#gameFAQs

[never-obsolete]

GameFAQs June 2006

[tylerlolong]

These are especially fun now that they’re being written by hallucinating robots.

[cryoverkiltmilk]

Video game walkthroughs without ASCII art just don't hit the same.

I want to scroll down three 800x600p screens' worth of the Hylian Shield and Master Sword before I get to the table of contents.

[kiyomisa]

The problem with hording, is it pays off. These are the walkthroughs for Suikoden and Suikoden II that I printed off in 2001 and 2003 and am now using again for the re-release

[scarmbledc]

We know it’s you dark Prince 💔

[camillechillin]

Since making Traversal's store page, a lot of services have automatically added Traversal to their databases. Like, did you know Traversal has a GameFAQs page?

[anarchic-miscellany]

Shoutout to the makers of gamefaqs and game walkthroughs on GameFaqs, especially those with now defunct email addresses. Your work and hard perseverence will never be forgotten, not by me anyway. Free help, in depth, done with passion, about a shared hobby, the true spirit of community across the internet. As a stranger I reached out, found the work you had made, and was aided immeasurably by it. Thank you. Especially to you, "Psionic Wyrm" I hope that you're living your best life and doing well, whoever and wherever you are. A part of me wonders about that younger version of you who wrote that guide, and what they're like, but then - that's the joy of it all, some stranger just helps you out immensely and you never even know their name. A network of wonderful strangers, reaching out across the digital Wild West

[ultrabearursa]

Cool bro thanks for letting me know

[socialjust-ish]

If Tumblr goes down the path of algorithmic content do you guys want to move to GameFAQs?

Back when I was twelve we used to just go find an unused message board for some obscure game for some 30 year old console and create a community there.

There is nothing stopping us from doing that again.

Plus, cool ASCII art and walkthroughs.

[gear-project]

Libra of Souls Notes / Soul Calibur 6

As a preamble to all this, let me just say this game is very addicting if you like gacha mechanics, but at the same time, once you get good weapons, the grind gets very real, and sometimes frustrating. That's why it's a good idea to listen to some music while playing the game (as the base music in Epilogue will get boring real quick).

Soul Calibur 6 really is a great game. Libra of Souls really does bring back the greatest aspects of Edge Master Mode from older games.

That all being said, I decided I'm gonna list everything I currently know about Libra of Souls weapon drops in Soul Calibur 6:

---First, Weapons will randomly spawn based on several factors: what you currently have equipped as your fighting style, or based on the most recent weapon you previously equipped.

---The game keeps track of how frequently you play using certain specific weapons, and will eventually spawn a rare "Jackpot weapon" (i.e. Three Empty slots is a jackpot).

---The game will also spawn weapons based on your inventory, either by "cloning" the weapon you currently have equipped, or by cloning specific weapon abilities that exist in your inventory. (ideally you want to get rid of all the 1-slot and no-slot weapons in your inventory to increase your drop luck)

---Most weapon drop spawns do a calculation based on the level of the opponent you most recently defeated. You can defeat a Level 75 opponent and still manage to get a Level 80+ weapon from that opponent.

---On average, the best weapon drops come from Level 90 random encounters (Something wicked this way Comes mission), but you can also get them from the Level 90 Duel missions (The Duel) where you fight Ioan (Nightmare) and Grizelda (Geralt).

---There are other Level 80+ to Level 90 encounters (Black Vortex, etc) that will not only sometimes give you high level weapons, but also add Level 90 Mercenaries in the Recruitment Agency. In most situations though, Uploaded characters can't reach Level 90 Mercenaries, and also body-size is a factor in some matches when using Mercenaries. On average though, Grizelda is one of the best Mercenaries to assist you.

---Ideally, you want to create Level 90 weapons (precisely Level 90) with the following Skills: 100% More Food / Attack/Defence+35% (when Health is 30% or lower) / Health Recovery 30% at 0. This creates a situation where any time your Mercenary's HP falls at 30% their offense and defense skyrocket and even if they get K.O.ed with 0 health once, they still retain the low health buff.

By creating this type of weapon, Level 90 Mercenaries can equip it in place of you and you can "equip" other weapons while their "Treasure Hunt Weapons" are active (giving you better weapon spawn drops).

The Attack+Defense+35% (Calm Bloodstone) Health Recovery at 0 (Scapegoat Turquoise) This combination is also really good for other weapon combinations as well. (Especially Damage Reduction +20%, Attack+Defense+20% on Reversal Edge Followup Hit, and also Health Recovery+20% (Vampire Opal), there are other variants, but I'll leave those for others to try out.

Another good combination is: Health+40% (Draught of Immortality) Health Recovery every 1.5 Seconds (Draught of Regeneration) Health Recover 20% on Attack Damage (Vampire Opal Superb Quality)

This setup creates a weapon that will heal you in virtually any situations, even during Reversal Edge.

Another good build is:

Rouge Liquid Gold Superb Quality (Soul Gauge+50%) Rouge Gold (Soul Gauge+5% on hit) Deep Dark Amber (Health Recovery+30% on Soul Charge)

This build refills your Soul Gauge on hits and every time you activate Soul Charge, your health recovers 30%, giving you more frequent access to Soul Gauge powers and Critical Edge attacks.... this build is a little tricky to get used to, however, since you can still get hit out of Soul Charge state, so it's good practice during fights.

In all these setups, obviously you need a 3-slot weapon, and there are a handful of missions that make such weapons drop more frequently.

The Ancient Weapon missions are a guaranteed starter drop, but they are limited to 20% Critical Rate.

Depending on your affinity (Light or Darkness), the maximum critical damage rate you can get is 50%, but keep in mind that high crit rates don't always mean high damage, it just means high damage is more consistent.

The affinity bonus buff automatically grants +20% to your weapon's base Crit rate at max, so say you're in Dark Affinity and equipped with a Light Affinity weapon... if that weapon's base Crit-rate is 30%, when you equip Light Affinity, it'll max out at 50% (not including Crit-rate buff food items).

Your Affinity bonus can get maxed out by Zasalamel in one of the last missions in Epilogue, but if you choose the response "I don't know" then your affinity won't be maxed, it'll just make it easier to swap affinities for your character (though it's actually easier to just make a Light and Dark affinity character on separate save files, since your characters share their inventories anyway).

Every time you defeat Inferno (in one of the Chapter 5 missions prior to Epilogue), it will always drop a 100% Food item (Hellfire Magma).

Inferno in Epilogue after clearing several Ancient Weapon missions will drop the 100% Gold Item (Hellfire Lava) and the level 99 Inferno drops 100% EXP (Hellfire Ash) with every "loop" of Libra.

You only really need one Hellfire Ash item and there's a random chance a Level 15 enemy will spawn in Epilogue and they drop Level 5 weapons you can put the Hellfire Ash item on to start fresh for the next loop of the game.

Ideally for farming Gold you can just equip the 100% Gold on a Level 90 weapon and just farm the Astral Fissures in Epilogue, you'll get double the amount of gold you need, but most Gold is better spent on recruiting mercenaries and eventually items like Cursed Cult Oil (Health+35% on Damage) and Mandrake (Health Recovery+50% when 0) which you can use on your mercenaries to farm weapons and do most of the work for you.

The highest level weapons are Level 96, with a max damage output of 730 Attack Power, though they often have a lower Crit-rate, they are still very reliable if they have 3 empty slots to make your own weapons with.

There are also single-slot weapons with a 250% (800+ attack power) damage max output but I find them less reliable.

The more weapons with abilities in your inventory (or even weapons with the "same abilities") in your inventory, the more likely you'll get useful weapon abilities to recycle for forging.

Also, I recommend sorting weapons by Attack power rather than Crit rating, as weapons with Lower attack power can be recycled in to better weapons.

Finally let me also say that once you start summoning Ancient Weapon missions, it's a good idea to keep them out for a while instead of clearing them right away, as they maintain the spawn rate of rare enemies in the area, so long as a Level 70+ enemy mission is active, you'll get good random encounters in the area.

After so many loops, I just summon them all and leave them out until I want to make a fresh "loop" of the game.

There's also a "Sweet spot" next to Africa in the Pacific Ocean area of the map (between Africa and India) that is ideal for Level 90 Enemy encounters for rare drops...

FINALLY, here's a good list of counter-pick matchups for Mercenary encounters (counterpick will help you decide what mercenaries you want to use against certain fights):

---Voldo (Atk/Evade): Counterpick is Defensive/Melee/Balanced (He's strong against most characters, but especially strong against slow attackers like Nightmare, also good against Geralt) ---Nightmare (Attack): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced (He has lots of revenge attacks, so he's good in melee situations) ---Cervantes (Balanced): Counterpick is Defensive/Ranged (Balanced but uses a lot of counters and break attacks, not favorable against defensive characters) ---Maxi (Melee): Counterpick is Attack/Ranged (Likes to use Low mixups and break attacks, not good against balanced) ---Taki (Melee): Counterpick is Attack/Ranged/Balanced (likes to use Reversal Edge traps and run around opponents) ---Geralt (Balanced): Counterpick is Defensive/Attack/Evasive (very annoying, very meter based, best overall ally in the game though) ---Siegfried (Balanced): Counterpick is Attack/Ranged/Evasive (slow but powerful defensively, best to use Mandrakes on this style for death recovery) ---Sophitia (Defensive/Melee): Counterpick is Attack/Balanced/Ranged (very annoying to fight against up close, but also really good counterpick against Geralt enemies) ---Groh (Balanced/Melee): Counterpick is Attack/Ranged/Evasive (throws a lot and likes to circle) ---Song Mina (Ranged): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced (hard to take advantage of reversal edge, so don't bother, has guard impact moves that she likes to abuse) ---Azwel (Ranged): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced (very aggressive on offense, but can be easily dodged/parried) ---Tira (Atk/Evade): Same as Voldo (very annoying and likes to dodge attacks and counter, gotta lock her down with horizontal attacks to beat her) ---Talim (Atk/Evade): Same as Voldo (runs away a lot and abuses low mixups, not very strong but still useful in some situations)

---Zasalamel (Ranged): Same as Mina/Azwel (actually good in melee up close but makes a lot of mistakes so not very reliable) ---Mitsurugi (Attack): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced (very aggressive, will murder you if there's a wall nearby, very good against Geralt/Sophitia, try not to get tricked by his Break Attack mixups) ---Astaroth (Melee): Counterpick is Ranged/Attack (don't use Balanced as he will grab your mercenary a LOT). ---Kilik (Balanced/Ranged): Counterpick is Attack/Melee (Is actually pretty defensive so long as they don't have meter, will "pop" easily if they have a full Soul Gauge, so be careful with the weapons you give it.)

---Xianghua (Counterattack): Counterpick is Ranged/Melee/Balanced (Xianghua enemies are annoying as they read inputs on aggressive mercenaries, but a good melee type will wreck them easily... Nightmare and Kilik styles also works.)

---Yoshimitsu (Attack): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced/Ranged (Almost as aggressive as Mitsurugi, but likes to abuse low mixups and throws, will almost never fall for Reversal Edge)

---Raphael (Defensive/Evasive): Counterpick is Balanced/Defensive/Ranged (Actually very aggressive, and very annoying, will charge in with thrusts and throws any opportunity they get, still, actually one of the best Mercenaries to hire in most situations, topped only by Geralt) ---Ivy (Ranged): Counterpick is Defensive/Balanced (Very annoying, loves to run away, often spawns during poison missions)

Anyway that's it. If you play Soul Calibur 6, I hope you find this useful!

[homestuck-without-words]

Time to start eating my words, huh? Despite the name I've given to this little project, this certainly is a lot of them. Words, that is. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

This confuses me. Why embed so much text within an image file now? Why not do that before? My research and the scuttlebutt of my erstwhile spammy associates tells me that there used to be many words appended to the many images of Homestuck. They were lost like so much else.

What was so special about these words that they had to be commemorated in digital bronze? Well, let's see if we can dig anything up.

So here's Rolonde, writing under the tentacleTherapist or "TT" handle we first knew thon by. First we get some character stuff. Thon lists what thon is not going to do as thon does them. This is mildly amusing. I feel like there must have been a more straight-forward way of letting me know this facet of characterization. Especially in a format like this. Maybe Rolonde could have just given us some bullet points about thonself?

Anywhen, Rolonde confirms my theory that the comets are in fact being created/summoned/directed by Sburb in some way. This also builds upon what the previous file told us. Even if Pooplord hadn't started playing Sburb and Rolonde hadn't joined him, Pooplord would be dead. If not by his own comet, then by someone else's. And even if he survived the blasts, the world quickly became inhospitable for life.

We also learn that (at least according to Rolonde), this fate was inevitable. Thon's writing does not preclude the possibility that this ignorance-driven inevitability is the result of manufactured malice by some unknown party. The feeling Rolonde's writing imparts to me is more that of a small creature standing before a looming tidal wave.

I like how thon signed thon's handle at the end there. I believe that character is called a tilde? Tilda? There is an appealing irony in signing my own posts, but I think that's just a little too cutesy for me.

Next up - either more pages of Rolonde's writing, or something unexpected and different!

[gekkonova]

[puzzles-are-fun]

I don't understand GameFAQs sometimes

I am a gamer and have been since my early 20s (for context I turn 41 next Wednesday). I utilize walkthroughs from GameFAQs fairly often but I have frequently wondered why the walkthroughs show up on the page of the website with pretty narrow margins and weird paragraph spacing.

I'm not a typesetting expert but I don't understand how narrow margins are easier to read. The same goes for weird spacing in sentences or paragraphs.

When I want to frequently refer to a walkthrough from GameFAQs, I copy/paste it into a Word document and fix any grammar and spelling mistakes and any inaccuracies specific to the game that the original author may have made (calling the enemy a different name than is canon). I also make the margins Narrow, so that there are more words per line than in the original walkthrough and it is much easier (and faster) to read.

To clarify: I do not do all this and then re-publish it to GameFAQs and claim it is my own work. I have ethics that dictate that I would never do that. I only edit them to fit my own preferences for my own reference when playing the game.

Can anyone who visits my Tumblr tell me why the authors of these GameFAQs walkthroughs would choose that kind of typesetting when they write these walkthroughs? I genuinely want to know!

*I promise I am not a complete grammar nutcase, despite how this post makes me sound. I'm just particular and like what I like and for it to be consistent*

[wandringaesthetic]

I was listening to Homestuck Made This World (podcast) and had a sudden memory regarding gameFAQs and because this might not be intuitive to some people, I wanted to explain it:

Part of the reasoning behind ASCII art headers was a) they don't take up much memory, so they're easy to upload/download versus actual images, and b) if you print out the whole faq it doesn't take very much ink. I didn't do it often, but I actually printed out a couple of FAQs.

I've gotten pretty used to, if I get stuck on something in a game, just looking up that one piece of information on my phone and going straight back to the game. Obviously you're not doing that pre-smartphones. So you're either running back and forth between the console and your desktop (and depending on what year it is and what kind of internet you have, you might be clogging up the family phone line while you're doing this if you didn't just download the file) or, if you're playing a PC game, switching between the game and the browser, and depending on how good your computer is, you might risk crashing something. Or... You print it out!

[viscouself]

How are there people who are younger than the walkthrough I'm looking at on GameFAQs

[stuckinthefade]

It's been 13 years, do you think they figured out that fucking the gay elf was optional yet?