dauvin

Well, I think it would be interesting to hear some SRPG (or just gaming in general) sob stories. Here is mine:

Playing Front Mission 4, it's pretty fun, but not as good as 3. Anyways, its a tough battle with a Boss character (who naturally has like 3x as many hps). There are about 12 enemies in this map, and you only have 5 characters of your own. I kill the boss and 7, only losing 1 of my own (by now, an hour or so has passed...)

I repair all my dudes and head for the remaining 5, who just so happen to be guys with rockets and bazookas. So they give me a pounding even before I can really get in there and do some damage; I lose 1 just getting close. I take out 2, and they take out 2.

Its 3 on 1. My one guy is the repair guy, so he can 'live forever,' but I do have to worry about too much damage being done in one turn. The 3 guys left are a shot gunner, a missle guy (who had just run out) and a bazooka guy, who had only 2 rounds left. I run like a chicken repairing myself and counterattacking. I kill the shotgunner and the missle guy.

I go YAY, only one guy left, and hes outta ammo! Im at about full health, no sweat, I think. I go to select attack in the menu...its not there. I had run outta ammo, with the smg! AAAAAAGHGGHHHH. This was like 2 hours + pretty much wasted. So needless to say I invented some damn cool obscenities, threw the controler to the floor, and didn't play the game for the rest of the day.

(side Question to anyone who played FM3; could you run out of ammo with the guns? I know the missles did, but I dont recal the smgs and shotties doing so).

Rabid Bunny

Well that sucks, you should always have some sort of melee weapon on hand or carry extra ammo on you.

And no, guns could not run out of ammo in FM3. Only the missiles/grenades had ammo counts.

BigGov

I just had a pretty bad one.

I'm playing Final Fantasy X, and I'm at Spoiler: Braska's Last Aeon/Jecht and my characters are fairly weak as I've just been running through the game as fast as I can. I come in with all the Aeons in overdrive, all my characters in overdrive, and I just go all out from the start using all my character's overdrives. Well, I wasn't thinking this through well enough because while I used Yuna's overdrive last with the Magus sisters, their overdrive did about 15,000 damage more than needed. So I need to inflict 120,000 pretty fast because my guys can't take any punishment. I summon every single Aeon I have, all with overdrives except Yojimbo, and the Magus sisters, just going down the line. Valefor 20,000 damage, Ifrit 9,999, Ixion 9,999, Shiva 13,000, Bahemut 15,000, Anima 30,000. It's in the range of about 100,000 and I'm looking pretty good. So I call Yojimbo in, pay him one gil and he does about 7,000 damage. I can feel the victory coming. Yojimbo dodges the next two attacks and his overdrive guage is full. I need a 9,999 so bad right now so I just give him about 50,000 gil and as most FFX players can guess, he attacks with his dog which does about 3,000 damage. Jecht gets an overdrive and kills Yojimbo in one hit, so I'm left with the Magus sisters who I'm saving until I get another overdrive with Yuna because two have 1 hp left, even though Sandy (the one with Razzia and does most of the damage) still has about 2,000 hp left. I figure I'm fine. He has about 20,000 hp left, no problem. Until he did two sword strikes in a row.....I almost flipped out, but I kept myself composed. Then again, I've had a boss kill my entire group with 5 hp left before, so I'm used to this kind of bullshit.

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One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"

whocarz

What is an SRPG? Is that a Japanese RPG? I have to say I strongly dislike all those FF style games. All you do is run around in a maze (even if it's suppose to look like it's outside), read a long, blowhard story, and fight the same style of battle over and over and over again. I guess since I grew up playing western stlye RPGs that I expect a little more, erm, variety and non-linearity from my RPG. I also have to say I'm sick of the anime style. It was a novelty in the beginning, but now it's just so tired. Big eyes, small mouth, unnatural hair style/color. It all looks the same. Oh, let's not forget the female characters with gigantic breasts, and the tear drop thing. Okay, enough of my ranting.

My most recent sob story (well stories, really) come from Medieval: Total War (I really talk about this game a lot, don't I?). Whenever I'm fighting a battle, and the morale of my men breaks and they begin a mass rout infuriates me. In my mind I curse them, call them cowards, and hit the rally button, most of the time to no avail. I watch as they are chased down and captured. Then, after the battle, the computer trys to ransom them back to me. Ha! Keep them! I have no use for yellow bellies!

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If there exists anything mightier than destiny, then it is the courage to face destiny unflinchingly. -Geibel

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. -Marcus Aurelius

Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever? -GySgt. Daniel J. "Dan" Daly

Lokus

Your FFX story reminds me of the hell I went through in that game trying to get everyone's ultimate weapons. See, I usually try and get the most out of my rpg's, I do every side quest (at least within reason, otherwise I'd still be playing Baldur's Gate), get all the best weapons, etc. However, getting the ultimate weapons in FFX had you doing the most ridiculous things ever. Dodging 200 lightning bolts in a row was horribly, I got to 178 then mistimed the button press and got hit. I almost broke the controller. Likewise, having to get 0 seconds or less in that fucking chocobo had me pulling my hair out. I sat there for hours doing that damn race over and over until I finally did it, managed to dodge the birds and get most of the balloons whilst shutting out the other rider. Afterwards, I thought I'd puke if I ever rode a chocobo again. I gave up trying to get everyone's ultimate weapon, just wasn't worth it. Otherwise it was a fun game.

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The black wind howls...

Gabbyness

Heavens to Betsy, the quest for the ultimate weapons. By the time you get even a few of them, everyone's so powered up the game isn't fun anymore.

Apokx

I got Wakka's,Tidus' Yuna's and even LuLu's.It was a fucking bitch to get,but I felt pretty good when I finished Lulu's.

dauvin

Whocarz, SPRG is strategy RPG, ala Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, La Pucelle... but you probably wouldn't like them since they are either FF games and/or anime style.

Imho, american or western style rpgs (I guess you mean things like morrowind and neverwinter?) seem too devoid of spirit, with one notable exception being KotOR, which was great.

But since you brought up MTW, I got a good one for that:

I had conquered like 80% of the world, with only the area around Germany left. I was in the process of cleaning up the rebellions in England since I had just conquered it. Everything is going great, and it looks like nothing can stop me. I hit end turn, and then all hell literally breaks loose. Something like 60 coutries all rebelled on my simultaneously! In addition to just about every faction reappearing, the golden hoarde appeared with about 20K troops!

I about shiat myself, because no matter what i did this kept happening. I later learned that if your king gets separated on an island, like say britain when its revolting, hes cut off and loyalty drops significantly... But it was kinda fun showing my friend who also played this mass revolt, as we'd both never seen anything like it in the countless hours we had played the game.

whocarz

I use to get that all the time. It's actually a hardcoded event in the game. When you get close to conquering the whole map, almost all of the provinces will revolt. The best way to make sure this doesn't happen is to carefully monitor provincial loyalty. When you have conquered much of the map and are the big dog in town, you tend to get careless and don't pay attention to those things.

On that note, I have another sob story involving M:TW. Currently, I'm playing as the Byzantines, and have conquered all of the Middle East/Turkey, North Africa, Southern Russia, The Balkans, Italian Penninsula (except the Papal States), and Eastern Europe. At one point I was at war with 9 out of 20 factions, and still managed to conquer territory. Anyway, I had taken western North Africa from the Spanish about 50 years ago, and had four armies hanging out there, yet I hadn't built my fleet up enough, so they were isolated. I was currently expanding into Russia and Hungary and wasn't paying attention to N. Africa, so I didn't notice the large amount of Spanish bishops and emissaries gathering in those territories, nor did I notice the Spanish fleet sitting off the coast. Then the bastards invaded with overwhelming force. They had three to one odds, and basically annihilated my forces. The next year, they sieged my castles. I played out two of the three sieges. In Tunisia I had built a Castle, and 150 men had escaped inside. The Spanish had something on the order of 1200-1500 men. My General was a 6 star, and all 150 men were tough veterans with high valor. I stuck all my men but the horse archers inside the inner keep walls and waited. The Spanish only had a ballista, which I had the horse archers destroy. So they had to send men up to break down the walls, and this cost them dearly thanks to the arrow towers. Then, they sent a unit of feudal sergeants to break down the inner wall gatehouse, and the hot oil and my archers killed most of them. Once the gatehouse was destroyed, they sent in their men. I had a unit of 22 byzantine infantry with 6 valor, and a couple urban militia units hold them off at the gate. It was a massacre. At the end of the battle, all 150 of my men were either dead or captured (mostly dead), yet they took 552 Spanish with them. I'd estimate the castle defenses claimed another 300-500. There was a carpet of Spanish bodies underneath the inner wall gatehouse, almost like a welcome mat. I have to say, the feeling of pride for my men and sorrow for their loss was pretty overwhelming. They fought like lions. But their deaths were not in vain, as I assembled a huge force and retook all my lands, and pushed the Spanish back out of North Africa. Over 7000 men from both sides died in the final battle.

I love this game!

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If there exists anything mightier than destiny, then it is the courage to face destiny unflinchingly. -Geibel

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. -Marcus Aurelius

Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever? -GySgt. Daniel J. "Dan" Daly

dauvin

Nice; I never have a problem with "gnats", bishops ,and emmisaries (and princesses) because right after i get 2 or 3 troop production provinces up, i get two whose only purpose are: priests 1st, then an endless wave of assassins. I swear to you the comp literally gives up and stops sending things into my territories, and with a 4 star assassin you have a fighting chance of actually killing a king (I killed the Pope, mua hahaha)

ANd to keep it on topic: I was playing as the byzantines (again, since I havent played in a while) and I had 99% of the world conquered, only thing left was Malta and the siscilians. The golden horde appears, all the damn way over in Russia, as usual, but ALL of my armies are in western Europe, as thats the last thing I conquered. It wasnt too bad, tho, as I had control over the seas for decades, and got the bulk of my forces within 2 provinces, and I had upgraded the castles and keeps in the area so they could withstanda siege for a few years.

I totally wipe out the main group of the Golden Horde. It was about 9k, but I bribed a whole army and jumped in with about 80% of my total forces and showed them who was boss. All that was left was a secondary force that had appeared, oddly enough, all the way down in the province to the right of Trebizond. I had to kind of scramble to get my forces down there to limit the damage, and somehow in all the suffling of forces of my own and the enemies, my King is caught with his pants down, and captured. At this point, I get 60 rebellions.

Pretty much all the major factions re-emerge, and Im left with pretty much the provinces I started with, the lower half of the Russian provinces, and all the provinces near the sinai.

I was ONE small measly little island away from winning, and bam, back where I started (but with 700,000 florins and one teched up army). So I decided to have a little fun, and I razed all the buildings in the revolting provinces and drew back my troops. Have fun with nothing, I thought. It took really no time at all to get pretty much everything but central europe, especially because oddly enough, about 14 provinces that had rebels in them decided to join me all at once. With the extra ~10k troops, I took back the world in no time flat.

Oh, and did I mention that the Golden Horde RE-EMERGED about 10 years after I put it down? That was a kick in the teeth.

Ace_O_Spades

Oh god... any time in the countless games ive played where i work and i work to get ahead and i forget to save, then i die

It usually spells the end of me playing that game... It happened in Sacred and I still havent picked it up again after losing ~3 hours of gameplay.

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Feh.