Yeah, of course. Star Trail is the best game in the series. I'd be hard pressed to think of a better example of what WRPGs are all about than Star Trail. In many ways it showcases all the differences between WRPGs and JRPGs without sacrificing turn-based combat and a multi-character party.

Shadows Over Riva is also pretty good but it suffers from being limited to a single town. The vast over-world travel in Blade of Destiny and Star Trail is perhaps the strongest part of those games, so scrapping it didn't really make too much sense to me.


Well, a lot of those old console games are brought back to life again through either remakes or plain old re-releases for modern consoles. It's more viable to go back to them. To play old PC games you need to get acquainted with DOSBox, and for some you'd need an Amiga or C64 emulator which is even more of a pain to get working. I think this is part of the reason why people rarely go back to play old PC games. I don't think any teenager would play Skyrim and immediately think about trying to get a complex turn-based DOS game from 1990 working using an emulator.

Not that it really matters though. One of my points is that I think games like Skyrim have fundamentally different gameplay to the classic WRPGs. You used the phrase "pristine example", with pristine meaning something like undamaged or in its original condition. It's hard to picture a game in which you spend a good chunk of your time dancing around opponents while mashing the attack button as a "pristine" example. There's little tactical gameplay and certainly no party dynamics involved there, two things which I'd consider to be fundamental.

I tried messing with an Amiga emulator once to play the Turrican's. It worked pretty well but I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to change the controls around and that was that.

You mean change the controls of the game and not the Amiga, right? Because the Amiga uses a keyboard and a mouse. You don't set up key bindings like you do for SNES emulators because the Amiga controls are the same as standard PC controls. Changing controls for a game is game dependent. Perhaps it's set up in a menu within the game, or perhaps it's set up through the game's installer. Alternatively, just use a standard key mapper on your computer to bind keys to other keys if you want.

What's the problem with Turrican's (standard) controls anyway?

I just remember it was like the old Alt/Ctrl or something, or Z/X. I don't think you could map them differently in the actual game either or anything, I would've been fine with my ASDF etc setup that I used to use with ZSNES and stuff (kind of funny I perfected Super Metroid speedruns with the keyboard). But yeah I'll have to use a key mapper next time. The Amiga games look like they blow the other versions away. Although the SNES Turrican's are pretty cool too, they all have amazing music... except the Genesis game just looks and sounds totally awful.

Demon's Souls:

I hope my wonky build hasn't completely fucked me over, but NG+ is at the "so hard it's not even fun" point so far. Hitting a complete wall here, I mean I could grind on 4-1 a lot to get some very few upgrades... but egh. I almost got the Tower Knight though and I saved the sage in 3-1 so I have access to a lot of magic (would Warding seriously help me out a lot now?)... really wish I got all this stuff on my first playthrough though, along with other stuff like Eternal Warrior's Ring which my friend told me about. So my few upgrades from here on for awhile are going to be very critical, what would guys recommend? Probably Vit or Dex I'd guess, since I'm dying easily and need to be doing more damage. I'm still using Dex weapons mainly, and I've got the Assassin's Mask, Black Leather, Gloom Gauntlets, and Gloom Leggings equipped. Here's my build:
SL - 99
Vit - 37
Int - 14
End - 27
Str - 31
Dex - 31
Mag - 11
Faith - 13
Luck - 15

I mean maybe I could do a new character and run through it pretty quickly now, but I'm always lazy about starting new characters on big games like this. lol

Before I give more advice, I need to ask: do you have any of the following? Curse weapon, Light weapon, Talisman of Beasts, Insanity Catalyst?

Also is the biggest problem that you die too easily or that you don't do enough damage?

I don't have ANY of those... lol.

I'm looking stuff up now though that this is my second playthrough. Like apparently I could have bought Clearstones from the merchant in 2-2, so when (if...?) I get there this time around I'll do that so I can finally upgrade my spear and stuff more. I'm using the Crescent Falchion a lot more now too, but I hate how it barely staggers enemies. Do stats have any connection to staggering? Or is it just the actual weapons? Kind of wondering about that lately... that or when enemies are in annoying attack animations, you just can't stagger them then? Like those stupid octopus wizards in 3-1, damn they're annoying. If they freeze me now, their stab attack is instant death for me. And yeah if I hit them while they're in their really long attack animations, they don't move and just take it.

That said I feel like I would be doing better if I could dish out more damage and take down enemies faster, rather than being able to take more damage.

Stats don't affect stagger, weapons do. You'll have trouble staggering an enemy with a spear or a falchion, lol... also, the crescent falchion is good early in NG but crescent weapons scale with the magic stat, and you pumped dex and str, so that's no longer ideal.

I think you need a Quality claymore+5. With those stats, buffed with something (no Curse or Light weapon, ok, but you can still use sticky white stuff or turpentine/black turp), you should hit pretty damn hard. The swing isn't as fast as a falchion (almost nothing is) but it's still moderately fast 2-handed and claymores are stupidly good for PvE. A quality mirdan hammer or war scythe would be good too, poles are the "noob" weapon for PvP (because it's so easy to win with one) but for PvE they're quite good too. If you have none of those, try a quality uchi or kilij (kilijs are as fast as falchions but have more range and power). 2-handed that'll deal great damage. Those weapons are easily found in 4-1.

Spears are a defensive weapon and are good for turtling, but for DPS and/or dealing with multiple mobs at the same time they are quite weak. Claymores, uchis, kilijs and poles are all better for that. And they are stronger.

Warding won't help in 3-1, since the mindflayers do magic damage, but it'd help just about anywhere else. The physical damage reduction is silly.


As a last resort, you can always summon my phantom....

Also using a Steel Shield +4, my blocking seems to be the only good thing going for me right now... lol. Would something else be better though? I finally got that Purple Flame Shield, I wonder if it gets stronger than the Steel Shield after upgraded some.

I seriously thought I had a Claymore but I'm not seeing it... but I have the Mirdan Hammer, War Scythe, Uchi, and Kilij so I'll start messing wit those.

I was using the Hiltless for awhile and loving it until I finally realized it was draining my life... damn.

You can 2h the hiltless and wear an adjudicator shield on your back to regen the HP drain.

Don't bother with the PFS unless you have the ore to spare for upgrades, the steel shield has the same guard break reduction. The PFS is better to block fire, but that's only useful against the bosses in world 2.

I see you guys talking about DS a lot, sounds really interesting. I'm looking forward to the PC port.

It'll never happen. PC gamers aren't allowed to have nice things.

PC gamers have almost all the nice things. In fact, it's nice to see console gamers getting some love for once.

Not gonna happen, but a Dark Souls port is coming, at least. But watch out for the hackers, it's already a plague on the Xbox apparently.

I thought Microsoft banned people that do that?

I remember something about they'll put "Cheater" on your profile if you hack.

I guess persistent trolls will make a bunch of profiles or something. But seeing as to how you pay Microsoft for their online services I'd hope for them to make it better than the PS3.

Soooo... since all my friends seem to be too lazy to install their Portal 2 copies, I'm wondering if anyone here is interested in trying some custom test chambers I made using the new free official puzzle creation dlc... ...which is incredibly awesome by the way... ...because apparently without some sort of external promotion no one is ever gonna notice them.

Just so it doesn't seem that I am abusing this thread, here's some info about the dlc:

Basically it multiplies the reason to buy Portal 2, because it literally creates endless playing time. Since its launch in May already tens of thousands of custom maps have been uploaded (the editor is ridiculously easy to use while at the same time extremely versatile - extremely limited compared to Hammer of course but more than satisfying for the average user). And the number of worthwhile puzzles in the workshop is probably enough to last a lifetime. And no, I'm not a Valve emloyee, it simply is that great.

Is in my hands now.

But I am determined to clear DeS on NG+ first.

I think Nahsil probably just confused the titles or something though. But yeah Demon's Souls is what I've been talking about here lately, which is just a PS3 exclusive. Dark Souls is coming to PC though and on the 360/PS3.

I was actually grinding a bit on the beginning of 1-2 for some sharp/hardstones, so upgrading the Uchi and my Steel Shield more... I think this'll make a difference and help me get out of this hole.

Morrigan what's up with Blacksmith Ed supposedly being able to use any ores for upgrading equipment? I read that somewhere... I wonder if that'll really come in handy, since I have like a ton of Cloudstones and others I don't need at all probably.

yeah I've never really known which game is which, just that there's two of em.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/dark-so ... ng-offline

definitely interested.

Morrigan I dare you to play my build.
No magic outside of Heal, Enchant Weapon, and Soul Arrow.
No special equipments of any kind. Normal weapons.

Impossible mode activated. Holy fuck.

Pissed me off so much tonight I think I'm going to say screw it, I'm playing Dark Souls and I'll just come back to this and make a new and better character someday, without skipping all the magic. Holy crap.

But that said Nahsil you need to get a PS3 for this game alone.

I haven't had a console since a PS2. Meh.

Nice.


You don't need to grind. I'm sure you got tons of souls from killing the False King, etc. in NG+, you can buy them from the merchant in 2-1 and even large shards from the same merchant in 2-2. Also remember that at +3 you should shift to Quality which uses clearstone. There's tons of those in 2-2. There's also a crystal lizard nest in 2-2, go full stealth (soul form preferable for lack of noise, thief ring) and snipe them with your bow one by one. You might miss a few but you should still get plenty of them.

Haha holy crap you never used Blacksmith Ed? Yeah, he opens up tons of different upgrade paths. Boldwin only goes +10 and Quality. Which is okay for your build, really, but Ed can make unique weapons from boss souls (wait... you know that right? since you spent the Old Hero soul, I assume you made a Large Sword of Searching? please don't tell me you just consumed it for the souls... xD), and can make weapons that scale better with strength (greystone, Crushing path), dex (bladestone, Sharp path), magic (moonlightstone/Moon path, OR darkmoon stone/Crescent path), and faith (faintstone, Blessed path), so if you have a build with, say, 30+ faith you should make a Blessed weapon, etc. In your case Quality is fine but yeah Ed is generally damn useful.


Challenge accepted!

Don't understimate the number of times I've played this game... haha.

I admit that a lack of Warding, Second Chance or dragon weapons is a bit daunting... but I bet I could do it. 40 VIT isn't so bad. What is your exact gear? And... soul arrow? You don't even have Soul Ray? What did you use all those boss souls for?


Nice. Again let me know if you wanna coop. I've been doing low-level challenge runs with several different kinds of role-playing builds (with strict nerfs, cause you can still be OP at low-level due to elemental weapons and pyromancy) and it's a lot of fun. The PvP got stale but this kept the game fresh for me.

I like to experience this stuff solo for a first run, but yeah. So... tell me what to do in Dark Souls and stuff, haha. Stats to focus on, tips, etc. Hope I don't create a jacked up character this time around. Most things seem pretty similar though. I went with Wanderer which seems pretty cool. The Humanity thing seems interesting... but yeah I think I can see how people say this game is a lot bigger in scope. Something about it compared to DeS though... feels, a bit chunkier? No idea, but I guess they just feel a bit different.

My friend thinks the fact that I ate up just about every single boss soul in DeS is why NG+ is turning out to be impossible for me. So yes, that's just about what I did... , I figured maybe I wasn't going to use magic and didn't need it but wow, way to forget supportive spells and stuff. Man I was so pissed earlier but it's kind of funny looking back on it. The weird part is I somehow saw stuff about Ed and the Flamelurker soul being used for him to do a lot of stuff, so I DID do that in my first run but then... just never did anything with him.

Also to top things off I lost that 100K souls after I beat the game on 1-1. At the very start that area to the left was opened up this time around for me, and I somehow got in the middle of like 5 Black Phantoms and was destroyed instantly after I had already died there or something, so bam... lost all that and that's what probably really fucked me over big time with the NG+. So far I think I've only gotten one stat leveled up. My plan is to take down the Tower Knight since I've almost done it twice, then I can get Warding... and it'd be nice to get the Saint back, but getting to 4-2 will probably be insane... I dunno, I'm most fearful of the black skeleton.

My equipment is mostly:
Assassin's Mask, Black Leather, Gloom Gauntlets / Leggings
White Bow
Uchi + 7
Quality Spear +4
Steel Shield +6
Talisman of God / Silver Conductor

And yep, Heal, Enchant Weapon, and Soul Arrow.

That's it.

I am just bloody determined at this point to somehow finish this again with this character. Tower Knight fight 3 here I come...

I've seen her play. I can beat the game at Soul Level 15 and Morrigan's way better than me. She could probably beat it as a Soul Level 1 Royal under those restrictions.



On the topic of challenges, here's one I made for Skyrim if anyone wants to try. Changing the game's difficulty is superficial. Restricting yourself from what makes the game easy is what can actually make Skyrim tough and fun.




I was always disappointed in how easy Skyrim was. Now Skyrim can be Dark Souls if you want it. Bypass rule 2 as a time saver. That's no problem even if it is less realistic. No, the real nasty important one is rule 3. But let's face it, drinking 10 potions while you get an ax to the face is ridiculous and makes the game easy. Remove that and the game is fun. It forces mages to have their 2 most important spells on hand and to plan their magic. Rogues better sneak and get that initial backstab or be SOL. Use your true cunning and deception. Warriors need to bait people out and force a one on one confrontation cause you aren't taking on 5 guys at once under these conditions.

Rule 1 gives you this Monster Hunter feel. No life bar so you get a feeling of how long a fight will last and actually memorize how the enemies act. I can take one full blown direct hit from a dragon breath but not two. About 4 direct hit melee attacks will kill me.

Now when the epic main song comes on during the title screen, I know there's gonna be some ass kicking coming up. Not this feeling that nothing can kill you so you just wander around and get a bunch of goodies.

For the first time in my life I can now say Skyrim is not boring.

If the menu didn't pause the game that would've been awesome.

OMG you consumed the boss souls I'm sorry but that is just... too funny. You must have thought Freke, Yuria and St Urbain were totally useless? xD

I take it you didn't get the pure clearstone from Ostrava in 1-3? Going from +4 to +5 makes a decent difference.

Also the white bow is terrible. A sticky or quality compound longbow+5 will be better at those stats. Even a +10 will be better, the white bow is badly balanced, it requires high stats but does poor damage.


Regarding Dark Soul I can at least give the following advice: never, ever level up Resistance. It's this game's luck stat, haha. Kindle most bonfires you find, you'll need the extra flasks. Heal is also useful as a miracle, but wanderer has low faith and that needs 4 points right off the bat + 4k souls for the miracle so that might not be an option right now. Smaller curved swords scale with dex, but elemental weapons do not scale at all and are much stronger than the dragon weapons in DeS so they are very much worth it until you level up your scaling stats more. Pyro spells also do not require any int investment, only souls to upgrade your pyro hand, so if you want to hurl fireballs go for it. If you wanna go pure melee with support spells, each category has some basic support spells: miracles got magic barrier and a time-based regen spell (found much later though and the faith investment is fairly high), pyromancy has something like Water Veil and a nerfed Warding (increases your poise and slightly increases defense but you can't move fast or roll), and sorcery has spells that require about 15 int that let you do a variety of things (take no damage from non-fatal falls, use stealth, etc.).

Also, you should know that unlike in DeS, crossbows are actually pretty useful if you ugprade them. They don't scale but they can deal decent damage and can be a decent ranged backup. Bows are still better though because of the scaling or manual aim, but crossbows have their place.

Another thing, in this game heavy armor has its place. I still recommend staying under 50% of your burden to avoid the whale roll, but it's very difficult to stay under 25% for the fast roll (yup, they changed that). You have the "mid-roll" now, between 25% and 50% which is not too bad and viable, but heavy armor can make a difference due to this thing called "poise". The higher this value is, the more you can take hits before being staggered. So instead of your attacks or spells getting interrupted by enemies, sometimes you can simply take the hit but at least not be interrupted. Really useful. Consecutive attacks might still stagger you though, so watch out. Imagine that poise is an invisible bar that fills everytime you get hit and slowly recovers (kinda like reverse stamina) and once it's filled you get staggered, and the higher your poise is the higher your poise "bar" is.

Lastly, status effect: you can now see the "proc" bar of status effects such as bleed, poison etc. When it's filling you're about to receive the status, but you can recover it slowly over time to avoid it if possible (like going from "island" to island in the poison swamp... yes, there is one in this game too xD). And be careful about the bleed status: in DeS it was basically harmless, but here it works differently; when your bleed bar is filled you get a "blood loss!" effect and take about 30% of your HP as damage. Ouch. On the other hand it means weapons that cause bleed are now a lot more interesting in DkS, it even works on some (but not all) bosses. You know you inflicted blood loss on an enemy with a nice cracking sound. And the most nasty effect of them all is the Curse... let's just say that if you see a bar with a skull getting filled on your screen, GET AWAY. I won't spoil the effect but I repeat, GET AWAY. Nasty, nasty From

About halfway through. Thoughts:

Middling gameplay. Mediocre graphics. Entire story is lifted from Heart of Darkness (so far, at least). Occasionally bad voice acting.

This is also the best action game I've played all year, and shits all over MP and ME 3s. If the writing and dialog from this game was married to the visual style and gameplay of Max Payne 3, we'd have one of the finest actions games ever made, period.

Actually the WinUAE emulator (which I strongly recommend) has some premade button configurations for games (based on the standard Amiga joystick) basically it determines which button is 'fire' which buttons are the directional ones and using a mouse yes or no.

I guess I just figured with a fighter build I wouldn't need magic at all... nope.

Actually I did get the pure clearstone, is it only useful for the spear? Since I have the materials to go from +4 to +5 now. I was debating if it'd be worth it or not.

Good stuff to know about Dark Souls. So yeah this time around I'm not touching Resistance then...

I would have made a quality uchi, claymore, pole or kilij instead of the spear personally, but it's up to you. Your uchi is already at +7 so no point in melting it down to make it quality anymore I'd say, unless you can really spare the ore. The spear is a defensive weapon but not optimal for DPS.

It's possible to win without spells but Second Chance or Warding are just too good to pass up.

Yeah. I hate that Mass Effect does this. But you can stubbornly avoid this by hotkeying your main techniques and just fighting normally.

The only time I use this in Mass Effect is when I play on Insanity mode. Which goes to show you how easy pausing the game in mid combat makes it.

Okay so this is still possible, beat the fucking Tower Knight finally and got Warding! Phew... and wow yeah, the damage reduction is hilarious like you said. Looks like I'm taking a 1/4th or 1/5th the damage I usually would. I'm glad 1-3 was opened up as well so I got Yuria and did more exploring. So is Soulsucker the good spell you were mentioning earlier? Considering it's the Maiden in Black Demon's Soul. Should I get that and Cursed Weapon?

Hopefully now with Warding that'll make 4-1 easier, the boss isn't too tough but hopefully I can take some hits. Then from there I can get Saint Urbain back and spend more of these boss souls.

My Faith is still 13 though, so I'll probably need to work on getting that to 16?

I'm gonna need a lot of Clearstones to get my compound bow upgraded. You said those are easiest to find in 2-2 or something?

This world tendency is pissing me off so much though (also playing offline this playthrough). I thought I heard after beating the Phalanx and Tower Knight, this world should be PWWT now? Cause I still don't think it is, and I've only been going in as a phantom now (killing myself in the Nexus). Can I just grind at the beginning of 1-1 killing those black phantoms to help get it there? I just want the dragons to go away.

Yeah I just beat 4-1... that boss is so freaking easy.

There were no official Amiga joysticks as far as I know. It used some old third party standard, meaning many joysticks worked with it. And UAE is basically the only Amiga emulator there is. It's sort of not possible to recommend any other. It's very good, comprehensive and compatible, with the only downside being that it's far more difficult to get used to than emulators for other platforms, especially if you never did use an Amiga back in the day.

Are you talking about the area in the beginning of 1-1 at the left? If you can access that area, the world was either pure white or pure black. Is there an NPC there you can fight in either body or phantom form? If body, the world is pure white but if you kill that NPC it minuses the world tendency back to neutral. If you kill the black phantom version then it adds to making the world tendency more white.

Those black phantoms that spawn in that area and drop crescent grass when you kill them aren't true black phantoms that shift the world tendency. They're just harder enemies like the black phantom mindflayers.

The Maiden in Black Soul's only use is for Soul Sucker. So might as well get the soul sucker spell. As for which one to equip, Cursed weapon is way better unless you're grinding for some souls. Soul sucker can be useful in killing things super easily, especially if they're standing still and you sneak up on them, and in grinding for souls if you find a good farming spot and repeat this technique. Soul thirst + soul sucker + sneaking up on black phantom enemies is a nice combo.

Hmm, there was a unique enemy in that left area of 1-1 after I fought those "fake" black phantoms. The enemy was in its body. It kind of looked like the assassin's in 1-3 but was a lot tougher. I thought the dragon's would be gone in that one area where they're sleeping with PWWT though? I haven't gone back to check in awhile though ... I figured the red dragon would leave completely, but does that thing still fly around on the bridges regardless? I kind of want to kill it this time, that'll be annoying... lol (seems tedious and takes forever).

Yes, that's the NPC he was talking about. She may have been giggling and called you a wretched traitor (possibly only if you're in body form, it's possible she doesn't talk if you're in soul form). She only appears in PWWT. And yes, the dragons should be gone from the nest in 1-1 PWWT too. But! If you killed her and returned to the Nexus, the WT will shift towards black, so the dragons will return.

Don't worry though, there isn't that much good stuff in the dragon's nest. If you have the purple flame shield you already got the best loot there. And PWWT won't chase the red dragon from the bridge in 1-2 or anything.

You could indeed get Curse weapon from Yuria. If you have the Talisman of Beasts, use it to cast CW, the HP drain from the curse will be much lesser at your stats (since you wouldn't meet the magic requirement of the ToB, it's often callde a "cracked ToB"). If you don't have it though, use a normal catalyst, but the HP drain will be pretty high. I suggest using an Adjudicator shield+5 (and/or Regen ring) on your back to negate the HP drain, and 2-handing your cursed weapon, you will deal devastating damage. It adds 50% bonus physical damage (not attack rating), so it's really really powerful. It costs 3 spell slots though so you need 18 int to cast. But it has no scaling, only a flat 50% bonus, so it's worth it for melee.

The other spell this boss soul gives is Light Weapon (from Sage Freke). This adds magical AR to your weapon, like Enchant weapon but a lot stronger (requires 2 spell slots). It works best when cast with a catalyst that has a high magic adjust, such as the Insanity Catalyst, and it scales with your magic stat. So it won't be as powerful as CW unless you have a high (20+) magic stat and a good catalyst, but it's probably still a decent buff. If you have 2 copies of the boss soul, learn both spells and try both to see which you like best. If not, I suggest going with CW and pumping int to 18. You'll need it for Second Chance anyway (it costs 100 MP to cast).

Yeah this game is my bitch now. 2 and 4 are done (killed the Flamelurker on my first run, that felt good heh). Uchi is +10, Steel Shield is at +9, and just randomly found the Makoto sword.

Been beefing up End now, got Vit to 40, and Dex is 33 or something. I figure these are all I'll focus on and hit those suggested max levels you gave, while getting Int up to 18 for some of these spells.

So yeah all I really have left is the 1-3 boss, 1-4, 3-1 boss, 3-2/3, and 5. Shouldn't be that hard from here.

Yo, Dead Space 2 is dope.

Also, lololololololololololol at consuming boss souls.

The funny thing about that is that he could almost do that in Dark Souls and not be penalized much, because the weapons forged from boss souls in that game are almost all useless, with a very few exceptions... but in Demon's Souls they're pretty essential hah.

Damn, you guys got all great equipment. I went through the game with that sword from 4-1 and the Dragon Longsword from 2-2. What's NG+ like in the two games? Never bothered to go through them after beating the main games. Big jump in difficulty?

Hey biatch, I dare you to accomplish what I just did in overcoming the NG+ difficulty spike with practically no magic and souls at the start!

@Aeonblade: If you fuck up like I did at the start there, it's insanely brutal. But yeah. My friend says the spikes are different between the jumps... he said there was calculations once or something, but like NG++ might be easier than NG+ and weird stuff like that. It kind of makes sense to me when your stats start hitting such high points and you're loaded with good gear and infinite items practically, but who knows. I'll try to finish off this NG+ and call it quits for awhile.

I forget what Morrigan said (my memory is awful lately), but according to my friend NG+ is more intense in Dark Souls.