闇Luceidの日々 ― yamiLuceid's Days

Apparently, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 came out in Japan. While my 日本語 is still extremely bad, I’m gonna get myself a copy from Play-Asia.com. This game had me drooling for a long time since I found out about it and seen videos of its content and battle system. Plus, original Japanese voices are the best! Well, usually. Anyways, once I get a copy, I’ll most likely be glued to it even though I have no idea what’s going on! I could sometimes make out what’s being said but written dialogues are the killer. In other words, I can understand some Japanese vocally, but almost zero percent in kanji. Anyways, I can’t freakin’ wait!

On another topic, I quit World of Warcraft for the time being because it’s so damn boring. I guess that’s why I stopped playing MMORPGs before (WoW, FFXI, and others). I don’t even know why I came back. I satisfied my tanking cravings. The game is also lacking so much. I wish they would bring back all the old instance to life. Make heroic version for EVERY instance. I miss the 40 man raids back in vanilla WoW.

It finally arrives! The long-awaited patch. As a druid, I do love this patch. I’m not gonna list what changes happened in the patch. You can look it up if you want to, but it’s also listed when the update has been downloaded and patch installation is being applied.

Druid update

I actually dinged 80 less than a week ago, I think. As you can see, during my last 250k to level up, I colored the entire Northrend map for experience hoping it would be enough to ding me. It left me with 40k to level and an “Explore Northrend” achievementl! I did a couple of quests after that in Zul’drak to get my level. Shortly after that, a friend of mine started to form heroic runs to gear me. He also brought another friend of his. Both of them were very good geared. Holy Paladin and a Boomkin. With the Boomkin geared and skilled, it made up for my lack of dps. I was in cat form with bear tanking talents and no kitty talents. Eventually, I am now decently geared and have been tanking heroic. Here’s my armory link at the moment, although sometimes I would log out in my crappy kitty dps gear. I still have a few pieces left to get from other heroics that just won’t drop. I also need to get my alchemy up to make up for me not having Jewelcrafting and Leatherworking for the extra stamina buff they provide.

I’m still new with the instances so I’m still getting used to the boss fights, but most of them are pretty easy. Actually, they are all easy. During my first boss encounters, my friend would whisper me general knowledge about the boss and I’d be quick enough to catch on. This was during our first boss encounters. The only thing that makes the boss fights harder is when the rest of your group don’t co-operate and/or do not know the fight themselves.

Anyways, hopefully I’d be able to get the rest of the gear I need and start learning raid dungeons. On another note, I’ve been soloing old contents like Ogri’la prequest bosses and other instances like Onyxia’s Lair. It’s really fun, I love druids!

3.0.8 Patch

When I logged on earlier, first thing I did was switch to bear form to see how much armor the patch gave me. I was expecting to gain a few Ks but what I got was ginormous! My armor went from barely 20k to a whopping 30k! Tanking Heroics now became so much easier. I can even pug (pick-up group) them now. Aside from that, the game also introduced a butt load of bugs. Our Heroic UP run for daily came to a halt when the 3rd boss bugged out. But I’m still very happy with the patch!

While I was continuing to quest in Dragonblight, eventually I stumbled upon a quest that lead to a cinematic cutscene. If you’re wondering what the cutscene was like, here’s a youtube link. My jaw dropped when I first saw this. I just had to see it for the second time. It does give you an option in-game to see it again if you talk to Alexstrasza. WoW never really had any in-game cutscenes like Final Fantasy XI did so I was very surprised. It was so epic the first time that it gave me goosebumps.

I also took a lot of screenshots during the Battle for the Undercity but most of them didn’t turn out good because my computer sucks, lol. But here’s a couple at the beginning. I was disappointed to find Varimathras betray the Horde, I really like him. He’s cool and awesome looking. Now they say once you finish that quest, you’ll never see him in the regular Undercity anymore. SHAME! Anyways, being able to fight alongside Thrall, Lady Sylvanas and Vol’jin for 15 minutes was just incredible.

Well, since I’m not playing Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology anymore or any PSP game at the moment, I decided to get back at WoW after a couple of weeks of vacation. I came back to a fully rested character so I was able to level pretty quickly.

Anyways, to summarize everything, I was able to level VERY QUICKLY. I actually purchased a paid addon called Carbonite, and this is my secret to levelling extremely fast. I’m now 78.8 and I was 71 a week and a half ago. I was able to complete quest achievements in each zone I’ve been through because of it. It gives you markers, right on the map, where the quest givers are so you know where to go get quests. As well as where to go like QuestHelper. But I like QuestHelper’s way of calculating the best route to take to be the most efficient. Carbonite doesn’t have that.

My love for my druid grows for each hour I spend levelling it. I’m able to tank, which I’ve always wanted to do for a LONG time. Previously wanted Warrior (which I still don’t have) because I’ve always wanted to look cool with sword and shield in hand and awesomely geared armor. But Druid is just fine, while I may not look good when I tank, I can still tank. Also being able to solo a lot of things like Elites for quests is just awesome. My most recent accomplishment for this is my favorite at the moment.

The quest “Reclusive Runemaster” in Dragonblight. Sure some other people have also soloed it at lower levels, but their gear are all from 70 Outland raids that they used to do like T6. Mine are junk straight from Northrend quests with no enchants or gems! Some from instances.

So anyways, since I am almost 80 now, I have to start finding out what gear I need for pre-heroic. I hope I’ll have a lot of fun doing them. If anyone is still wondering, my character name is Pyrewulf from Lightning’s Blade server.

To end this post, here’s my user interface look. I joined a pug Old Kingdom group last night and my dps sucks bad! But it’s decent since I’m tank spec and doesn’t have the kitty talents. And I’m not like those people who enchants and gems the gear they use for levelling even from outlands, LOL. I laugh at those people. They wanna be cool and waste money so they can top dps charts in levelling dungeons. Well, I didn’t spend a single gold while levelling since outlands and I got my Artisan Riding skill, Cold Weather Flying, and Swift Flight Form at 77. So good job people! Waste more money on stuff you’ll replace shortly. On a side note, I’m still in Dragonblight and I’m 78.8, but moving on to Grizzly Hills soon. 3 zones clear in Northrend so far.

Late post about this as I have already done what I’m about to talk about weeks ago.

I did beat Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology finally. Final boss Widdershin still packs a massive punch even after being quite overly-leveled. But I suppose I was technically NOT over-leveled as the boss was still 15ish levels above me!

(That’s Swordsman’s Dark Blade Mystic Arte.) Backtracking a bit, I was kinda surprised to see Kanonno fight me. But I will not hold that against her. I think she’s a great character and really cute. And her background is very sad. I’m glad she’ll be playable in Radiant Mythology 2. Mormo, on the other hand, was just extremely annoying 95% of the time!

Like hell! How in the world is he supposed to do that? Since the beginning of the game, all he’s done is talk very annoyingly. He hasn’t done any fighting or assisting! It was ME who did ALL the work! I sure hope the “new” Mormo in RM2 won’t be as annoying. It’s a female version this time.

Anyways, I have restarted the game again. I basically plowed through the main story again in Hard mode. Finishing at high levels during the first playthrough, Hard mode wasn’t that difficult. I was scanning every monster in the game and the bosses that I forgot to scan are now in my Enemy Book list. I’m just missing the other Radiant bosses.

This shot, I tested how hard “Very Hard mode” is. I was hitting for 2 digits normal attacks and very weak Arte attacks as shown. That battle took about 5 minutes to beat and almost made me run out of healing items as I wasn’t stocked up. It was also hitting me for 1.5k per hit. I was doing the Swordsman’s infinite combo here. The other is just one of the bosses during the main story.

The ending wasn’t anything special. But it was kinda sad that they all part ways afterwards. But I got one message for Mormo if he wants to tag along with me again…

On a side note, I got all the Ninja Radiants as well. And if you’re wondering about the looks I posted the pic together with the Fighter Radiant set that I skipped.

I don’t think I wanna play this any more. Level 250 seems too much time to devote. Plus after seeing how RM2 is going to be like, I just can’t play this anymore! I’m definitely buying it import if it doesn’t come out in North America. And if the NA version doesn’t have JP voice included, I’m gonna buy import!

To end this post and this wonderful game once and for all, let’s take a look one more time at its beautiful intro movie. Until Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2! (US version)

Well I’ve strayed away from World of Warcraft for the past 2 days since it’s getting quite boring for me. If anyone’s wondering, I chose a Horde feral tank druid to level to 80 (which is still at 70 at the moment) just because I’ve always wanted to tank stuff. The druid is very old and started at 60. It has been abandoned for years before Burning Crusade. Anyways, this post isn’t about WoW so I will be dropping this subject now.

Scrapped Princess (スクラップド・プリンセス). Since I’m too lazy to come up with my own words to describe this anime, I will be borrowing AniDB’s summary.

Usually, the birth of heirs would be a joy to any kingdom. But at the time of the birth of the royal twins, it was prophesized that if the girl child reaches her 16th birthday, she would be the cause of the destruction of the world. Out of fear of the prophesy, it was decided that she should not be allowed to live and the little child was cast off the highest cliff to a certain death. Pacifica, the child of whom the prophesy spoke, is now 15 years old and traveling with her adoptive brother and sister who are dedicated to protect her. Chased by various forces dedicated to see that the sentence of death is carried out, Pacifica is compelled to hide her identify and to rely on the strength of her brother’s sword and the mastery of her sister’s sorcery to stay alive.With an army of warriors, sorcerers, and the might of the church all dedicated to her death, will the assistance of brother and sister be enough, or will Pacifica have to call forth the power to save herself and fulfill her destiny as it was told in the prophesy?

While it may have extremely little, if not any, romance in it – this title still comes up strong and is definitely one of my favorites. Heck, I would go even as far as saying that IT IS my favorite. Yeah it is, seriously. Yeah! An anime with absolutely no romance in it at all is my favorite anime of all time. Who would’ve thought? Fantasy, sword fights, magic casting. My favorite character, be it a semi-minor character and almost no development, Raquel Casull. Always have a very kind and calm attitude and sometimes goofy. She’s the magic caster of the three main protagonist. Pacifica Casull, the blonde lead character. Shannon and Raquel Casull, her adoptive brother and sister. It’s such a shame that they never focused much on her character.

I actually didn’t just see this anime recently. I’ve seen it about 3-4 years ago and just remembered it again while digging through my pile of anime collection. I just want to get this out there and if you’re looking for a great anime, please check this one out. It may not have awesome animation but it’s definitely good enough and the story is just great and unique (at least to me).

Recapping my progress in this game. Since I think it deserves it. After all, I’ve made up my mind. Check previous posts for details.

When I started this game, I chose a Mage class with female character thinking it will be good. Female because I didn’t like the idea of a male Mage. I got to 17 and got bored and overwhelmed by difficulty. (I know it’d be easier to play now because of all the available equips I have for caster classes.) I then switched to Warrior (6) and got bored. Switched to Thief and got it to 24 until I unlocked Fighter, which became my main (66). Unlocked Ninja (51). I then thought I needed the Paladin title for my Fighter, so I leveled Swordsman and Magic Knight to get Radiants and titles. MK became mega fun with the Paladin title so I leveled more to get the Mystic Arte. Then I thought I’ll give Swordsman a go with Paladin title too. Yeah sure its Mystic Arte sucks but damn, they can do some pretty damn awesome combos.

Swordsman (60) now became my main and I use all 8 Arte buttons fully to do some really and extremely fun combos. Artes I use are: Tiger Blade, Sword Rain, Sword Rain: Alpha, Light Spear, Omega Tempest , Victory Light Spear, Demonic Chaos, and Rending Tiger Blade.

I haven’t had this much fun since I started playing this game. Oh and I still play on Normal (82h) and haven’t beaten the game yet. I’m currently burning through my EX magic maps looking for items and levelling up. I got a couple of green items. A Charmir (caster body armor) and an Osafune (short sword for Thief). The armor is decent, sword sucks. Not worth taking a screenshot.

Oh and I can’t wait for Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 still. But for now, this rocks. Time to finish this game. じゃ！

A little note before I get started. My Ninja is past 40, as mentioned in previous post, but no Radiants yet. This is because Eugene is the main quest giver and as long as he has a quest for me available, he cannot give another quest in the list. Eugene is the Ninja Radiant quest giver. If I want him to give me Ninja Radiant quests, I have to do the main story quest first. But I don’t wanna do that yet. I haven’t beaten the game yet. I don’t know how far I am in the game but I am now clocked at 75h play time.

Swordsman

Well the other night, I did Swordsman marathon and got it up to 48. Over-leveled a bit since I wanted Hi-ougi unlocked eventually (curious). As usual, the Radiants I got were just plain crap (except for the shield) compared to what I’ve found and crafted. Swordsman was meh – okay. Definitely a lot different and slower compared to Fighter which I was so used to for a long time. I’m just gonna move on from here but I might have a different say about Swordsman later on in this post.

By the way, the Swordsman (aka. Fencer) Radiant set makes my character look so cute.

And of course, this is how I look like most of the time because Radiant Armor set stats sucks, forcing me to use low level gear but very good stats. Thanks for the shield, though.

Magic Knight

Heh, I never thought I’d actually play this class. Actually, neither was Swordsman. Last night, again I marathon Magic Knight all the way to 57 and unlocked Hi-ougi. The best I’ve seen. Better than Fighter, that’s for sure. Got Radiants, obviously, and of course… you guessed it! They’re crap! With a tiny exception for the gauntlets. It actually replaced my green Hyper Gauntlets, but not so much. Let’s take a look at the set.

And my current look… as well as my new party.

Sigh. Unfortunately for me, stats are prioritized before looks. Same for people. Can be an exception sometimes ^^; It’s the inside that counts!

—

Let’s get straight to the point of why I’m doing all of this and torturing myself. “Luceid, why don’t you just go with Fighter or Ninja and finish the game?” Well, the reason is simple. Once you get all the Magic Knight Radiant set, you obtain the title “Paladin”.

Neat huh? Though it’s not full immunity. I’d say it works about 70% of the time. It definitely makes the game a lot funner and not stupid where you get nicked once and you’re stuck and wide open for more than a second just waiting for those enemies to surround you and do some insane damage with combos. Not anymore with this bad boy title.

To summarize my experience with these two completely different class (compared to Fighter), my time with Swordsman was terrible. Three Oh-So-Slow sword swings at a time and half the time, I can’t even complete those 3 hits. Sometimes they don’t even connect! Enemies will sometimes get an attack off right in the middle of the swings. Terrible! With Fighter, you walk up to an enemy, press attack 3 times and you made a 3-4 hit combo in less than a second. It was definitely a completely different experience. Not to mention, no “dash-through”. But whatever, I did it. Though, not yet finished. I still need to get to 57 to learn its Hi-Ougi. It’s currently 48, but I have a feeling that I will enjoy these 9(+) levels……

Frustrated, I fought Kratos, which didn’t even try to cast First Aid on himself. I guess I got lucky. Unlocked Magic Knight. I headed over to Doplund to gather my Radiants and fought the R-Fencer boss. Piece of cake. Switched to Magic Knight, picked my mercenaries, entered Hallowed Bastion, WHAT! I have to cast First Aid 50 times? As levels rise, I was overwhelmed by long casting, high TP cost spells that I need to cast 50 times each in battle in order to master. Along with sword skills, which aren’t a problem. But magics??? Argh! It was brutal. Fortunately, some sword Artes learned were already mastered, thanks to Swordsman.

To put it simply, the levelling/grinding process of Magic Knight was just extreme compared to Ninja and Swordsman. (See how much I’m complaining here when I don’t have a clue what frustration means! The Japanese version of the game have much higher TP cost on almost every Artes and needs to be used 100 times each to master! The US version have been toned down.)

Anyways, back on topic. I finally did it. Mastered everything. Unlocked Hi-Ougi/Mystic Arte. Looks awesome and very useful. (Unlike the Fighter’s that misses/slides away half the time.) As soon as I was MK 46, I went and hunted my Magic Knight Radiants. I found a useful combo that made me like MK a bit. Sword Rain/Demon Fang > Lightning Tiger Blade > Guardian Field/Light Spear Cannon. Sword Rain start for bosses to quickly stagger them and do combos. I use Demon Fang > Sword Rain: Alpha > Guadian Field normally.  I also found from GameFAQs forums that if you use Sword Rain: Alpha and Guardian Field over and over, it connects for an infinite combo which is what I used to quickly dispatch of the R-Paladin bosses.

I used SR > LTB > GF > SR:A > GF > SR:A (repeat). Paladin title obtained after MK Radiant set was completed. I have to admit, after playing Swordsman then Magic Knight, I’m starting to get used to (if not already) its playing style. I really like it. So comes to my next subject.

Let me talk about the effect of the Paladin title. This thing makes you immune to staggering 70% of the time (rough estimate). Its beauty shines as soon as I started using it. It was just unbelievable how much funner the battles became. Before the title and playing these 2 sword wielding classes, I would run up, block, retaliate, swing, gets hit, stagger, gets hit more, and more… okay, back up, heal up, repeat. I did mention the enemies sometimes gets an attack in the middle of your sword swings or just hard to make them stagger and combo. There’s just so many wrong things happening and it makes these sword wielding classes difficult. (Compared to Fighter/Ninja/Thief. These guys, you can just dash through enemies and attack from behind.) With Paladin title, it’s a whole new game. I’d just walk in and combo any lone monster or two even with them getting an attack off, I’d still be killing one. Even if you do stagger from a hit, it’s not repeatedly like before and you can easily bounce back and retaliate.

With my bit of love for the Magic Knight (and possibly Swordsman too, now that I know how to use them better), combined with Paladin title, I am now having a hard time deciding if I should go back to Fighter or Ninja or stick with these Sword & Shield classes. MK’s Mystic Arte defeats Fighter’s. I have yet to see Ninja and Swordsman, however. My next project will be to unlock them both and decide once and for all.

This is Magic Knight’s Mystic Arte/Hi-Ougi, Shining Bind! Until next time!

Couple of days ago, I was marathoning in the game, I finally reached Gavada (3rd city). I was able to gather my full Fighter Radiant (ah, too lazy to take a screenshot). And also unlocked Ninja! I’m now 46 and I have to admit, I like Fighter a lot better. Of course, I haven’t reached the Hi-Ougi level yet, so who knows. I love how Fighter can dish infinite combos with the right Arte used and sometimes even with just spamming normal attacks on some enemies. My regular combo consists of Demon Fist > Dragon Shot > Beast Impact, followed by an Avalanche throw. Very damaging. For when I have Over Limit (Hi-Ougi combo), I do Demon Fist > Dragon Shot > Demon Shadow > Fire Dragon Rampage.

Ninja

What can I say? I don’t have all the skills yet, and with what I have so far, I don’t have a very damaging combo. I don’t know if that will change with the next few Artes. There is one thing I love about Ninja, however. It is the Samadhi skill that you get at level 30. Basically, it makes you immune to staggering when getting hit. Other than that, I don’t know… Anyways, here’s a few pics of my not-so-sexy Ninja.

You’d think the Excalibur is good, it’s actually kind of crap. The Beam Sword (aka. Lightsabre look-a-like) is so much better (except for the attack stats). The Beam Sword is self forged using Septanite at 109 Forge skill with Blacksmith title.

Anyways, that’s all for now. This game is still addicting, and I haven’t even finish the game yet. And there’s a supposedly Hard and Very Hard mode. Level cap is also 250.

Silent Hill: Origins

I played around a bit with SHO again after having fully completed it a month ago. I was trying to see what costume should I use for the entire game… – incoming Daredevil costume! I have to admit, I find this quite funny, even if just the slightest.

Ugh, I wish I was allowed to edit my own CSS. I don’t like WordPress’ themes! I like things simple and also I’m not the best in CSS so I wanna learn more too at the same time. This theme is the simplest I can find with the font I like, sans-serif.

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology

This game is definitely one of the funnest games I’ve played. I do like Tales games but I never really played them fully. I can’t wait for the RM2. It looks so cool. Mystic Artes are so awesome. Anyways, I think I’m only about a quarter in the game and this is what my setup looks like…

I did cheated my money and grade points, but that’s all. But the funny part is, I cheated so I could have 999,999 gald. If you check how much I have, it’s much more. Fact is, I didn’t need to cheat but I accidentally saved. I cheated money because I wanted to buy something, which I eventually came to realize that I didn’t need them. I grinded a lot that’s why I’m already like that level and I just started Doplund. I also just picked up Lloyd recently, I wanted him earlier but I couldn’t recruit him. So now he’s a low level. I’ll get him up along with Kratos when I switch to Ninja. It’s a female character because I started as Mage, and a male Mage doesn’t seem right to me. But then I started hating Mage (17)… so I leveled Warrior to 6, then switched to Thief and sticked to it ’til 24 and then switched to Fighter which is now that high. This game is highly recommended to all Tales and RPG fan alike.

Anyways, until next post.