrough. She was seriously one broken enemy. She avoided my attacks effortlessly, and was capable of Breaking me with just one or two attacks. Seriously, what the hell is up with these CPUs being able to get “first strikes” and “sneak attacks”? I haven’t noticed anything like that on their accessory lists… So anyway, even without going for the DP chance (avoid taking HP damage), I had to retry a lot of times. My HP was so low by the end of the fight that the Exdeath copy that followed could’ve OHKO’d me right away if he wanted to. Fortunately for me, however, he instead chose to use his Marilith summon right after my first successfully HP attack to try and stack the odds even more in his favour. Now, the Marilith summon freezes the opponent’s BP for a short time after a 20 second countdown. So, while this means that I wouldn’t be able to gain any more BP until the summon wore off, it also meant my BP wouldn’t decrease until the summon wore off either, even if I used an HP attack. This essentially meant that I could potentially launch HP attack after HP attack without having to wait for my BP to regenerate between them. After that it was just a matter of dodging the copy’s Delta Attack HP moves while staying close enough to hit with Paladin Force while he was recovering. I love it when CPU summons backfire…
I struggled a bit with the Garland copy again, but this time it wasn’t so bad. Sure he clobbered a couple of times, and was capable of breaking me with one or two strikes (damn “first strikes” and “sneak attacks” again…), but this time I managed to find an opening to exploit. I got close enough for him to use Earthquake (his BP was high enough for him to start focusing on HP attacks), dodged over his head where the attack couldn’t reach me, then, depending on Cecil’s class at the time, either use the Dark Knight’s Saint’s Fall Brave attack to start a chase sequence, or use the Paladin’s Paladin Force to hit with a direct HP attack. It didn’t automatically make the match easy for me, but it’s a tactic I’ll have to bear in mind in future playthroughs.
So, what else happened… Well, I manage to get a DP chance on Level 3 against a Golbez copy with 0.5 seconds to spare. Oh, and there was a pretty cool/funny moment against a Zidane copy on Level 4. I used Cecil’s Shadow Lance attack on him (Cecil throws his spear at the enemy and damages them the longer it has contact. Basically the closer you are when using it, the more damage it does), and he used his Cactuar summon on me halfway through the attack, reducing my BP by 1000. Unfortunately, by that time, I’d already done enough damage with the attack to reduce his BP to double digits, and the remaining Shadow Lance damage after the summon was enough to inflict Break on him, rendering his actions totally useless. Oh yeah, and because of my low HP due to all the nasty enemies on Level 5, I managed to break my record for lowest ever end-of-level score. I got nine points. Nine.

Two down, eight to go…

Minor Update:
Okay, nevermind the stuff about "first strikes" and "sneak attacks". I just researched them and it turns out they're abilities, not accessory effects. I keep forgetting about the non-attack abilities...

You're slowly approaching the 25% completion mark, good job!

Thanks.

Nine is a very low number...

I already managed a negative score, so you shouldn't feel bad about this...

I didn't realise that was possible...

-100 for action points, - 100 for retries, 1HP left...

I did mention Chaos is hard, right?

Oh, is this for Shade Impulse 4, or Inward Chaos?

Inward chaos. Shade impulse is a joke at your level. The other one... well, not so much.

That's what I figured. Well, I don't intend to attempt Inward Chaos for a long time. Not even after doing the Distant Glory chapters.

Is inward chaos the "**** you" mode?

No, that's Duel Colosseum.

Blackjack course?



It's probably the "**** you" of Story Mode.

Whichever one's the hardest.

Ah okay, I get it.

That'll be the Blackjack course, then. I think it's the three starter courses, then Lunar Whale, then Blackjack.

Blackjack. I still need to win two matches in a row (I do have subpar equipment, but still...)

And Lvl 130 Chaos is enough to make your fingers cries.

New Entry: Sunday 14th March

Shade Impulse 3 – Other Playthroughs (Part 1)

Tidus
Not much to comment on with Tidus’ playthrough, as it was much the same as the other two in terms of difficulty. Although I did manage to do 7792 BP of damage with just the final hit of his EX Burst against a Terra copy on Level 2. Tidus’ EX Mode earning its keep, there.
Probably my favourite moment of this playthrough came with a battle against an Emperor copy on Level 3. I just had to use one more HP attack to finish him off. I went for a Spiral Cut (flipping along the ground and striking the enemy in the last one) and he tried to fend me off with a ground Flare. I thought I’d get hit, but fortunately my move caused the Flare to rebound and he got finished off by his own attack. You gotta love dumb luck…
To finish off, the Marilith summon of the Exdeath copy on Level 5 actually did its job this time. I used an HP attack just before it activated (after the countdown, I mean), so I got stuck with just 4 BP until the effect wore off, forcing me to run away during that time.
Oh, and Tidus’ dodge/counter Brave attacks, as well as the subsequent chained HP attacks, came in pretty useful against the Garland copy on Level 5. And most of the other enemies as well, actually. The Terra copy on Level 5 was still horrible, though…

Firion
Not a huge amount to report here. Although I am now very fond of Firion’s Double Trouble HP attack, with chains from three of his ground-based Brave attacks. Maybe it’s because of those techniques, or maybe it’s just because I’m getting more used to fighting them by now, but the enemies on Level 5 didn’t make me want to kill myself so much this time around. I was able to beat the Emperor copy and get its DP chance on my first attempt thanks to repeated use of Rope Knife -> Double Trouble. And, even more amazingly, I was able to get the DP chance against the Garland copy after only a few attempts. I don’t remember how many exactly, but it couldn’t have been more than five retries, as that was the number I had by the end of the level. I had to throw in some Lance Combo -> Double Trouble moves as well, though.
Finally, there was the Golbez copy. Now, I didn’t want to get too close to him, so instead I focused on the use of Reel Axe -> Double Trouble, which has the added bonus of being unblockable by normal means. After a few moves, I just needed to finish him off with an EX Burst, getting another DP chance in the process.
Speaking of which, I’ve said it many times before, but I love Firion’s Blood Weapons bonus. Using his EX Burst was useful for avoiding a big decrease in my end-of-level scores thanks to low finishing HP.
As a final, point, I was able to beat the Sephiroth boss on Level 4 with just two Straightarrow attacks. He should really be ashamed of himself…

Squall
Squall’s extremely good BP game came in useful for beating enemies within a certain time limit, especially in EX Mode. I was finally able to achieve the DP chance with the Golbez copy on Level 3 (thank you, Beat Fang), and I achieved the DP chance against the Kuja copy on Level 4 with just 0.89 seconds remaining. It wasn’t flawless, however. I almost managed to get the DP chance from the Ultimecia copy on Level 4 (the one with the Magus Sisters summon), but it seems even Squall’s EX Mode BP game isn’t good enough for that fight right now. Oh well…
I achieved another awesome attack deflection against the Emperor copy on Level 3, though. His Pupu summon (halves the user’s BP and raises it again by 60 every second for a short while) meant he had over 2600 BP by the time this happened. It would’ve been more, but I’d hit him with quite a few Brave attacks. Anyway, I’d been trying to land a final HP attack on him for a while, and he fired off a Flare just as I used Rough Divide. I ending up going straight through the Flare, but he dodged my attack. He then faced me and started charging a Dynamite attack, little realising that his own Flare was now sneaking up behind him, ready to explode. All I had to do was stand there and watch the fireworks.
Finally, I got to see the Squall-exclusive cutscenes before and after the Ultimecia boss on Level 2. They were pretty cool for two reasons. Firstly because Squall is the only Hero so far to actually strike down their opponent, rather than just watching them fade away. And the second reason was Ultimecia’s resulting death scream, which was a pretty good piece of voice-acting.

The boomerang Flare attack when you played Squall sounded pretty awesome.

It was.

It was better than Tidus' one, IMO, simply because I could watch it happening from a distance. The Emperor copy just charged its attack, blissfully unaware that certain doom was literally creeping up behind him. Flare's a pretty slow-moving attack, y'know.

I can imagine how hilarious it must have been.

Yup.

I love busting through Flares with HP attacks.

Same here.

New Entry: Friday 19th March

Shade Impulse 3 – Other Playthroughs (Part 2)

Zidane
Virtually nothing to report here, though the enemies generally didn’t seem as bad as they used to.
One noteworthy thing happened, though. I was fighting the Squall copy on Level 3, and so far succeeding with the DP Chance of beating him while taking no damage. All I had to do was hit him with just one more HP attack. I tried for a Tidal Flame, but he dodged it. I then tried to retreat, but he got behind me and was about to hit with an Aerial Circle attack… when the Tidal Flame from before came curving round and blasted him into oblivion before he could land his own attack. Literally just as the Aerial Circle was about to detonate and scupper my chances at getting the 2 DP reward. How lucky is that?

Bartz
Nothing to report here. It was a pretty humdrum playthrough. :-\

Onion Knight
Not much happened in the early levels of this playthrough, but I managed a near-flawless execution of Level 5. I got all the DP chances and only had to retry a total of 4 times between the seven fights (including the boss). Go me! -sml
Oh, and I managed to beat the Garland copy on Level 4 and gain his DP chance with just 0.62 seconds to spare.

Terra
For Terra’s playthrough, I decided not to bother with DP chances that much. My aim was to retry as few times as possible, mostly since I’d already got all the worthwhile DP bonuses I can for now anyway. I could try and get them, but I’d have to face off against very powerful optional enemies, and I just don’t want to endure that particular headache right now.
As for actual events… Well, the fight against the Terra copy on Level 5 was surprisingly easy, as I was essentially using her own tactics against her. Oh, and I almost failed the DP chance against the WoL copy on Level 2 due to accidentally triggering Terra’s EX Burst after using the final HP attack I needed. I didn’t press any buttons, failing the EX Burst intentionally, and still managed to achieve the DP chance with just 0.69 seconds remaining.

Warrior of Light
Well, here we are. The final playthrough of Shade Impulse’s third chapter. Not a particularly interesting one, but not particularly dull either. I almost lost against the Terra copy on Level 5, though. That was a nerve-wracking moment… She had gathered 9999 BP, more than enough to OHKO me, so I was desperate to get in the last attack I needed to finish her off quickly. I activated my EX Mode, and just as she was charging a Meltdown attack, I managed to interrupt it with a Shield Strike, chain that into WoL’s Bitter End HP attack, and use that to trigger an EX Burst, finishing her off. I’ve grown to absolutely lovethe Rising Buckler/Shield Strike -> Bitter End chain…
The most remarkable thing in this playthrough happened on Level 4. I finally managed to achieve the DP chance against the Ultimecia copy. You know the one, I’ve mentioned her before, the one with the Magus Sisters summon. First I inflicted Break on her, as usual, but then I decided to activate an EX Burst, since I knew there was no way I’d achieve the DP chance. I then glanced at the timer and saw that I still had about 13 seconds left. I carried out the EX Burst, and won the fight in the process. She never had a chance to use her summon, rendering her pretty much helpless. So simple, and yet it never occurred to me… Still, better late than never I suppose.

----------------------------------------

And so, Shade Impulse 3 draws to a close, and there's going to be a change in my usual routine. Since Shade Impulse only has two levels, I've decided to skip levelling up the villains for now, and just plow straight on into the playthroughs of that chapter. This is because, after finishing Shade Impulse, I plan to take a break for other games (maybe even cover some of them in this here blog), and I figure I may as well do that as soon as possible rather than waste days getting the villains up to scratch when I'm not even going to document it.

So... if someone could inform me of how to change the name of a topic you've created, I'd appreciate it.

Tidal Flame? Pfff. Use Free Energy.

Edit the first post.

I normally do, but sometimes I like to mix things up. It's also one of those attacks that are really satisfying to actually hit with, like Straightarrow.



Thanks.

New Entry: Monday 22nd March

So this is it. The final stage of Shade Impulse. All the other villains have been taken down, now only Chaos himself remains. So, let’s get stuck in…

Shade Impulse 4 – The Decisive Battle (Cloud Playthrough)
Right from the word go, this chapter is less of a headache than the previous ones, mainly because DP simply doesn’t seem to exist in these two levels. No DP chances in battles, no end-of-level DP bonuses, no star ratings, nothing. Just straightforward battling.
And I mean straightforward. The first level is basically a single linear pathway to the Stigma of Chaos. There are five battles along the way, and only one of them is avoidable, unless you want the summonstone it’s guarding. Which I did. The enemies themselves were very easy, level 31 at most. They consisted of copies of the final five villains (Kefka through to Jecht), and were usually felled in a single attack. Still, it gave me a chance to experience a new Omega Stage…

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Order’s Sanctuary
So here we finally are. This is the first time I’ve played on Order’s Sanctuary throughout the whole of Shade Impulse, and, glancing ahead in my guide at the second level, it’s the only stage I’ll be seeing until I fight the Final Boss. It’s the same old flat open space that it always was, the only difference being the Omega Stage gimmick. Order’s Sanctuary’s quirk is that the stage BP constantly remains at 0, no matter how much BP you and your opponent have. That is, until someone inflicts Break. When that happens, the Stage BP immediately jumps to the same amount of BP you had when you dealt the Break-inflicting blow and adds it to your BP. Essentially the stage doubles your BP whenever you inflict Break. Same for your opponent’s BP when they inflict Break.

----------

Of course, the combined factors of the stage gimmick and me having a high starting BP (usually around the high 3000’s due to my opponents being less than half my level) meant that I ended up having around 8000-9000 BP by the time I struck the killing blow. The Jecht copy in particular, the final enemy in the level, never stood a chance. I had a full EX Gauge by the time I fought him, due to collecting the EX Cores that spawned near the beginning of every preceding fight, and I decided to finish the match with an EX Burst to burn it all off. Now, in addition to the 8000-9000 HP worth of damage I did before trigger the EX Burst, the strikes that opened the EX Burst (where the screen “shatters away” and you actually enter the EX Burst process) brought me back up to around 7000 BP. Each strike in the actual attack then did just under 500 BP of damage. I can’t remember how much damage the final strike did, but I must have ended up doing about 50,000 damage overall across the fight. You kinda have to feel sorry for the Jecht copy… :-\

The between level cutscene showed Chaos on his throne, apparently having a migraine because of “every single memory in the world” rushing into him. Turns out Keith David can even make a headache sound cool…

As I entered the second level, it became apparent that I was facing copies of each of the ten villains one final time before I fought Chaos, as the five enemies in the level consisted of copies of the first five villains in the series (Garland through to Exdeath). Then of course there was the Boss battle piece belonging to Chaos, but I’ll get to that later.
I was forced into a three-part chain with the first three enemies in the level, but they were dispatched just as easily as the ones in Level 1. Although, I will admit the Golbez copy gave me a little more trouble, but that was just me being careless. The final two enemies were completely avoidable unless you wanted to access the level’s summonstone or potion. I made sure to make all five matches last just long enough for at least one EX Core to appear so I could get a full EX Gauge before I fought Chaos. I didn’t want to take any chances, despite him being more than 30 levels lower than me.

Oh, one last thing before the Chaos fight. As I defeated each villain, the opposing hero would pop up and say some words of encouragement, spurring the party onwards to the final battle. Y’know, typical RPG near-end-of-story stuff.

So anyhoo, with a final preparing breath, I engaged Chaos in battle. And as predicted by some of my readers, my overlevelling made the whole thing a bit of an anticlimax. The first battle was over in seconds. I got hit by just one of his Brave attacks before I took him out with a Slashing Blow -> Omnislash V.5 chain. The second battle was a little more difficult as he managed to get in some hits with HP attacks. They didn’t do much damage, but I felt I needed to use my EX Mode to escape. I took him down with a Sonic Break -> Finishing Touch -> EX Burst chain. Chaos’ Shinryu summon came out at one point, but I didn’t pay much attention to what it did… The third and final battle was almost as quick as the first one. I got hit by a couple of Brave attacks and took him out with Slashing Blow -> Omnislash V.5. I had a Carbuncle summon all ready to use in case he managed to Break me, but I never needed it. There was, however, a very cool moment at the end of the battle. Just after the screen faded to white, I heard Cloud saying “No hard feelings…”. I mean, he always says that after using Omnislash V.5, but because of the whole “white screen after beating final boss” thing, it seemed that much more awesome. I can’t describe it very well, but it seemed pretty cool to me, at least…

The final cutscene before the credits was pretty cool. It was in full super-detailed FMV and looked very good, although some of the male characters ending up looking rather feminine… Each of the characters returned to their own worlds in their own way (Tidus jumps into a lake but fades away before he hits the water, Cloud walks away into a field of yellow flowers like the ones in Aerith’s church in FFVII, Cecil disappears while the moon does a full lunar cycle behind him, etc.) apart from the Warrior of Light, who walks towards a castle in the distance (which, I think, is supposed to be Castle Corneria from the very first game). The end credits themselves were accompanied by a montage of the pre-boss cutscenes from the various Destiny Odyssey chapters.

After all that, I decided to buy Cloud & Sephiroth’s alternate costumes, the Omega version of Planet’s Core, and a bonus bit of music from FFVII from the PP Catalogue as a reward.


So there we have it. I've finally finished the main story mode. All that remains is to do it with the remaining nine heroes, and see if any of them have a harder time with Chaos.

Sure, it's a bit anticlimactic, but I love being able to obliterate the final main story boss in RPG games.

So after the main storyline with the rest of the heroes, will you do the optional stuff?

The only things I've decided I'll do for certain are the two "after-story" chapters I unlocked, but I won't be doing them for a while. I'm taking a break from Dissidia after I beat Chaos with all the heroes.

*nod* Alright.

Yup...

You should at least try Inward chaos once, just one fight... so you can get an idea on why it will be way, WAY harder.

No thanks. I've already had a harder experience playing as Tidus.

Turns out I'm very bad at dodging his attacks. The only reason I survived the Tidus vs Chaos fights at all were because I'm such a higher level than him that his Brave attacks don't do much damage.

Well, you don't actually need to dodge his Brave attacks, only the HP ones. Keep that in mind and it should be easier for every characters. And guess what, I'm not talking about reaching Chaos (I'm not that sadistic!), just trying to fight WoL once should be enough...
Oh, about Shinryu, it has random effect, with the common denominator of being damn powerful (he can even go Omega and destroy your BP at once!)

Trouble is that I'm busy trying to recover from his Brave attacks and he uses that opportunity to launch an HP attack.


Ah, I did experience the Omega effect during one of my attempts as Tidus. At least I think it did. Halving your BP repeatedly over a certain time period?

Which attacks cause you problems, each of these has a certain timing for dodging/countering (you will like Terra, believe me on that one!).

Yeah, that's the one.

I already have a guide that tells me how to avoid (or in the case of Soul of Oblivion stop before it starts) the HP attacks, I just don't have much time to register it because it all happens so fast. As for Brave attacks, I have absolutely no idea. They all just seem to blend into each other.

And yes, I've heard Chaos is pretty much screwed when he comes up against Terra.

Forget about brave, as I said. No need to worry about BP if he cannot land the important hit. Took me 3 hours to memorize these and I was playing Terra (granted, it was Inward chaos, that one I butchered due to level 70+)

New Entry: Friday 26th March

Since I neglected to do so in Cloud’s playthrough, I figured now would be a good opportunity to talk about the stage you fight Chaos on, so here it is.

Edge of Madness
Edge of Madness is definitely the smallest arena in the game. It consists of a single round dais with a raised area at one side upon which is Chaos’ throne. The enclosed nature of the stage makes it pretty easy to score wall rush damage, though, which is very useful when you’re facing Chaos himself. The background is pretty apocalyptic, all fire and brimstone, and filled with giant sword-like objects that Chaos apparently uses in one of his attacks. I have yet to play on the Omega version of the stage, but the gimmick, according to my guide, is that the Stage BP “Chaotically rises and falls”, which probably means you’re meant to wait for the right moment before you inflict Break.

Shade Impulse 4 – Other Playthroughs (Part 1 - Cecil and Tidus)

Cecil
Cecil’s playthrough was already made a bit more difficult by the fact that he lacks Cloud’s raw strength, and he also doesn’t have any Brave-HP chains. This made the regular fights a little more difficult, but the enemies were still dispatched without much trouble.

Chaos as a whole was more difficult than he was with Cloud. In the first battle I got hit by a couple of HP attacks and quite a few Brave attacks, enough to force me to use my EX Mode to escape. The second battle, by contrast, was over very quickly. I dodged his first Brave attack and immediately used the Dark Knight form’s Nightfall attack to start a chase sequence and Break him at the same time. I then managed to OHKO him with my first chase HP attack.
I almost lost the third battle. I got rid of most of his HP with the Nightfall-chase sequence method, reducing him to triple digits, but I then noticed his Soul of Oblivion HP attack too late and got caught in the blast (the attack is apparently almost impossible to avoid so you have to hit him while he’s charging it), reducing me to 2974 HP. I tried using my Carbuncle summon to even the odds, but it had no effect. I should’ve used an HP attack to negate the Break status first… Oh well. I guess now I know better for next time… Anyhoo, I managed to beat him by starting another chase sequence. I know it’s still early days, but he doesn’t seem to be very good at those…

Tidus
The general enemies were easier than Cecil’s, due to Tidus having Brave-HP chains, but harder than Cloud’s as he lacked the brute force.
Chaos, on the other hand, was a much greater challenge this time around. I even had to retry three of four times. My Carbuncle summon got countered in the second fight to one of his Shinryu Summon’s effects, which repeatedly halved my BP over a period of time. Luckily by that time I’d already done a lot of damage to him and managed to finish him off with a lucky Spiral Cut attack.
The final fight wasn’t so bad. I managed to interrupt his Soul of Oblivion HP attack with my Stick & Move Brave attack, and chained that into Quick Hit to rob him of more than half his HP, thanks to causing wall rush damage. He then hit me with a couple more Brave attacks, but I was able to dodge his last one and managed to hit him with the very last strike of Stick & Move, allowing me to start a chase sequence, use an HP attack and win the match.

Firion
Ah Firion, I liked you from the moment I first played as you in your Destiny Odyssey chapter. So yeah, after the nastiness of Tidus’ playthrough, Firion’s attempt went very smoothly.
The first battle with Chaos was over in a matter of seconds. Two Reel Axe -> Double Trouble chains were enough to see him off (I ended up using that move a lot across the battles). All I had to worry about was him dodging the attack. The second battle was slightly more even. I took most of his HP with another Reel Axe -> Double Trouble chain, but I then got hit by his Divine Punishment HP attack, bringing me down to about 3500 HP. But I used another Reel Axe -> Double Trouble chain to get rid of my Break status, avoided all the strikes of his Demonsdance HP attack (very proud of myself there!) and responded with Weaponsmaster while he was recovering. Go me! -sml
The final battle went almost as quickly as the first. I activate my EX Mode as I wanted to finish this quickly, and was promptly hit by a barrage of Brave attacks (the one where he shoots a stream of fire at you, sometimes he does it several times in a row). But, unfortunately for him, I was able to get in one final Reel Axe -> Double Trouble chain, Breaking him in the process, and turned that into an EX Burst, giving me my first EX Burst finish against Chaos’ final form. And that just made victory all the more epic, IMO.

Squall
Squall also had a pretty easy time of it. In the first battle I was able to Break Chaos straight away with Squall’s Beat Fang attack, but I missed with the follow-up Aerial Circle HP attack. Chaos tried to hit me with his own HP attack, Condemn, but I dodged backwards out of its range and OHKO’d him with Blasting Zone as he recovered.
The second battle started the same way as the first. Broke him with Beat Fang, missed with Aerial Circle. I got hit by a couple of Brave attacks, but was able to take him out with Squall’s Rough Divide HP attack while Chaos charged Condemn, hitting him just before he released his own move. One thing I found quite funny was the fact that, because of Condemn’s nature as an attack (Chaos draws his opponent in and hits with a large vertical pillar of flame), I ended up charging Rough Divide right in front of his face.
The final battle was over very quickly, and there are still some details that even I wasn’t able to understand. It started the same way as the other two (Break with Beat Fang, miss with Aerial Circle) except that I activated my EX Mode first. Then came the confusing part. I managed to somehow hit Chaos with Rough Divide, but due to a mixture of awkward camera angles, being right next to the stage "wall" and Chaos dodging in a random direction, I still don’t know exactly how I managed to hit him. Still, whatever happened, I activated Squall’s EX Burst and took him down, and Squall’s end-of-EX-Burst quote “Mission accomplished…” just made the whole thing cooler.

Zidane
Not much to report with Zidane’s playthrough, even for the Chaos battles. The first two went exactly the same as each other. I get hit by one of his Brave attacks, then retaliate with Zidane’s Tempest -> Meo Twister chain, taking him out. The third battle went the same way except that I activated EX Mode at the beginning of the fight, and finished it off with Zidane’s EX Burst.

Bartz
The first battle went almost as easily as Zidane’s. I dodged his initial Brave attack, and retaliated with Bartz’s Slidehazzard Brave attack, lowering his BP to the double digits. He managed to hit me with his next Brave attack, but I then used Paladin Force and defeated him, Breaking him in the process.
The first part of the second battle went the same way as the previous one. Dodged initial Brave attack, retaliated with Slidehazzard. This time, however, I got hit with more Brave attacks, so when I hit him with Bartz’s Wind Shear HP attack, I didn’t do quite enough damage to Break him. I did still managed to take away more than half his HP though. He then activated his Shinryu summon, which halved his BP but then start quickly increasing it. However, I managed to Break and finish him with Paladin Force before his BP got too high.
The final battle was very easy. I just activated EX Mode, dodged a couple of his Brave attacks, and hit him with Goblin Punch (uber-fast deployment FTW). I then finished the fight with Bartz’s EX Burst.

Onion Knight
The first battle against Chaos was a little nerve-wracking. I opened the match by dodging his initial Brave attack, and responded with Onion Knight’s Multi-Hit (his physical ground Brave attack) and chained it into Swordshower (the HP option), taking most of Chaos’ HP. Unfortunately my attack didn’t do enough Brave damage to Break him, so I didn’t OHKO him. He then Broke me while my BP was recovering and hit me with his Divine Punishment attack, dealing almost 5000 HP damage. I got hit by a few more Brave attacks afterwards, but I managed to take him out with Onion Knight’s Comet aerial HP attack.
The second battle went rather more smoothly. I dodged his initial Brave attack again, but instead responded with Onion Knight’s Turbo-Hit (his physical aerial Brave attack), chaining it into Extra Lunge (the Brave option) and then a chase sequence. It was at this point that I realised just how much bigger Chaos is than Onion Knight. Seriously, he filled about half the screen. Anyway, I hit him with an HP attack. I then hit him with another Comet attack, ready to finish him off, but he interrupted it with his Shinryu summon. However, unfortunately for him, Shinryu’s effect this time was to halve his BP and then rapidly increase it, basically just making it easier to Break him with my still-going Comet attack and ensure his defeat. Just goes to show, even Chaos’ summon can backfire sometimes.
The third battle was very straightforward. I dodged his initial Brave attack again and, activating EX Mode in the process, retaliated with Turbo-Hit and chained it into Guiding Swipe (the HP option), activating the Ninja job’s EX Burst. Once again, as Onion Knight threw his shurikens at Chaos, I realised just how much bigger my opponent was than my character...

Terra
I was partly dreading playing as Terra, but her playthrough actually went pretty smoothly. The first battle with Chaos was okay. I got hit by quite a lot of Brave attacks, but I managed to Break him with Blizzara and Blizzard Combo, and finished him off with Meltdown while he charged his Soul of Oblivion HP attack.
I got hit by his Demonsdance HP attack in the second battle, but luckily I’d already weakened his BP with Blizzard Combo, so that damage wasn’t too bad. I Broke him with Blizzara straight after his attack, and finished him with Tornado just as he was charging his Condemn HP attack
I activated Terra’s EX Mode as soon as the third battle started, but in hindsight I probably should’ve waited until he was in the middle of a Brave attack before I did so. I got smacked around a bit, but eventually managed to fire off Holy Combo and chain it into Ultima, activating Terra’s EX Burst.

Warrior of Light
So here we are… The final showdown… And it was just as easy as the previous ones. In the first battle, I dodged Chaos’ initial Brave attack and responded with WoL’s Sword Thrust Brave attack, Breaking him in the process. I got hit by his Divine Punishment HP attack, but I managed to dodge the strikes that deal Brave damage, only suffering the actual HP hit, so not much damage was done. I then finished him off with WoL’s Shield Strike -> Bitter End chain.
After dodging his initial Brave attack in the second fight, I decided to hit him with Shield Strike, but just performed the attack on its own rather than chaining it into an HP attack this time. I managed to Break him thanks to smacking him against the invisible wall around the stage. I then managed to interrupt one of his Brave attacks (where he spins and releases waves of fire) with another Shield Strike, this time chaining it into Bitter End again so I could finish him off.
The third battle was easy. I interrupted his initial Brave attack by activating WoL’s EX Mode, and hit him with another Shield Strike -> Bitter End chain while he recovered, activating the winning EX Burst.

As a reward to myself, as with all the other playthroughs, I bought the Hero and Villain’s alternate costumes and voice data, the Omega version of their stage, and an extra bonus piece of music from their original game from the PP Catalogue. After WoL’s playthrough, I also bought the voice data for Chaos, Edge of Madness, and the Omega version of Order’s Sanctuary.

------------------------------

So there we have it. I’ve finally finished Shade Impulse. I’m sorry my entries about the later stages weren’t more interesting, particularly Chapter 4, but I did vastly overlevel, so it’s really my own fault. That said, Chaos aside, Chapter 4 seems to be about as easy as Chapter 1 anyway, so…
Anyhow, I said I’d take a break after Shade Impulse, and that’s what I’m doing. I still have at least a couple of chapters of Story Mode left to document, so I will do those eventually, but for now I’ll be playing other games, maybe use this topic to talk about them.

So, goodbye for now. Thanks to all three of my readers for sticking with me this long.

Good to hear that Chaos wasn't AS anticlimactic for some characters as he was for Cloud. And you can use this topic to document other games as well, I like to read stuff like that.

No prob. As just said, I enjoy reading stuff like that, even if I don't have the game.

Cool story bro

TORNADO SPAM!!!

Oh, you didn't? Ok...

Nope. Only used it once.

Well, you should try to send him against the ceiling and use Tornado with half a second of lag between attacks, just to gives him the worst headdache ever!

Meh, Tornado isn't usually that nice to me. People say it's a great attack, but the vast majority of the time the CPU just easily dodges away from it.

I mean, against Chaos specifically. It only works against him.
It does however serve as the most potent shield in the game and usefuf if your opponent is cornered. Else, Holy combo, no question.

I suppose...

LOLNAMECHANGE

Anyhoo, as the title suggests, I will soon be starting Pokemon SoulSilver and documenting my experiences here. I just can't decide if I should do things as I have been doing for Dissidia (play for a day or so and document the events in the evening) or just jot things down as they happen.

With Pokemon, I suggest you jot things down as they happen. It seems like it would mesh better with the style of game....

I suppose...

I won't always have access to my laptop all day though, but I guess I could just type up whatever I remember. and I won't be playing much later at night, so...

Well, if the style you used for Dissidia is easier for you, then go ahead with that style. I was just throwing that out there.

Nah, I think I'll give the "jot things down" approach a try.

Now the question is whether or not to put all a day's "jottings" in one post or not.

...Hello?

Greetings.

Which starter?

Probably Totodile.

Monday 5th April

4:00pm
I'm currently amusing myself by rotating the game box and making Lugia do somersaults. Dur hur hur...

...Just to give you guys the kind of level this blog will be written at.


6:49pm
Okay, I'm properly starting the game now. I would've done so earlier, but people kept wanting the laptop.

Well, the title sequence has been totally rejigged. But it's followed by a rather swanky 3D animation of Lugia swimming at the bottom of the sea.

Fun Fact: When I first played Silver, I thought Lugia was just flying at night rather than swimming in the sea.

6:55pm
Went through all the usual preamble with naming and such. I decided to call my character Nestor, after one of my RP characters. I normally call my character Archer, but that name is apparently already taken in these two games.

Anyhoo, I checked the PC and found an email from "Lyra".

"ADVENTURE!
EXCITED!

I love POKEMON!"

Intelligent, engaging stuff.

I'm now having to get used to the different menu system. HG/SS have the bag, trainer card, options, etc on the touch screen instead of a pop-up menu. Now I can finally put the text speed on "fast"...

7:10pm
Lyra's dad just rubbed the fact that I don't have a pokemon yet. I don't like him so far.

So, heading around to Prof. Elm's lab, while enjoying the new version of the lab music, I selected my starter: Totodile (two middle fingers and a raspberry to Falty). Didn't nickname him, can't think of anything good.

Went back to my house and got the Pokegear from my mum. Talked to the red-haired peeping tom outside Elm's lab and got pushed away. Nothing new there, then.

7:13pm
Just stepped out onto Route 29. Blimey, even the long grass has been revamped...

7:17pm
Just battling a Sentret. Why do pokemon use Foresight on a non-ghost pokemon? I'm scratching you up here, mate. You could at least defend yourself instead of ascertaining that my Totodile is actually tangible. To make matters even better, he used Foresight twice...

7:20pm
Just getting the guided tour around Cherrygrove City. Finally got the Running Shoes! Thank god for that... Headed to the Pokemon Centre before going out onto Route 30.

7:23pm
Woah, I'm liking the new Pokemon Centre redesign. Very neat.

7:29pm
My first wild pokemon battle on Route 30, and Totodile has already got to level 6 and learned Water Gun. Certainly a much better result than Piplup on D/P/P. Bubble sucks...

7:32pm
Just got the Apricorn Box from a guy on Route 30 that looks uncannily like Lyra's Dad.

7:35pm
Level 7! Get in!

7:40pm
Just reached Mr. Pokemon's house and got the Mystery Egg and Pokedex. Hooray for free stuff!

7:43pm
Totodile reached level 8 and learned Rage.

7:54pm
Just met my rival in battle for the first time. I like how he bangs on about me being weak when his only pokemon is currently 3 levels lower than mine. I feel a little bad about forcing such a nice-looking pokemon as Chikorita to hang around with that guy.

7:57pm
Just got the opportunity to name my rival. I resisted the temptation to call him something like "****" (besides, that's way funnier in R/B/Y or FR/LG with "Blue") and opted for the regular "Silver". I just couldn't be bothered to think of anything better.

Fun Fact: On my first couple of playthroughs of the original Silver version, I thought you actually had to call your rival "???".

8:04pm
Handed over the Mystery Egg and got told to take the Gym Challenge. Went back to my house and got my mum to save money for me.


Well, that's it for today. Sorry if it wasn't too interesting, but I'm still new to this style of blogging. Besides, I'm starting the adventure properly tomorrow.

Most awesome update ever.

This topic also reminds me that i need to get to buying the game... Loved Silver/Gold to death when I was younger. Looking forward to reading this.

Well can you blame me? Look at him (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:Pokemon_SoulSilver_Version_box.jpg).

So what version do you think you'd get? Zeldafan apparently has SoulSilver as well.

He does look like a good somersaulter.

Hm... It's the same problem I can remember having back in the day. I vastly prefer Lugia's design, but I think gold is a better color than silver...

I played silver a lot back then, so maybe I'll switch it up and get HeartGold.

...Cyndaquil gets the most awesome evolution, though.

Well, just like the original, you can get Lugia eventually in HeartGold. But if you're not sure, this page (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokemon_SoulSilver) has a list of the exclusive pokemon for each version.



I never understood all the hype around the fire starters, and the Cyndaquil family is no exception.


NEW UPDATE

Fire starters are hard mode. And thus, MANLY. Also, their evolutions are the most badass.

Lyra's dad sounds like an ass.

He is. Maybe he's just bitter about going bald.

BTW, I'm going to be updating a lot, so it might be worth just checking the post yourselves...

I'll check it once or twice a day then.

Fair enough.

I just need to think of a decent nickname for my Totodile... I'm going to try and nickname as many pokemon as I can in this playthrough.

One of the smaller changes to the game that I love is the way some of the dialogue has been changed in two way one is to reference that due to that the stuff that was new in the originals but was introduced in FR/LG is no longer new (like eggs) are played for laughs. Also the stuff that's been updated from G/S/C (happens more in Kanto) is lampshaded....

Also they updated the hell outta Kanto.... There's actually more than FR/LG.... Except for Cinnabar but they did put  more than G/S/C and gave Blaine a puzzle and trainers while still having Seafoam....

Please, no talk of HG/SS Kanto in this topic. I don't want anything spoiled for me.

Although I am glad to hear it's bigger this time around. It was fun in G/S/C, but it felt a bit like a rush job.

Sorry I didn't think it was something that could be spoiled....

But I can tell you this game was made with the facts that they wanted to please the original players and add new stuff to make it worth their time.... Johto is harder so don't slack off thinking you only have Whitney's Milktank to worry about....

I can't really remember how difficult Johto was in the original, so it doesn't make much difference to me.

But I have to say, I don't remember that Miltank being the demon everyone claims it to be. Not easy, but not throw-your-gameboy-across-the-room-difficult either. :-\

Johto used to be a walk in the national park.... You could cruise though underleveled and even take on Kanto the same way too.... But now you have to pay attention or you'll not even beat the first gym....

Team Rocket are still weak.... They might aswell not e in the game their that weak....

Yeah I know.... Koga's death made me cry.... **** you Archer you bastard!

I can't decide if you're joking or being serious.

Well Ethan gets to Indigo Plateau and it's quiet.... Too quiet.... Ethan enters Will's room to find Will on the floor in a pool of blood.... Ethan runs to Will.... His mask has fallen off and blood drips from his mouth.... He whispers "Run... Run you fool..."

Ethan then hears a voice from an unknown location.... "HAHAHA! Running will do you no good against Team Rocket!"
"Proton? But at the radio tower I-"
"You saw me fall to me death? HA! Of course I survived, Proton always has a perfect landing!" Just then Proton jumps down and lands gracefully infront of Ethan.... Cue Pokemon battle....

After the battle Proton stands in shock, "But I bought my strongest Pokemon.... How do you do it kid?"
Proton smiles.... "Well I guess there's more than one way to fight..." He charges at Ethan with a fist.
"STOP!" Will raises his hand to Proton.... "If I can do one last thing then let it be this.... MIND CRUSH!"
Proton stops dead as a look of true terror falls on his face.... He screams untill he can stand no longer as his eyes bleed.... He falls to the ground....

Ethan turns to Will.... "Are you alright?"
"I've been better.... You must be Ethan? The boy Lances speaks so highly of.... You have to get to Lance an stop them.... I'll open the door for you...." Will raises his hand and he door to the next room opens "Can you do me a favour? My mask put it on for me.... It blocks out others thoughts and I'd like to be alone for one last time...." Ethan picks up Wills mask and places it on his face.... "Thank you.... Heh.... You know even though I can see the future I couldn't see this.... Maybe because I never wanted to see myself die.... But I do see your future.... It's beautiful.... If only I could have lived to see it...." Will's eyes close and Ethan gets up and faces the door....

Sorry I got carried away....

Please stop now.

Yeah I just wanted to write that.... There's a fanfic idea for those who wish to expand....

But anyway where are you?

I'm back in New Bark Town after the initial trip to see Mr Pokemon. I'm starting the adventure properly today.

Tuesday 6th April

4:26pm
Day two. The adventure starts properly.

...Or at least it does after the mandatory explanation of how to catch pokemon. ¬_¬ Still, at least I got some free Pokeballs out of it.

Ooh, the 3D-ness of the bag menu...

4:36pm
Caught my first pokemon. A male Pidgey which I've nicknamed Pell.

6:16pm
Finally got the laptop back from my mum and restocked my supplies at the Cherrygrove Mart. I then headed back along Route 29 until I got to the gate to Route 46.

6:19pm
Caught a Rattata, which I then named Ratigan.

6:24pm
Finally got what I came for: a Geodude. It took a while to whittle down his health because he kept using Defense Curl. Eventually I got it low enough, caught it, and nicknamed him Roxxor.

6:27pm
Caught a Sentret on the way back to Cherrygrove. I named him McTwisp.

6:36pm
First wild pokemon battle in Route 30, both Ratigan and Totodile levelled up. I sent out Ratigan first, then switched to Totodile.

6:37pm
Just picked an Apricorn for the first time... It's rather weird to watch it shooting out of the top of the tree...

6:45pm
I may have just made a huge mistake: I gave my number to Youngster Joey. Meh, if I get as pissed off with his calls as other people seem to, I only have myself to blame.

BTW, Pell got to level 5 during the battle and learned Sand-Attack. I now have to wait another four levels before he learns another damaging move...

6:47pm
I just switched Roxxor out to the front so I can level him up. It's a bit weird to watch a Geodude following me... The guy has no legs and doesn't appear to be floating...

7:06pm
I encountered and captured a Weedle soon after my previous entry, but had to help my sister bring in the washing. Also, I couldn't think of a good nickname. She repaid me, however, by helping me choose the name Lightyear, so it all worked out okay.

7:10pm
Roxxor just went up to level 4 and learned Mud Sport. Yeah, 'cause I'll be using that attack so often...

7:14pm
Just beat Youngster Mikey, Joey's eternal rival!!

...Anyway, Ratigan went up to level 4 and learned Quick Attack.

7:22pm
Just beat Bug Catcher Don and McTwisp went up to level 4, learning Defense Curl.

Pokemon Trainers are a rather antisocial lot, aren't they? I talked to the person on Route 30 who tells you that if you meet a Trainer's eyes, you have to battle.

Youngster Joey: You looking at me? >:(

Me: No... :'(

Youngster Joey: Right, you asked for it! >:( *sics his Rattata on me*

7:44pm
Just beat Bug Catcher Wade, with Lightyear going up to level 4, and both Roxxor and Ratigan rising to level 5. I registered Wade's number and went on my merry way.

I would've posted this sooner but my DSi ran out of power in the middle of the battle, so I had to switch over to my Lite.

7:47pm
Just got the Vs. Recorder from Lyra in the Violet City/Route 31 gate. As soon as I enter the city, I'm heading for the Pokemon Centre...


Well, that's it for today. I'm really sorry it wasn't more interesting, but tomorrow's entry will be better, I swear. I'm going to spend some time tonight levelling up my pokemon in Route 31, in preparation for tomorrow's events.

Current Pokemon:
Totodile, level 9
Pell - Pidgey, level 5
Roxxor - Geodude, level 5
Ratigan - Rattata, level 5
McTwisp - Sentret, level 4
Lightyear - Weedle, level 4

You get to 6 pokemon a LOT faster than I normally do... I usually only have 2-3 pokemon by the first gym. I catch everything new, I just don't use them...

I also explore the routes as much as I can at that point in time, collecting all the items.

I don't know what I'm going to do once I capture my 7th pokemon...

Seems like you have the same problem I do... When I get a seventh pokemon I want in my party, I have no idea who to dump.

Yeah, I just feel guilty and worry that I won't get around to levelling up the ditched pokemon. I don't want just six really powerful pokemon...

The first Pokemon I caught was Mareep to take on Falkner.... Then Spearow for Bugsy.... I gain one Pokemon for each gym untill I have six....

Unless I need different Pokemon....

I haven't been there yet but I hated how you had to have an HM slave to fight Red.... He has six strong Pokemon and you only had five strong.... Needless to say I still have much more training to do to fight him.... His Pokemon were around 80 so I expect that to be his lowest now....

I'm just trying to fill up the pokedex as much as I can while I'm doing the actual adventure.

As for Mt Silver, the only HMs you needed in G/S/C were Surf and Waterfall, and I usually give those to my main Water pokemon anyway.

Surf is fine.... It's a great water move but Waterfall takes up a very needed spot on your water Pokemon....

Also ever since I watched TTGL I've been shouting "GIIIIGAAAAA DDDDDRRRIILLLLLLL PPPPPEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCKKKKK!!!!" Every time I use it.... Also "GIIIIGAAAAA BBBRRRRIIIIIICCCCKKKK BBBBBBBRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKEEEEEE!!!!" Too.... Made me think about a fusion series....

Also Silver is so much cooler now....

Same here. I really like Pokemon as an RPG, but at the same time I hate it. I've got some kind of weird RPG OCD thing, where I want to keep every party member, even if I despise them and never use them, on the same level as everyone else. I never choose one team, and stick with it.

Or, for 99% of RPGs anyway. I do in pokemon, and it breaks my heart everytime. All those low leveld pokemon I want to put in my party, but I can't bring myself to take out any of my high leveld pokemon either...

What's the problem with Waterfall?

Having said that, however, I'm one of those people who just gives their pokemon attack moves. I don't battle competitively or take on the Battle Frontier, so...



I know what you mean...

So what do you think of my nicknames so far?

I think the nicknames are pretty good, sure better than anything I usually come up with. I particularly like Roxxor and McTwisp. For some reason I can't really explain, I also like Lightyear.

Heh, Lightyear was my sister's idea. I was really struggling to think of a name for Weedle that would suit it throughout its evolutions.

Heh, yeah I read that. I quite like that name... and it would suit Weedle throughout it's evolutions, though maybe not Kakuna... but then again, it's only Kakuna for 3 levels, so it doesn't matter much.

Having two same type attacks on one Pokemon is redundant.... You can pass these days because of the special/pyhsical split but usually your Pokemon will be better at special or pyhsical so only one is needed.... Even in normal play this is important.... Also things that cause sleep or burns or anything like that even if they don't do damage are just as good as offensive moves....

And that's why most HMs suck.... They take up room.... But enough about that....

Your nicknames are pretty good.... I choose mine after I've battled with them and have started calling them with weird names.... Fräulein, Archanine, Pharaoh, Nidouken and Fro.... They're basically ways I corrupt their names.... Try to guess 'em all....

Well what would you suggest instead?

I've gotten along pretty well so far putting whatever moves I want on my pokemon, so unless things in HG/SS are drastically different from D/P/P, I should be just fine continuing as I normally do. But thanks for the advice anyway.

I suppose I worry about that stuff because I tend to run through underleveled.... I hate grinding.... My Pokemon never top 50 on the first run....

Oh, I always have my pokemon at least on a par with the opponent's. In the case of the Elite Four, I always try to have my whole team a few levels above the Champion's strongest pokemon.

I just like to have different options for attacks, especially since most really strong moves only have about 5 or 10 PP. If I come across a pokemon that's doubly weak against my pokemon's element (like an electric type against Gyarados) I can then use Thunderbolt or something similar instead of wasting Thunder's PP. It's pretty rare for my main pokemon to have all four moves coming from the same type, though.

Yeah.... Having backups for the unreliable moves are good.... But Surf is perfect and makes Waterfall redundant which is why I hate it.... Plus why'd they make Flash a TM? You need it for alot more places than DPPt....

I grind, and I grind a lot. Whenever I enter a gym, I look at the highest leveled trainer pokemon in the gym, and then level my pokemon to 3-4 levels above that.

Well I like to take as few pokemon of the same type with me, so I figured I may as well give Waterfall to my main water pokemon as well as Surf. As for Whirlpool, you only really need it to get into the Whirl Islands, as far as I know, and you don't need lots of different types in there.

As for Flash... Well, as far as I can tell, you only need it in Dark Cave in Johto. I don't know about Rock Tunnel, but I suspect you need it there as well. I prefer that to needing an otherwise useless field move just to explore a single Route, like in D/P/P. Seriously, Defog was only needed in that one Route and a single floor in Mt Coronet. I'll probably just give Flash to a Bellsprout. I never use that family anyway, so it doesn't matter too much if I waste a move slot on it.



I do that, but only for my "trump card" pokemon. I make the others in my party roughly equal to the gym leader's pokemon.

I do it with all pokemon in my party, due to the RPG OCD thing.

Ratigan! Oh, Ratigan!

The world's greatest criminal mind!


Ah, 'tis a great film. Back in the days when Disney could show characters smoking, getting drunk, being drugged, and ogling women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2IctxaCPqw

Wednesday 7th April

Well, last night I did some serious levelling-up. All my pokemon are now at least level 6, and I also caught two more: A Hoothoot, which I nicknamed Hollis, and a Bellsprout that I nicknamed Pitcher.

4:20pm
Went back out onto Route 31 to do some more levelling up, as I want all my pokemon to be at least level 8 before I do anything else.

4:45pm
Got Lightyear up to level 7, but prevented his evolution. I haz a plan for him...

4:55pm
Decided to retreat to Dark Cave to level up Pitcher, since his only current attack, Vine Whip, can actually do some decent damage against the Geodudes. It worked wonders.

5:05pm
Wow, apparently Roxxor, Ratigan and Hollis all have Pokerus.

5:21pm
Well, all my current pokemon have it now. It's supposed to be beneficial, so I figured "why not infect them all?"...

5:54pm
Okay then, Totodile is at level 10, and everyone else is now at level 8. Time to explore Violet City properly. First stop, the gym.

6:01pm
Well, according to Jim Gui, I won't stand a chance in the gym if I haven't beaten Sprout Tower yet. I knew this was coming as I have a strategy guide, but it still hurts a little... Hey ho, guess I'll just wander around a bit then.

6:06pm
So apparently the teacher at the pokemon school just didn't bother to let the kids out, seeing as they're still there at five past six in the evening and he's buggered off somewhere...

6:10pm
Found the irresponsible git. I chased him back to the school and declined his lesson. I've been playing these games for almost ten years now you twirling idiot, I don't need lessons! >:(

7:30pm
Had to go walk the dog. Where was I... Oh yeah, exploring. Well all that's really left is Sprout Tower.

7:33pm
I've entered Sprout Tower, and it looks pretty cool in 2.5D. I also like the creaking sound that's played along with the music as the central pillar sways. Time to pwn some monks!

I like how one of the guys on the ground floor refers to Flash as "a wonderful move".

7:37pm
Pell reached level 9 in my first battle and has finally learned his first Flying-type move. It's just Gust, but it's better than nothing.

7:51pm
Just fighting the second-to-last monk in the tower. He wasted two turns raising his Bellsprout's Special Attack, and his Vine Whip still only does 1 damage to Lightyear.

8:07pm
Frankly, I can see how Silver managed to beat the Elder so easily. :-\ His Bellsprouts were near-useless against Lightyear, and, while his Hoothoot managed to put Roxxor to sleep once, he then woke up straight away and proceeded to pummel the Hoothoot into submission.

8:25pm
Went back into Sprout Tower to hunt some ghosties...

8:41pm
Just managed to catch a Gastly with my very last poke ball. I named him Cheshire.

9:22pm
Well, I'm off to train Cheshire up. I'll be tackling Violet Gym first thing tomorrow.


Current Pokemon
Totodile, level 10
Pell - Pidgey, level 9
Roxxor - Geodude, level 10
Ratigan - Rattata, level 9
McTwisp - Sentret, level 9
Lightyear - Weedle, level 9
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 8
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 8
Cheshire - Gastly, level 5

Pokerus, gotta infect them all!

So I gather.

Pokerus makes it so your Pokemon gain double EVs.... Handy when training a competitive team.... In single play it's pointless....

Still it's fun to spread....

I've settled on the sixth nickname now.... Megrazza.... Now it looks like this....
Fräulein
Archanine
Pharaoh
Nidouken
Fro
Megrazza

Crazy, no? I think you can guess what they are if you remember that they're corrupted pronouncing of their names....

For me, I gave Surf to my Dragonair, Waterfall to my Gyrados, and Whirpool to my Furret.

Yes, you read that last part right. My Furret is an awesome HM Slave. Cut, Strength, Rock Smash, and Whirpool.

With Fly on my Togekiss, Flash and Headbutt on my Amphros, and Surf and Waterfall as mentioned above, I'm ready to explore anywhere....except for Rock Climb >_>

I'll just swap out my Sentret for something else when I take on the Elite 4.

I still don't understand how Furret and Whirlpool are supposed to work...

And wouldn't you know.... You need it for Red.... FFFFFFFFFFF....

Bidoof is the best HM slave....

She swims around in a circle real fast to counteract the Whirpool?



I'm only on the Elite 4 right now, so I've got time before I need it anyways.

But Furret never struck me as a really good swimmer. Its not even part water...

Yeah, but Raticate, Linoone, and Bibarel can all learn Surf, and so can Furret, so why not Whirpool? >_>

*is actually just as baffled as you are*

Meh, I guess...

Furret seems like it would be a good swimmer.... Just not with a kid riding on it's back....

That's pokemon for you. Where else could a foot-tall bird carry someone across a whole country?

Well, duh. That's why Dratiko knows Surf, not Senko.

( And for reference, so people don't get confused when I talk about my party:
Cyndamaru - Thypholsion
Togemaru - Togekiss
Akataro - Red Gyrados
Mareeko - Amphros
Dratiko - Dragonair
Senko - Furret. )



(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs14/f/2007/028/6/4/Pidgey_Express_by_morganchan.png)

I do like that picture...

BTW, how you you nickname your pokemon?

Well, I'm following a naming theme on this playthrough. I take a portion of their species name, then if it's a guy, I add -maru at the end, and if it's a girl, I add -ko at the end. And then I just don't bother changing their names when they evolve or anything.

There are some exceptions, like Akataro, where I took Aka, which means Red, and combined it with -taro, a common ending for boys' names in Japan, because Akamaru had the wrong connotations for a Gyrados.

Ah, I see...

I just call my pokemon whatever I think sounds good.

Ever find yourself shouting the nicknames and attacks?

For example.... Fro.... When I say it it comes out as FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUURRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I guess you can tell it's a Fearow now.... This is usually followed by GIIIIGAAAAA DDDDDRRRIILLLLLLL PPPPPEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCKKKKK!!!!

That's how mine got their names.... I just shout their name in an ott way and add extra parts for more manliness! And sometimes I drop parts....

Any guesses on the rest of my team?

Well Archanine and Nidouken are Arcanine and Nidoking, I'm guessing.

Yeah.... Three to go....

hay

I have this game

What.

I know right?

Please don't fill this topic with a load of random crap...

I see, I'm not in some secret club and discussing the game that I own in a topic about the game with others is against the rules.

My apologies, I'll remove myself.

My good sir, you seem to have missed the point. If you wish to discuss this game, Gag is merely suggesting that you do so in a more detailed manner than just stating your ownership of this game.

I would've guessed that Pharaoh was a Fearow, but then you said that Fro was...

Pretty much this.

This.



Also, Bellsprout tower was never a challenge for me... well, taking it on with only a Geodude would be pretty ****, but not if you just use any other pokemon.

And **** yes Ghastly. Always liked him. And Haunter too. Never liked Gengar though...

I took on Bellsprout with a Mareep to level it up....

Gastly's tricky to level up, though...

The **** nerve astounds me.

Darkie.

I'm sorry?

Thursday 8th April

2:40pm
Okay, I'm now off to attempt the Violet Gym.

2:46pm:
Woah, this place is a bit different to the original games... Not drastically so, but still...

2:52pm
So far so good, the first trainer is down. I'm using the bait-and-switch method to level up Cheshire at the moment, and Roxxor is doing his job very well. Cheshire is now level 6, and Roxxor is level 11 and has just learned Rock Throw, which should come in very handy.

I've also just noticed the transparent blocks around the gym's wooden walkway. Looks like it's now possible to just challenge Falkner directly instead of going through both the other trainers. Not that I'll be doing so, my pokemon could use the experience, but even so...

2:57pm
Well Rock Throw is certainly doing its job, that last battle was a walkover. Cheshire gained another level, too.

So, after barely listening to yet another phone call from Youngster Joey about his bloody Rattata (who probably can't hold a candle to Ratigan, just saying...), I'm off to heal before I attempt to fight Falkner.

3:00pm
Well, here we are. First attempt at a Gym Battle... Here goes nothing...

3:08pm
Well, that was easy. Roxxor was able to take out both of Falkner's pokemon with one Rock Throw apiece (though he scored a critical hit on Pidgeotto, so that was partially luck). Well, I say Falkner's pokemon, turns out they're actually his dad's. Poor guy doesn't even have his own pokemon...

So anyway, Cheshire went up by 2 levels (I bait-and-switch'd for both enemy pokemon), and Roxxor went up by one. I'm off to heal again...

3:10pm
Ooh, phone call from Prof. Elm as soon as I left the gym. Apparently he wants me to take the egg I got from Mr Pokemon. First healing, then off to the Mart.

3:15pm
Just got the egg from Elm's assistant. It's apparently close to hatching.

Oh, and apparently my mum's been spending my money already. There was a guy in the Mart with a Super Potion for me.

3:20pm
Well that was random. A girl in a kimono came up to me when I left the Mart and told me to take care of the egg as it's special. I guess the kimono girls are going to play a larger role than they did in HG/SS...

3:34pm
Before I continue onwards toward Azalea Town, I think I'll go explore Dark Cave as much as I currently can. Maybe level up a bit in the process. I'll be giving Flash to Pitcher.

3:45pm
Screw it. I've got the one item I can access in Dark Cave, and the pokemon there are way too low a level for me to effectively train. I'll try Route 36.

3:50pm
Okay, that's at least the third time Youngster Joey has called me to tell me that his Rattata "is in the top percentage of Rattata".

3:55pm
A guy in the Violet City/Route 36 gate just told me that "plants would want to move around from time to time!". I think I may know what particular "plant" he's talking about...

3:58pm
I just got HM06. Now I have to decide who to give it to... I also encountered Arthur of Thursday, and got a Hard Stone from him.

4:01pm
I've decided to check out the Ruins of Alph, since there aren't any training opportunities on Route 36 at the moment. Once I'm done there, I'll head onto Route 32 and start making my way to Azalea Town.

4:05pm
Ooh, creepy music... Onwards into the "mysterious hall" as the sign outside calls it.

4:06pm
"It's a replica of an ancient pokemon." Looks more like a Nidoking to me... Still, I suppose the fossils can't have been the only pokemon back then.

4:11pm
Meh, may as well give HM06 to McTwisp for now. Smashy-smashy!

4:19pm
Change of plan. Turns out McTwisp won't be able to learn Rock Smash until he evolves, so I'll be giving it to Ratigan instead.

4:27pm
Pitcher just took down a Geodude four levels higher than him. The stupid thing just kept used Mud Sport and Rock Polish. ¬_¬

Oh, and Youngster Joey just called me about a Weedle he failed to catch. I guess it's nice to know he can at least talk about something other than his Rattata...

4:30pm
I just solve the Kabuto puzzle and got the Unown Report. Now to catch one...

4:33pm
Caught the first one I came across. An Unown E. I've decided not to nickname it just yet. Maybe later, when I come back to catch more of them.

5:19pm
Okay, heading out onto Route 32...

5:21pm
Some guy just randomly stopped me and gave me a Miracle Seed. How nice...

5:25pm
Hollis just reached level 9 and learned Peck. Nice to have a damaging move that isn't Tackle...

5:40pm
Well the egg just hatched, and I now have a male Togepi. I wasn't able to think of a good nickname, but I'm sure one will come up before I reach Goldenrod City, where the Name Rater is. I'm now off to show it to Prof. Elm.

6:00pm
Wow, turns out my Togepi knows Extrasensory. Didn't see that coming...

6:11pm
Just showed Togepi to Prof. Elm and got an Everstone in return. I'm giving that to Lightyear right away. Back to Route 32...

7:14pm
Ratigan just reached level 10 and learned Bite. Nice...

7:17pm
Right, I'm now back on Route 32. Onwards to adventure!

7:42pm
I just caught a Mareep. I've named him Tesla, 'cause I couldn't think of anything better.

7:51pm
Just caught a Hoppip. His name is Drifter.

8:01pm
Just caught an Ekans. His name will be Coatl.

8:16pm
I've just entered the lower half of Route 32. That raised track is definately a new feature...

8:50pm
I've just managed to come up with a name for my newly-caught Wooper. His name is Newton.

9:16pm
What the hell is the point of Splash? Seriously? Is it just there to make Magikarp seem even more pathetic?

9:34pm
Just got the Old Rod from a guy in the Pokemon Centre outside Union Cave. A nice man also gave me two Lure Balls just because I said I collected Apricorns. People in the Pokemon World sure are generous...

9:41pm
I may as well do Union Cave tonight as well. In we go...

9:47pm
I like the little touches they've added with these games. Just like Sprout Tower have the creaking of the central pillar, Union Cave has the quiet sound of running water when you're near a pool.

9:58pm
Pitcher has finally learned another damaging move! I mean, it's just Wrap, but it's still nice to have more than just Vine Whip...

10:16pm
I think I may have just fought a masochist Slowpoke. I sent out Pitcher against him, and continually used Vine Whip. Did Slowpoke fight back? No. He just repeatedly used Growl to lower my attack, ultimately just dragging out his own long, agonising defeat. I shudder to think where he picked up that kind of behaviour... *glares at PokeManiac Larry*

10:22pm
What lovely weather awaits me outside Union Cave. I'm not going to waste time on this route. I'm just going to collect those Apricorns, take down that Hiker I can see lurking around the corner, and rush off to Azalea Town.

10:31pm
Well, I finally made it to Azalea Town. I'm going to call it a day and properly explore tomorrow. Laters!


Current Pokemon
Totodile, level 10
Pell - Pidgey, level 10
Roxxor - Geodude, level 12
Ratigan - Rattata, level 10
McTwisp - Sentret, level 9
Lightyear - Weedle, level 9
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 9
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 9
Cheshire - Gastly, level 9
Unown E, level 5
Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Mareep, level 6
Drifter - Hoppip, level 6
Coatl - Ekans, level 4
Newton - Wooper, level 6

PROGRESS

My friends and I decided (since we're such huge nerds) to do gym leader/type themed teams. We can use other types up until we get to Kanto (since not all the pokemon we want on our team can be gotten in Johot). Although really, we only need to have the same type when we inevitably fight each other.

FLOYD TEAM GO

Lanegan (Typhlosion)- 41
Hinds (Arcanine)- 41
Stahl (Magmar)- 40
Ampharos- 40
Pidgey (for fly lol)- 13
Krabby (HM Slave)- 20

Gonna fight Clair soon.

So what type are you using when you get to Kanto? I'm guessing Fire by your current party.

Yessir.

My friend foolishly chose Steel and the other one Electric so I should get at least one victory (and he's the only one I care about beating <_<).

Ouch... For your Steel friend, I mean.

Still, I guess he could at least try to get his own back with Steelix or another part-Ground pokemon.

He laid out his entire team and I'm pretty sure he's got an Empoleon (or planning it at least) but still.

Although he takes the game way more serious than I do and my have some crazy strategies to beat us both, considering his roommates are evidently **** with these games.

I can't take pokemon too seriously. I'd rather enjoy it as I normally do than ruin it by stressing over competitive battling. Ideal natures, extensive breeding to get certain moves... I can't be bothered with it.

Same here, although that's my outlook for most games.

Same here. I don't even like to try the Battle Frontier unless I have to. Y'know, for TMs and suchlike.

I'd like to raise a water team.... There's enough sub types to defend against almost anything.... Probably the best type for doing so....

One of the few things I keep from competitive battling when fighting anyone is no Wobbuffets....

Youngster Joey can't even catch a Weedle? So much for his Rattata being in the top percentage.

He can't catch a Pidgey either, apparently.

To be fair, he might have a great Rattata, he could just be a lousy trainer.

Friday 9th April

6:35pm
Started a bit later than I would've liked, but nevermind. Off to explore Azalea Town.

6:38pm
There's a Rocket Grunt blocking the entrance to the Gym, so that's out for now. I wonder if Bugsy has been locked in there...

6:41pm:
Just stole a White Apricorn from Kurt's tree. The Berry thief is still at large! He merely changed his targets! Muahahahaha...

Anyway, apparently Kurt is going to sort out the whole mess at Slowpoke Well. I'd better go too "just in case" he needs me to bail him out... ¬_¬

6:53pm
I'm liking the new spiral path down to the well... It's the little things.

And what a surprise! Kurt fell down the well and hurt his back. But it's okay, I'm sure the group of Rockets have already been sufficiently shaken by Kurt shouting at them. Now I just have to finish them off.

7:20pm
Sorry for the delay. I caught a Zubat and struggled with a nickname. I eventually settled for Fidget.

8:49pm
Sorry, I couldn’t access the site for a while. Anyway, I took down Executive Proton pretty easily, and McTwisp went up to level 12 in the process. Kurt’s back suddenly felt better after I’d finished (¬_¬) so we headed out. He gave me a Fast Ball for my trouble, and I left a Black Apricorn for him to work on. Off to the Pokemon Centre for healing…

12:14am
Well, it looks like all my infected pokemon have "recovered" from Pokerus. Now, I'm going to catch me some Slowpokes, then I'm going to train for a while. I want to level up so I can attempt Azalea Gym tomorrow.

I always liked seeing the Slowpokes wandering around town...

12:23am
That's one Slowpoke down...

12:31am
And there's the other. I'm not going to bother naming them until I reach Goldenrod.

Here's a question: If this place is called Slowpoke Well, then why is Zubat the most common pokemon?

12:34am
Well, that's it for today. I'm off to train for tomorrow's Gym attempt. Sorry not much was covered today, but I'm definately reaching Goldenrod tomorrow.


Current Pokemon
Totodile, level 10
Pell - Pidgey, level 10
Roxxor - Geodude, level 12
Ratigan - Rattata, level 10
McTwisp - Sentret, level 9
Lightyear - Weedle, level 9
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 9
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 9
Cheshire - Gastly, level 9
Unown E, level 5
Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Mareep, level 6
Drifter - Hoppip, level 6
Coatl - Ekans, level 4
Newton - Wooper, level 6
Fidget - Zubat, level 6
Slowpoke, level 6 (x2)

My theory is Joey can't afford Pokeballs.... His money goes to everybody he fights.... He and Rattata survive on berries he grows.... But it's ok because his berries are like the top percentage of berries.... In fact he sells them to pay for battles, phone bills and HP ups....

Sounds like a reasonable theory. Maybe he also gets some berries from Bug Catcher Wade in Route 31.

Of course.... They run the berry business between Violet and Cherrygrove.... They had to pay protect to Team Rocket.... But you changed that and now they run the whole damn berry scene from Sinnoh down to Hoenn....

No, Team Rocket are still around. I've only foiled their Slowpoke tail business.

Because Zubats are Goddamn Zubats (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoddamnedBats).

Oh Kurt, you lazy and unlucky Slowpoke loving idiot.

That's a good point. Why is it that every generation has to have the same Goddamned Bats? Zubats in caves, Tentacool on water routes.



He makes good pokeballs, though.

Zubats are there just to annoy us. If it were just Zubats, it'd be okay. But they use Confuse Ray. That mothereffing Confuse Ray.

It might just be my luck, but whenever my pokemon get confused, they kill themeselves 9/10 times. I hate confusion moves, with the passion of a thousand suns.


True, he does make good pokeballs. Guess he can be forgiven, this once.

And if they don't use Confuse Ray, then it's Supersonic. Particularly in the early portions of the games.

That's what's annoying about Tentacool, as well. Potentially, they can Poison, Confuse, and Wrap you all at once. That's a worst case scenario, but even so...

I also meant Supersonic, I just got them mixed up...

However that's possible since they sound NOTHING alike >_>

But yeah, that makes  both of them really annoying.

Saturday 10th April

4:19pm
Got a fairly decent amount of training in last night. Totodile is now level 13, and has learned Bite. Both Cheshire and Tesla are now at level 11, and Tesla has learned his first Electric attack: ThunderShock. Drifter's proving rather annoying to level up, though. Hoppips don't learna single damaging attack until level 10, and even then it's just Tackle. ¬_¬

Still, more training to be done before I take on the Gym... Especially for Pell, Roxxor and Hollis. Oh, and since I don't intend to use Unown and it doesn't evolve, I'll be leaving it at level 5. For now, at least.

5:23pm
Coatl has finally learned an attack that does a decent amount of damage: Bite.

5:39pm
I finally no longer have to bait-and-switch to level up Drifter, as he has now learned a damaging move. It's just Tackle, but it's a start.

6:32pm
Well, that's Drifter and Coatl done. On to Newton and Fidget.

8:50pm
Newton just learned Mud Shot. I remember my Marshtomp using it in Sapphire. It looked a bit like he was peeing on the opponent...


Current Pokemon
Totodile, level 13
Pell - Pidgey, level 12
Roxxor - Geodude, level 12
Ratigan - Rattata, level 12
McTwisp - Sentret, level 12
Lightyear - Weedle, level 11
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 11
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 12
Cheshire - Gastly, level 11
Unown E, level 5
Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Mareep, level 11
Drifter - Hoppip, level 11
Coatl - Ekans, level 11
Newton - Wooper, level 9
Fidget - Zubat, level 8
Slowpoke, level 6 (x2)

Beat dat Elite Four.

Now to assemble the rest of the Fire Team.

I'm training for the elite four part two.... Electric boogaloo....

All but Megrazza are ready....

But first we fight the gyms again.... And it be serious business this time....

Then we set out to **** up Red....

We will win!

Team Dai Gareth.... SPIIIIIIIIN OOOOOOOONNNNNNN!

Zubats and Tentacools are annoying, but at least they can be raped to hell by psychic-types.

And Electric-types. Which I more commonly have on me than a Psychic-type...

Tentacool is actually a good pokemon to use but Zubat can suck a dick....

Are Golbat or Crobat at all useful?

Crobat's ok.... I guess....

AH yes, a day worth of training... I do that as well, usually.

Also, I has HG nao.

Coolio.

Bet you finish it before me... v_v

Maybe... Though to be fair, I'm not detailing everything I do. I'm free to run through it at my own leisure.

GO ILS! Be the very best!

Anyway.... Imma tell you my team now seeing as nobody guessed....

Team Dai Gareth:
Trainer(male) - Gareth
Feraligatr(female) - Fraulein
Ampharos(male) - Pharaoh
Fearow(male) - Fro
Arcanine (male) - Archanine
Nidoking - Nidouken
Metagross - Megrazza

Nidoking yessssssssssssss

NIDOUKEN! EAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHQQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAKKKKKKKEEEEEEE!!!!

*tear falls down cheek*

Sunday 11th April

3:42pm
I'm really sorry yesterday wasn't more interesting. Training took longer than expected... But today I definately will reach Goldenrod. Happily, all my pokemon (with the exception of Unown and Togepi) are at least level 11. I only have a little bit of training to do for the Azalea Gym, then I should be able to move on.

I pretty much only had Union Cave and the patch of grass in Route 33 to train on, and a lot of the pokemon I had to train up couldn't land super effective hits. It also didn't help that the vast majority of pokemon I encountered were Zubat or Ekans... I couldn't even go ahead into Ilex Forest for some higher-level prey because your Rival automatically comes along and challenges when you try to leave, and I'm simply not ready to face him yet.

4:58pm
Well, Lightyear has now reached level 14, and I can finally take his Everstone and allow him to evolve when he reaches level 15.

As for the others, I'm almost done levelling up for now. All that remains is to get Hollis up to level 15, and I'll be ready to attempt the Gym.

5:13pm
Finally... Hollis is now level 15, and now I just need to rest up at the Pokemon Centre, restock my supply of Antidotes, Paralyz Heals and Awakenings at the Mart, and then it's time to squash some Bugs.

5:24pm
Wow, this place is really different to its G/S/C counterpart... Instead of just a basic forest maze, there are two chasms with spider-like karts that travel on ropes. The gimmick is that the ropes criss-cross with each other, and you have to select the right kart to proceed, otherwise it'll dump you in front of a trainer.

5:30pm
Just won my first double battle of the game. Roxxor and Hollis vs Ledyba and Spinarak. I like using Rock Throw on Bug-types, because it conjures up a fairly amusing mental image of Roxxor just dropping a rock to squish the opponent.

5:52pm
Hoo boy, that was pretty nerve-wracking. I had to retry because I was caught totally offguard the first time. For one thing, I didn't expect Bugsy to send out Scyther straight away, and (rather stupidly) I didn't expect him to make such heavy use of U-turn. So the second time around, I managed to catch him out. After doing the inital bait-and-switch with Tesla, I sent out Hollis instead of Roxxor, meaning that U-turn would do less damage than it would to Roxxor. I then kept Hollis out and took down the Metapod that Bugsy switched for Scyther. I then did this again with Pell when Bugsy repeated the tactic with Scyther and Kakuna. After Kakuna went down, I chose to switch to Roxxor when prompted. Scyther hit with another U-turn, reducing Roxxor to roughly half-health, then I countered with Rock Throw, taking Scyther down in one hit. 4x damage FTW!!

...I have to say, though, I much prefer the Hive Badge's old red and black colouring in G/S/C to the grey and darker grey of this game...

Anyway, now to save and try to beat my rival.


6:25pm
Three cheers for Lightyear! I forgot to take him along the first time I fought Silver, and I got totally thrashed. Stupid Bayleef and its Synthesis... But the second time around I got my own back. I like to think I managed to beat him at his own game.

First up came Gastly, who was dispatched by Totodile's Bite (frankly, Gastly's Curse really just made it easier for me to win, as he sacrificed half his HP). Then came Bayleef. Now, instead of sending out Pell or Hollis like last time, I instead sent out Lightyear. Now, Lightyear still only has one damaging move, and Poison Sting wasn't going to do that much damage, especially under the effects of Reflect. However, it would have a possibility of poisoning Bayleef, thus turning the tables somewhat. Also, Lightyear's dual Bug-Poison-type would not only protect him from Bayleef's own poisoning attack, but would also reduce his Razor Leaf to 1/4 of the damage. It was just a matter of constantly using Poison Sting until Bayleef used up all of Synthesis' 5 PP, possibly poisoning him in the process (which I managed). When Lightyear had been reduced to around 1/4 HP, I switched him out for Pell. At that point, Bayleef was doomed. It wouldn't matter if he managed to take out Pell, because Hollis would be right there to take his place. It just took a few Gusts to knock him out, and all Bayleef managed to do was Poison Pell just before he got knocked out. The rest was easy, just a Zubat that I took out with Tesla. First he paralysed himself after using Bite, thanks to Tesla's Static ability, then it just took a couple of Thundershocks.

So basically that's the second time a comparitively weak Bug has managed to bail me out in that battle (Spinarak once saved my ass back in my original Silver version). I'm now going to take a break, but when I come back, it's Ilex Forest time.

7:53pm
Okay, I've just caught the Charcoal Man's Farfetch'ds in Ilex Forest and received HM01 in return. Now I just have to decide who to give it to...

The Farfetch'd hunt was a little more complex than it was in the original games...

8:01pm
I decided in the end to give Cut to Pitcher. He could use more attack moves...

8:06pm
Just caught a male Oddish. I decided to call him Gomez. Decent name? I'm not sure...

8:11pm
Drifter just showed a Kimono Girl the way out of the forest. How nice of him...

8:14pm
Okay, I'm out of Ilex Forest. Just one more route between me and Goldenrod... And it has the Day Care on it, so that'll be useful.

10:28pm
Okay, having eaten and showered, I thought I'd examine the pokemon of the trainers along Route 34. I've decided that I need to go back through Ilex Forest to Azalea Town's pokemon centre and rebuild my party. I'll try to pick up a Paras and a female Oddish along the way, as well.

10:44pm
Just caught my female Oddish. I decided to call her Hana.

11:14pm
I just managed to capture a Paras. I've called her Phobia.

11:20pm
Okay, I've gone back through Ilex Forest, and I'm now ready to take on Route 34 properly. Goldenrod City, here I come!

As a side note, I rather liked the shifting patterns on the floor of Ilex Forest. Y'know, where light comes down through the trees.

11:23pm
Does anyone else not get why pokemon find Snubbull intimidating? It's just an ugly little pink thing that looks like it's wearing a dress... Still, your mileage may vary.

11:27pm
Mum's been spending my money... Still, it should at least be something useful.

11:33pm
And there we have it. The reason I've been holding back Lightyear's evolution all this time? I wanted him to learn Bug Bite which happens at level 15, but only if he's still a Weedle by then. As of now, Lightyear is officially a Kakuna!

...It's really rather strange watching a Kakuna following you in this game...

11:39pm
So it turns out that the Day Care people are Lyra's Grandparents. Go figure...

11:55pm
Well, I've finally reached Goldenrod City. It's getting late, so I think I'll explore the city properly tomorrow. Anything else I do tonight will just be levelling up or possibly catching a couple of pokemon. Maybe I'll already be able to attempt the Goldenrod Gym tomorrow. Who knows...

Laters!
 

Current Pokemon
Totodile, level 16
Pell - Pidgey, level 17
Roxxor - Geodude, level 16
Ratigan - Rattata, level 14
McTwisp - Sentret, level 12
Lightyear - Kakuna, level 15
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 15
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 13
Cheshire - Gastly, level 12
Unown E, level 5
Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Mareep, level 14
Drifter - Hoppip, level 11
Coatl - Ekans, level 11
Newton - Wooper, level 12
Fidget - Zubat, level 11
Slowpoke, level 11 (x2)
Gomez - Oddish (M), level 5
Hana - Oddish (F), level 6
Phobia - Paras, level 5

Silver made his Bayleaf a poison staller.... He used reflect to make Fro's attacks weak and kept healing.... All the while the poison chipped away at me.... I hate stallers....

I'm not too worried. Even if Pell falls, I'll have Hollis (or even Lightyear) as a backup. If necessary, I can try to put the Bayleef to sleep with Hypnosis.

Hypnosis would work best as he keeps on healing....

Me? I lowered his defence while reflect was up and then swooped in with Aerial Ace.... Flaaffy zapped his Zubat and Croconaw bit his Gastly....

I ended up using a different tactic for Bayleef, as I've just documented in my latest update. I'm actually quite proud of myself for thinking of it...

Nice thinking.... I used Nidouken like that for Koga and Team Rocket.... With the fact that they don't use poison moves which is mostly what they have made it easy to beat them because they couldn't hurt him....

Yeah, but Koga and Team Rocket's pokemon don't tend to have healing moves, do they? I'll probably just take them on the same way I take on most other trainers.

I'm just glad I'm getting to the stage of the game where more different types are becoming available...

Well Koga's Muk has black sludge with toxic and minimize.... So he can be hard to hit and in that time his health goes up while yours goes down fast if you don't have an antidote.... No match for Nidouken though....

I'm not worrying about the Elite Four just yet. I've only just got my second badge... :-\

Monday 12th April

1:31pm
It's a new day, and I'm heading straight out to Route 34. I have some pokemon to catch...

1:39pm
Cool... Ditto is the rarest pokemon on this Route, and it came up in just my third random encounter. I decided to name him Morph. Just an Abra and two Drowzees to go. Why two Drowzees? You'll see...

1:46pm
Tesla just evolved into Flaaffy.

1:55pm
I just caught the first Drowzee. I named him Mesmero.

1:59pm
And there's the other Drowzee. Just Abra to go, now. That's going to be tricky...

2:02pm
What the... I just put this Rattata to sleep, why am I still unable to escape?

2:56pm
YES! Almost an hour after I started searching. I finally managed to catch an Abra, all thanks to Cheshire and his Mean Look move. Having said that, I almost knocked it out when I tried to weaken it with Lick. It had just a sliver of health left. After I put it to sleep with Hypnosis, it didn't really stand a chance... I decided to call him Hocus. Now to explore Goldenrod City...

3:11pm
The woman in the flower shop won't let me have a SquirtBottle because it's apparently "too dangerous"... ¬_¬

3:14pm
Well, it seems Whitney, the Gym Leader, isn't in right now. Apparently she's off looking for a Radio Card.

The sign outside the Gym describes her as "The Incredibly Pretty Girl!". I hope she wasn't the one that wrote that...

3:19pm
Just got the Bicycle. I hope Pokemon Black & White give you the option to switch off the "bike riding" music... Still, I guess the G/S/C/HG/SS one is one of the more tolerable bike themes...

3:27pm
Just got the Coin Case and tried Voltorb Flip for the first time. I'm not sure about it just yet... It may have to grow on me.

3:50pm
Remember that second Drowzee I caught? Well I did that so I could trade it for a Machop in the Goldenrod Department Store. Y'know, to help me in the upcoming Gym Battle. Turns out, however, that the Machop in question is actually female. Very useful against Whitney's Miltank and its Attract move, but still...

3:59pm
Well, there's the start of the track I saw back in Route 32. It's probably a better idea to have it raised than going straight across the street like in G/S/C...

4:11pm
Just got the Radio Card from the Goldenrod Radio Tower. I ran into Whitney as well. She doesn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the box... She thought Kurt makes Poke Balls out of Apricots... Still, first impressions aren't everything.

5:18pm
Okay, so I've visited the Name Rater, who's been relocated to a weird little fortune-telling-style tent instead of a proper house... Anyway, I decided to call Totodile "Levi", I called Togepi "Hatcher", and I called the two Slowpokes I caught "Herman" and "Cnut". As of now, all my pokemon have nicknames except Unown, but I can't be bothered to think of 28 different nicknames right now...

Anyway, all that's left to do is train for the Gym. I want them to be around level 20, especially Muscle. I'll also be putting Hocus in the Day Care until he reaches level 15.

7:13pm
Levi is now a Croconaw!

11:54pm
Cheshire has finally learned another damaging move. It's Night Shade, so it still won't affect Normal-types, and since Cheshire is only level 15 it won't do much damage yet, but it's still nice to have options...

11:57pm
Cool, Hocus levitates as he follows me around...

12:01am
Well, he won't be doing that anymore. Hocus is now a Kadabra! He'salso finally learned a move that isn't Teleport: Confusion.

12:08pm
Okay, there's one part of Goldenrod City I haven't explored yet, and that's the Underground Tunnel. I didn't do it before because I wanted to train up my pokemon first. Why? Down there be trainers...

12:11pm
I met Lyra on the way down to the tunnel, and she gave me the Fashion Case. It holds stuff I can dress up my pokemon with. I'll probably never use it, to be honest...

12:48pm
This guy I just beat apparently got his pokemon a haircut at the tunnel salon right before our battle. His only pokemon was a Lickitung (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lickitung_%28Pokemon%29)... *suddenly imagines Lickitung with a range of hairstyles*

12:57pm
I have emerged victorious from the underground realm of Pokemaniacs and Super Nerds... All I can do now is train for the Gym Battle tomorrow. Or rather, later today...

Laters!


Current Pokemon
Levi - Croconaw, level 20
Pell - Pidgey, level 17
Roxxor - Geodude, level 16
Ratigan - Rattata, level 15
McTwisp - Sentret, level 15
Lightyear - Kakuna, level 15
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 15
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 15
Cheshire - Gastly, level 15
Unown E, level 5
Hatcher - Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Flaaffy, level 15
Drifter - Hoppip, level 15
Coatl - Ekans, level 11
Newton - Wooper, level 13
Fidget - Zubat, level 11
Herman - Slowpoke, level 11
Cnut - Slowpoke, level 11
Gomez - Oddish (M), level 12
Hana - Oddish (F), level 12
Phobia - Paras, level 11
Morph - Ditto, level 10
Mesmero - Drowzee, level 15
Hocus - Kadabra, level 16
Muscle - Machop, level 18

You sir, are epic for keeping that many pokemon up to snuff. I consider myself a grinder as I tend to grind even when it's unnecessary, but even I couldn't do that, for that many pokemon.

It's certainly easier now that the average wild pokemon is around level 10.

I only have to get some of them to around level 20 at most, anyway. I mean, Whitney's Miltank is level 19 and that's the highest level pokemon I'm going to be fighting in the near future.

How does one get a haircut for a Lickitung....? >_>

I honestly have no idea.

All I know is I now want to see fanarts of Lickitung with an afro or other hairstyles.

Hmmm.... If I wasn't so sleepy right now....

Tuesday 13th April

6:01pm
Bleah, I meant to start much earlier today... Trouble is it's getting to the point where I'm having to think about when I want to allow my pokemon to evolve, and what moves I want them to learn. Still, I've managed to sort that out, so it's back to pre-Gym training.

6:19pm
Actually, sod it. I'm going to attempt the Gym right now. Muscle's a high enough level (and she'll become stronger as I take down the other Gym trainers), and I can bait-and-switch with the pokemon to level up my own ones.

6:22pm
Well, visually this place hasn't changed much. It still has walls and obstacles in the shape of a big Clefairy. the main difference is the different levels you have to walk on to get through the maze. Sometimes you're on the ground, sometimes you're walking on one of the walls.

6:40pm
Okay, I'm about to face Whitney. Wish me luck...

6:53pm
Well that wasn't too bad. Once again, I don't see what the fuss is about with Whitney's Miltank, but then again, I did face it with a female Machop. It probably woud've been a different story if I'd been using a male pokemon, as it knows Attract. And admittedly I did have to use a Super Potion, but otherwise it only took two Low Kick attacks from Muscle. And Whitney's Clefairy? Down with one Karate Chop. So, after Whitney's defeat-induced tantrum, I recieved the Plain Badge and TM45: Attract.

In petty-yet-disappointing news, it seems that all the Johto Gym Badges will now be the same grey colour scheme as the Zephyr Badge. Rather dull, I think...

10:53pm
Okay, I'm going to spend the rest of the evening levelling up the last few pokemon I need to. I'll be heading out for Ecruteak City tomorrow, and I'll try to get started on it sooner than I did today.


Current Pokemon
Levi - Croconaw, level 20
Pell - Pidgey, level 17
Roxxor - Geodude, level 16
Ratigan - Rattata, level 15
McTwisp - Sentret, level 15
Lightyear - Kakuna, level 15
Hollis - Hoothoot, level 15
Pitcher - Bellsprout, level 15
Cheshire - Gastly, level 15
Unown E, level 5
Hatcher - Togepi, level 1
Tesla - Flaaffy, level 15
Drifter - Hoppip, level 15
Coatl - Ekans, level 13
Newton - Wooper, level 13
Fidget - Zubat, level 11
Herman - Slowpoke, level 13
Cnut - Slowpoke, level 12
Gomez - Oddish (M), level 12
Hana - Oddish (F), level 12
Phobia - Paras, level 11
Morph - Ditto, level 10
Mesmero - Drowzee, level 15
Hocus - Kadabra, level 16
Muscle - Machop, level 21