Aperson

Funnily enough, I finished Terra's story the other day. I was playing on Standard difficulty and I really tried to fill the book to help towards the unlock requirements for the true ending but I couldn't seem to muster the effort to go out and get every command out there. Having to 100% a file multiple times to get the true ending is really time consuming, although it is a short game so what I did in the end was finish the game as Terra and leave open the possibility of going back to it later should my plan not work. The plan now is to beat the game on Proud difficulty with both Terra and Aqua. I've read that the game takes into account the highest difficulty you beat the game on when you clear the last save file, if that is true then having completed save files for Terra, Aqua and Ventus with the latter two on Proud should hopefully be enough. If it isn't, I may go back to Terra's story to try and get everything. Proud difficulty is proving really hard mind. You take so much damage and deal so little, I am currently struggling on Captain Hook, mainly because his combos can wipe me out at full health if I keep in range. I have tried to adapt my strategy in order to avoid his attacks and push him into the water, I've also found Fire moves are particularly effective but he seems to be immune when to the effects of these moves when you are attacking him. Aeroga works well for disrupting him and gives a breather, but he's still able to kill me easily. I think I might need to do some more level grinding although I already have two Curaga spells from Melding. I've been carrying a set with healing primarily in mind on Ventus so I can access healing commands quicker and easier, similar to how in the main games there's an easy shortcut combination for spells.

From what I've noticed, if you use a continue of any kind in Classic Mode, the game doesn't add nearly as much difficulty points as before and as a result it becomes impossible to reach 9.9 difficulty even when starting at 5.0. So it looks like you have to beat Classic Mode starting at 5.0 without dying in order to reach 9.9. Found out as much when trying it for myself, a few tickets may have been wasted...

Having just finished World of Light in Smash Ultimate I am now turning my attention to Kingdom Hearts III's looming release and the realisation that I should probably play the games in between II and III in order to get caught up on the story. Or rather, play two games and watch the cutscene movies for two others. So I started Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep with a mission to finish this game, get the true ending, watch Re-coded, play Dream Drop Distance and the KHIII prologue and watch unchained. All in just one month... it seems like an almost impossible task. That being said, it seems all the worlds in Birth By Sleep are quite short. I think I'm most likely nearly halfway through Terra's story as I've just got done with Olympus Coliseum having already done Enchanted Dominion, the Cinderella World, Dwarf Woodlands, Radiant Garden, Disney Town and now Olympus. I have something of a problem with the selections for Disney worlds in this game, I can see they were trying to cover every property but unfortunately I don't think Cinderella or Snow White make for very good locations for levels and Enchanted Dominion and Dwarf Woodlands seem too similar to each other given the castle locations. The Magic Mirror boss fight was awesome though. Enchanted Dominion I can't argue against. If it was going to be anywhere in the series, it had to be here given Maleficent has already become the "leader" of the Disney villains in the first game. Also, it has an amazing field theme:

20 hours is a solid length of time for any game to last. Especially since it's these kinds of games you can expect to reasonably finish within a month if you have a full time job. This is why I think RPGs are so unappealing to people with jobs, because they can take over 80 hours to finish and are clearly designed for people who have nothing better to do than sit around and play video games all day. And in the case of JRPGs they seem specifically catered towards otaku culture to absorb that specific time. Such games can take years to get around to completing. Then you have Dark Souls which combined with employment and a hard difficulty does not seem reasonably finishable within the space of a year especially if the job you do is something that can cause frustration. The last thing you want to do after coming home from a frustrating day at work is to play a game which makes you even more frustrated. That being said I was able to beat Xenoblade 2 within about two months of it's sprawling length in spite of also having to commit to work at the same time. I think the save anywhere feature helped in that regard, though I didn't touch most of the sidequests...

Nice try @Glen-i, that's why I specifically said OST, as in Original Soundtrack. I knew Smash Ultimate was going to have an amazing and comprehensive soundtrack but aside from the main theme and endless remixes of it I was not expecting many actual NEW tunes as it were, instead the sounds being pulled from other games. So I still stand by what I said in saying that Soul Calibur VI has my favourite original soundtrack of the year, but if we are counting soundtracks in general, regardless of whether the song has been featured before or not then Smash Ultimate definitely. That being said, there were a few more original compositions in the game than I thought there would be and one of these remixes especially stood out, along with from what I can tell is a brand new piece. EDIT: Retroactively editing mentions into posts doesn't work, oh well.

Personally it's been a poor year for new games. After buying so many last year there weren't so many this time around that I was interested in. Most of the games I played were ones that came out last year or were much older games, mostly of which were part of my back catalogue. In the end I only actually got 5 games that came out this year, maybe 6 if you count the time I downloaded Fortnie, so... 1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 2. Marvel's Spider-Man 3. Soulcalibur VI 4. Deltarune 5. Spyro: Reignited Trilogy 6. Fortnite (oooh) I realise I skipped many games that were lauded this year like God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 which won accolades but... game series which focus on blood and/or being a jerk to people don't appeal to me so I never was interested in the God of War or Rockstars games even though I recognise their impact on the industry. The funny thing is that I thought I would once grow into them because they were considered the "mature" games until I realised there was nothing really mature about gratiose violence The Switch in particular had a poor year although Nintendo did release Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze which is a fantastic game and I'm glad it got a platform in which more people can get a chance to play it. PS4 ended up being the console that I played the most on, what with Spider-Man, Soulcalibur VI, Spyro and A Hat in Time which ended up being the game that I enjoyed the most this year in spite of the fact that it came out last year. If anyone's holding out for it on the Switch, you've got something to look forward to, these developers have made a great game, albeit a bit short. 2019 is shaping up to be so good though off hand it's only Kingdom Hearts III, Team Sonic Racing and the new Pokemon game that's coming out next year that are the games I'm currently looking forward to. Luigi's Mansion 3 is a maybe and Metroid Prime 4 is something that I'm really looking forward to but not something I think will be out next year.

Oh boy, this boss was a doozy....

To be honest, the one thing I've found with going multi-platform is that games you might have bought before are no longer on your radar because you can play the best of what another console has to offer rather than some lesser known title on the system you already own. I got a PS2 nine years ago and began to buy retro PS2 games to fill the gaps in between major Nintendo releases, but then my brother acquired a PS3 and PS4 and that opened the door to play games on those systems, especially the PS4 since that was another avenue for current games, which my Wii U collection was severely lacking in. So, now I'm in a situation where I'm getting both PS4 AND Switch games and subsequently sticking to the franchises which stand out to me the most albeit with some interest in trying new ones out at some point. Anyway, it's been a while since my last update... and this might well be the last update I do for the 2018 gaming diary although I'll round it off in 2019 when I know what my final total is going to be, but after finishing Soul Calibur VI I didn't play much until I got Spyro Reignited Trilogy (PS4). Activision's enforcement of a digital download didn't put me off playing this game and I had great fun finally getting to play through these classics. I played the original Spyro on PS1 years ago but it was at a friend's house and I never owned it subsequently. I also never played Spyro 2 and 3 but finally got to play through all three games... Yes, that is every boss in the trilogy in the playlist above. After finishing Spyro 3 (Platinum Trophy for that game which is the first time I got that on PS4) I proceeded to start on Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PS4). My plan is to play this and Dream Drop Distance as story catchup for Kingdom Hearts III and I am challenging myself to do both games within the next two months and finish right on time for KHIII. I only got as far as the Cinderella world in Terra's storyline though, right after getting Cure. One ultimate obstacle is stopping that is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) and it's hefty World of Light campaign mode which is proving to be quite substantial in length, far more than I originally anticipated which was what made me think I could fit two KH games into the next month. I am quite some way through World of Light now actually, I think I may be getting towards the end but I don't really know for sure. I've heard there are multiple endings to the game and that there is a TRUE ending as it were... but not sure how I'm going to get that! 2018 has to be one of the most substantial years for beating games I've ever had. The full list of games beaten this year are: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Golden Sun Donkey Kong 64 Donkey Kong (Game Boy) Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins Burnout 2: Point of Impact Prince of Persia: Sands of Time A Hat In Time Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones Spider-Man 2 Viewtiful Joe The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Timesplitters 2 Marvel's Spider-Man Earthbound Soul Calibur VI Spyro The Dragon Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage Spyro: Year of the Dragon Games I've played this year but haven't beaten yet: Dark Souls Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

To be fair, when experimenting with that Soma Cruz spirit it appears that if your Primary Spirit is from the same series as your character then you automatically gain more team points than you would if it was from a different series. On Ike that Spirit is about 1000 Power weaker. Spirits are a system that I thought I would never understand and would just autopick every time but I'm finding myself discovering lots of different nuances about them as I play through World of Light and making my own calls as to what I think the strongest combinations are. It DOES make most of the fights extremely quick though...

What's everyone's strongest Spirit Teams so far? I've managed to get one over 17,000 in Team Power with this setup on Simon Belmont:

Given how long it's been since Kingdom Hearts III was announced and the constant jokes about how the game was going to be "always in development" or something it seems somewhat inevitable that the game got leaked early...

Oh yeah, I've also been spending time with this game's snapshot mode. I've tried to be clever but I often churn out lame ideas so if you find any of these bad I'm sorry: (After realising the Belmonts had a slide kick move I had to do this one...) I've also been recreating parts from popular anime... Films aren't safe either: I'll just leave the rest of these here: (Kudos to anyone who gets this reference)

Wait... I'm nowhere near done? Just unlocked both routes to Galeem and cleared up most of the Spirit Board, apart from a few spirits like that insanely difficult Pauline fight. Been using Simon Belmont ever since finding him, so pretty much the entire second half of the map. I've opened up the path to Galeem on both sides now and will do him at the next opportunity available.

The one song that keeps getting stuck in my head, mainly because of cheesiness, is this F-Zero song: Oh yeah, just beat Giga Bowser and about halfway through World of Light now. At least I think so anyway because it looks like you have to defeat three major bosses before you can challenge Galeem That wall of light down the middle of the map has finally come down and I have now unlocked Simon Belmont so I have a character I am somewhat familiar with to play the second half with. Hopefully Ike is somewhere in this second half of the map. I can see where the third major boss battle is now too.

Made a fair amount of progress on World of Light. Found my first major boss in the mode, fought and defeated it. In my next play session I adjusted my strategy based on what people were saying here. I used to Autopick spirits until I got the highest levelled one as shown in the video above but I didn't quite notice the star ratings until now. So I'm focusing on levelling up my 3* spirits until they reach higher levels and then picking based on type advantages which I am finally properly familiar with. I loved the Shedinja fight. How the opponent is mostly invincible... but only has 1HP. If someone had played every game which the source material came from then they would absolutely love this mode but about half of the references in the single player get lost on me. Some really hard spirit fights have shown up like the Viridi fight in which you have to defeat her before the Reset Bomb explodes which would be fine if she wasn't a 4* spirit with really high stats and an annoying other character. I'm using Luke Skywalker/Mii Swordfighter in my matches now after switching from Marth. Depending on who you main in the game it could take a very long time to find your characters of choice and I am no closer to finding anyone I'm competent with (namely Roy, Ike, Bayonetta, Chrom, Bowser Jr. and maybe Cloud, Simon, Richter and Ridley) bar the Mii. Ike overall is the character I want to find the most and definitely before I finish the game. I have unlocked most of the map though there's a massive portion on the right that's blocked by a wall of light that I can't pass. I can also confirm that being able to play local multiplayer on the go is a really good feature to have for a Smash Bros game... but the only caveat is that the screen size is rather small. If you're OK with it then that's great but after a 4 player match with my friends one of them dropped out due to not liking how small the screen was (unless that was just an excuse for coming last...). I managed to get hit by a Fake Final Smash ball after delivering the final blow... just after explaining to my friends how there was a Fake Final Smash Ball in the game now. Oh yeah, I love some of the images they have in the Challenges section

I have officially unlocked all of the characters. Chrom was the hardest to unlock, I died three times before finally beating him.

People are extremely salty over SonicFox winning Best eSports Player... Furries are people too you know. You can question his taste but you can't question his track record and how competitive he is across multiple different fighting games.

Just catching up. Unsurprisingly this thread moves fast... Joker from Persona 5 being in Smash takes on a new dimension when you realise that he's voice by Xander Mobus. So, the announcer gets to announce himself! Been playing World of Light but my main thing has been trying to unlock all the characters, I want to get all 74 characters unlocked asap before I take the game to some friends. I also decided to record my attempts to unlock the brand new characters: I've made a special custom ruleset called "Unlock Fighters Mode" which is essentially a one stock mode. After each unlocked fighter I reset the game and do it again and it immediately comes up with the next fighter. Using this method I have unlocked about 90% of the roster. I've also imported my Mii Fighter collection over from Smash Wii U and 3DS. Well, as much of which I wanted to bring over plus a few new ones: Also been checking out the new Palutena's Guidence and there are some amazing quotes in here: Snake wasn't so lucky however... Taking time off the game for now, I've got a new job starting soon which I have to prepare for, rotten timing that the new Smash Bros game happens to come out right before to disrupt such preperation.

Sadly I might not get to play it until tomorrow due to my pre-order not due until then.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/345408707

Anyone watch the Nintendo UK stream where the UK community managers of Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, Bandai Namco, Square Enix and Konami were all playing against each other? It's worth a watch if only for the knockout tournament with all the Fake Smash Balls.

I think the first priority I'll be doing is unlocking all the characters. After all, you start out with only 8 of a 74 character roster and I presume you unlock them all in the official order as listed on the site. I hope it's very easy to unlock the characters because my mains from previous games are all unlockables this time around (I started with Melee).

Updated my Custom Character showcase, made Sora and Riku in Kingdom Hearts 3 designs and Susie from Deltarune. So, that video I posted earlier is now out of date and needs updating: Some of the guys got edited since last time slightly so I felt they were showing off again, the Incineroar was something that got revised after the head was too big...

I'm kind of looking forward more to the announcements than who is actually going to win... Mortal Kombat XI and Crash Team Racing Remastered look dead certain to be remastered, there's also a Nintendo presence at the awards so it's either Smash DLC (most likely) or if the rumours are to be believed a new trailer for Metroid Prime 4.

Now officially completed the Spyro Trilogy. Although hardly flawlessly as this race clip shows: But yeah, the entire trilogy has finished and here are all my attempts at the boss battles from all three games: