Well someone’s gotta play Mercy
[SrChurros doesn’t have just a preferred class pick for his games. He has a preferred team composition together with his girlfriend! Lucky for all his squishy, DPS characters’ needs, his girlfriend is willing to compensate his flaws! It’s just like real life, really. ~Strider]
A match made in heaven. And also at the character creation screen.
When choosing my character in a class-based game, I usually have an easy time (especially in RPGs): either the mage or that one guy that uses gunpowder-based weapons. And also sometimes bard when I’m feeling like it. The thing is, I usually tend to go for the high damage and/or ranged but squishy classes. I can’t help myself: I love those freezing blasts, the explosions, thunderbolts, magic missiles, lasers, etc. However there is one small, tiny little problem I may have: sometimes playing alone can be kind of dangerous, like that one time I decided to go solo through the whole Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate using nothing but bowguns. It was an… “interesting” experience, to say the least.
About four years ago, I met my girlfriend. While she is not a “gamer” and rarely plays anything alone, she digs cooperative games. So when we started playing together, I found out that I have met not only my soulmate, but also my perfect class match: someone who loves using melee characters and going into bloodthirsty killing sprees. Finally, a human shiel- I mean, a partner that covered my weaknesses! Yeah, that was totally what I meant.
I’ll now share with you some of the co-op games we had more fun playing together so far and also which classes we used in each one.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time – Yuke + Lilty
I believe that was the first true cooperative game we got hooked into. I chose to play as a magically gifted Yuke and she went as a bulky Lilty, and the funny thing is that these races also match us: I’m a little bit tall and she is really, really short. It was just like in real life, except that I’m not a living armor suit and she isn’t an onion person. I also like how the strongest race isn’t all muscular, instead being cute and small and capable of lifting gigantic boss monsters above its head.
Leveling is automatic and easy, combat is fun, bossfights were cool, and there were some very light puzzles to solve. The art direction is great, and I love how cute the player characters look. The only really annoying thing is sometimes having to deal with 3D platforming in crappy camera angles. I mean, the camera angles are great for combat and exploration, but crappy for precision platforming.
Another thing I really like about this game is that there are some small pedestals scattered around different places, where when the player characters stand over them, they start dancing and posing while silly music plays on the background. It also zooms into the characters, which is great for checking out the armor.
We love this game very much, and would love a 3DS sequel. What a fun game!
Torchlight II – Embermage + Berserker
My brother was going to grab a four-pack during a Steam sale with his friends and asked me if I wanted to be part of it. I checked if my girlfriend wanted a copy too, and she said sure, but my brother told me there was only one free slot left. I thought a little bit about whether I would buy it or not, and when finally I decided to get it, he told me that there was no open slot left in the four pack. Finally I thought “screw it” and we ended up getting two individual copies instead.
Turns out the four-pack group barely played it, while we played it a lot.
We made more than one character each, but the only ones that we went really far and finished the main story with were our Berserker + Embermage couple. I focused on freezing everything, she focused on kicking butts hard. Everyone was happy! Then after finishing it we got the option to either start a NG+ or to explore endless randomly generated dungeons in the Mapworks. We chose the latter option and while I think these random dungeons get a little bit too long and they all re-use the same art assets over and over again, it still was pretty fun. I’m awful at stat-building characters in RPGs in general, so towards the end of the game, my mage was getting one-shotted constantly because I forgot to apply any constitution points at all while hers was well-rounded. Another class couple we enjoyed using was the hammer-focused Engineer with a shotgun-wielding outlander.
I’ve heard that this game is really similar to Diablo, but neither of us have played it before. The closest thing I’ve played was EverQuest: Champions of Norrath back during high school with my brothers. Compared to that, Torchlight II is much faster and more furious.
And this game has pets that are both cute and useful. My favorite ones are the alpaca and Half Life 2‘s headcrab.
Fantasy Life – Mage/Tailor/Angler + Barbarian/Blacksmith/Miner
I gave this game to my girlfriend as 2014’s Christmas gift. I also gave her a 2DS because we loved Crystal Chronicles and Final Fantasy Explorers was looking like some good multiplayer fun (it wasn’t even announced for the west back then and currently I’m the only one who owns Explorers), but I was silently following Fantasy Life for a while because my gut feeling was telling me that this game was a perfect fit for us. However, the 2DS came bundled with Pokémon X and she played it for a while, ignoring Fantasy Life. Then a couple of weeks later she started playing it and we were completely into it.
This game hit all the right spots for us: cute art style, fun battle system, and challenging boss battles. It also lets you play anyway you like it, and while the fighting classes are fun to use, to me the highlights of the game are the crafting and gathering classes.
One thing that kind of bored her to death was the length of dialog during the story missions (she can’t stand to text in games and would rather get straight to action), but I loved them. The story is very cliché, but the characters and writing are really funny.
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way is that it has in-cartridge paid DLC. At least this DLC felt like it was worth the price, because it is very co-op oriented and the endgame feels really boring without it. I would love to get a sequel, but I’m baffled that they decided to do it for mobile devices. I mean, why would they do that? Didn’t the game sell well on 3DS?
Don’t Starve Together – Wendy + Wigfrid
This is probably her favorite game ever at the moment. We never played the single-player version before and this is simply brutal, but we are veeeery slowly getting better at it! We usually divide tasks and, when the conditions are favorable, we can manage to get through winter just fine. Then spring comes and kills us dead.
Unsurprisingly I usually play as Wendy, who works kind of like an attack mage and is pretty decent at mobbing. She plays as Wigfrid, who is focused in dealing physical damage. Fun fact: her favorite character can only eat meat while my girlfriend is a vegetarian in real life. When we are not playing as these characters, we usually play as Wilson and Willow. I think we should try other characters too, but it feels hard to get used to a new characters since the mechanics are wildly different from one another.
Phantasy Star Online 2 – Ranger + Bouncer
This one is a pain to get running, but once it is properly installed, it is lots of fun. Also this is probably the game I spent most time trying to convince her to play. She thought she would hate it, but turns out after a few sessions of happily hacking and slashing forest creatures she changed her mind.
While I do love mages, this time I went as ranger. Sci-fi is my favorite kind of game setting, and as I can be a mage in most other games, I chose this class for some shooty and explosive fun. She got the bouncer class and focuses mainly in using the dual blades, that way she can hit hard and fast and beat foes to a pulp, just the way she likes to play.
I made a second character to play alone for fun, mostly to get the feel of the Techer class. It is basically a melee mage who fights with a mace, and the mace EXPLODES every time it hits the enemies. I’m considering playing with it once I reach the level cap with my main character’s first and second classes.
Fingered! – Translator + Official Guesser
Okay, this isn’t a multiplayer game, and it doesn’t have any classes, so I maybe might be cheating. But we always play it together and I think it kind of counts, maybe? She isn’t very well versed in the English language, so I act as a translator and she helps me to guess which one is the guilty suspect. Sometimes she is right and I’m wrong, sometimes the opposite is true, and sometimes we are both wrong because this game likes to troll us.
I love this game because it is lots of fun, especially with other people to help you. But uuuugh, that final boss. Screw you, Edmund and James. You evil, beautiful, sexy bastards.
