The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

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Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Znorps! posted:

yes yes yes yes yes. i was fighting that fucker for an extra five minutes before i realized I had already beaten him. This game really gives a love/hate feeling through the whole thing.

Also, once he's dead, go back up to the top of the lighthouse. It's worth it.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2009 08:19

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 05:45

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Seconding the request for info about inFAMOUS, and also requesting tips for Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. I know how to play basic JRPGs, and this is as simple as they come, but I've finished Ceodore's chapter and keep finding things I should have done, such as take the equipment off of Cecil before his part was finished. I'd appreciate tips about which characters are great and which are worthless, too.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2011 05:32

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Draile posted:

Once you can give your characters classes, keep a close eye on them to make sure they're gaining class experience. It's entirely possible that you will grind your character levels high enough that you no longer accumulate class experience by fighting in a particular area. The most likely candidate for this is Carver; if you see that he's no longer gaining levels in his class, it's time to move on to a new area.

There's actually a hard level cap for every area. One of the guides on GameFAQs has it, I just copied it into a notepad document and refer to it when I enter a new area. Also, remember that while you need to master four advanced jobs to get to Hero, the main character only has to master one of them. Most people go through Gladiator because of all the MP-less abilities, but I find that the main character makes a pretty durable caster through the midgame and if you make him your Sage you don't have to use Nevan which is always a plus.

Also, there's a missable human party member. To get him, when you fight someone who has turned into a monster, make sure you lie and tell him he isn't the monster the next day.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 23:39

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Any tips for Mass Effect 2, specifically for someone who is absolute poo poo at shooting? (Yes, I've checked the wiki.) I only survived Fallout 3 via VATS abuse, Alpha Protocol would have been horrible without lining up insta-kill crits from behind cover, and I'm currently trying to work my way through Borderlands and Bulletstorm on easy. I am not very good at shooting things, having grown up solely on strategy, RPG, and platforming sort of games.

I'm thinking of being Biotic or one of the biotic hybrids so I can force push things and give no fucks and leave the shooting to my party members.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 15:33

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

ToxicFrog posted:

Is there any drawback to just creating one character of each class, giving all the ones you aren't planning to use immediately Combat Study, and letting them marinate so that you can swap them in later if you want to play with different party makeups?

The drawback is that their first 10 skill points are in Combat Study rather than in skills. And skill points are extremely vital in the EO series. You can rest them to make them lose 5 (I think it was 5?) levels and respec all their skillpoints, though.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 05:38

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

crime fighting hog posted:

Merry Christmas, goons! I just got Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I never played the prequel, though I've been told that doesn't matter. What do I need to know before I open up this can of augmented badassery?

I just got the same game, and even though I'm absolutely, completely terrible at cover-FPS games or...well, that type of game in general (I only got through ME2 through considerable use of the pause menu to choose skills) the game suckered me into picking Normal by saying that the game was "meant to be played this way" and making me feel like a dirty casual if I picked Easy.

Then I blundered my way through the first real mission, dying several times, and found out that apparently I'm worse than I thought, since the hostages were killed. I know I didn't dally around at the office, since I'd heard about that; was it because I was discovered so much? My tranq rifle ran out of ammo very early (no thanks to the targeting reticule mysteriously disappearing when I actually aimed with it? what?) and takedowns were just not practical in most situations, so I ended up taking a pistol off a guy and finishing some rooms that way.

Any tips for helping someone absolutely hopeless at this type of game are appreciated. :shobon:

Panic! at Nabisco fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Dec 26, 2011

# ¿ Dec 26, 2011 12:18

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

My Lovely Horse posted:

Final Fantasy Tactics

Something the wiki doesn't emphasize much: more advanced classes are in no way straight-up better than the lower ones. Squire is kinda bad, yeah, but a lot of the time you'll want a knight or a monk rather than a dragoon or a geomancer. You're past chapter 1 so this may not be as applicable, but chemists are much better than they first appear, especially since MP is so limited early on and potions have no cast time. Being able to heal someone instantly can be very useful, and the auto-potion reaction ability is godlike.

I'm looking for some tips on Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I've played all the others in the series, but I only got about halfway through Path of Radiance, and there are some pretty key differences between those and the earlier games. I started up Radiant Dawn and proceeded to get absolutely destroyed within the first couple of chapters, and all my units just feel very fragile. Any advice?

# ¿ Jun 12, 2012 02:42

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

LibbyM posted:

Just starting Etrian Odyssey 3 and had a question:

Do the generic "raise hp / rise tp" skills raise the hp/tp a significant enough amount to warrant taking, or would I just be weakening characters by spending points on those when I could be leveling skills.

I've played the other Etrian Odyssey games and really liked them, but it was a long time ago and I don't remember even being able to put points directly into hp/tp before. (My memory might be really off on that though).

HP Up and TP Up were in the previous games, and they weren't very good there, either. You can take them, but you generally have better things to spend your points on.

It's a good idea to have a party of five farmers waiting in the wings with maxed out combat study as your gathering workhorses; they get a lot of nice utility skills that make sending them out into stratums they have no business being in safer, like random encounter rate reduction and a skill that sends you instantly back to town.

When in doubt, raise the top skill on your skill list; it's a class's main skill, and it's almost universally very, very good. Warriors, Wildlings, and Monks get simple but very effective boosts, and other classes like Prince/ss and Arbalest get situational but still very powerful skills.

This is also just personal experience, but I like a defensive party in EO3 more than in the first two games. Hoplites are very useful, and both Prince/ss and Monk are passable frontline fighters and don't die when something looks at them funny like the Medic did in EO1 and EO2.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2012 09:10

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

I know there's been some stuff posted about XCOM: Enemy Unknown in this thread before, but it's not on the wiki, so I'm asking again to see if anyone has anything.

All I know is "satellites are the most important things" and "either don't bother with tanks or go all-in with tanks."

# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 06:57

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Colon V posted:

I got it as a 'gift' from my housemate so she could pretend that she'd never bought it and it hadn't completely kicked her rear end, so does anyone have any basic tips for Etrian Odyssey III?

You will have an A team of guys who kick rear end, but consider having a B team of farmers (give them the combat study skill so that they level up even when you don't use them) to go in, gather from gathering points, and come back to sell the stuff. You don't want to waste points on gathering skills for your main team, this helps a lot with money--especially early on when every ariadne thread hurts your wallet.

Also, you should have a prince/ss, monk, or both. This game is hard, and lots of healing eases the burden a lot. People swear by Hoplites, but I hate pure tank units and made it through the entire main game without one, so eh.

Consider Googling/GameFAQsing for some really good class/subclass combinations. You unlock subclasses at some point after the second stratum, and the only difference between a subclass and a main class is that you can't get the class's unique skill for your subclass. For example, Ninja/Zodiac is a fun combination, because the ninja's class skill reduces TP usage, and the Zodiac has a skill that lets an entire row use skills for free for a turn. It's normally expensive, but with the ninja's TP reduction, you can cast it for...if I remember correctly, 2 TP a pop. You can have a nigh-infinite TP battery that lets your nukes like Warriors and Arbalests use their most expensive skills willy-nilly.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2013 17:45

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

JaggerMcDagger posted:

Don't sell anything ever. Alchemy is amazing, and you never want to sell things.
Monks are pretty good?
I don't remember anything else.

I actually never used the alchemy pot at all, since I didn't want to be bothered Googling recipes, and I did fine.

Gladiators are absolutely terrifying, especially combined with the attack-doubling buff Armamentalists get. If you have a Paladin, make a beeline for Forbearance. Fisticuffs is bad unless you go totally all-in on it.

# ¿ May 1, 2013 15:10

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

I finally got around to buying Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, and Disgaea games are always full of poo poo you wish you knew when you started. Tips?

# ¿ May 11, 2013 23:04

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Artix posted:

Help me out guys, I just got Etrian Odyssey IV. I've played a decent amount of EO3 if that helps, but it's been a long time.

Enemies can only have one status effect at a time. Status effects are traditional RPG status like poison, blind, paralyze, but not binds; you can bind all three things and still poison the enemy, for instance.

You get guest characters in several major dungeons; they are pretty much universally perfect for taking on the bosses of those areas, with skillsets designed to take advantage of the gimmick, and their levels should give you a good idea of where you should be to fight the boss.

Subclasses are different from EO3, in that they aren't a full class tacked on to your base class. In EO4, you can only level subclass skills to half of what the max would be if the class were your main, making them feel a lot more like subclasses and less like dual classes.

The game expects you to use binds a lot more than the previous games did, especially starting around the second labyrinth. Remember that while they all prevent skills that use the part of the body you bind, leg bind has the additional effect of making the enemy unable to dodge, since fewer attacks use the legs than the arms or head. Remember this if you find ridiculously evasive enemies, because that's one of the game's favourite tricks. You get easy access to single-target binds on the Sniper class (not the Nightseeker like you would expect, knowing the Ninja and Dark Hunter classes of earlier games), and multi-target binds are on a class you will unlock later.

First Aid is not a lovely skill like it was in the earlier EO games, and is in fact rather useful for the first half or so of the game.

Dancer buffs increase the stats of the dancer's line, but only use a buff slot on the dancer him/herself. This is important, since you can only have three buffs per person.

Don't feel like you need a Fortress to progress in the game. A lot of people really like defensive strategies, but I didn't have one for the entire game because I hate pure tank units, and I did fine. If you have a Medic and are struggling to find units to put on the front line, s/he does surprisingly decent damage due to the high base damage on maces, so don't be afraid to put him/her there, at least until later on in the game.

Try building skills that synergize your units with the rest of the party. For example, my party was based around getting tons of hits in, so I would start with my Landsknecht's elemental chases, which would in turn trigger the physical attack chases from my dancer, and so on. Other combinations include using lots of binds and status, and taking advantage of elemental weaknesses.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 03:09

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Head Hit Keyboard posted:

Any tips for Civilization V for someone who's never played any of them? I just downloaded it from the free weekend and even with the tutorial and advisor level on "New to Civ" I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing.

I am also bad at this game and would appreciate more advice, but I've played some so hopefully I can help a little.

Pick one of the victory types and aim for it from the beginning. If you're going for cultural victory, for example, your policies/techs/city specialties will be very different than if you were going for military victory.

If you are a carebear like me and playing on any difficulty above Chieftain, a military is a necessary evil and even if you never have to use it, you need to have it just so that dick Bismarck won't smell weakness and invade. I recommend buttering up some militaristic city states nearby, if you don't want to divert your cities' attention to producing units.

On the other hand, playing as Bismarck is a great way to get free early game units by killing barbarians, and you can use your gigantic free caveman military to wipe a neighbor or two off the map entirely so your vast military empire won't have to work as hard later.

If you have/eventually get Gods & Kings, don't underestimate religion. You can get some pretty awesome perks from it.

I forget the exact radius, but you should settle your cities around as many luxury resources as possible, and away from resource-barren tiles like deserts and tundra.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 23:53

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

alcharagia posted:

I just got Wild Arms 3. Tell me about Wild Arms 3.

You cannot buy heal berries in 95% of situations. Heal berries are very important. You can get heal berries (as well as potion berries and other nice things) through the garden sidequest, so do it ASAP and keep doing it.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2013 21:50

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Heran Bago posted:

Star Ocean 2 on the PSX.

How grindy is it? Anything in particular to look out for or avoid or go out of my way to do/get?

Medium amounts of grindy for a PSX-era RPG. If you want to circumvent it, though, there are ways to hilariously break the game over your knee. Several of them. Most of them involve utilizing the fun but terribly imbalanced crafting/skill systems. I can't recall exact details right now, but you can get ridiculously powerful very early.

The voices are endearingly terrible. Learn to love them. Opera and Precis in particular are terrible/great. heeeere's mister enemyyyyyyyyy

There are three choices of mutually exclusive characters, and if you have one you can't get the other:

Your choice of who to play as at the beginning determines whose viewpoint you see the plot through, but each route also has one exclusive character. Claude gets a spellcaster, Rena gets a swordsman. The swordsman is definitely better (I don't remember non-Rena casters being anything more than worthless), but he's kind of insufferable so.
Fairly early on, before you leave the first continent, you will hear rumors about ruins somewhere, and rumors about someone fighting a dragon. You can only do one of these sidequests, and each of them nets you a character. If you go back to find the guy fighting dragons in the mines, you get a dual sword user. If you go investigate the ruins, you get a lady with a giant ray gun. Both of them are really really good, so your choice doesn't matter a ton gameplay-wise. If you recruit the lady, you can also pick up her partner later, but he's probably the worst character in the entire game so.
When you go to a university town to get something translated, you can recruit either a doctor or a hyperactive teenage girl. The doctor is probably better, mechanics-wise. The teenage girl controls a giant mecha arm with a PSX controller and has probably the most awe-inspiringly awful voice acting in the game, so if you're entertained by that pick her.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2013 08:01

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Head Hit Keyboard posted:

Not yet. There is one that is going to have an open beta in the near future though.

Interested in this game, but your link says I'm not authorized to view that forum.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2013 07:27

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Sarkozymandias posted:

I feel tricked! I've spent a fair amount on upgrades but I will keep this in mind for the future, plaid dresses be damned.

Money is ridiculously hard to come by compared to the amount of upgrades and consumables you are expected to have and the sheer number of rad shades and pretty dresses that you desperately want. Do not feel guilty at all using the money trick.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2013 09:24

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Bedurndurn posted:

Anything for Reus? It seems like a chill little god game, but I'm sure I'm probably doing something wrong.

Seconding this. I am hit with extreme decision paralysis.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 09:06

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

JaggerMcDagger posted:

Haha, I know it literally just came out, but anything for Shin Megami Tensei 4?

I haven't played it yet, so take this with a grain of salt since this is all hear-say from the Japanese version.

Dex is important for physical skills AND gun skills, don't neglect it in a physical build.

Magic tends to be weaker than physical, especially endgame, but it makes up for it with status effects and being able to hit weaknesses. Hitting weaknesses is god in the press-turn system. Always hit weaknesses forever.

Luck isn't a worthless stat in SMT4, it's actually good to have no matter what your build is, as status effects are terrifying in SMT and instant death is common. It's even more important to a magic build, since it affects how often your status effect spells stick.

Buffs and debuffs are incredible.

Demons don't drop cash. Your ways of getting money are dumpster diving, shaking down demons for money, and the money they give you when they join you. Negotiate (shaking demons down) is kind of inefficient.

Hit weaknesses and get crits to get more turns. Hit immunities/reflects/absorbs and get critted and the enemy gets more turns. Is it clear how important elemental weaknesses are yet?

You will not have enough points to get every app you want, so prioritize.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2013 04:44

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Polite Tim posted:

FTL: Any tips for not dying? I keep getting screwed by onboard fires

Don't put out fires using crew members unless they are Rocks and therefore immune to fire. A better way of doing it is temporarily turning off O2 and opening the airlock, draining oxygen from the room on fire. That will put out the fire. Just remember to get oxygen back in there!

Use similar tactics to suffocate boarders. They will have a hard time getting through your ship before suffocating if you have doors upgraded to level 2 or 3.

Also, always target enemy weapons first. I don't care what amazing things they have on their ship, weapons should be the first thing to go down, because damage stays with you.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 08:10

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Lizard Wizard posted:

Couldn't help but notice a lack of information on XCOM: Enemy Unknown in the wiki, so lay some knowledge on me, please!

Always satellites, forever. If you think you're building and launching enough satellites, you are wrong and need more satellites.

Don't just raise an A-team and leave your various rookies at home. Bring along about half promoted guys and half lowbies on a given mission, so you aren't caught with your pants down when your A-team is all injured for a tough mission.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2013 22:07

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Centipeed posted:

I will also be receiving Tales of Xillia shortly, but unlike Renoistic I HAVE played Vesperia, Graces F, Symphonia, and The Abyss.

So any general tips would be much appreciated.

I'm in the same place Centipeed is, and only a couple hours in, so here's what I've heard and experienced so far.

From what I hear from people who've played the Japanese version, playing as Jude is a more typical Tales game experience, while playing as Milla gives you a darker, slightly less conventional story. (They even have different music; Jude's music is Generic Tales Guitar and Milla's is all violin-based.) They recommended playing as Jude first, since he gets a more complete picture of the plot, and saving Milla for a second playthrough.

The ~~sphere grid~~ ~~crystarium~~ lilium orb looks intimidating at first, but you get to unlock 3-4 nodes every level, so it doesn't seem super stressful so far. I've just been beelining for artes that I want and then filling out the rings so I can get skills and stat bonuses.

It's apparently way better than Vesperia vis-a-vis missable stuff, just make sure you do sidequests rather than putting them off forever.

You can most likely just play as Jude and do great, but I've been having a blast switching between party members and figuring out who has linked artes with whom. It's closer to Graces F than Vesperia in this regard, as everyone has a really fun playstyle and you don't have Genis/Raine type characters who are totally unfun to play. Milla is the traditional Tales elemental caster, for instance, but all of her spells require holding down the button, and just tapping it gives you an elemental close-range arte instead.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 01:08

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Any advice for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (other than cutitcutitcutitcutitcutit)? I'm only a little ways in but it feels like something hasn't quite "clicked" with me yet.

Echoing what those other guys said. Even if something doesn't look like there is any way in hell you can parry it, you can most likely parry it. Missiles? Sure. 50-foot robot? Go nuts. Watch out for the armored cyborgs with big sledgehammers, though, they have an attack you can't parry.

Learn the dodge-attack and use it CONSTANTLY. It's incredibly useful. Ditto the aerial kick that brings you to your target.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2013 07:51

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Nate RFB posted:

I've absorbed just about all of the advice for Fire Emblem: Awakening in this thread and the wiki, but there doesn't seem to be any advice for builds (like Strength as an Asset, Magic as a Flaw). I'm guessing it doesn't matter? Also, is DLC bought in-game? Rather than in the eShop.

It really depends on what you want your avatar to do; s/he's basically a god unit no matter what you pick, though I might caution against having defense or resistance as your flaw on a harder difficulty.

DLC is bought ingame, the DLC island doesn't unlock until you've completed a few chapters.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2013 16:14

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

I've heard Tales of Graces F can be the wrong side of grindy, especially for Skill Points. Is it worth getting the double SP DLC for that? Anything else not on the Wiki worth remembering?

I never had to grind overmuch. Just don't actively avoid the monsters that show up on your way somewhere and you'll generally be fine.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 23:19

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

thebardyspoon posted:

Does anyone have any tips for bravely default? Guess it isn't out yet in the US so probably not from the majority of the thread.

The demo's out in the US, so I can give my extremely limited advice from experience with that!

Generally, for random encounters, the game expects you to be braving the gently caress out of everyone and just overwhelming them; you get bonuses to EXP, money, and JP for killing all the enemies in one turn, with the same attack, and without getting hurt, respectively. Black magic seems pretty good for that, though obviously I haven't played the full game.

As far as I can tell, the game also expects you to learn the Brave/Default system and use it, because enemies will use it against you, and they hit hard and take a lot of punishment. If someone's healing a lot, for example, Default to save up a bunch of turns and then slam them with four turns from each party member. Also, the game really encourages finding synergy between classes and support abilities from other classes, like the Red Mage ability to gain BP when dodging with the Ninja suite of dodge abilities and buffs.

Panic! at Nabisco fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jan 4, 2014

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 04:09

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Dragonatrix posted:

I picked up Resonance of Fate for �10 (between Nolan North hamming like a nutter, dress up fun and gun customisation I doubt I'll be that disappointed at that price) and haven't got around to starting it yet. Other than "go to the arena ASAP and do the tutorial or be confused forever" is there anything particularly worth knowing that isn't in the wiki page?

1) Always do the special running attacks forever. Never do regular attacks unless you are forced to. You want to be setting up trinity attacks as much as humanly possible.

2) It doesn't have to work on a real gun to function. You can, and indeed probably should, have seven scopes attached eventually.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 04:24

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

MussoliniB posted:

Does anyone have anything for One Way Heroics. Reading the forums, it seems as if they're secret endings, and holy weapons. I've beaten the game twice (on easy) and am working on standard difficulty, but I need an adult to explain all of the subtleties of this game to me.

I just checked this out, since I'd never heard of it before, and am intrigued. Echoing this request.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 03:09

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

PJOmega posted:

Anything for Sequence? It seems really grindy and I don't want to desynch anything if it'll bite me in the rear end on later floors.

I played this game basically forever ago so I don't recall specifics, but I played on hard and draining spells were my bread and butter. Always Be Draining. Direct attacks are all well and good but unless you're playing on a really easy difficulty or are some kind of freaky rhythm game god you're going to take damage, and wasting time on direct healing is dumb.

Also I didn't grind a ton, though I did spend some time trying to get the low-frequency drops.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 11:57

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

On that topic, any general tips for Diablo 3? There's nothing on the wiki, and I've always avoided the series because it's GRIMDARK DARKGRIM LOOK AT ALL THE BLOOD AND GIBS but I'm trying to get over it now that Diablo 3's gameplay has been fixed, since the combat has really satisfying impact to it. Specific class tips are fine too, I've mostly played Wizard so far when I played around but I plan to try out all of them.

Also, if there are any mods to make the game even more colourful, let me know. I like the aesthetic but it can get a little monochrome at times outside of the joke level.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 21:16

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

So the fan translation for Final Fantasy Type-0 is finally out and I gave it a spin. Got my rear end handed to me by the first boss, twice, before I learned to dodge correctly. This might be a longshot, but any tips for this? I feel like if I get knocked down I'm down for a REALLY long time, and my AI party members are pretty much brainless except for healing.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 07:40

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

GloomMouse posted:

Playing around with it myself, so these might be wrong/suboptimal later: You can dodge cancel out of the super long animation of getting up. I'm using AP to unlock the evasion skills first, then the Up/Down + Triangle attack/mobility moves, then experimenting with the crapshoot powers. Some of the characters seem to be flat out better than the others:

Queen is very mobile, has fantastic powers (HP->MP transfer, instant teleport to enemy, etc), good physical/magical stats.
Cater is very fast, ranged attacker without an ammo limit, she can hit with all elements, charge her shots passively while running around.
Eight is crazy fast and hits hard, his forms don't use up the ability gauge, useless against ranged enemies.
Nine is slower than Queen but hits harder, bad at magic, spear can hit a wide area, is a Dragoon.

Everyone else seems gimmicky (Jack the crazy strong slowpoke) or just harder to use. Magic Cancel looks like a thing for Rem but I haven't used it and Sice/Seven are probably good if you know what you're doing but I don't soooo. I like Deuce + ? as AIs. Deuce can Bard it up real good, and Cinque/Nine can hit hard if the AI decides to actually do something.

I've been using the free time for moogle classes and character scenes, but I think you need to new game + to get everything.

I agree with you on Queen being amazing, but I've also been playing around with Ace (his attack deck does some damage), King (who controls very smoothly), and Machina (who can combo an enemy into next week). But yeah I've found that it's impossible to get the AI to do anything other than basic attack or heal you, so I just switch around to whoever I need and leave supporting to Deuce/Rem.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2014 02:41

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Cirofren posted:

The Wildstar OP was very fluffy, what should I know about classes, gear, and the economy gong in wrt. mechanics?

Every class can choose between either DPS and tank (warrior, engineer, stalker) or DPS and healer (spellslinger, esper, medic), and you get a free second spec at level 15, so do feel free to level as DPS. In the same vein, don't worry too much about gear while leveling. Try to stack the stat that gives you assault power (which is different depending on class, for me as an esper it's Moxie), and if you're going to do an instance as tank or healer while leveling, for the love of god, get a weapon with some support power on it. Trying to tank or heal without support power will make your team very unhappy.

Medics level a little slower than everyone else, because their single target DPS is a little lower at the moment; it's slated to be fixed at some point "soon."

Economy is HEAVILY dependent on server and faction.

EDIT: Oh, the most important thing to know: using an interrupt (stun, knockdown, knockback, etc) when an enemy has a telegraph up with create a Moment of Opportunity (MoO), which increases the damage you deal against them by a huge amount, for a couple seconds. You can tell this happened because their healthbar turns purple; it's integral to killing things efficiently, without it the game can feel slow and difficult. This is another reason medics have a harder time, since they have a single interrupt while other classes (warrior and engineer especially) have more.

Panic! at Nabisco fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Jul 4, 2014

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 12:06

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

GrandpaPants posted:

If you are going to sperge about it, don't knock out any pokemon until you train up the EVs. Unfortunately, you get EV I think after you go through the "intro" area, so just run from battles until you get to the next city. Then you can get the training thing, max out EVs on your Froakie (Speed and Sp. Attack, I believe), and then an hour later you're ready to actually use your Froakie. Woo.

Please don't do this, this is terrible advice. There is an easy way in-game to reset EVs to 0 with a reset bag when you want to go competitive, this is completely unnecessary and you don't need an EV setup at all to beat the game.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2014 21:15

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Anything I need to know for Tales of Symphonia Chronicles aside from "Don't play Dawn of the New World"? Actually, why is that anyway? Just curious to know how bad it could possibly get.

It's not horribly bad. It's not even really bad enough to be funny. It's just...completely uninspiring. Tons of recycled assets, the monster system is lazy as hell and it's a Tales game with only two real characters. The only real good point it has going for it is this is said, verbatim, with complete seriousness, about a hundred times, and it made me crack up every time. Basically it's just a JRPG-length game with nothing going for it, so don't bother unless you have a tremendous amount of time to kill.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 07:33

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Phobophilia posted:

I just started Long Live the Queen. This poo poo is hard! What important stats should I aim for to pass the important checks?

If you can figure it out (I recommend not spoiling yourself by checking a wiki, but in this case it might be worthwhile) try to get magic. Magic solves...most problems.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 06:03

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Phobophilia posted:

Okay, at minimum, should I at least aim for a baseline level of skill in everything, and then focus on a few areas? Or just focus on a few areas for my "victory condition" from the get go?

Focus on a few areas, but when you find yourself in appropriate moods, work on some that seem relevant to not getting killed, also. As I found out on the playthrough I did just now inspired by the thread, you can be a master mage, brilliant tactician, and elegant lady of the court and still be dumb as a stick, enough to see obviously suspect chocolates and happily gobble them up. (Content of spoiler: A very bad thing that happens to you.)

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 07:31

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

Paging Samurai Sanders to help this guy!

Getsuya posted:

- How the hell do I know which units to upgrade and which are just going to be dead weight? I don't know enough about old mecha shows to know who is a main character and who is support. I mean yeah it's obvious when they're piloting the title mech, but a lot of the Gundam shows seem to just have a whole cluster of folks in mechs with random names and I don't know if I'm supposed to ignore them and just focus on main characters or not.

Not sure how to help you with this one. Google? Generally, the fancier it looks, the more likely it is to be good. Later games are also better about not giving you many worthless units. Also, Boss Borot is consistently awful (it's a joke unit), but that much is obvious just from looking at it.

quote:

- Should I sweat over getting the secret/hidden stuff or not? I'm doing all the special hidden point things just because they're stupid easy but some of the secret character/mech things seem to be a lot of trouble, and if they're not necessary to my enjoyment of the game I'll just ignore them.

If you don't feel like doing a secret, by all means ignore it. SRW caters to a HIGHLY :spergin:

crowd, so those secrets are always there, but they're never crucial to enjoyment of the game.

quote:

- Should I be saving my points or spending them between each battle? I know the mantra of 'supers get armor, EN and HP/reals get EN and Dodge' but I'm curious if it's actually necessary to spend all my points between each round buffing up the guys I have, or should I wait until later and buff up all my units once I have them all? Or something?

Most of the games aren't hard enough to make this matter all that much; just upgrade units you like and try to avoid pouring too much money into obviously temporary ones. Also, in games that have it, SP Regen is godlike and you want it on basically anyone you ever cast seishin with.

quote:

- Finally, are there any other 'you must play this Super Robot Taisen game or you're not getting the real experience' games in the series? I'm planning on just reading the LPs of the Z series (assuming they do all the way through it), but any other one I'm open to getting, and I can get pretty much any of them really easily so whichever one folks suggest I'll probably just pick it up.

I really liked alpha 3, W, and the OG series (especially the PS2 remake of the GBA games and the subsequent Gaiden chapter and sequel).

I'm not terribly experienced with SRW though, so do check out the thread. Pretty sure we still have one for the series.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 19:58

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 05:45

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

The Jorts of Zeus posted:

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors?

Just play through it. One thing to note is that not only are there a ton of endings, you aren't expected to just stop when you reach the end. The game lets you fastforward text you've already seen and skip puzzles you've already done to facilitate this. Your first few endings will likely just be you dying in some horrible way, but don't despair! Go back through again and use knowledge from your other playthroughs to figure out what's going on!

# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 01:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

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