The more I play this game, the more I love it. The dialogue is so great. Viridi ranting about the Komayto/Metroid thing. Hilarious. And the description for the Komayto Idol:

"While this creature resembles a certain alien life-form, the last Komaytos are not in captivity and Skyworld is not at peace."

Priceless.

Also had an idea when I was posting in the movie club thread....one of the weapons in this game should have been a Power Glove. Then Pit could have gone on about how 'bad' it is. That would have been awesome .

@Shadowlink I do like how viridi insinuates that two games happen to have the same looking creature the two different games and how they are ot metroid copies.

VofEscaflowne said:

And the power is Mega Laser They should've called it the Shoop da Whoop power up instead!

And I'm at 97.8% now... so slooooow!

Well done!

10 hr 46 min, 53.7% completed, looks like I'm only scratching the surface so far, haha. I'm currently at ch. 16 in the story mode. It's getting really intense, and the flight sections are simply spectacular! The visuals during these scenes are epic, and it's extremely harrowing when Pit gets a sudden boost in speed and careens (almost wrecklessly) through tight corridors when he ventures to that small location off in the distance.

I strive to go for intensity 6.5 but I usually die once or twice and drop down to the 5 or 4 range. There are some very rough spots where I quickly get decimated. I especially hate the Mimicuties! I can't avoid their attacks with their powerful kicking legs.

And I still need to get better at handling the Exo Tank, it just feels so awkward trying to get them going in the direction I want, or when I'm fighting an enemy right next to me. Overall I just need to get better at dodging, especially on ground. It seems like my timing is always a bit off.

I love my Tiger Claws (value 301) but have also been giving the Bomber Arm (value 277) a try and found them pretty awesome. My Hewdraw Club (value 289) is great but not so useful on particular solo missions when flying enemies are out of reach of it s limited range (and the charged range shot is slow to build up). I'm still trying to perfect dash shots as they are so very useful.

Then I try to go back and beat ch. 7 on intensity 6.5 but die on the last boss, reducing the intensity again. It seems kind of weird that I have to beat the higher difficulties to get the better weapons, but I need get better weapons in order to do so. Hhmmm... It's probably lack of skills! Well, I might need to mess some more with the weapon fusion stuff, and in the end, If all else fails, I can also simply grind a bit more for hearts and purchase that expensive stuff. I guess that stuff's there for the weaker players like me, heh.

Mimicuties are definitely a bitch to defeat at times. What helps is if you get a weapon with a confuse or paralyze modifier (Shock Orbitars have paralyze naturally even if it doesn't show up in the modifier list and are quite good) so that it gives you that extra time to escape once the status effect kicks in.

Try to get a good pair of Artillery Claws if you can. They help out tremendously with the flying sections as they let you move around much faster so avoiding shots is quite easy by simply moving around in circles. Their range, especially when doing a dash charged attack, are quite useful compared to the Tiger Claws so it should help with the on foot sections as well. Getting "in-peril auto dodge" can also be a life saver if you come across it or just + to speed to give you even more of that ability to quickly move around the level. Once I got a good pair with confusion on them, I blasted through levels at intensity 9.0 without much trouble. It's crazy what a difference a good weapon will make!

Oh and that Exo Tank is very awkward to control. If there's anything in this game I hate control wise, it's that! But I've gotten used to it by now and thankfully there's really no area in the game that requires you to really master them.

Helpful as always, @VofEscaflowne, thanks!

So here's what my Artillery Claws look like right now:

Ranged: 3 star
Melee: 0 star
Value: 239

Overall defense +2
Health +1
Burning +3
Walking speed +1
Melee dash attack +4

Not my best weapon, obviously, so I should be on the lookout for a better version of this weapon, for sure.

I've been enjoying my Eyetrack Orbitars for their rapid fire, decent built-in homing, and strong charge shots. Also, they have +3 evasion and +3 in-peril auto dodge, which are great in a pinch.

Have you guys had any luck with clubs in the solo campaign? They can be a lot of high-risk/high-reward fun in multi, but I haven't found one I liked in single player, yet.

Not bad stats though I'd definitely try to get either paralyze or confusion (prefer confusion though) and replace the walking speed with just plain speed instead as if affects both walking and running speed. I'd also worry more about the ranged attack as opposed to melee. While melee is good for certain monsters, you won't find yourself wanting to get in close for combat. But if you get a good pair with both at high stats, of course that's even better! But it's quite hard to come by at low values...

EDIT: @kriswright

I do like the Babel Club. The dash charge attack on that thing is insane! Summons a giant tornado which does an upwards of 500 damage for me. You could also make sure to equip a quick charge up power so that you can quickly take out groups of enemies/bosses with it.

That's sort of what I've done with the Skyscraper Club, but I'm only getting half of that damage. And I thought I was doing pretty rad!

Yeah I was pretty shocked when I saw how much damage that thing does. Plus doing a backwards dash charge attack summons a tornado that remains in place with what seems like quite a lot of damage to all enemies within the surrounding area. The stand charge shot travels fast and packs quite the punch too, plus of course it travels through walls

The idea club for me would be for it to have 6 stars ranged attack, 3 or higher melee, +4 speed, + to confusion, + to dash melee. Now that would be hard to come by I'm sure

Since I went staff, clubs are just too slow to fire with bad range, and I really miss the un-charged range shots.

VofEscaflowne said:

It's crazy what a difference a good weapon will make!

I definitely agree that having a good weapon makes all the difference.

I spent quite some time yesterday just messing around with weapon fusion, especially since I have so many weapons to experiment with. It's really cool to fuse multiple times and see the effects on modifiers and such. It's like a whole other game unto itself!

In the end, I am finding my Artillery Claws to be very useful for single player. I'm not sure they will hold up on intensity 8 or 9, but 6 and 7's are quite doable!

@kriswright

I haven't found a Club yet, personally, that is very effective for single player. There are just too many times, especially in the flight section, where you have too many enemies outside your range of attack, and waiting for a charge shot is usually too long of a wait to clear out the hordes. Then again, I don't think I have the Skyscraper Club or Babel Club.

@anon_mastermind

I need to try out staff myself. So many weapons! This game's replay value is phenomenal.

@roykoopa64

What's actually neat about the Babel Club is that even if you attack without a charged shot during the flight sections, it'll still send out a gust of wind so it can be useful for taking out ranged enemies. Its range is still not as big as other weapon types of course but it's definitely better than nothing and could help out for those difficult treasure hunts.

Eurgh. I think the L-button on my 3DS is broken. I thought it was playing up earlier in the week, I seemed to stop firing here and there. Now I can't shoot at all, unless I activate autofire. Awful.

I don't want to have to get it repaired .

@Shadowlink You could make it shoot with another button...

@Davoid

Not really. I had a look at the control settings and unless I switch movement or aiming to the face buttons (which is completely unplayable for me), I don't have another buttong I can hit easily. Maybe this is karma for my making fun of lefty freaks .

And even Autofire mode has issues, I can't melee with autofire.

This sucks. It's the first time I've had to get a Nintendo cosole repaired

I've never had trouble with the L/R buttons on Nintendo handhelds but they really feel cheap on the 3DS. Mine's all squeaky and the R feels kind of strange/loose so hopefully they at least last until the system revision.

Finally got back to playing this game, nearly three weeks later. Honestly, I kind of dread getting my 3DS out for this one, the only semi-comfortable way for me to play it is to put it on my tiny computer desk and put a towel down for my wrist (the edge of the desk is dang sharp, I should sand it down or something). Even then, I think I'm gripping the stylus a bit too tight, because my hand cramps up a little after a single chapter. I dunno. This game is like the opposite of portable. Not to sound like a broken record, but I really wish it was a Wii game instead. Ironically I'd feel a lot less shackled if I were using Wiimote/nunchuk.

And the weapon/loot stuff bums me out for some reason. Maybe I just don't understand it. What the hell do the stars mean for ranged and melee? Does value correlate to attack strength at all? I wish they gave more detail on each weapon at the select screen, it seems like the only way I can compare weapons is to take them into the firing range and make note of how much damage they do, which feels like a chore. I get that they're all pretty unique in how they work, and most seem capable of getting the job done, but the whole thing just feels needlessly time-consuming.

All that said, I have fun when I get into it, and even if I don't like certain aspects of the game, I do appreciate that nothing feels overly familiar about it. And the fiend's cauldron seems to be putting the difficulty in the right place every time: I've only died twice, but I get very close at least once per chapter. That and the inventive enemies give Uprising an old-school feel that modern action games lack.

@nate38

Have you tried just simply sitting on the couch/chair and laying the stand on top of your leg? That's how I've been playing all this time and it gives me no trouble.

As for the weapons, the more stars a weapon has, the more damage it'll do within that weapon type. It's hard to judge it against other weapons because their damage output can still be so greatly different from one weapon to the next. You almost do have to try them out but like you've said, each weapon is unique. You'll really end up experimenting early on, as you should, so it didn't bother me too much the way it's handled. Maybe just giving actual damage listing on the weapon instead would have been better but you still have to take into account how fast that weapon attacks, its range, the type of attacks it does when doing forward/backward dash attacks, etc. There's a lot to take into consideration when choosing a weapon!

Yay! Beat the single player mode. That last chapter was quite challenging! I ended up beating it on intensity 2.7 due to dying so many times, haha, I was pretty bad. I had no idea there were going to be so many chapters (25)! Very challenging stuff all around.

Story spoilers: Hades is a beast! I would have expected no less. Too bad Medusa had to take a less important role in this game, and it was unfortunate she wasn't able to stand up to Hades when she took her last stand. Also, Pit vaporizes Hades! Doesn't that, like, destroy the balance of the universe if there is no god of the underworld? Ah, who am I kidding, he's likely not dead anyway!

My file is now at 79.9% complete. I attempted ch. 2 on 8.1 intensity and just barely managed to beat it without dying. The flight sections are still the trickiest, for some reason! I'm enjoying my Fairy Orbitars quite a lot.

I gave online play a try, man it's fun! Let me know when some of you are available to play. Here's hoping we can get a big match going with a lot of you guys!

@nate38

Hhm, my personal preference when I play at home is to sit on the couch, rest my left hand holding the 3DS on my left knee (using my left pinkie to 'rest' the bottom edge of the 3DS). This is pretty comfortable for me and enables me to play for a few hours before I need a small break. Also, it really helps to have a nice, big stylus. I would imagine using the standard 3DS extendable stylus wouldn't be too comfortable after a while. I hardly ever use the stand.

As for the weapon system, don't be discouraged! It's a very deep system that you will unravel as you play the game, and as @VofEscaflowne said, you will experiment quite a lot to find your preferred style. I will admit it turned me off at first; the learning curve is quite steep to understanding it all, but later on it becomes a thing of passion and you'll find yourself obsessing over what kinds of weapons you can acquire and what kinds of modifiers you would like to have. You can also check stuff like the weapon FAQ at gamefaqs, which may contain a little more than what you're looking for, but still contains a lot of good stuff, nonetheless.

Glad you're having fun when you do get into it!