CRYSTALGATE'S PROFILE

All chapter 2 cleared in Octopath Traveler. Once you hit chapter 2, I learned to wander around and hit all class change shrines before tackling the bosses. Class change made the game more fun. Unfortunately, a big strategy seems to be to use two merchants so you can donate BP to the damage dealers and let them go to business. Also, bosses who are weak against spear or bow are much easier to break than any other.

For chapter 3, the next strategy seems to be to get key skills from different classes, such as Hale and Hearty for all character who don't have high HP.

I've played a bit Oktopath Traveler. I picked Tressa as the main and has mostly been rounding up each character, moving clockwise through the worldmap. The game has some nice ideas, but I'm not too impressed by it so far. The break system is a good idea, it's just that I hit the "okay, I break every enemy then kill it, so what next?" almost immediately and feel like the game is going to stay in training wheels state for at least all chapter 1 adventures. I'll see what happens once I unlock class changes.

I beat Kingdom Hearts 3. I don't think I'll do a second playtrough.

I found out that the poor writing that happened in the Disney worlds is Disney's fault. This does not however change the problem that the point of having a Disney crossover game is not there anymore. Also, anything that happened in the KH exclusive worlds can not be blamed on Disney. Finally, the combat is decent, but not spectacular, it can not make up for the trainwreck story.

I started a new Bloodborne playtrough. I'm going with Blade of Mercy, so Eileen's story got cut short as Henryk killed her and I looted her corpse. The Shadows of Yarnam are down.

The Dex/Faith build idea in Dark Souls 2 got scrapped, at least for now. I'm finding it hard to justify going Faith instead of Intelligence.

Beat the sunken city DLC in Dark Souls 2. The DLC areas are far better designed than the main game areas. Anyway, all DLC areas done although I did not kill every boss. I ended up at SL 200, which can be compared to the SL 125 I had when playing the original Dark Souls and beating New game+.

I was playing a Strength/Intelligence build and I think I try a Faith/Dexterity build next.

I've also made some progress in Kingdom Hearts 3. My opinion of the game's story just continues to get lower and lower. I've just beat the Frozen based world and Sora's interaction there was the most awkward so far all all KH games. It really felt like he wasn't supposed to be there.

I think I go trough what's wrong with the storytelling in KH 3. KH stories have never been that great, but the story telling was at least passable. Now it's atrocious.

Sora and co enters a world. Said world has almost no relevance to the main story. Typically an organization member shows up up and says something like "this world contains ingredient 3r556h which is of interest for us, so we will cause trouble here". We also get to see a Disney villain, one who is of practically no credible threat to Sora. For example, Gothel is a credible threat to Rapunzel and her love interest, but she is of zero threat to Sora.

To solve that problem, the orgy member or a heartless has to provide a boss for Sora to fight. Meanwhile, if there is a confrontation with the Disney villain, Sora has to step to the side via an awkward excuse so that the Disney characters can have their confrontation. Heck, in the Rapunzel world, Sora only interacts with Gothel once and in the Frozen world, he never interacts with what's-his-face (the idiot who proposed to Anna in the Frozen movie) at all and just observes him at a distance.

For those who have Played KH2 but not KH3, it's a bit like the first Pride Land visit. Sora has to step aside so that Simba can fight Scar one on one. Then Scar turns into a heartless and Sora now steps in again. However, Pride Lands at least had the excuse that it was supposed to be a one on one fight, something that was already in Lion King, whereas in KH3, the excuses to keep Sora away are far more awkward.

Anyway, the main story hasn't progressed, a problem that always existed in KH titles. However, now there is far more going on than in the previous KH titles, so while Sora is out doing stuff that has near zero relation to the main plot, other characters do things that advance the story. Instead of the relative short between the worlds custscenes you saw in the first KH game where the villains got another princess of heart, you see multiple longer cutscenes where mutliple groups of characters having their talky time. The custscenes are also not relevant to the world Sora just was in or will visit soon.

Well, I did know the story would be a trainwreck. I did just not expect it to be at this extent.

author=Malandy
I'd have thought that Alicia was the Healer, actually... But you just can't do it much.

To clarify, I usually did not use Lamar as a dedicated healer, but he can serve that role and occasionally did. However, fact is that he can use a multitarget heal every other turn and a single target heal every turn. Alicia does not have that ability. Enemies started to lay on far more damage once he joined, shifting the gameplay towards healing.

Were you playing on Nightmare?

I was playing on the second hardest difficulty. It wasn't really hard, so the hardest would probably have worked as well.

How far did you advance up Mariam's skill tree? 'Cause Acid Rampage really works for me, perhaps a bit too much... It costs a lot of PSI, sure, but the healing mouths and Alicia can keep that okay...

I did not get that far. The skill before that one was not very appealing, so I didn't unlock it until the end of the 60% version. It does look great though. I'll probably got for it faster if I play this game again.

author=unity
Wonderful! I'm so glad you had a good time with the game so far and that it was tactically interesting. I don't remember the exact thread, but I had been reading some of your thoughts on battle design sometime around when I was making the battle system and I'm sure that influenced the game for the better.

Glad to hear it. Well, if you follow my advice, it kind of follows that I will like the battles.