NeoVid

Heh heh heh... JJJ remembers that match all right, since he told me he lost it because of you faking him out over voice chat. He tried to friend you afterward, but I think he said your friendslist was full up. And I put my tag up so that people who want to can friend me ahead of time. With no broadband at home, using Live requires hauling my 360 over to a friend's house... which I should be able to do fairly often, starting a couple of weeks from now. Which is also around the time of the new EU release date. And it's not really when I get a copy, it's when JJJ replaces the copy I already have.

JJ, there's an option to display your gamertag by your name when you post. See?

EU release delayed. Gah. Anyway, guide looks good to me. Sol is a good one to start with, since he probably has the least depth out of all the characters. Since life has conspired against me when it comes to helping with this, I'll see if there's anything useful I can post with my meager knowledge before I get JJJ to replace my copy. Ah, maybe some of the really basic things: Memorize Map Layouts. Seriously, this is a strategy game, you need to know how to get everywhere on any map in the minimum time. Practicing the basics on the duh-simple Bel Canto Valley is all right, but you're going to be destroyed by people who know how to get around better than you if you don't learn. That leads in to... Area Control. Immediately running into enemy territory and dropping a couple of servants on a ghost right by his starting area starts a chain reaction of automatically taking a large chunk of the map for your side, getting you the mana advantage and instantly forcing your opponent into a losing position. Just before a round ends, run around and neutralize your opponent's most important ghosts, forcing any troops there farther back in the field. And one thing that was pounded into me in the few times I got to play multiplayer: Capture Cannons win games. Capture a ghost next to the enemy Masterghost, then the next two times it spawns Captures, use the Capture Cannon on them. The Masterghost's shield will break in two CC hits.

Well, JJJ returned my copy, thanks to his 360 being too close to dead to play it without freezing. As soon as I tried playing again, I found out he left my game too scratched up for my 360 to run. He will pay.

It's 6 J's. He says that he sucks compared to most of the remaining players, but he hasn't been able to play nearly as much as them, so that's not surprising. He did tell me he tries to friend everyone he plays against, but some people's friendslists were full when he sent the request. Thanks to his dedication, there is someone to teach the occasional new players he said has shown up recently.

Interesting... I've been hearing that the Masters with better armies and worse combat skills tend to do badly these days since people have learned to just hunt the Master down over and over. And fortunately, 'JJJJJJ2' isn't an amazingly hard gamertag to remember. EU release is in a week or two, isn't it? That should add to the community. It's interesting the three releases being a year apart looks like it helped keep the game alive...

Well, hopefully JJJ2 will be getting his own damn copy of the game soon, so I can play again. I might be able to get on XBL starting sometime next month. He tells me that the competition in this game is scary tough, though. He just bought Raven, since he's found out that all the top JP players use him constantly, thanks to sharing Valentine's crazy good army, but he's actually good in combat, unlike her. Hey, when's the EU release date? Since there's going to be an influx of new players then, it's worth keeping in mind.

To be fair, he mains Sol and only started using other characters a few days ago. Though when he told me about picking up Sin, some of the things he mentioned were obviously bad ideas even to me, and he has far more experience with the game than I do by now. Even (or especially) if no one's going to work on a guide for this game, there should be more discussion in this thread. I was taken completely by surprise when he told me that in really high-level play, Sol isn't the deadliest Master... Ky is, thanks to nearly inescapable juggle combos. Considering he's learned most of what he knows from Pandaking, I'll trust what he says. Pandaking! Have you found that site with the in-depth info yet? I'd love to see it. Also, I hear FlamemasterAJ still refuses to tell anyone how he does 300 damage Volcanic Vipers, except for saying it involves the parallel movement trigger.

Arg. All that free time I was expecting to have so I could work on the guide like I said? I'm not getting it. Well, at least I'll be able to get the game back before I do more of the guide. Dammit.

I think that the European version won't be out for a few months... at least it'll be released eventually. Hell, the fact that the new players are coming in in the future is probably a good thing. Good/bad news: a friend of mine wants to borrow Overture and try it for himself. I'll still work on the guide, but I'll have to work entirely from memory for a week or so. Incidentally, my friend does have Live, unlike me. Look for JJJJJJ2 to be looking for matches in a few days.

Well, I've got enough free time now that I can try to work on a guide, like I said. I'll start with Sin, since he's about the simplest character in the game. If I'm lucky, I'll have a good bit up by Thursday. I'll seriously need help with solid info on his Servants... If there was a way to look up that info that comes up during loading screens, I'd love to know about it.

Wow, both of them have much better combos than I've ever found. How about adding inputs, for incompetents who can't figure out combos from just seeing them (me)?

No Valentine combos? I'm still clueless about using her well. Thanks to this, I'm a bit less clueless about the others, at least. Hell, does Paradigm even have combos?

I'm lacking free time at the moment myself, but once I have some, I'll see about starting this by writing up a character strategy and seeing how many corrections the experienced players have to make.

Unfortunately, no broadband at home for me. Whenever I can get it, I'm likely to get Live right away, and I'd like the DLC for Overture. And you know, I have been thinking about collaborating on getting a FAQ done for this game. Since most of the best information I've found about it comes from posters on this thread, it could work out.

That's really annoying... why even show that level on the list when it's not really in the game unless you pay for it? I knew Raven was DLC, but had never heard about anything else being DLC for Overture.

Man, there is no information at all to go on online when it comes to this game... Gamefaqs has nothing, and when I was trying to find things out in preparation for getting it, I couldn't even find the basics, like how many levels it has or what has to be unlocked. So, what does it take to get the Holy Knights level? It's the only thing that's still locked for me. Hope it's not anything tough... this game's singleplayer is nightmarishly hard.

On my first try with Justice, I lost at Gold Dizzy... Level 930. AARG. I wish like hell I'd known what the special abilities I could pick up did, so I'd know which ones were worth getting.

I was just looking through old posts, and now all of Blackwolf_Sol's and Bakugami's posters are gone, when they had most of the best ones. Damn.

I hope I haven't been beaten to this one.

I can't believe no one thought of this before. Damn, I have no way to post one of these myself. I just thought of one about the only way to beat Potemkin... and got an image of a spy uncloaking behind him. Pot needs a sandwich so he can regain health during the round. *Stops liking Call of Duty 4* I seem to play with a lot of people who are trying to earn this these days... http://tf-2.fr/ach.php?a=You Do The Hard Part!&b=Be responsible for a loss by refusing to support your team.&c=3&d=50&e=1206&f=1

Thanks to a local game store, Collector's Corner, we've got at least half a dozen players in Oakland. I'll try to get them to add themselves. I really thought there'd be more on the West Coast...

Bakugami, you rock. Damn, I wish I had some chance to post a couple of these myself.