Attractive people love Mac's playthrough videos ~ Reliable Internet Personality

release date for the next ninja gaiden video when is it going to drop i need to know

The Lucca flashback and campfire scene with Kid is really cool and you feel a genuine passion to what Kid is saying. None of it feels forced or out of place.

Everyone except Serge survived the fight against the Mini Fire Dragon.

Everyone survived the fight against the Dragoons, which I worked very strategically with Serge targeting Marcy, Glenn targeting Zoah, and Poshul targeting Karsh. I just noticed that Poshul still has his Bone Glove, which is his default weapon with no upgrade. So only his 2nd and 3rd level attacks do any worthwhile damage. He did, however, come up huge in killing Marcy when she was close to death because she had been focusing on Serge exclusively the entire fight.

I love the cut scene (re) introducing Fort Dragonia, with little snippets of the Serge/Kid stabbing. Great foreshadowing. If I made a movie about this game, I would have it so Serge and party come out of the cave from Mt. Pyre, and then Serge will wince as the camera pans out and around Fort Dragonia as clips of the stabby scene interject. Awesome.
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We are the ZSB and F*** YOU!!!
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If you made a Cross movie, would Serge be a mute? Do they even make games anymore with silent protagonists? The Zelda series, I guess, but the new generation of gamers whines about that and demands voice acting, though I hope the series never goes in that direction. With games becoming more and more cinematic and movie-like, I guess silent protagonists just don't work anymore. Perhaps that's part of why SquareEnix won't release another Chrono game, as newer gamers wouldn't be open to a new RPG without voice acting and fans would freak if the protagonist had a voice; I suppose that the complicated narrative of the Chrono series also makes it pretty impossible for a new title to appeal to this generation of gamers, more than a decade after the last game in the series.

I had to think hard about where I left off, 'cause after another crappy day I did a lot of drinking before playing Chrono Cross. I picked up Radius and eventually Norris into my party, though I decided to keep Radius in my party because he had better starting stats than Norris in almost every category. It occurred to me here that it's funny how the world where Serge is dead is the one that's better off. In the Home World, the entire Viper family and all of the Dragoons are frozen forever inside the Dead Sea, Viper Manor has been destroyed, Termina is under occupation by the Porre army, Marbule is a vacant island filled with monster ghosts, and Fargo has lost all will to live and enjoy life and is cheating Demi-Humans with fixed casino games. Thanks a lot, Serge.

But if anything above fills you in, I've gone through the majority of the Zelbess scenario. Another kickass song:

It's kind of funny that there's an actual magic show on the ship, performed by Sneff (who's a surprisingly powerful character, and I'd consider having him in my party if Glenn disappoints me--as he apparently has a double-tech with Guile, too). In a world where I can summon a deluge out of my ass and command giant salamanders, you'd think that making a woman levitate would be a total bore. Where the ****'s MY magic show, eh?!

But going through the motions to meet the Sage is fun, such as being turned into a cat and wandering around the ship. The melodrama between Fargo/Irenes/Nikki/Marcy is a bit thick and comes off a little cheesy at times, but at the very least it gets through it quickly instead of drawing things out. I didn't expect that you had to fight the Sage to get his help, and his White Innate made the battle really tough. Lynx!Serge fell very swiftly, and though I had a second Revive that I put on Harle, he fell again not long after he was resurrected. I almost didn't make it out of this fight, but I'm still going strong and haven't had any game overs yet.
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Attractive people love Mac's playthrough videos ~ Reliable Internet Personality
http://www.youtube.com/user/MacDaddyMike

Ninja Gaiden III (NES) - Part 3

This one ran a little long, but there's definitely only going to be one more part after this, so hopefully it'll be a little shorter.

I've been thinking about the mute thing, and I don't think I would make him a mute in a motion picture. However, I would keep his dialogue to a minimum. There are too many moments when he's asked a question, and then given a monologue by the questioner. He's only silent to the player, in my opinion, he still interacts and speaks with the characters in the game. He would have to be played by a very talented actor who can convey the correct emotions through nonverbal expression, as I feel like in a movie that would be the crux of his character. But I don't think a full length movie with a main character who doesn't speak at all would work. I mean, maybe with some trial and error you can find the correct chemistry, but you can't make 10 movies and experiment with different ways of doing it.

I'm gonna have to beef up my main man as well, 'cause Lynx!Serge is doing crappy lately. After agreeing to help Nikki I was ready for the Marbule show to happen only to realize that that...doesn't happen for a long long time. I ran around Zelbess for a while trying to talk to whoever I can to get Fargo to change his mind, but he just kept telling me to get off his boat. Eventually I clued in and took his advice, using my Fiddler Crab to open the way to Death's Door.

I remember how much of a punch to the mind it was to hear Radius describe the Masamune as an "evil sword" when you first see it. I'm all like "wait wut? how come the masamune is bad? when did this happen?!", but the reversal of a key item in Trigger from a holy sword to a dark one is all sorts of mystifying. I've heard people who didn't like Cross' story say that they didn't like how everything about Trigger got "darkened", such as how the hopeful ending of CT gets turned into the bleakness of The Dead Sea, the Masamune's turn, the deaths of major characters, etc.--but if that's the case, aren't you just hating on the story because of pure nostalgia? Why can't you just appreciate the story for what it is? I wasn't happy with some of the character developments in the Tales of Symphonia sequel (why the hell aren't Zelos and Sheena banging each other?), but I still really enjoyed the story and it in no way ruined the first game for me--'cause that'd be downright childish.

But I digress, I guess. Before getting anywhere you need to go through the Isle of the Damned, and I expected it to be a longer dungeon than it was but somehow picked the right route off the bat, only having to fight one enemy on the way to the boss. The cutscene showing Radius kill Garai because of the Masamune's influence was at once disturbing and irritating, 'cause it only leads you to be more interested in what the hell has happened to the Masamune between Trigger and now.

And then there's Garai. **** this guy. It's a badass fight, but goddamn was it tough. He targetted Lynx every turn he had while he was still standing, and after knocking him out and having Harle revive him, he just knocked him out again. I even tried playing super defensively, starting the round by having Harle use her lvl 5 tech that raises party defense, using LoRes to lower Garai's defense, and using Weaken to lower Garai's offense...and he was STILL doing insane damage to everyone. Before long Radius was also on the ground, and fortunately Harle is crazy awesome 'cause she was able to win the rest of the fight all by herself, doing crazy damage with her physical attack and pretty decent magic damage as well.

And now I've entered The Dead Sea, looking gorgeous with the still waves, and I got my first game over. It was against the first enemy I fought in here, the Highwayman (Johnny?), who doesn't even get the luxury of having boss music when you fight him. He inflicted blind status on my party which made damage output and element building incredibly difficult, and despite being Black Innate he crippled Lynx in only a couple of hits. Then he wiped out the others. I got him down to critical with Harle, but she was still blinded and couldn't build up for any more attacks before Highwayman finished her.

Damn.
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Mac plays the games he thought he knew (Current: Chrono Cross (PS) and Ninja Gaiden 3 (NES)):
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/548-zsb/61122424

The yellow path went swimmingly--only two bats to avoid and no boss. Then I went the blue route where you have to fight the blob. He really wrecked my s*** on the first fight, so I equipped everyone with red elements and went at him again...with more or less the same result. It was so severe that I wondered if I would have to go back to Termina and upgrade all my equipment and get more elements. I decided to do the rest of the Fort and see how the enemies treated me.

The regular enemies were no problem and I got all the items, then I fought the Robot guy who does the chokeslam. He killed me the first time I fought him, but I also gave him some business so I equipped Poshul with mostly Electrobolts and had another go. I noticed that whenever you cast a yellow element on him, he immediately responds with a HealAll. My Electrobolts were doing about 140, his heal spell was doing 70, so I was doing a net of 70 damage on him. The good thing is that this pretty much slowed him down and prevented him from attacking me. So I rinse and repeated this for a good while until I began having to hit him with powerful spells like Luminaire and Meteorite. He killed Glenn once but i managed to get him revived. This fight was a grind, but I got through it with everyone alive.

One more path and it was the blob. My party is a little stronger now due to a couple fights but he beat me so bad the first two times I was worried. Again, I equipped everyone with as many red elements as I had (I didn't have as much red as I had yellow for the previous fight). I also only used the first attack with the highest percentage of hitting, because all of the damage was within the 5-7 range no matter what type of power attack you use, so why risk not hitting? I needed to build my ability to use elements as much as possible.

I did better on my third try, but I really couldn't keep up with his Iceberg attack, which did 130 to EVERYONE. Serge's HP is only 165, so I had to stay diligent with healing. Glenn had two HealAlls, Poshul had one, and Serge had a RecoverAll. I lost two more times. Frustrated, I gave it one more go...and won! With everyone alive! YEEEEAH BOOOY!

It was the toughest fight of the game by far, thus far.

Visually, I think The Dead Sea is my favorite area of the game, as it really does look like something out of your nightmares, as Harle puts it. Crashing waves frozen in place, twisted metal and ghoulish shapes wandering about a future displaced. *shudder*

In the second area or "Lab" that you go through, Norris shows up in a room to deal with electronics to turn on a screen, and much as in Trigger the first thing you see when the screen is turned on is the shape of Lavos. When you arrive at the Tower of Geddon (oh I get it, like ArmaGeddon, right?), there's a trainstation that can lead to Arris Dome, so you know you're somewhere familiar but it looks nothing like how it's supposed to.

The enemies here are annoying and I avoided them like the plague. The mannequins are creepy-looking and take forever to fight, 'cause they counterattack physicals and move very very slowly, so after taking out the first batch I knew to stay away. Then there are the ghostly girls in the ballroom dresses who introduce themselves at the start of the fight and telegraph their attacks. You're supposed to lay down traps to steal their elements away from them, but it's more than likely that they'll all get to attack first and you'll have your characters at critical health before you even get a turn. I recommend avoiding these girls unless you're feeling really lucky (err, nevermind).

Having the Tower of Geddon essentially being a shopping mall (or at least part of one melded into some other buildings) makes it that much more uncanny, bringing something common in our world into this distorted reality of the game's world. Between the real world imagery, the creepy enemies, the ghost children, and the impossible landscapes...well, you can just tell that something terrible happened here well before you find the time-frozen bodies of most of the main characters of the game.
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Mac plays the games he thought he knew (Current: Chrono Cross (PS) and Ninja Gaiden 3 (NES)):
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/548-zsb/61122424

I remember how shocking this moment was when I first came to it. Not only is it something to be berated by the heroes of Trigger, but the entire time they were blaming me for ruining their future I thought it was because I was in the body of Lynx, but then they call you by name and it just hits you, you know? How is this my fault?

And then we meet Miguel. He vaguely fills you in on where you are, but it enlightens about as much as it confuses, though the explanation that The Dead Sea is a result of futures that never came to be is an interesting one. For every choice made, you're destroying the futures of the choices that you didn't make. If that's the case, should I take what the ghost children said to heart, or just ignore them as Miguel suggested, as they are but "distant echoes from ones far gone"?

I was both anticipating and dreading this moment, because I know what it means. Mainly, it means a ton of Game Overs. A ton. It doesn't help that he's a White Innate and your two best characters are Black Innate--but that doesn't matter anyway, because he uses TurnBlack before his devastating HolyDragonSword anyway, and it killed Radius at full HP, so using anyone of any Innate color wouldn't make a difference. I got off to a rough start by being strategic, oddly enough, as I thought it'd help me if I just wailed on him physically for a while 'cause I knew his physical attack was weak, so I used SealAll (which locks EVERYONE'S techs for a while). Well....it missed. Oh, it didn't miss my guys, no, they had their elements locked--but Miguel kept his. So he just wailed and wailed on my guys and I could do nothing about it. Man this was a rough start and a quick Game Over.

The fight is probably the most memorable in the game, and one that I still see brought up in "Most Difficult Boss Battle" topics and the like. Aside from its difficulty, it has an absolutely gorgeous backdrop, fighting by sunset near the ruined Nadia's Bell, and the music and setup for the battle make it feel somewhat tragic, though whether it's tragic because you have to kill your father's friend to restore the distortion or tragic because he keeps whoopin' your ass, that's hard to say.
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Mac plays the games he thought he knew (Current: Chrono Cross (PS) and Ninja Gaiden 3 (NES)):
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/548-zsb/61122424

The FMV that showed Lynx becoming Serge was creepy as hell when Serge's face went evil. The stabbing scene is so surreal. What made it even more intense than it already was is that Kid kind of grasps on to Serge and looks at him while the knife is in her. That gave me chills. Then it shows what it looks like from her angle and that adds to the feeling. It's so much raw emotion packed into a short time. Wow. What a good job they did with this.

I have a question, Mac. Lynx says that when Serge died ten years ago, a part of him also died. What does exactly does he mean? Does he mean Serge's dying prevented him from getting the Frozen Flame, and as a result he "died?" As in, died inside? He says that denying him is the same as erasing Serge's very existence. I'm a bit confused on this.

Harle's reality speech was unnerving. It brings up some interesting issues. What exactly makes you, you? Are you you because you inhabit your body? What if your soul was removed and put into somebody else the same way Serge and Lynx switched? Harle says, paraphrased: "If everybody except you says you are Lynx, then you must be Lynx." It's a very Nietzschean way to look at it. Reality is defined by what everybody says, and nothing else.