Dragon Quest VII – A JRPGish JRPG for when you just want to play a JRPG

I’d been wanting to play Dragon Quest VII since 2013, but people kept talking me out of it. They said it was slow, they said it was repetitive, they said nothing happened in the game for the first 40 hours. They were right. But they were warning me from the perspective of someone who thinks RPGs should be finished once they are started. Since my gaming resolution for 2018 is “It is enough to play a little bit of a game,” isn’t this the perfect year to experience what DQ7 has to offer?

Well even if you say it’s not, I’ve already started it and played 14 hours and 51 minutes, so it’s too late to offer your opinion. Just sit back and root for me as I play until I can’t play any more and then move on. But to be honest, I’m having a really good time with Dragon Quest 7, so I don’t see myself quitting for the next little while. I mean, why should I?

The nice thing about Dragon Quest is you know exactly what you’re getting into when you start. The battle systems are largely the same, the enemies, the leveling system, the saving system, the maps, the town and castle layouts. It’s not the kind of game you play when you want something new. And I’ve been complaining for a while that I don’t want to deal with complicated game mechanics or reams and reams of story so TBH this is the perfect game for me. I really like it.

Uhh, should I explain the story? It’s been so long since I wrote a post I’ve forgotten how I normally do it. There’s not much of a story any way. Long, long ago 99% of the world was sealed away in darkness. Now the hero and his friends are collecting Fragments of the world map and putting them together to restore the world to its former state. That’s why the 3DS version has the subtitle “Fragments of the Forgotten Past.” The main character and his friends gather fragments and unlock an island, help solve its problems, gather more fragments and unlock another island, and on and on for the past 14 hours I’ve been playing. Very simple stuff, though some of the problems you deal with don’t have very happy resolutions. You won’t be getting your “Happily ever after” fix here, no sirree.

Battle system is Press A to win, with the occasional hard boss battle. Usually JRPGs let you go on in that vein for a while then drop That One Boss on you halfway through, but it’s been smooth sailing so far. Enemies and chests give good amounts of cash so you don’t have to grind to buy equipment either. There only one problem: the encounter rate is HIGH! Not as bad as Dragon Quest 6, but still way up there. And the Holy Waters, they do nothing! If anything gets me to drop this game, it will be the monsters. They’re not impossible to dodge but they’re everywhere, and they spawn immediately you get out of a battle instead of giving you like a 5-second breather or something. Arrgh, so frustrating.

Characters… Maribel needs to die. She’s not cute, she’s not funny and she runs out of MP too quickly to be useful in battle. Ruff is cute. I like the wolf. Kiefer is just kinda there. Kinda ugly for a prince too, but that’s what I get for playing too many otome games. The localization is excellent and my party always has a lot to say about every little thing. The nice thing about the itinerant nature of DQ7 is that you get to meet a lot of different villagers and NPCs as you travel around, so there are a lot of characters. Nobody too interesting yet, but a nice mix of characters and settings. I like it. I’m always low-key excited to see who I’ll be meeting next, which is a good thing.

TL;DR – I’ll be playing Dragon Quest VII for the next couple of days/weeks. I really like it but I’m not expecting too much. I don’t have any games lined up after this (or rather I have way too many so I’m overwhelmed) so I’ll just take each day one game at a time.

Played nothing but Picross for a while, but I’m ready to play other stuff now

I played loads of Picross! Played as much of e through e6 as I could, saving e7 and e8 for a nice long weekend. Instead my focus has turned to Picross 3D Round 2, which is smoother to play than the original in many ways, but also quite frustrating because you have to juggle two colors and end up making silly mistakes because you clicked Blue instead of Yellow, rrrgggh. I’ll post more about it when I finish. The credits already rolled but they gave me even more puzzles, wheee!

For a while there I was only playing Picross because I didn’t feel like dealing with long stories or complicated mechanics. I’m still not ready, and TBH I don’t think I ever will be. It’s possible my days of playing anything with an involving system are over. At least for the next little while I’m content to play stuff with very simple controls. Press A to do everything. B to cancel. Press triangle to bring up the menu. Nothing crazier than that.

Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Curry God – Reached the final dungeon. I think I’ve seen enough so I’m ready to drop it, but I’ll give the dungeon a quick run through, go as far as I can and then call it a day.

Atelier Meruru Plus – I felt like doing some more crafting so I started this up, but… Totori is still too fresh in my mind, so this feels like the same thing all over again. It’s especially true since I haven’t played many games this year so I haven’t had a chance to forget the last game. I still played through the intro and made a save file when the game gets under way proper, but I’ll sandwich another game or two in-between before I start this for reals.

That’s it, just a quick update of what I’m up to these days. Next time I’ll have a final report on either Sorcery Saga or Picross 3D Round 2. See ya!

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl – As annoying as I’d always suspected

I dropped Conception II. At some point I didn’t feel like playing it any more, so that was that. It’s in accordance with my motto for 2018: “It’s enough to play just a little bit of a game.” In Conception II‘s case I played a lot and enjoyed it a fair bit, saw most of what it had to offer and I’m not ruling out finishing it someday. For now, it is enough.

The “It is Enough” principle also applies to the next game I played, Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl. I mentioned long ago that I’d always avoided the Etrian Odyssey series because I suspected the presence of F.O.Es would make exploring annoying. Oh, I should explain for the sake of non-fans, F.O.Es are overpowered enemies that you have no chance of beating when you first encounter them. I don’t know why they even exist in this game, but they do. So instead of spending your time happily exploring and hugging the walls to get 100% completion you have to duck and dodge and play peek-a-boo with crazy monsters. Unless you’re super into stealth games, it’s not much fun.

The fun will probably come later once you’re strong enough to come back and take them down, but I don’t want to deal with that right now. That’s why I stayed away from EO so long. But the Etrian Odyssey IV demo was pretty fun, and I’d heard all kinds of improvements (like self-drawing maps) had been made to Millennium Girl so I thought, why not. And then I played for 3 hours. And I realized why not.

The F.O.Es were bad enough, but then you have these rock pig things constantly zooming around the undergrowth. Like seriously, just let me breathe, why are you getting all up in my business, aaarrrgghhh!! Readers will stop and ask me, “But you knew all this before you even started the game!” Yeah, I did. I did but… Huh. I have no excuse.

It’s a colorful and vibrant game with an interesting skill system so maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty to drop it. It’s likely that playing two dungeon crawlers back-to-back is making me less patient with the second one. So Etrian Odyssey Untold is shelved indefinitely while I try something completely different, but I’ll get back to it one day. Maybe.

That “something completely different” was going to be Octopath Traveler but. Eh. I don’t have a Switch any more because my brothers and I dissolved our Switch partnership due to “scheduling conflicts.” The kind of scheduling conflicts you get when you have three homebodies who all love gaming. The good news is I get my money back. The bad news is I don’t want to spend that money on my own Switch, especially since I’ve played what I really wanted to play – Xenoblade Chronicles 2. For the rest of 2018 I’m going to focus on cleaning up any last stragglers on the DS and PSP and exploring a little more on the VITA and PC. That’s enough of an update for one day. See ya!

Granblue Fantasy – Sparking is such sweet sorrow

Greetings from the lofty heights of Granblue Fantasy level 160! I haven’t gotten any stronger at all since last time, so I won’t bother posting my grids. Only three things have really changed since January.

First, I unlocked a 5-star Uno (Anre). Yeah, I know I said I wouldn’t but well, you know how it goes.


It was an arduous and unpleasant process I am not in any hurry to repeat, but I won’t lie or insult your intelligence by saying “Never again.” For now, though, I’m focusing on building all the Eternals one by one. Seofon, Threo, Anre and Tweyen get, currently working on Niyon. BTW I remember someone telling me that if I farmed the materials for one Eternal then I’d have enough materials for several others. That is SUCH a lie. Anyone who thinks that has never farmed 300 Zephyr feathers several times in a row, ugh ughhh.

Back on topic, is 5* Uno as strong as they say? Umm, I guess? He’s pretty meh until level 95 but once he gets that nuke every 6 turns he deals some really good damage. That 100% damage cut is great too, although more and more bosses are majoring in plain damage these days.

Only thing is, my playstyle these days is 99% joining a raid, hitting the Auto button and tabbing out until the fight ends, so I don’t get much out of his skills. Whenever I try to test myself by fighting Shiva or Twin Elements, I get bored and pub the raid after 2 minutes. Still, for the sake of science I’ll give him a try with NM100 in the upcoming GW and let you know if there’s anything special about him.

Second major change, once I hit level 155 and then 160, I got access to new EMPs that boosted my total party HP, DEF and skill damage. I spent a lot of CP filling those out in the classes I use a lot. So I feel any stronger? Nuh-ope! The HP boost was particularly disappointing. I thought I’d be turning into an unstoppable juggernaut with, like 10,000 extra HP, but the gains were actually pretty small.

Before:

After:

Approximately 2000-3000 HP. An extra 10%? I probably should have used another party and not my HP-heavy Varuna team for this demonstration. Long story short, if you were weak before level 160 you will be weak afterwards. Don’t expect any dramatic makeovers just because you added a few points to a chart somewhere.

Third, I built a Varuna weapon pool. I said I wouldn’t when I pulled Varuna in last year’s spark, but well, you know how it goes.

It’s the most painless grid I’ve built so far. Apart from the two FLB Fimbuls, which I got with minimal farming, I had most of the other stuff already. But it’s not done yet. While my party members have good HP, it doesn’t hit as hard as I would like without stacking attack up buffs. Nothing wrong with buffs, but clicking skills all the time is boring. So I don’t do it. So I’m not very strong.

That’s where today’s spark comes in. It’s time to add at least one more Murgleis to the mix, replacing the Leviathan dagger. Hopefully that will kick things up a notch. TBH I wasn’t planning on sparking till September because I didn’t want any summer characters (no offence to fans, I just don’t need any new characters right now), but the double lure of 40 free rolls + Murgleis rate up was too much to resist.

It’s sparkin’ time!

On with the show. 12000 crystals worth of free rolls, 190 single tickets, two 10-draw tickets and 15,000 crystals.

First day of free rolls: Zilch. Silver centrum in the blue box was nice though. Just 6 more and I can FLB Bahamut.
Second day:
I remember really wanting a Fire harp when I first started the game. Now it’s going straight in the stash. New skin for Light Clarisse get!
Third day: Nothing. 10 Champion Merits.
Fourth day: Nothing. 1000 CP.
190 single tickets: Had to pull almost 50 times to get an SSR. Ah, I see. This is gonna be one of those sparks.

I’m just glad I’m not pulling for characters this time. Another 51 tickets to get Cerberus.

Where were all these melee characters during that weapon ticket event last time? <_<
Another 30 tickets to get De la Fille.

Don’t know if that’s Light or Earth. Let me check… Light. Do not want.
Oh look, another Melee character:

Seriously, where were you guys hiding? I wanted Ayer during my last spark, but nowadays I’m doing pretty well with my Eugen + Siegfried + Other (Threo, Arulu, Cag, Catherine) team so, dunno. I’ll play with Ayer a bit and see.

Nemone gold moon. And a few clicks later, Summer Ilsa.

Another allegedly powerful Earth character:

That’s it for the single tickets. 7 SSRs (6 new + gold moon) from 190 tickets. It’s closer to non-legfest rates but I’m not complaining because it could be worse. After all, each ticket only has a discrete 6% probability of giving you an SSR, which means the probability of getting 0 SSRs in 190 tickets is… possibly low, possibly not that low? (what is math? baby don’t hurt me~) Whatevs, I’m only after the Murgleis so let’s keep moving.

First 10-draw ticket: Oceanus. And Summer Helnar. I’m not counting SRs in this post. Also I dislike Helnar like I dislike all playboy characters.

Second 10-draw ticket: Nothing.

First crystal 10-roll: Nothing. Not even an SR character so I can say “I don’t want it.”
Second: Gawain gold moon.
Third: Summer Macula Marius.

I’m one of those people who thought Macula Marius was a guy for the longest time, but there’s no room for doubt with this new artwork. There’s also no room for her in my parties and I don’t need quartz right now so *stash*

Fourth: Tiamat Gold moon.
Fifth: My very first Zodiac:

The infamous monkey from the Monkeygate scandal that earned us the Spark system. Thank you for your service, Ma’am.

That’s 300 draws. Time to get my Murgleis!

Final tally

New SSR characters: Clarisse (fire), Aliza, Cerberus, De la Fille (Light), Ayer, Summer Ilsa, Hallessena, Selfira, Andira
New SSR summons: Oceanus, Summer Macula Marius
New SR characters: Summer Helnar, Leona, Ludmila, Summer Lilele
New R characters: Summer Lowain.
Moons: 3 gold moons, approx. 31 bronze moons and 16 silver moons.

Thoughts

Murgleis rate-up was a lie~! But it’s okay, because depending on the details of Drang’s weapon FLB I might not need three Murgs anyway. I kind of doubt Blue Sphere FLB will be that great seeing as it’s a staff and all, but it’s good to keep my options open. Thanks to the free rolls I saved a lot of crystals, and I still have at least 12 unclaimed single tickets from the Side Stories. Might spark Blue Sphere next time a roulette coincides with Flashfest.

Enough about that, so how’s the new Murgleis working out in my grid? Umm, about that… As you know, Murgleis only gets its second skill at level 150. Uncapping and FLBing isn’t an issue, but I don’t have enough EXP fodder to get it up to 150 yet. Oops, guess I didn’t think my clever plan all the way through. Tell you what, I’ll post  “Before” pictures. Just attack without any buffs like so…

I went 5 rounds and did between 760,000 and 1,370,000 damage a turn. That’s an average of… umm, let’s say 1 million. Alrighty, I’ll update this post later with the “After” results. And there had better be After results after all this trouble I’ve gone through.

Welp, enough Granblue for one day. See y’all later!

Update: Here’s the “After.” I went 7 rounds and did between 900,000 and 1,450,000 a turn so the starting damage has definitely increased.

 

But I practised on the trial dummy that doesn’t attack, so I don’t know how the damage scales as HP goes down. I didn’t use any buffs or debuffs either, so it’s not that accurate. But at least out of the gate replacing the Levi dagger with the 2nd Murgleis had an impact.

As a side effect of all this testing, I learned that Varuna x MLB Europa is also pretty good. Lower lows than Varuna x Varuna but more consistent damage over several rounds, averaging 1.1 and 1.2 million every turn. No telling how damage and buffs will affect that either, but it’s good to know.

Between the time I sparked this update, the Blue Sphere FLB has come out and it doesn’t seem all that impressive. Since I’m already back to the equivalent of 85,000 crystals, my next spark will be yet another Murgleis, then I’ll………….. have nothing to work on……… umm……… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Still haven’t finished Conception II (spoilers)

34 hours in and still not done with Conception II. TBH I haven’t had much time to play in the past two weeks and the dungeons are so boring I often don’t feel like playing even when I do have the time. If not for the girls and their promised endings, I would have dropped the game by now. I press on for the sake of Serina. And Ellie. And Fuuko.

But I do feel a strong temptation to drop it and move on, which is why I tried to power through to the end of the game this weekend. Using Detailed Maps to head straight for the exit on every floor worked pretty well until I got to the end of the Pride dungeon. I beat the Dusk Spawner easily. Then the true boss showed up and began cackling about how we had been doing his will along mwahaha thanks suckers, you never saw it coming mwahaha.

Nah, I knew it all along bro. It’s always like this with these Collect MacGuffin storylines. Either the boss wants you to collect them or he’s going to run off with them as soon as you’re done. I don’t even blame the baddies by now. The stupid hero had it coming for hardly asking any questions and just going along with what people told him because they seemed to know what they were doing.

Why are you gathering Dusk Spawners, what has your research revealed so far, how is sealing them going to help if we don’t know the cause of the Dusk Circles, and so on and so forth? To Giles’ credit he does push back a bit here and there, but he backs down too easily. As the unique God’s Gift, he should be in a stronger position to demand some answers. Maybe if Conception II was a more serious RPG and not a waifu simulator we might have gotten what I wanted. Then again maybe not, that’s just how JRPGs work.

Anyway, a few minutes after the bad guy revealed himself, I ran into a boss battle I couldn’t win and had to retreat. A tactical retreat, mind you. Giving up is still tempting, b-but muh waifus… And I can’t leave poor **** like that anyway, I hope I can save him somehow.

My proposed strategy is to grind up a bit on the Sagitta enemies and farm a few Multi-Potions to cope with the boss’s heavy attacks. Who on earth said Conception II was easy?! …Actually it really is, it’s just this one boss and that one other boss. And maybe the last boss might be a pain as well, I’ll let you know when I get there. See you when I finally finish Conception II and start something else!