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Post by paulofthewest on Jul 28, 2021 16:45:36 GMT -5
I did not do the DLC. I just now looked up how to get to it. I got the items, but didn't know to go back to examine the purple cloud! Wow, I was that close. What is super lame is that I'm now in NG+, so I would have to redo A LOT of things.
I did go through the catacombs (which I wish I saw earlier since it would give me access to the winged spear, a much better weapon than the spear.) And the part below the spider lair, I forgot what it was called. Looking over a guide I completed > 90% of the main stuff. It appears the main thing(s) I missed were the covenants and using of allies/solitare.
Yep I got Crystal Spear and Crystal Homing Moss. Way overpowered, but very nice spells! My int was 52 at the end of the game. I bet if I pump up more, and had a better wand, it wouldn't take much to defeat him.
I did find the Ash lake, but I did NOT complete it. I remember the hydra just fried me every time because of my low level. I must have forgotten about it when I went looking for areas at the end of the game. I remember those giant toadstools on the way there were super annoying to take out.
The Switch has me at 60-65 hours. Looking over the guide I did the main + majority of the extras. If you stick to the main you *might* get it down to 40. Not right now as I would need to replay most of the game. Also, Disgaea 6 came out and it has been nearly 7 years since the last Disgaea. So, ya, I've got to play that. Now, I do agree with Xeogred , use a guide to find the DLC, it is not at all intuitive. It should be fairly obvious when the end is coming. Well that is a bit of a story. I actually started with spear because I used rapier in Demon's Souls. I liked the quickness of the rapier, but I wanted to try something with more range. Since my starting character had spells I tried the first fire spell and it was dumb because it had almost no range. So I didn't use magic for awhile, so I pumped endurance for awhile as I couldn't decide what stats to pump. Later I got access to Soul Arrow which is a weak fast spell, but has nice range. I ended up using it for harassment at first. Namely I would try to attract one enemy to a spot so I could dispatch with my spear and then proceed to the next. Shortly after that I found out you can enchant your weapon to deal magic damage (based on int.) At the same time I also got access to many other spells. So I completed my spell repertoire, pumped int, and started to be a wreaking ball both at range and melee. At a more meta level, I've always loved mage hybrids. In AD&D I usually played either thief/mage, cleric/mage, or fighter/mage. So going fighter/mage has some fond memories attached to it. I will have to agree for this Souls game. Definitely. It is really that I have multiple spells with < 1 second cast time that one-shot most enemies. If they made the casting time longer, like in WoW, it would be much different.
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Post by Ex on Jul 28, 2021 20:37:00 GMT -5
The Switch has me at 60-65 hours. Looking over the guide I did the main + majority of the extras. If you stick to the main you *might* get it down to 40. Your time falls right in line with HLTB's stuff (main story 43 hours, main+extra 61 hours). Looks like it'll be an investment when I get around to it. Demon's Souls took me 45 hours, but that was with no strategy guide/walkthrough, melee character, and completely offline. Oh lawdy what is that about? What kind of DLC makes you replay most of the game? Not liking that! I always rolled as a dark elf fighter/mage myself. Takes longer to level up but so worth it eventually. Thanks for answering my questions in detail, and again congrats on beating Dark Souls. It's on my short list, just have to have my mind in the right place for it. For me Dark Souls is more a winter game than a summer one, if that makes sense. |
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Post by paulofthewest on Jul 29, 2021 11:34:54 GMT -5
Oh lawdy what is that about? What kind of DLC makes you replay most of the game? Not liking that! From reading a guide, I have to do some fetch questing in the main game, and then run to a certain point. The areas are not exactly open in the beginning of the game... lame! The Drow magic resistance was nice as well. I don't know if you took the Spell singer/ Spell sword kit. I can't remember which it was called, but the kit allowed you to use a sword in one hand and cast magic with the other hand. That was a fun one. Thanks! I do appreciate the nudge to play these great games. Definitely get the in mind for this one. |
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Post by Sarge on Jul 29, 2021 12:51:29 GMT -5
I tend to gravitate towards classes like paladins, clerics, and monks in D&D games. That being said, fighter/mage hybrids are also a good thing. But monks in particular I've always liked, because I just like the idea of unarmed combat becoming incredibly powerful - they usually start slow but become massively powerful towards the end.
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Post by Ex on Jul 29, 2021 13:09:24 GMT -5
From reading a guide, I have to do some fetch questing in the main game, and then run to a certain point. The areas are not exactly open in the beginning of the game... lame! Lame indeed. I'll have to get with Xeogred about this when I start playing DS. I don't like repeating myself in games. I probably did, but I don't recall exactly. My pen 'n' paper D&D days were back in the early '90s. Sadly that's long gone now. I still play lots of pen 'n' paper RPG analog games, but it's all solo stuff nowadays. paulofthewestI meant to ask about Disgaea, that's one SRPG series I've never tried. I've often heard/read that beating those games takes dozens of hours (if not hundreds?!) of pure aught grinding. Is it really necessary to grind that much to beat the base campaigns? Or is all the grinding purely optional for players who get OCD about leveling up to insanity tiers? |
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Post by paulofthewest on Jul 30, 2021 12:07:36 GMT -5
I meant to ask about Disgaea, that's one SRPG series I've never tried. I've often heard/read that beating those games takes dozens of hours (if not hundreds?!) of pure aught grinding. Is it really necessary to grind that much to beat the base campaigns? Or is all the grinding purely optional for players who get OCD about leveling up to insanity tiers? To answer your two questions: Probably not, but I don't know why you wouldn't grind.
Disgaea is a mechanics game that pokes fun at JRPGs and anime. When I say mechanics, the game has numerous systems (really an overload of them) to power up your character and items (you literally fight battles inside your items to level them up.) So yes, there is a heavy grinding aspect to it. But the primary focus, when I play, is to figure out how to minimize the grind through abusing all the power up systems (hence why I think of it as a mechanics game.) The best moments in the game are when I can't think of an easy way to defeat the next boss, so I put the controller down, pace for 15 minutes, figure it which system to abuse, and go back to it.
I'm sure some people just sit there and only grind for raw stats, but I think they are missing the point of the game. There are other ways to gain power.
Overall, I don't think you would enjoy this game, but I think you would appreciate playing Disgaea 3 (or 5) for about 10 hours. That will give you the tongue-n-cheek atmosphere, introduce you the mechanics, provide some nice challenges, and avoid any grinding. I'm sure someone could beat the main game without grinding, but I don't know why you would.
I just look up on how long to beat. I don't know where they are getting 30-50 hours for the main game. It would be good to know what they main by 'main game'. So far each Disgaea has the regular part (short), the post-regular part (long), and then the final string of ridiculousness (super long.) For reference, I'm ~80% done with the main story of Disgaea 6 and I'm 9 hours in.
O, I've played Disgaea 1-5 and D2 when they came out, so ya, I'm a fan...
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Post by Ex on Jul 30, 2021 12:23:56 GMT -5
I don't know why you wouldn't grind. When I think of grinding in an SRPG, I think of fighting the same battle scenario over and over, against the same enemies over and over, until whatever stats are gained or monetary goal is reached. That sort of busy work grinding, I find to be mind numbing and fun destroying. I do not know however, if that is the kind of grinding that Disgaea encourages. Or if say, these "item battles" are unique battle scenarios per item, and you don't fight the same item battles ten times to level up an item to the power of ten. From a distance, Disgaea looks fun, especially the goof characters and silly plots. So much so, that I actually own a great many games in the series. Although that isn't saying much, because I'm a hoarding retard and often buy games just because they "look cool" and "I'll probably play this someday". The point is, I have access to most of them. I am not against mechanics and numbers in SRPGs. Front Mission is my all time favorite SRPG series, and it is chock full of mechanics and numbers, some say to a ludicrous degree. However, Front Mission does not encourage nor require grinding the same battles over and over. Anyway d00d, I still don't know if the kind of grinding I'm thinking of, and the kind of grinding Disgaea incorporates, are the same kind of grinding.  |
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 30, 2021 14:09:05 GMT -5
These games look truly ENDLESS to me if you get sucked into the numbers. I never beat 2 because I got sucked in the "Item World" gimmick, ie you can level up items individually by going into them as a dungeon like paul said. Yes, this already makes this serious have an optional 9,000 hours worth of content. I remember some items would have 100 some floors. Hours upon hours of battles just to level up an item, that's no exaggeration.
I guess I bought 2 with the strategy guide at some point. Near the back of the guide, it has like a two page equation of what is potentially the highest HP obtainable for a character, it was like 65 BILLION. Once characters reach a certain level or 9,999, you can respec them to start anew with better base stats. I don't know if there was a cap to this or what, but that huge math page had some stuff figured out. I thought it was hilarious.
This is all largely optional I'm sure and paul knows better than me having beaten some of them. Nowadays, maybe I'd dig them more since I've gotten better at not worrying about 100%'ing some genres like I used to. The tone, gameplay, aesthetics, all seemed pretty cool to me. I wouldn't mind checking one of the newer ones out someday.
In a way, it kind of reminds me of the Monster Arena in Arc the Lad 2. You can basically not do that stuff at all but the amount of content available there was probably dozens and hundreds of hours worth. Leveling up and recruiting unique monsters that you could import into your main game file.
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Post by paulofthewest on Jul 30, 2021 17:57:30 GMT -5
I don't know why you wouldn't grind. When I think of grinding in an SRPG, I think of fighting the same battle scenario over and over, against the same enemies over and over, until whatever stats are gained or monetary goal is reached. That sort of busy work grinding, I find to be mind numbing and fun destroying. I do not know however, if that is the kind of grinding that Disgaea encourages. Or if say, these "item battles" are unique battle scenarios per item, and you don't fight the same item battles ten times to level up an item to the power of ten. The item *floors* are always random generated with a set bosses every 10 *floors*. For Disgaea 1-4 & D2 max item floors are 30 for regular, 60 for rare, 100 for legend. Depending on how you train you item the level maybe more, less, or equal to the number of floors completed. Disgaea 5 added has a soft limit of 500 and hard of I believe 9999, but I never bothered much after 500 (and I beat all the levels of Disgaea 5.) Disgaea 5 also added the ability to use the dark assembly on items to keep more floors if needed. The dark assembly is basically a jury of demons that you can pass your bill (what you want to happen.) You go to a vote, if the vote fails you can bribe or "persuade by force" (AKA: kill the jury members that voted nay.)
To answer your question the game (after the main) you will be searching for the best battle scenario to do over and over. But, the point of the game is to minimize this. So, for the ones I've completed, somewhere halfway through my play through I can go from level 1 to 9999 in one or two < 10 second fights. You may think the point of this is to quickly train a new party for what is coming up next. Nope, the game has a mechanic, reincarnate, that banks your levels as higher starting stats and starts you over at level 1. So, there is some going from 1-9999. And by some, I mean a lot.
O it is =), but I recommend playing it for about 10 hours and putting it down. The first 10 hours are fun, no grinding, and you will you get to experience a lot of the uniqueness of the game: crazy mechanics, amusing combat animations, and silly/ridiculous plot & characters. I think Disgaea 3's main captured this the best, and 5 is a close 2nd. Really, just give yourself 10 hours and put it down if you don't like it. After the 10 hours mark it becomes a huge time sink/grindy. I love Disgaea's grind, but not other games. BTW I just finished Disgaea 6 main at about 10 hours, but I know these games very well so it will take first timers more. I can see how a lot of people get sucked into a mechanic and forget there are better ways. I'm pretty judicious about which items I will level. Actually, I don't use of the new mechanics until I absolutely need them. I just completed Disgaea 6's main and I haven't touched the item world yet. I'm sure I will soon. |
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Post by Ex on Jul 30, 2021 22:21:06 GMT -5
Thanks for all the info paulofthewest. I can tell this series is definitely your jam. I went into my dork cave today, and looked over my shelves. These are the Disgaea games I've got: Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP) Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days (PSP) Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness (PS3) Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice (Vita) Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten (Vita) Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance (PS4) Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? (PSP) Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! (PSP) Disgaea Infinite (PSP) I forgot I even had some of this stuff. Clearly I consistently thought this series looked interesting. I'll check out the first game on PSP next time I'm in an SRPG mood. I'll probably enjoy it, though I won't do super crazy grinding. The base campaigns are enough for me. |
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