Category Archives: PS2

I Bet He’s On Some Kind Of Registry

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I finally got back to Suikoden V today, and started off by going through the first war battle of the game, though it was fairly easy since it was more of a tutorial. Unlike previous Suikoden games, where the war battles played like a turn-based wargame, the ones here are more like an RTS, where you control squads of soldiers in real-time and each squad has special abilities based on which party character you have leading them. I’m not too good at RTSs, but hopefully future ones won’t be too tough.

We need more allies now that we’re rebels, so after the battle it was time to head to Raftfleet and Lordlake to try and convince them to join. First though, since I can now recruit Stars of Destiny, I stopped by Haud Village and picked up Cornelio, after interrupting his wacky elf orchestra.

I had to grind for cash for a bit for weapon sharpening before heading to Raftfleet, and upon arriving there Raja said she couldn’t help. The gold bandits I caught earlier did offer to take me to Lordlake, the scorched town at the start of the game, but they also refused to help.

I reported back to the Barows mansion in Rainwall, and we decided we needed a tactician to avoid letting Barows overly influence us, so now I have to go spring one from some prison. Salum Barows is also already trying to set me up with his daughter, as I suspected before, but she’s already aware of his play for power. And his son is still going on about rescuing my sister and how enamoured he is with her, which is rather creepy since she’s only about 10 or 12 years old…

Time To Flee

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I resumed Suikoden V in the ‘town’ of Raftfleet, where I upgraded my armour, met the admiral that ran the town (who turned out to be another friend of Sialeeds’), and turned over the troublemakers.

Upon returning to Sol-Falena, the queen got all gushy about how my sister and I were growing up, and then Gizel arrived and the betrothal party was held. After leaving the party, there was some more scheming by Gizel, and I found myself attacked by assassins. I then ran into Gizel’s gladiator from the Sacred Games and was forced into losing the fight against him, but another Knight and gladiator showed up to rescue me. However, I learned that the queen and king were now dead, and everyone thought it best to flee. A bunch of cutscenes showed that my sister was still safe, at least.

I made my way to Lunas and talked to the oracle there, but had to flee again as a search party was approaching. I headed to Haud Village, in the territory of the other house that had been competing for the princess, and it was a rather…gaudy town overrun with crazy artists. There I met an officer of the House of Barows who then took me the rest of the way to meet the Barows family.

The head of the Barows house and his son are still as slimy as they were when we first met them, but they’re at least friendly, and I was introduced to his lovely daughter, who is a likely love interest for the prince. We were once again followed and attacked by Gizel’s troops though, and I saved for the night just before the first strategy battle of the game.

How Come I Don’t Get Purified?

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Suikoden V left off with me returning back to the main city after the Sacred Games, where I upgraded my weapons, met the new rune vendor, and then got sent off yet again, this time on a trek to go through some more ceremonial bits for my sister’s engagement.

The first stop was the East Palace, for the ritual of the Dawn Rune, even though the rune has been missing for two years. Here we ran into a creepy woman in black who disappeared into thin air, though we’ll undoubtedly be seeing her again, of course.

Then it was off to the north for a bit to the town of Lunas, for the purification ritual, which apparently consists of some kind of bath where only the women are allowed… Here I also learned some more about the politics behind the current queen’s ascension to the throne, and caught a couple of strangers trying to steal gold dust from the river.

After the ritual we were then headed far to the south to Raftfleet, where the thieves originated from. I did some grinding for a while before entering it since I felt a bit low on cash. It didn’t do much for my xp, though; the experience curve drops off so quickly that there hasn’t been much point in grinding for levels so far since you earn very little xp per fight before too long.

I saved for the night once inside Raftfleet, though not before running into a beaver-girl (each installment seems to have at least one morphic type, like III’s duck-people and IV’s cat-people), though her short, squat, and yellow appearance made her look more like a Pikachu, really…

Hey Meester, Want My Seester?

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After not having much gaming time lately, I finally got back to Suikoden V today, and my first challenge was to remember where I had even left off… Wandering around town resulted in getting into a fight, where we rescued Belcoot, a gladiator we had seen before.

We learned about his past and how he wants to win so that he can free the mistreated gladiators, but before long his sort-of girlfriend was kidnapped and we were off on a fairly short trip to the nearby woods to rescue her. Belcoot’s a nice guy, so of course he winds up losing the Sacred Games (the Suikoden games have more than their fair share of tragedy) and the political intrigue deepens now that the pleasant-but-scheming Gizel is to be wedded to my sister. And, to cap it all off, the Queen’s being driven loopy again by the Sun Rune, but it’s in check for now.

According to the index of the walkthrough, I’m still only about one seventh of the way through the game and I’ve got seven hours logged already, so I’m looking at about 40-50 hours of play total at this rate. (Which seems about right, as S4 took me 44 hours, even with getting all 108 stars.)

Finally, Some Combat

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Suikoden V resumed today with the trip to Stormfist, where we got to fight a lizard on board the ship along the way. That was only a tease though, as there wouldn’t be any more battle for a while yet.

In Stormfist we met Gizel Godwin, the other major noble competing to marry my sister, and learn that although he’s much more handsome and dignified than the other guy, he has a bit of a cruel streak. A spy hunt ensued a little while later, leading us into the sewers, where I could finally get some regular combat after 4.5 hours into the game. The spy was caught, some politicking followed (the Suikoden games are known for having rather intricate, political plots), and the Sacred Games began.

They started with a duel between myself and one of the gladiators we met, and although it follows the same form as duels in previous series entries, they’re harder this time because your response has a time limit, making it difficult to ‘cheat’ by looking up what the appropriate counter is. I forsee a lot of reloading over those in the future…

Don’t Ask Me To Play Purple Rain

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Since No More Heroes probably won’t last too long, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to start getting another RPG ready, so I started up Suikoden V today. I’ve finished 3 and 4 so far, but haven’t gotten very far in Suikoden Tactics yet, but it can wait a bit since it’s not really related and I just finished another SRPG. Like those others, I’ll be consulting a walkthrough for this one, too, since in order to get the good ending you have to have recruited the 108 “Stars of Destiny” characters, some of which can be rather obscure or permanently missed along the way.

You’re a prince of some kingdom, and it starts off with a flashback to a trip to a rather desolate town, where I learn that it’s not a good idea to piss off the Queen, who appears to be mad with power once we resume our meeting with her. After that I explored the castle, found my sister (who seems rather attached to me), and checked out a nearby Senate Hall, where we met one of the creepy nobles who’ll be competing for my sister’s hand in marriage. Speaking of which, I also have a rather cheerful, friendly female bodyguard… (Women seem to be the dominant sex in this kin-, er, queendom, as only they are allowed to be monarchs and rank highly within the Knights. As a prince, you’re seen as somewhat unimportant to some people.)

I then checked out the nearby town, found where all of the shops are, and then got sent off to Stormfist to prepare for this combat festival where my sister’s husband will be decided. People have complained about how slow Lost Odyssey is to start, but here I’ve had barely any combat at all in the first two and a half hours of the game. I’m sure it’ll pick up soon, once something or other inevitably goes horribly wrong…

It has a lot of familiar elements from the previous games, but there are some differences, too. Runes seem to be used the same way and weapons are upgraded rather than replaced, like before, but skills are different in that although you have a set of them and the same kinds of rankings, only two of them can actually be active at the same time. Combat is kind of a hybrid of 3 and 4; you stay fixed in place like in 4 rather than moving around as in 3, but you have ranges on your weapons, so distance does still matter some, and formations can put people behind others defensively, which you couldn’t do in 4. Unlike 3’s set of varied protagonists, you’re controlling a single, mute protagonist again like in 4, which makes cutscenes kind of awkward when you’re the only one not talking.

Of course, I’ll know more when I actually get to some decent combat…

Plot Twists Aplenty

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I kicked off today’s Disgaea 2 session by opening the Dark World, just for kicks, though I won’t actually work on it until later on.

Chapter 11 was a bit odd in that a bunch of the battles had no story development at all; you were just dumped straight into them and returned immediately to the village afterwards, making them feel a bit like padding. It also ended with another forced loss, but I at least managed to steal a couple of really good items (Testament and an Orion Belt) in the process. Here was also where I could see one of the possible endings to the game by actually beating Laharl, which I could do with my level 9999 neko, but doing so ends the game rather unsatisfyingly of course…

Chapter 12 was a bit annoying in that the maps were made up of crystalline slabs and it was difficult to tell what was connected to what, but it wasn’t too notable otherwise, aside from a revelation at the end about Adell’s parents that I should have seen coming a mile away.

And finally, chapter 13 was a fairly straightforward series of tougher battles, though they were still fairly easy with my powerlevelled crew. It ended with a fight against ‘Zenon’ and another revelation about Rozalin that I didn’t expect, but makes sense in hindsight. And so ended the main Disgaea 2 story.

There’s still more to do, of course — the Disgaea series is infamous for having almost *too much* to do. The post-ending save starts you over at the beginning again and I have to reopen all of the battle areas, but I get to keep all of my characters’ stats and items. I still have to do the Cave of Ordeals, Dark World, get legendary high-rank items, kill the Item Gods in their item world, create a Majin now that I’ve unlocked its class, reincarnate and unlock the best tiers of all of the classes, see the alternate endings, unlock some more special Dark Assembly bills, find the pirates in an item world, do the Land of Carnage, work on felonies…

I have no idea how much of that I’ll actually do though, as other games await to be played, and I’ll probably put this one aside for now. Time to do something a bit different.

But in parting…

I’m Turning Into A Crazy Old Cat Guy

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Today I easily completed chapters 9 and 10 in Disgaea 2, picking up Etna along the way, but it was starting to get a bit tougher again towards the end as the monsters’ levels evened out with my own. So, it was time to farm nekomatas again.

I used the capturing trick to get a level 9999 nekomata, and it didn’t take too long since I didn’t even have to farm for cash along the way. Instead, I left the farming until after getting that one, and I discovered that if I cleared a full field of level 9999 nekos via that stack attack technique, I could get characters to level 100 within two attacks, and gained over 300,000,000 credits at the end the battle. That might seem like a lot until I discovered that the highest-end weapons and armour cost in the tens of millions of credits…

Farming xp this way is rather tedious though, since you have to wait something like 70 turns for the enemies to raise up to level 9999, so I only bothered levelling up my 10 ‘main’ characters, got a bunch of the best equipment for most of them, and now I’m set for the rest of the main story. I’ve got a bunch of other characters still in their 30s, but they’ll have to wait.

And since I now had an ultra-powerful monster on my side, I forced through a bunch of bills in the Dark Assembly, including opening up the Cave of Ordeals, increasing shop quality, becoming a senator myself, and increasing my influence.

Yeah, I’m cheating my ass off here, but I’ve got so damn many games waiting to be played that a little boost to quicken the pace doesn’t hurt…

My new army:

And it was finally revealed that that orange thing on the father’s chest is a giant pimple. A giant, sentient, horny pimple…:
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Maybe That Was A Little Too Much Power…

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As planned, I finished levelling up the rest of my Disgaea 2 characters a bit, ending with them somewhere in their 30s.

It was made much faster by my discovery of a much more reliable method than team attacks: stack attacks. Instead of hoping that the nekomata didn’t counterattack and then get up close for a 50% chance at a team attack, I figured out that I could send a decoy character ahead (ideally one at least strong enough to survive a single blow, but letting them get knocked out works too) to draw the enemies close, then have the decoy retreat and the captured nekomata and character being leveled run up, and then have the leveling character lift the nekomata and attack. This way it still counts as a team attack but happens 100% of the time, and avoids the problem of the neko’s counterattacks prematurely killing the target.

I also took the opportunity to reincarnate a few characters into their higher tiers, like the healer and main fighters and tanks. It won’t really help a *lot* at these low levels, since the stat difference becomes much bigger at high levels, but it couldn’t hurt and I wanted to at least try it out.

Having leveled everyone up, I bought new equipment for pretty much everyone and resumed the storyline, blowing through chapters 6 through 8 with a lot less trouble than I expected. The enemies’ levels are getting closer to my own again though, so it’ll probably even out around chapter 10 or so. The only really notable map was one of the colosseum fights, arranged as a geopanel puzzle where you had to avoid hitting certain geo symbols or the fight could become impossible to win as every panel turns invincible.

And as far as the story goes, we finally met Zenon at the end of chapter 7. It wasn’t going to be that simple, of course — there were still six more chapters to go, after all — but Etna and Laharl have shown up again and now I’m apparently off to try and find the real Zenon.

More fun with prinnies after the cut:
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Nice Kitties

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And now that I’ve got a nice stable of diverse, moderately-leveled Disgaea 2 characters, it’s time to get exploitive.

Following the advice of one of the Gamefaqs guides, I returned to level 4-3, which is populated almost entirely by Nekomatas on tiles that will raise their level each turn. The trick here is to simply keep capturing them by throwing them into my base, after waiting until they reach the right level. You can only capture a monster that’s roughly twice the highest level in your base, so first you capture, say, a level 25ish nekomata, use it to capture one around level 50, use that one to capture one around level 100, and so on.

Technically, you could keep doing this until you’ve captured a level 9999 nekomata, but I’ve stopped with one around level 200 for now. I don’t really intend to use these monsters to beat the main game, which is my focus right now, but just to help earn some cash and levels for my regular characters. I’ll come back for more capturing after that, when I’m going to *need* ultra-high levels for things like the Dark World…

And earn cash I did. I had to alternate between capturing and cash farming anyway, since capturing creatures injures and knocks out a lot of the characters in your base, and that gets really expensive to heal. After capturing a nekomata, I’d then redo the level with just the newly captured one and a healer, after waiting until the enemies’ levels were just a bit below mine, and rake in the cash. With my level 197 nekomata, each clearing of that map nets around 450,000 credits, a lot more than the 2000 or so I’d get for clearing it at the standard levels.

I can also take advantage of those cash farming trips to help level up characters, by having them tag along and try to get in on team attacks whenever possible. A single successful team attack is enough to boost a character from level 1 right up to around 24, but it’s tricky because the nekomata counterattacks a lot, which doesn’t count for team attacks, the team attack chance is only around 50%, and the other character has to hang back a bit to avoid getting hit and rush up when the opportunity presents itself.

I think I’ll just do this until all of my basic characters have their levels up into the 20s, buy the best equipment I can at that point, and then continue on with the story. That’ll help a lot, but not make it *too* much of a cakewalk.