The 2021 Backlog Challenge

[monkeybut625 | 39]

Currently in the hospital for a few days, so trying to use this time to beat Fire Emblem Three Houses. I like the game so far, but I still think I like the Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle series better. I wish Sqenix would make a new Final Fantasy Tactics, but it seems that project triangle strategy is the closest we will get.

Edited May 25, 2021 by monkeybut625

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

Super C

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:35 AM, monkeybut625 said:

Currently in the hospital for a few days, so trying to use this time to beat Fire Emblem Three Houses. I like the game so far, but I still think I like the Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle series better. I wish Sqenix would make a new Final Fantasy Tactics, but it seems that project triangle strategy is the closest we will get.

Good luck and hope you feel better soon!

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

10 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Super C

Nice! I don't think I ever got past the third level. How does this one stack up in difficulty when you actually commit to playing and beating it?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

2 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Nice! I don't think I ever got past the third level. How does this one stack up in difficulty when you actually commit to playing and beating it?

I probably got it in about 5 tries.  Level 6 was the biggest road block.  Once I managed to keep ahold of my spread gun, I got it, and then level 7-8 on the first try.

The level 7 boss is totally cheesed by the spread, and the final boss (sort of) appears in Contra III.

And I can no death Contra, so that helps.  And Contra III is much harder on Hard (which is what you need to play on to see the final boss).

[Californication | 1,477]

Got to area 4 in Blaster Master, was stuck between 3 and 4 for a while. Should make a lot of progress from here.

Otherwise took a break from my backlog list. But I am getting close to the end on Salt & Sanctuary and Super Hydorah.

[Jicsan | 589]

I finished one play though of Resident Evil Village last Tuesday and started another. Going to tackle Resident Evil 2 Remake off the backlog next. On a family vacation until Friday. And while I brought the 3DS with Oracle of Ages installed,  I doubt I will get to it at all. On the second dungeon of it. 

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Finished my Dragon Warrior III (NES) run

Party was

• Hero (38)
• Soldier (37)
• Pilgrim (20) -> Sage (34)
• Goof-Off (20) -> Sage (34)

I played the GBC version quite a bit back in the day and had beaten the NES version once before too but had never taken a Goof-Off early game so I did it here. Was expecting them to be bad and...yeah. Was able to have them work okay as a front-of-the-party wall that does basically nothing but Parry in any remotely contentious battle. Their Agility and HP was alright and they could equip Turbans and Cloak of Evasion so at least they could draw hits without dying quickly.

Didn't get much use out of my Sages' Wizard spells. Thanks to the class change and Sage experience curve their attack spells mostly seemed to take too long to learn, right after the boat you can get a Staff of Thunder for free Firebane anyways, and Zombie Slasher and Orochi Sword let Sages and Pilgrims do reasonably good damage without wasting MP that could otherwise be spent healing. EvilMages and Kragackles were big enough threats that Magic was effective enough against to make it worth using there but not much else was (probably should have tried something against Scalgons and Putregons too). Probably missed some opportunities with Boom here or there? Hard to get excited about once you've got Sword of Thunder though.

RobMagic was useful for depriving Mimics of Defeat chances and when you're actually in danger of running low on MP but that mainly just had the effect of making "times I used a Wizard Ring" 0 instead of "almost never" - and if I had just been running a second Pilgrim instead of a Goof-off -> Sage they'd have had more MP in the first place. Bikill was fantastic for bosses and the occasional obnoxious enemy. Making Baramos and the final gauntlet easier was...probably worth delaying learning Vivify, HealAll, and Barrier for one back row healer but maybe not both, to say nothing of how obnoxious Goof-Off was early on. So yeah, I don't think having two Sages at the end was really worth it. Don't go Goof-Off even if you know the game!

Edited June 1, 2021 by MagusSmurf

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

Was gonna start Persona Q2, so I dusted off the 3DS, put in the new battery (the original bulged last summer)... and then realized I had inserted the Fire Emblem Fates cart at some point.  So I rolled with it.

[Brickman | 3,986]

4 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Was gonna start Persona Q2, so I dusted off the 3DS, put in n the new battery (the original bulged last summer)... and then realized I had inserted the Fire Emblem Fates cart at some point.  So I rolled with it.

Wasn’t a huge fan of fates. I’m also playing Q2 but currently need to grind for a boss. It’s a fantastic game though.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

7 hours ago, Shmup said:

Wasn’t a huge fan of fates. I’m also playing Q2 but currently need to grind for a boss. It’s a fantastic game though.

Did you play through all 3 games?  I'm thinking I'll try to do Revelations next year.  In addition to Echoes.

[Brickman | 3,986]

2 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Did you play through all 3 games?  I'm thinking I'll try to do Revelations next year.  In addition to Echoes.

I played all the way through conquest and it was ok but not great and then played a few chapters of birthright and got bored.

Echoes is absolutely amazing and has probably become one of my top FE games.

[peg | 371]

1CC of Einhander on Normal and Hard.  Playing it over 20 years later and it still holds up extremely well, especially for an "early 3d" game.  The quality and difficulty are both arcade level.

It's hard to fathom that this game actually came from Square, but this was back in a time where they actually tried to make other games besides awful RPGs.  It's almost like a shmup version of Xenogears with all the mechs and even the visuals and music kind of remind me of that game.  What the fuck happened to this company?

[Gloves | 11,779]

1 hour ago, peg said:

What the fuck happened to this company?

Enix. 

Einhander release: 97

Enix merger: 2003

Look at what square has done pre- and post-2003 and tell me how you feel. 

[Sumez | 2,952]

Come on, even in 1997, Squaresoft releasing a shoot'em up was highly unorthodox.

I heard some of the Einhänder people worked on the gummiship segments of Kindom Hearts 3 (which is one of the only somewhat fun parts in that disaster of a game, though they aren't really shmup-like), so apparently at least some of them are still with the company.

I don't think merging with Enix ever had much of an influence on Square to be honest. They were probably more of a pure RPG company before then.

[Gloves | 11,779]

7 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Come on, even in 1997, Squaresoft releasing a shoot'em up was highly unorthodox.

I heard some of the Einhänder people worked on the gummiship segments of Kindom Hearts 3 (which is one of the only somewhat fun parts in that disaster of a game, though they aren't really shmup-like), so apparently at least some of them are still with the company.

I don't think merging with Enix ever had much of an influence on Square to be honest. They were probably more of a pure RPG company before then.

How dare you argue with my arbitrarily picked reasoning. 

[Sumez | 2,952]

Shit I'm sorry @Gloves  

[Gloves | 11,779]

3 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Shit I'm sorry @Gloves  

No need to apologize; just don't let it happen again.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

If you need to point to some specific event that "turned Square bad" or whatever, it was probably The Spirits Within bombing really hard and losing tons of money in 2001 causing them to panic and Sakaguchi to lose influence and eventually quit.

[Sumez | 2,952]

I'll buy that one

[Gloves | 11,779]

I liked Spirits Within.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,532]

I went to Spirits Within in the theater with my uncle.

I'm 99% sure we were the only ones there.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

5 hours ago, MagusSmurf said:

If you need to point to some specific event that "turned Square bad" or whatever, it was probably The Spirits Within bombing really hard and losing tons of money in 2001 causing them to panic and Sakaguchi to lose influence and eventually quit.

Like several others here, I really enjoy Spirits Within, but this is a valid point.

[Sumez | 2,952]

I needed a small break from video games you can lose, and finally started playing Lufia.

What a basic, classic Dragon Quest ripoff. I already made it further than I did back when I poked at it in the 90s, and enjoying it so far.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Sumez

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

9 hours ago, Sumez said:

I needed a small break from video games you can lose, and finally started playing Lufia.

What a basic, classic Dragon Quest ripoff. I already made it further than I did back when I poked at it in the 90s, and enjoying it so far.

I put about 20-30 hours into this game when I was in college until I finally quit out of boredom. It is so damn repetitive. It's actually pretty incredible how much better the sequel is.