Lurker > Dark Silvergun

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

I don't play a large quantity of games either. If I ever get a hold of a PS5, I'll get Elden Ring, and if the game is as big of a deal as it is being billed, that could last a long time.

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Nice Tom!

My only over the weekend deal I took advantage of, was the discounted Playstation Plus 12 Month Membership Gift Card. Reduced from $60 to $40.

A lot of websites only had a digital version, but I opted for the physical card instead. [Free shipping too.]

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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I'm here way too inconsistently. I really should try to change that.

SFIIIS3: The last really notable thing was defeating the end boss of the Ruins using the Scenario 2 Party. The end boss is Taros. He has HP above the 599 threshold, meaning his HP is shown as ???. In this case, it's actually 5000, making it a very long battle.

Once his HP does fall below that threshold, it will be displayed. Also, he has magic, but long exhausted it before being killed. His main spell is Spark LV3, and while his MP is set to 255, that spell eats through 20 MP with each cast, eventually leaving him with 15 MP, at which point, he cast Spark LV2 to end up at 0 MP.

Screen shot of Taros, when his HP became visible:


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Haven't been here much.

SFIIIS3: Just doing some level grinding in the game. Now at the final chapter of the game.

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Happy Halloween!

SFIIIS3: I've been putting a lot of focus on this game, covering a lot of ground. Good good good!

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SFIIIS3: Ran through the Dragon Graveyard pretty quickly. This map had one of the optional ruins on it. Its a pretty straightforward one. The only aspect to it, is having two high movement range characters, Donhort and Rollie to catch up to the thief, as doors block the way, so opening one of the doors eats through a character action. I sent Kate too, since archers have a range of 2-3 with their bows.

Screenshot time!

Rollie joins the force!


Part of the Ruin layout [the path I took was the doors on the right side, it seemed to be the fastest path to reach the thief. By that point, the thief looted both items, and was close to the exit]:


Also, at the end of the map was a White Dragon. For this one boss enemy, it's best to not fight it at all. Instead, the alternative is to have Cyclops get up to it, and use the talk command. That will end the battle, and then recruit the White Dragon, named Thousand to your force. Thousand starts at LV 9. How can you go wrong with a dragon as a party member, right?


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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

SFIIIS3: Ran through Battle 5. Not many enemies here, just the terrain slows things down considerably. It's a large underground cove, and the escape route for your force as they flee the city. Even though defeating the Walcuray at the end of Battle 4 saves the under attack Destonian Empire, the victory for Julian's force quickly turns sour. The leadership of the empire turns it's attention back at your force, because, power and corruption rain supreme in that empire, and they want what you have: the Godchild Gracia and his powerful Staff of Besem.

Lovely.......[Okay, not at all.]

Also, Cyclops, the LV 8 Dragonman joins the force, since Isabella is decided on staying with Julian's force going forward. He uses claw type weapons, and has the ability to communicate with dragons. [AKA, recruit them to your force.]

Back to Battle 5: the crossable bridges can not be stood on, and can only be passed over. The game even throws a warning at you for trying to move a character on a bridge. I trapped the boss at the end, in such a way so Kate and Brigit could pick off both the remaining zombies, along with the boss on the other side easily. A fairly quick battle overall.

Reached Battle 6, the Dragon Graveyard. Right the beginning, there is an option to recruit another character. If in Battle 4, you decide to let Jane escape with Goriate [Battle 4's boss] after being defeated, you can recruit Rollie, a LV 9 Unicorn. Sweet!

[Really, the S3 party gets quite a different set of characters than the first 2 scenarios.]

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

Yes! Penguin characters in the game are largely mascot characters unless properly leveled. Once Penko reaches that level, she's one deadly character that can easily pile on a lot of damage.

SFIIIS3: Through Battles 3 & 4. One reason for the slow progress was stopping to level up Isabella. She's your party's Cleric class* character that can use both Heal [single target] and Aura [multitarget] recovery spells.

*[Officially, her class is listed as Princess, but it is a carbon copy of Cleric otherwise.]

Right at the start of S3, Gracia also joins, but, he's a bit more restrictive in the fact that he only has Aura for recovery spells. Aura eats through MP much faster than Heal. [LV 1 is 7 for Aura, and 3 for Heal].

Having them both at high levels helps compliment your recovery efforts, especially with the damage characters can suffer in S3 since being past the Promotion class phase right at the start.

Battles 3 & 4 have you deal with an indestructible weapon called the Walcuray. All you can do is either find an area where it can't either target your force, or weather it's damage every single turn. Fortunately, it's not very strong [multitarget, damage ranges between 8-11]. The Walcuray does not discern between friend or foe however, whatever is in its target range, will take damage.

So, what is the party right now?

Julian: He's the main character, and, his stats are based off of either having imported save data from S1 and/or S2, or his stats+equipment are preset to LV 5 if S3 is played from scratch.

Donhort: A centaur knight [uses mainly Halberds], his stats+equipment are based on either S2 save data, or preset to LV 5 if S3 is played from scratch.

Gracia & Kate: LV 5, fixed stats regardless of save data imported. Gracia is an important character to the main story of S3, and has a mixed spell list of recovery & attack magics. One spell that is unique to him is Shining. It can deal a lot of damage, but it consumes all of his MP [multitarget too]. Kate is a Sniper class archer. Not quite as strong as Hayward from S1 or Bernard from S2, but, she's the best you've got in S3, and she's still quite deadly if leveled properly.

Isabella: LV 7, joins either in Chapter 1, if S2 save data is imported where Stella from Anafect Docks Battle was spared [by talking to her rather than killing her], or a later chapter if S2 data does not exist or Stella was actually killed.

Brigit: LV 7, a Wizard class character that joins in Chapter 1. Save data does not impact her either. She's a bit different than the other Wizard class characters from S1 & S2. Masqurin from S1 & Syntesis from S2 both start with Blaze LV 1. She however doesn't have that spell at all, she begins with Spark LV 2 and Drain LV 2. [And has Sleep LV 1 only because of her starting staff adds the magic to spell list when equipped.] Drain is a unique spell, as it does the following: LV 1 damages an enemies health, and allows recovery from the drained health. However, LV 2 damages+recovers MP instead.

Edmund: LV 5 General. This character is conditional on whether Stella is killed or not in the Anafect Docks Battle. If Stella is either killed, or no S2 save data is present, he will be in your party at the start of S3. If Stella is spared, he will NOT* be in your party. Saving Stella does have an impact later in S3 however. He uses primarily rapiers, and can cast the magic Tornado.

*Which is true for my save.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

SFIIIS2: Finished Scenario 2. The special boss, and the last set of battles were not really all that difficult. Maybe because I spent decent amount of time leveling made it not so bad. So that means I moved on to the final part of the main game:

Shining Force III Scenario 3: Bulzome Rising

Obviously, that's a long title, so, it makes sense to say simply: SFIIIS3

SFIIIS3: After importing all of my save data from S1+S2, the first two battles were quite simple. I guess the developers wanted the player to ease into the third scenario without being overwhelmed? The main difference is the levels of the characters. Unlike S1 & S2, where all of the initial characters begin at Level 1, the lowest level for your main force in Scenario 3 is Promotion Level 5.

And, why the heck not? Have a Scenario 2 screenshot of the Penguin Character Penko at Level 20/30 beating down a Minotaur:


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SFIIIS2: There has been quite a lot of progress since almost two weeks ago. Now onto Battle 28. This is an optional battle, which is the ruins below a town called Storich in the game. Storich is a town visited in Scenario 1 as well, although, it is earlier in the game's timeline. This battle gets dubbed the *Hero's Test*, and it does have a powerful special boss at the end. I've already done a ton of leveling here, but, there is still some left to finish up before moving onto the special boss, and the final battles.

While I'm on the timeline subject, SFIII breaks down like this:

Scenario 1 & 2 are effectively almost one-to-one in the game's timeline. The only difference is, Scenario 1's gameplay segments end around halfway through Scenario 2's Chapter 6. The reason? You find out that the final boss of Scenario 1 is killed shortly after the conclusion of Scenario 2 Battle 26.

Scenario 3 starts much later, as Julian, who is a character playable in both Scenario 1 & 2, becomes the main character in Scenario 3. Since he leaves Medion's party after the conclusion of Battle 20, that puts him in roughly at the two-thirds point of Scenario 1 & 2.

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SFIIIS2: Onto Battle 20. Just the good old fashioned level grinding. EXP is good, and it's time for my characters to reach some levels above Promotion Class. I'm going for about Promotion LV 5.

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I found Izzy topped my list of favorites. I found it was a pretty fun movie. It took a little bit to adjust to the animation, but, it seemed pretty fluid all around.

Progressed a bit farther in SFIIIS2. The last two battles [17 & 18] were kind of slow to get through. In Battle 17, there are a set of six towers that emit electricity, and regardless if they target anything or not, their attack is always initiated at the beginning of every new turn cycle. That made the battle take sooo much longer.

On top of that, there was one extra element thrown in that was purely optional, one of the games many Ruins. Ruins are an added challenge, one found in each chapter, that are only accessible if the Ruin Map is found [usually found by opening a chest, but there are other methods as well.] Ruins can come in two flavors: Initiation by unsealing the door, or, automatically started when reaching a certain point on map.

Ruins typically have a one and done rule. It's effectively all or nothing, and how they work, is once a ruin has started, a thief, or multiple, begin at starting points, and run for the treasure. It's up to you to track them down, and with every strike of a weapon or spell, a treasure will be dropped. Special chests exist in Ruins, and only these can be opened by thieves, meaning, these items have to stolen first.

The Ruin ends when either the last thief escapes, or gets killed, and thus, the Ruin explodes [with exceptions], making it impossible to return again, unless you reload to a previous save.

The one in Battle 17 is an exception, as it still stands after completing it. Although, any chest, items or etc. have to completed first. The only thing you can effectively do after, is earn the extra character [providing at the very least the Ruin was unsealed, and two doors inside were opened.]

Battle 18 has an ongoing sequence on the opposite side of the map while you progress. As long as you stay away, and complete the upper floor, none of the enemies on the top will concern you. [Fight them however, and you're guaranteed to get torn apart.]

Once on the bottom half, it still kind of drags in a certain way, because the enemies on the top half, while stranded, the game still puts them through their turn cycle, meaning you sit around for 30-40 seconds doing nothing. Other than that, it's a rather straight forward battle. If you intend to go straight through the middle of the map, you'd get blasted with Spark spells, go around the left and right sides takes longer, but, eliminating all of those enemies makes a clear path to the middle final enemy.

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Yeah, that one is a movie, but, there will be a series that follows it sometime next year. No date is set for the series half of it.

The third Shining Force is a big game, and a lot of ground to cover since the game is split in 3 separate scenarios and then there's a special disc as well called the premium disc that has special battles on it. These special battles are not too bad in the beginning, but once you reach about battle 3 or 4, it is really not doable without a scenario 3 endgame party.

As for the rest of the Strategy RPG releases, 1 & 2 are on Genesis, a remake of 1 is on the Gameboy Advance, plus there is another one called Shining Force CD on Sega CD as well. I believe it is sort of a remake of Sword of Hajya & Final Conflict from Game Gear using the hardware of the Sega CD. The Sega CD version has a pretty good soundtrack too.

With SFIII, I have reached Battle 15, but ran into some trouble. The boss of the map is it's own challenge for sure. In this battle you fight the Kraken with it's 8 Tentacles, along with a couple of extra monsters on the map as well. 2 of those Tentacles are a bit more dangerous than the other 6, as they have additional attack range, as they can target two spaces out instead of one. The Kraken has it's own special attack range as well.

Just in case you want to avoid spoilers from the game, I added the tag to that text.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

Also, I'm replaying Shining Force III Scenario 2 Target: Child of God with the English Translation Patch.

I'm closing in on the middle of the game, and I'm up to Battle 14.

Level wise, the most of the party members lie in the 10 to 11 range. The main healer of the group has been leveled up substantially.

Right in the first battle of the game, there is an exploit to gain 10 experience with each heal, providing at least 1 HP is recovered with each cast of the spell. To achieve this constantly, there is a bat enemy on the map that can inflict poison status on a character, and from there, all you do is keep healing every single turn until all MP is consumed, exit out of the battle with the main character's Egress spell, and repeat endlessly.

The map is so small, the turn over rate between each heal is quick. In this game, movement is determined by the agility stat of all allies and enemies going from the highest downward. That means every single unit gets an action regardless if they move or not, so with Battle 1, the turn cycle is very short.

It may seem tedious to do, but, for the majority of the game, that one healer is the only dedicated character available. While this does not have to be done, it will make things much smoother going forward. The target range for the starting class/promotion class is fine at Level 17/30 for the most part.
Levels above that range are difficult to achieve actual stat ups, unless extreme luck is on your side, or simply by resetting over and over to get anything at all. [Starting class goes up to 20, and promotion class can reach 99.]

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I've been away for a while.

Oh and Tom, just so you know, the Generation 5 MLP Movie is available on Netflix, as of September 24.

It actually was pretty good.

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Still plugging away at Tomb Raider 2, slowly little by little, with plenty of deaths to account for.

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Yes, I'm still here. [It's been a whole month since I've posted here last? Oof!]

Lately, I've been playing the PSN release of the PS1 version of Tomb Raider II.

The game is quite tough for the most part. I've run through more than 12 of the stages so far.

If there is one running theme in this game, it's enemies with guns are your most common foe of all.

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Actually have not been playing all that much lately.

Well, there's the Gold Cup match Qatar vs. United States on tonight, looking forward to that!

[And then the second game, Mexico vs. Canada too.]

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

Also, since it's July 19th today, that means my account is now up to 17 years.

Wow, it's been that long!

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.

Alone in the Dark: Ran into some issues with solving a few of the early puzzles on Disc 2, but things become more about surviving lots of enemies towards the final half of that disc than anything else. As for backtracking elements, those are mostly gone in the second half, as a lot of areas coming down to follow a mostly linear path from point A to B while trying to not get killed. Most enemies do a fair amount of damage to your HP.

When it was too tight to get around, the flame thrower type weapon was the go-to option for clearing the way. I just had to be aware of the gas canister usage, an item that recovers the weapon's ammo, since it would use the entire canister regardless of how much or little it recovered. So, be careful not to reload the weapon in the inventory too soon. [I made that mistake once, when ammo was at 89%, burning through a whole canister only for 11%, ouch!]

Disc 2 only had one boss, naturally the final boss. It's a weird battle though, damaging it was inconsistent. Sometimes, firing right at the boss would cause ammo to go right through it, and other times, damage was actually registered. I probably used twice the ammo necessary on the encounter, plowing through large amounts of rocket launcher ammo. Needless to say, I had enough, while burning through a whole stack of first aid kits to stay alive.

I might play through the game as the secondary main character as well.

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Warning, the self-destruct system has been activated, all personnel should evacuate immediately, 5 minutes to detonation.