SA2's Gaming Blog Topic

[Marie Rose]

So around the time I bought GTA V I also got Rayman Legends. Surprisingly it was only £20 at the time so that was fortunate. I assume the sudden drop was due to new games like GTA V just recently coming out, and it was a pretty dumb idea to release this game so near to that date but whatever. I’m gonna come out and say right off the bat that I thought the first game was overall better. Because:

The path to 100% in Origins was short but not frustrating like in Legends. In Legends you collect 10 teenies throughout the level instead of 6 and those 10 can very easily be missed, especially the king & queen ones. Not to say I’m not looking hard enough, twice I missed one because it was behind a hidden wall. Walls which actually looked like real walls and not walls you can clearly tell stand out, one was beside a bottomless pit too. One was hidden in a tiny pathway in a right wall during a swimming level, I spent several minutes trying to find it then I looked it up and realized that the tiny hole wasn’t even visible on my TV, unlike the other secret passages. In Origins, the sixth teeny was always at the end of a level so you just had to find five & they weren’t hard to find unless you were speed running the level, I think I only missed a teeny on one level in the original game going through the first time. The bar has been raised from needing to collect 300 lums to 600, with the king lums taken away and replaced with stupid "follow the pattern perfectly or immediately lose the 2x lum multiplier" purple ones. It’s harsh as fuck too, in Origins you could do reasonably well and finish with over 300 90% of the time, here half the levels require near perfection (every purple lum, physically kill all enemies, get all teenies in one run, get heart at the start & never get hit so you collect every bonus heart for +5 lums etc.) just to reach 600. One swimming level that sticks out in my mind I went through it pretty damn slow making sure to get everything yet I finished with 595. Apparently I missed out on a small cave that gave you about 35 lums, so yeah, 630. Again, this was a perfect run, and I had to go slow as shit to make sure I got all the lums I could.

The levels with Murfy are crap because he just slows down progression most due to the game wanting you to play a point & click platformer, not sure who thought this was a good idea. They basically took out the Tricky Treasure levels for the Invasion ones (more like the time trials really which were also better because the Origins levels were designed to be speedrun except in some spots where you're forced to slow down to avoid dying), which are alright but they don’t compare, though I did like the Invasion themes. The one from Olympus Maximus the most of all, I wish all the invasion worlds had that theme, it certainly got me in the mood to beat the time limit of 40 seconds for the 3 teenies. Just look how well the theme matches up in The Amazing Maze:



Of course you can finish pretty early since I’ve finished that in just under 37 seconds. Most of the invasion levels are surprisingly easy to finish in under 40 seconds really, with most I finished within the 34-38 second range. Hell, I managed to finish one in under 32 seconds, but a few seem more like they were designed to have a 45 second timer in mind, those two being Quick Sand (I had to work my ass off trying to go as fast as possible in any spot where I had the space and still struggled) & Infiltration Station (Dark Rayman makes this aggravating since you gotta kill all enemies in 4 rooms so you need to know the right path to get anywhere under 40 or just avoid running into DR period). Just like everybody else though, I loved the music levels, Eye of the Tiger & Land of the Livid Dead deserve special mention. Having levels that match your movements with the beat is just awesome, a shame there weren't more of those. On the other hand, most of the 8-bit music levels you unlock after getting 400 teenies were either dumb or pointless aside from hearing familiar tracks with a retro filter. They've all just got some gimmicky handicap & make it so dying sends you back to the start. Most effects were bearable but 8-bit Orchastra Chaos was the worst, or as I call it, "Can't See Shit." Seriously, look at this shit:



I had to replay it like half a dozen times due to needing a perfect jump to get all those lums 2/3's into the level. 8-bit Land of the Livid Dead was good because it used every kind of retro effect every few moments & it went the extra mile near the end with the whole splitting the screen into 4 chunks, then 9, then 16 etc. Now that was inventive. The only disappointing thing was that LotLD's music level didn't have the same kind of difficulty as the final bonus level of the first game, or that there wasn't a level like that in general.



Now a level like this I actually consider challenge, but one that's actually fun & not frustrating just for the sake of it. I've played that level enough times to run through it without dying, which isn't required since there's a ton of checkpoints but I did it. Not to brag about my 12 inch E-peen, not because I was bored and couldn't afford any new games, but because I really enjoyed the level. I can speedrun it consistently these days (though I find the hardest parts the first area & the last before the boss). The start of the second area is also where one of my favorite themes starts up, which was the one they used for the music level. So yeah, still enjoyed it a lot but Origins was overall better because Legends had a little too much unnecessary shit in it.

[Marie Rose]

Huh. People have started uploading the CP OST again since that soundtrack came out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Nathanevo580/videos

[Ƨɒlƚy]

eeeeeexcellent

[Marie Rose]

So I decided to start Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (which supposedly is the same as the original game but with this new island to visit) since it was free on PSN+ & I have like a month left. Since it’s a long RPG since I doubt I could wrap up in a few days, I figured I’d actually talk about my progress during the course of the game for once. When I started the game, I decided to ultimately make my character a female elf warrior called Fuka because I couldn’t think of any amusing names. Would have had her full name be Fuku U. Mayne if I could. I’ll admit I got beat up a lot more than I should of during the prologue as I was still getting used to the controls & all. When it got to the part of the game where I could start using my character, I spent like an hour in that starting village (Cassardis, I think it’s name was) just running through everyone’s houses, smashing all their stuff & stealing their money/items. I was doing more vandalism than Link would do in the LoZ series, even though I have no idea yet what half the crap I picked up even do or if they’re worth having. I did a few quests during this, bought some decent armor & finally left that village with this pawn that joined near the exit.

What would have been a normal route of simply: Walk down this route, kill some goblins taking some dude then walk further to the next area took much longer since I ran around for 10 minutes smashing stuff, looting everything in sight & finding some chests lying around in odd spots. It helped that the pawn was as much of a kleptomaniac as I was since he’d pick up stuff I sometimes missed or grab items before I would. Since I was going out of my way to kill goblins not on the main path I was level 4 by the time I moved on to this Encampment. Ran up some stairs to a riftstone & to make my own pawn I had to kill this Cyclops outside the encampment. I got knocked around like a rag doll a bit since I was foolishly charging right in & attacking from the front without other soldiers nearby to distract it since they were busy with other goblins. I soon started attacking from behind, grabbed onto its leg & kept stabbing away & it eventually dropped. Then I made my pawn who was a young female mage who was the shortest you can make a character (according to the options at least), I was gonna make my character this when I saw one of the builds but I decided to go with something more normal. I also called her Vanity too, because I’m a hipster like that.

I also had someone else’s online pawn join, some Sorcerer called Grand who was like level 67, but most of the ones available were far above anything at the moment sadly. So I did some side stuff like investigating this well & killing some stuff & escorting some chick across a small area. Then I talked to this one knight & unintentionally moved on to a Hydra boss fight before I could get Vanity some new skills. Then in the middle of the boss fight some other user decided to use my pawn, which I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t right in the middle of a boss fight & if she didn’t miss out on the XP. The Hydra itself was basically a sponge, weak as hell but had tons of HP.

[Marie Rose]

So after the Hydra a story quest required me to assist escorting a few soldiers along with some animal carrying one of the Hydra heads I cut off, but that’s not important. I did some side quest in Witchwood to find the witches house, which was a lot harder than it needed to be due to it being dark as fuck even with my latern & incredibly foggy, plus I went in circles because of the layout. Half the things that attacked were spirits, which I couldn’t hurt at all unless it grabbed one of the pawns. My pawn, along with another died & so I just ran past everything with this other overpowered pawn I had with me. Of course, ignoring the path completely and climbing over everything in front of me allowed me to immediately find the witches house. I then spent the last two days just grinding & doing a bunch of side quests. Kill shit, get money. Then I hired two more pawns before the next story mission, both striders, one was either max level or hacked (it’s level simply says oo) & one slightly below my level.

Became stronger than the game was excepting me to be by this point I’m sure. Protecting that animal from waves of enemies was a cakewalk. Only thing that remotely hurt it was during a split path & I went the opposite way to loot some stuff so the animal got hit by some boulder which took like 70% of its health. Yeah. Only gripe I had with that mission was that it was ridiculously long since the animal doesn’t move very fast. Once I got to the next town, Gran Soren, I bought the best new stuff, was finally allowed to start upgrading equipment & did so, then I pressed the wrong button & immediately got thrown in jail for attacking the merchant. Had to pay 5,000G to get out of there, total BS. Got more side quests then went to this area called The Ruins of Aernst Castle. There was a Cyclops right near it, just minding its business, but I needed 3 kills for a side quest so I attacked it. None surprisingly, my team raped the shit out of it in about a minute, didn’t stand a chance.

There was some bandit camp at the ruins & for once they didn’t immediately attack me, so I ran around, caused vandalism like usual & grabbed a side quest item, looted some chests & found this incognito mask. My character now looks a little more like someone out of Assassins Creed (if it didn’t completely cover the face), at least till I found better armor later. Vanity also looks a lot better now, and at least has enough primary skills to not get immediately stun locked if an enemy gets within 5 feet of her. Two at the front:



It's an area in Witchwood which I went back to for a later side quest at night, but I guess the spirits no longer roam that area. At first I had issues with not being able to do any ranged damage whatsoever, but I’ve gotten much more used to the physical combat & can easily combo into the special moves I have to take out & stun lock foes pretty easily. I have the options at the moment to change my class as well as my pawns to something like magic knight or magic archer but I’m gonna wait to max out my class rank & get the skills I want first.

[Marie Rose]

Did tons more sidequests over the last few days (kill shit, get money etc.), I only do a story quest like once every 8-10 hours, then again some of them are timed so I can’t do them if I progress too far. I have technically finished 4 story quests given to me while I worked on sidequests, I just haven't turned them in yet. Several escort quests opened up back in the first town & they’re all long as hell. Like 5 minutes long if I had unlimited stamina & ran there without stopping for allies or enemies, they’re all like 20 miles away, normally in spots I haven’t been to yet. Plus they stick to me like glue, and since I’m playing a Fighter (Warrior is another class/vocation, got that mixed up) I have no ranged attacks. Whatsoever. Which means it isn’t a good idea to attack things I can’t kill in seconds. During a second escort quest, as I neared the area at night, this Drake appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the forest, along with a horde of goblins that apparently formed a temporary alliance to kill me. Naturally, the guy died since he didn’t have any sense to realize its probably not a good idea to be anywhere near me when I’ve got a Drake & goblins gunning for my ass all at once. Still won, cuz I’m a beast, but the drake was the first enemy to nearly kill me, 3-4 hits would've been enough to knock off all my health & he kept killing my pawns with fire breath. Thank goodness I had one of the best Fighter skills at the time called Steel Will, which makes me almost invulnerable for around 30 seconds. Seriously (It just says less damage but the amount of times I took any significant damage or got stunned could be counted on one hand, if at all).

Speaking of which, the best offensive skill is easily Dragon’s Maw. It cost like 5000-7000 Discipline points but its one of the few times a really expensive skill was worth the cost. It’s a multi-hit sword combo that covers 270 degrees, is pretty damn powerful, tends to stagger & knockdown enemies for more free hits & can easily be thrown out at random. An enemy is blocking my normal swings? DM doesn’t even acknowledge the enemy had a shield. Surrounded by a group of enemies about to dog pile me? Nope, DM will make sure they all back the fuck up. An enemy decides to no sell my swings & land attacks on me? Nope, eat that reversal, invincibility frames, son. Hell, you can just throw it out if you know a strong foe is about to hit you & you can’t dodge so you take no damage. If there are any downsides at all it would be the range isn’t that big & it uses quite a bit of stamina (can only use it twice in a row, three if I wanna risk getting exhausted right after). Also, as far as I’m aware escort sidequests don’t respawn, the quest for the guy who died to the drake never came back. If he dies…he dies. I was worried when another from Selene came up later to go to another area I hadn’t been yet. Didn't say earlier, but Selene is the granddaughter of the witch who lived at Witchwood, but had already died ages ago so Selene lives there by herself apparently.

Also been hunting these badges that give 1k exp & rift crystals (used to hire some pawns, half tend to cost nothing but I don't know what determines the cost) for each one but some of these are placed in the stupidest places, they’re so tiny that I can’t even tell where it is till I’m standing right on it, and they don’t even glow either so I spend like 2 minutes looking in one tiny area for that one obscure spot where the map says its located (one required a double jump which Striders get & many tend to be on roofs). Maxed out the vocation/class of my character & my pawn so I changed them to learn all the skills & passive abilities I could. It costs 1,000 Dcp to change but surprisingly you only have to pay once then you can switch classes on the fly. Using the Strider class now & fortunately saved some good gear to equip myself with instead of selling the stuff my Fighter couldn’t equip, actually looks good too, thank goodness it wasn‘t a case of: Horrible gear, really good stats.



Changed my pawn to the Warrior class, who seem less about balanced offense & defense like the Fighter and are more, “Tank that shit.” plus I think pawns can’t change to hybrid classes like Mystic Knight & Magic Archer sadly but I may as well experiment with the different classes while I progress. I’m probably like 10 levels above what I should be for story quests because of all the sidequests I’m going out of my way to complete, running through areas I have no reason to go to yet story-wise & killing all kinds of enemies & cyclops/chimera/ogres/drakes etc. whenever the game informs me one is near. I’m liking the Strider a lot with focus on evasion & daggers for close combat (its just missing a roll) & bows for range but I wish I still had a shield (though I’m so overpowered it doesn’t really matter) or a skill that no sells other moves. Also discovered the move that was reaming right through mini-boss' health bars whenever I encountered one with a Strider pawn: Hailstorm Volley. If it hits, the damage is ridiculous. Makes me wish I could play with three other online players, feels like this game should have had that option.

[Marie Rose]

Did a ton more sidequests again, some story quests & unless I’m missing an area not available to me yet, I’m pretty sure I’ve explored the majority of the whole outside map. After taking care of some business in some canyon, I pretty much ran through everything ahead just to fill in the blank spots on my map, then use a ferrystone to fast travel back to Gran Soren since running all the way back would have taken like 20 minutes. Ferrystones cost about 2000G each too so I don’t wanna waste them unless it saves me a lot of time. You can get them for 1000G from some fat rich guy, Fornival, I think his name was but he stocks less. While on my sidequest binge, I suddenly get a notice for this Trial & Tribulations mission that I had 2 days left to gather evidence for this guy’s innocence on some court trial. I didn’t fully read it when I took the next batch of quests so I didn’t even know it was timed & I had 4 days. Sure, I could do nothing & let him get thrown in jail, sure, the guy technically was guilty & kind of a dick, but fuck that, he had some good deals for certain items, morals be damned. I dropped everything I was doing to go talk to numerous people, then I had to escort this knight across a forest so he could be a witness to get him off the hook. He even lowered his prices a little after I saved his ass.

As mentioned previously, I finished with the Strider class (which I really liked) and moved on to max out the other classes & pick up some of their best skills while I did sidequests. As a Strider I was swiftly taking names like that one elf chick I don't even know the name of from the new Hobbit movie who was totes digging on dat boy, Lego. According to the guide I followed (because about a third of these quests are vague as shit, which I hate & some I wouldn’t even know about if I wasn’t told to go to a specific spot) I only have a few sidequests left, and I’m also nearing the end of the game too. After the Strider class I moved on to:

Mage: Playing as one is pretty meh. I automatically felt weaker as one the second I swapped. You can’t really move when charging spells, the good spells take like 10 seconds to actually finish charging & most of them won’t even get used since you’ll be reserving spots for a healing spell (which didn't work sometimes, it was weird), one to remove negative status effects & the last to temporarily raise resistances & defenses, and you only have 6 spots for skills with Mages & Sorcerers. There are even 5 elements you can enchant other characters weapons with: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Holy & Dark. They all have a small damage buff regardless of an enemy being weak to the element but I’m not sure I encountered one who was clearly weak to Dark. Also, their light attacks which are just 5 rapid fire BB gun bullets have a long starting animation, allowing you easily get hit if you don’t use it ahead of time.

Oh, during this time I also ran into the Drake again. He was pretty salty about losing last time since he decided to spam some AoE move (I’m can’t even remember what the hell it was) that kept insta-killing my pawns then I somehow dropped from 50% to 0 in an instant. Pretty sure he never hit me since I was the furthest away, I didn't see a flash or anything. 1 sec I’m fine, the next I’m dead. Nearly lost an hour of progress since I hadn’t saved, thankfully the game did just a few minutes before I fought it. So I try again, this time I steamroll him, so I have no idea what the hell was going on the first time. I no longer pin the blame on Vanity dying so much as a mage & have me rush other to revive her, I can sympathize, but I can still be annoyed. Happens much less after getting some really good augment skills from other classes. Also, having a double jump is better than a short levitation.

Warrior: Fuck defense, tank that shit, all day everyday. Once I get going I don’t stop. Sleep status effect? Getting grabbed? Instant death? Get that shit out my face, I’m a strong female character. But seriously, Warriors suck. They suck hard. I don’t know how my pawn made Warriors look good during her time as one. They’re so slow & not “Swings half a second slower than a Fighter.” More like several seconds. Combos just barely exist for them, half their moves take several seconds to come out too, their special moves suck ass. The only thing they have going for them is their ability to no sell most stuff (unless they’re hit by Dragon’s Maw) & their range, you have to use two handed weapons but the radius is pretty big. I was relieved when I finally maxed them out. Never fought the drake as a Warrior but I feel I’d at least do better than as a Mage. Oddly enough, when I was maxing out my Warrior class, I was maxing out Vanity’s Fighter class, and those two classes seemed to have some good chemistry together for stun locking or just holding enemies down to deal more damage than normal. I’m not sure if it was just coincidence or if Vanity used certain moves depending on what I was doing at the time, I’m gonna go with the former.

Sorcerer: Like mages, but focused more on offense, which automatically makes them better to play. They share some spells like enchanting weapons & the core attacking elemental skills but Sorcerers differ by having stuff like poisoning enemies, turning them to stone etc. Their BB gun bullets are darker (might be the weapon) and at least seem stronger. With the mage, their light attacks seemed pointlessly weak & their heavies were slow along with having tiny range. The Sorcerer's heavy attack is basically a force push out of Star Wars. Oh, they also have a Necromancy spell too, which I got as soon as it showed up out of curiosity. It’s alright, but sadly you just summon skeleton spirits around you & not actual skeleton knight minions. They also get level 3 elemental spells, like summoning meteors, a massive long wave of ice that destroys everything on the way to its target, and a magnetic shield that hurts anything within 5 feet (the last one kind of sucks though). So yeah, that all is enough to let me have more fun with the class than I did as the mage.



Magic needs no explanation

As you would have guessed, I’m really enjoying this despite some small issues. Won’t be very long till I finally move on to the hybrid classes, those being: Assassin, Mystic Knight & Magick Archer (The ‘k‘ is silent). Still wish there was online multiplayer, though I suppose it would be unfair on the enemies when you got one Fighter abusing Steel Will to avoid all damage & throwing out Dragon's Maw every 5-10 seconds for free damage, a Sorcerer enchanting other players weapons with the boss' weakness & throwing out high level elemental spells on occasion, a Strider abusing the few moves which utterly **** bosses in moments etc. a majority of the monsters wouldn't be able to touch a team like that who knew all the best skills & how to abuse them.

[Marie Rose]

Spoilers, in case people care about that in a game over a year old. Finished the last few sidequests and then continued the story missions. I came to quickly find out at that point I was 2 missions away from finishing the story. The last sidequest was rather annoying because I had to sneak into some dungeon & rescue this duchess, kill a bunch of knights then kill a ton of bandits while going down an underground path because the main exit would’ve had tons more guards. I had no pawns to back me up until halfway through the quest & had to protect her, plus I was a Sorceror so close range combat happened fairly often, which was just fake difficulty for me due to unfortunate timing. Shortly after getting outside & completing the quest, within a few steps I got tackled by a chimera that came out of nowhere, but the large monsters are always worth killing just for the money & exp, plus they’re more fun to fight anyway. Shortly after, I maxed out the Sorcerer & started playing a Ranger, which is the last class I have left to max before starting the hybrid classes. Like with the Mage & Sorcerer, Rangers play pretty much identical to Striders in terms of melee combat but their bows actually function like normal bows, not the ones Striders have that can rapid fire arrows like a handgun. They have some different bow skills too, though there is one early skill that fires 6 arrows at once if you want rapid fire (10 when upgraded). Rangers also level up surprisingly fast, by the time I got to the final boss the Ranger’s class was already at 5.

Moving on, as soon as I entered the final dungeon they immediately send two Cyclopes after me, which was no big deal since my team is so overpowered. Hell, it would only be fair if I was on my own, stripped of all clothing & only used my fists & I’d most likely still easily win. Faced a chimera a few minutes later in a somewhat small room, then this one black knight right before the boss arena. Had to fight these sorcerer dudes from this cult called Salvation who are apparently aiding the big red dragon at the beginning of the game that took your heart (still not sure how that works). The dragon shows up himself and literally stomps a mudhole in him so I follow him into the final area of the place. While running through that part, killing stronger types of enemies, it wasn’t till around 1/3 through where some areas began to look really familiar that I noticed it was the same place as the one from the prologue. I also got the trophy for visiting 150 locations very shortly after noticing this. Saved like a few feet before the dragon early yesterday morning since I didn’t have time to finish it. Madeleine, this one female merchant, showed up just before the fight for some reason. I’m assuming it depends on what character has the highest affection by this point, so it was kinda unavoidable since I escorted her twice & did a bunch of sidequests involving her too.

The first half of the fight could essentially be described as free damage, then running like Benny Hill for 5 minutes up a tower, then riding him through the skies. The last half was nothing big, since I fought that drake numerous times by this point, I knew what to expect, this guy just had more health & was bigger. My pawns also apparently died during this fight, probably from him abusing that random instant kill the drake had too but once I revived them it didn’t happen again. Really enjoyed it even if it wasn’t much different from a regular Drake fight, but with more cinematic set pieces, and making it visually look great. But that dragon deserved it, no-one steals my heart, you gotta earn my love, bitch. Afterwards, credits rolled, my group all posed beside the dragon’s corpse & took pictures (except that never happened but I would have done it), and we got the hell out of there.



Here’s Big Red taking me for a ride.



Here’s me getting a good angle of Big Red coming at me with that attack while it flew around for about a minute. I was a little lucky to get such a good angle (The attack missed too, which surprised me).



Here’s me climbing this guy like a colossus, about to fuck him up while he ran about distracted by my pawns.

Madeleine came back to the starting village with my character apparently so there’s now two chicks in my house since Selene is also crashing there due to not being safe in the woods because some people attacked her in a sidequest because they thought she was a bad witch etc. I already know there’s one or two more things to wrap up. Hopefully I’ll have maxed out the Ranger class shortly so I can focus on Assassin, Mystic Knight & Magick Archer once I get fully into the post-game stuff.

[Marie Rose]

So killing the Dragon basically fucked up the world with there being a lot stronger (and occasionally cheap) enemies wondering about, the skies being so bad there’s no longer any bright sunny mornings, and about half of Gran Soren being completely gone with just a massive bottomless pit there instead. Imagine my surprise when I ran all the way through the more dangerous fields into town to rest at the inn, only to nearly fall into the massive pit that begins at where the inn used to be. It really took me by surprise. After being blamed for it & have guards chase me, the only solution is to jump into the pit, which leads to a large dungeon called the Everfall. Composed of 15 floors with a boss on most, but I surprisingly didn’t have to beat them all. I did actually do all 15 floors, it kinda felt like a rouge-like RPG with there being a lot of similar floors with variations of random enemies thrown at me in both normal rooms & boss rooms. I remember two in particular being cheap: One had two Cockatrice & hobgoblins who regularly threw something that turned you to stone so without the cure I had no chance of winning that one at the time. The second had this undead spell caster, two chimera & 4 hellhounds (hellhounds are the most annoying enemy, I was unsure before but that room cemented their spot. They were the only thing making it hard to kill anything with their stupid invincibility frames all over the place, their cheap hit & run tactics as well as shooting fireballs at every opportunity).

There wasn’t much special in the Everfall, most bosses were just rehashes of ones I’d already fought numerous times earlier on in the game. Though there was the Evil Eye:



Archydra (The Hydra‘s older brother):



Cockatrice (which was in the main game):



I tried out the hybrid classes for a while, they were honestly kinda meh. Most of the new skills they learn kinda suck and the ones that don’t tend to be just decent. Mystic Knight can enchant their weapons & the weapons of others around them, and use magic to bring holy & dark enemies closer to them, besides that there isn’t much to them. Thought Magick Archers were meh, can’t even remember much about them other than their bows shooting magic arrows. Assassins did have some pretty good skills and was the class I ended up going with, plus I think they had the least stamina drain when running & using special moves so that helped a lot. Moving on from the Everfall to face the true final boss required me to collect 20 wakestones, which can revive you if you die. In the main game you very rarely find shards in chests which form a full wakestone if 3 are collected, or you buy the shards but only 1 every few days. I expected the worst but fortunately the shards drop regularly there. On occasion the enemy hordes will drop shards when killed but the bosses are almost guaranteed to drop some, some will even drop full wakestones so you’d only have to go through 4-6 chambers before you get all 20. The true final boss, Seneschal, was quite an anticlimax and is basically there to just make sense of the plot, and I suppose it does make sense (as much as a gainax plot with in-universe logic can make sense, at least).

Having done all the sidequests, levelling up a vast amount, having some of the best gear fully levelled up as high as I could take it (with some looking bad in design but I want the stats), with some of the best backup pawns & skills I could get I finally fought the one enemy I’d be preparing all game for: The Ur-Dragon. He resides on the 7th floor, the Chamber of Lament & the game pretty much considers him a New Game+ type boss.



Normally when I hear word of a certain end game boss causing problems for people or just considered really hard, I pretty much prepare myself from like a few hours after starting. Like almost everything I do will benefit me leading up till that point. I’ll pretty much look up all I can about the boss just so I don’t lose to something I could’ve foreseen: What attacks it has, are any of these instant kills & when it starts using them (that’s pretty important), what kinds of attacks is it weak to, where exactly does it spawn, are there any safe spots in the area, how much damage does its attacks roughly do etc. Basically, I walk in there like Batman with a week of prep time. That ultra expensive armor that’s easily the best? Got that several days ago. That elemental weakness it has? I’ve tailor made all attacks to target that if possible. That one spot on the map it can’t reach? Already first in line. Those ultra valuable items you only get a few of in the game & are so broken you never wanna use them aside from being a last resort? I’ll take them all & actually consider using them (but probably won’t because they’re so rare & a another occasion may come where I’ll need them even though this is that final occasion).

Being so over prepared for these kinds of fights, the boss usually ends up looking like a joke when its done. In this case it was the same till its last 3 health bars (he had 8 btw) then it got annoying, tail sweeps, jumping & running around etc. Plus this is the point where you really need to start hitting these red spots on its body since that’s the only thing that deals decent damage. Oh, it takes less & less damage for every health bar you go through, plus it just ups & leaves after about 5-8 minutes. Yeah. You gotta leave & come back the next day to continue fighting it, sure, it doesn’t get its health & you get a quick break to grab some items & such but its annoying if I’m kicking its ass then it just decides its going home halfway through. Had to fight it 3 times to kill it & I’m sure it was close to just leaving the third time too, this guy was such a sponge. Well I’m done. I also have another special game I’ll be playing pretty shortly.

[Marie Rose]

Imma start that 'special' game on the 11th since I'm not sure how long it'll take me. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

so yo check it, i don't even give a **** if you cant keep up



There’s no rest for the wicked, when I’ve still got work to do,
You can come try to stop me if you can, Amate-ra…su.

Hey there, Rags, the funs just began, this ain’t a dream, it’s a nightmare fiction,
The hero of Ikaruga, Jin Kisaragi, I doubt you remember me ‘cause your mind’s pretty foggy,
Lieutenant Noel Vermillion, I act pretty shady but I’m totally not a villain,
I could care less about the shit that you conspire, but stay out of my damn business, shitty vampire.
You should all go die already.

I’ve got some time to spread some misery, well would you like at that, all the pain that I see, it’s music to the ears for me,
I’ve played my part in this little game, they’re all unaware of my old name, the time has come, might as well drop the façade, and finally get this shit done.

What am I after? I don’t have much to gain
Who am I really? I go by many names
Why am I here? I’ll start with your grief & dismay
Leeeeet’s plaaaaaay.

Try all you like but this ain’t one spirit you can capture, when you least expect it, you’ll get hit by this serpent’s infernal rapture.

I’m done playing, I’ll show you fear, I’ll have you experience endless despair,
Better get ready for the fall, you’ve just been hit by a smooth criminal,
The fat lady’s already sang, I’m gonna hit you with my gluttony fang,
Now lay down there & suffer, just diiiiie.

Another visit from my old pal, Haku, but in his condition there’s not much he can do,
I also expect an appearance from that goddamn furball, but with my backup it won’t change things at all,
Another nuisance, that stupid witch, Trinity, you think you can stop me? Bitch, don’t be silly,
Get the hell out of my face, you damn old fart, I’ll stomp you into the ground before the fight even starts.
You should all go die already.

All these fools are just so second rate, they have no impact on my plans, because they’re all so late, I simply consume their hate,
Hit ‘em with a 2A then a 5B den a 3C en a 214D~C n a 5Cn2Cn4D~Dnj.Cx, it’s likely that this weakling passed out halfway through but I’m more interested in who’s next.

Cut off your arm? Man, that’s so yesterday.
Kicked you into a cauldron? I’m sure you’ll be okay.
Creating the Black Beast? I kinda fucked up that day.
I really haven’t got much to say.

I’ll need a little something special on my end, of that I’m sure,
To form a life-link with Noel Vermillion, the Successor of the Azure.

I’m done playing, I’ll show you fear, I’ll have you experience endless despair,
My style is all about class, but that doesn’t matter when I’m kicking your ass,
The fat lady’s already sang, I’m gonna hit you with my gluttony fang,
Now lay down there & suffer, just diiiiie.

Grief, frustration, despair, causing such emotions makes me care,
Feel free to struggle & cry, accept that this world is a lie.

People suffer & die in vain everyday, that’s just how it goes
Whether or not I unleash the hungry darkness of 1,000 souls,
I’ve observed & seen every familiarity, just enough to prepare for most attempts at stopping me, haven’t come across anything surprising yet, I’ve got an advantage others won’t easily get.
I won’t be done even after the rising sun, I’ll keep going until everyone is dead, don’t keep it bottled up, embrace the hatred.

I tend to drop the calm pleasantries once I spike my hair up, at that point I’ve had enough of your mouth, that means your shit out of luck.

I’m done playing, I’ll show you fear, I’ll have you experience endless despair,
Die fast or slow, you’re free to choose, either way you’re gonna lose,
The fat lady’s already sang, I’m gonna hit you with my gluttony fang,
Now lay down there & suffer, just diiiiie.

Come & face me, I’m the one true Susano’o, but I ditched that shell to kill Amaterasu,
Brought back by Takamagahara, and so I’ll kill them just as a starter.

The wielder of the Nox Nyctores, Ouroboros.


...I was bored.

[ganonfloyd]

do more of these please

[Marie Rose]

i've also been listening to thin red line quite a bit too.

>.>

[Ƨɒlƚy]

*slow clap*

Magnificent.

[ganonfloyd]

i've also been listening to thin red line quite a bit too.

>.>

You know what to do.

[Scourge the Hedgehog]

The Smooth Criminal!