I don't even remember what Dark Spark did. Is it some form of level reduction?

Yeah, it halves the enemy's level. IIRC, this has some small effect on their overall stats but is mostly used for setting up Level X Y spells.

Building #2? That's chapter 7. Hopefully, you did all the quests of the chapter before entering, because the shortness of it caught me off guard. I didn't get the chance to do the chapter 7 quests in my first play-through because the chapter only lasts that one dungeon. It's kind of ridiculous, seeing as the Twilight Palace quests are easily missable at that point.

You know who you're talking to, right? Law #1 of Slowflake Gaming is "Sidequest early, sidequest often". Pray that I get an A-rank Frozen Crevasse sidequest in chapter 8, else my Gorgon is screwed until late game in the next playthrough.

Oh, and I'd also like the opportunity to take back everything bad I've ever said about Colette. Lezareno training an army of spies hiding in cardboard boxes? WIN WIN WIN.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I did see the mandatory super-holy-shit plot twist in the cutscene that was cut in half by the chapter 8 title screen, and I got one thing to say. Remember how I said I was reminded of FF7 midway through chapter 2? Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick, I didn't think the comparison would hold this much. It's Avatar vs. Pocahontas bad. I haven't gone to the Tower of Salvation yet, but the game's got a lot of explaining to do if they want it to make sense. At least FF7 did make some sense, even if the story was outrageously complicated. One more thing, I find that the last three chapters were pretty badly cut. Chapter 7 should've begun the moment you get to Altamira for the first time, and ended when you go to the Tower of Salvation (which is where I am right now). It makes sense in my head, at least... you know, instead of having a chapter title screen cut THE MOST IMPORTANT CUTSCENE IN THE GAME right in the middle.

Edit 2: Parts 8 and 9 of Pokémon Emerald are here! And just so you know, I'm not planning on going back to SMB3 quite yet.

Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4CKbbDiu2E&fmt=18
Part 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F5NN5NBgLo&fmt=18

ASSSSSSSSS.
ASSSSSSSSS.
This had me spitting Coke onto my keyboard. Gorramit Slow.

Double program!

Part 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFaQrE_lMH8&fmt=18
Part 11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKnxCwIQ9ss&fmt=18

Twilight Palace is up next in ToS2, and the randoms in Exdeath's castle are kicking my ass. C'mon, I can't keep up the steady stream of Curaga forever, I'm not made of MP! The good news is that at least Curaga actually heals over half of my HP, even if I have a class with high HP like a Samurai. Cure and Cura were junk.

If I may so humbly correct you, parameters is pronounced "puh-RAM-eh-turs." ;)

Thanks. It must feel weird at times hearing your native language get butchered... it's not like I'm doing it on purpose, though.

The way my brother was talking about the Twilight Palace, I expected a really nasty place, but my monsters were so much stronger than his at that point, and I actually bothered to collect the kickass equipment in the first room, that it became a two-fight wonder. The first two bosses and all the randoms were horrid, but I actually lost to the third boss (a giant Polwigle with that metal fish that hurts so goddamn much and two healers). I tried again afterwards, and just barely managed to win. Album Atrum was a longer fight, but it felt easier somehow. Of course, having all of Emil's and Marta's techs cost only 1 TP did help a lot. I had never tried Ain Soph Aur before, because I heard it sucked miserably, so I said to myself, hey, for 1 TP, why not, and wow. For 1 TP it's worth it, but for a HUNDRED? That was the cost of summons in the first game, and at least those kicked ass.

Don't mention it. And it's not what I'd call butchered; to me, butchering a language leaves the other guy wondering what the hell you're trying to say, and I would have known what you were saying even out of context.

TBH, I purposefully don't correct your pronunciation because it's my second favorite part of listening to your LP's. Right below the PokeNews and right above your rants.

I do it because I appreciate it when people correct me for mispronouncing words in my own language, plus he hasn't told me to knock it off yet.

I'm sure if I tried reading a sentence in French he'd have to comment on how badly I mispronounced everything (if not simply laugh.)

I don't not do it to be mean or anything. 'Alternate' pronunciations are something that have amused me a great deal since I was very young. Gee-aunt E-ah-glies were one of my first experiences with this.
I'm not a nerd, I swear.

I sometimes need to pull out my English whenever I need to call tech support for a machine I have at work, so it's not like all that training doing LPs is wasted, believe me.

Part 12: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2CpVMgtt2U&fmt=18

And yes, I did say in the movie description that there was something awesome on the way next video. Though since this is a Pokémon site, I'm sure it's not going to be anything new for some of you here...

*FF7 AND ToS2 SPOILERS!*

Edit: ToS2's done, and wow, the last chapter posed more questions than it answered. And after rewatching the opening cutscene it makes even less sense. The reason why FF7 worked out in the end was because what Sephiroth told Cloud in the crater about the memories of his childhood in Nibelheim was utter BS. And here the exact same thing happens, except it's for real. And while they did bring up the question of how everyone recognized Emil as Emil as early as chapter 6, after Emil discovers who he really is they don't say a word about it. Even Clara recognized Emil as Reysol's son, despite Emil's memories being a complete fabrication. What a trainwreck.

[QUOTE USER="ff7hero" TIME="1264480321"]Gee-aunt E-ah-glies were one of my first experiences with this.
I'm not a nerd, I swear.[/QUOTE]

It took me several attempts to play that out in my head before I came up with Giant Eagles.

ToS2 is pretty much a fanfic written by the creators. Still a good game, in my opinion, but it doesn't stand up to other Tales games in terms of storytelling quality.

That's about as accurate a description as you're gonna get. Good game, but suffers from a lack of polish. One minor example that still exemplifies what I'm talking about: I noticed that human characters that aren't important to the story, no matter what, have two sets of voices in the game: one for guys and one for girls. In ToS1 there was a lot more variety there, every single type of human enemy had a different voice set. I don't know how many subclasses of Desians and Renegades were in the game, but every last one of them sounded different. Add the random people you fight on the world map, and... well, do you see what I mean by lack of polish?

I don't think I mentioned how overpowered monsters can be, though... in the fight against Alice and Decus, I went after Alice first because I knew she had healing spells and all that crap, and my Galf Beast joined me after a little while. Well, Alice went down in record time, so I figured, now I had to deal with Decus, who I thought was still pretty healthy. So with my unison bar full, I quickly used a Sword Rain Alpha into thin air to trigger Devil's Hellfire... well, that's what I wanted to do, but it didn't work. Why? Decus went down a split second after Alice did! I think the fight took something like 30 seconds. I read later that Decus was supposed to have a mystic arte... well, so much for that.

And then there was another mystic arte mishap against Richter. As soon as I got the unison bar full, I backed off and did a Sword Rain Alpha into thin air... and... LORD OF FLAMES?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? That's right, the bastard triggered his own mystic arte a split second before me.

If you listened to anyone else on the Internet, Decus and Alice are supposed to form the hardest challenge in the game, too. Try using all human characters, and they might be some kind of threat, but with monsters, the battle is over in seconds, just like every other battle in the game. When an optional, disposable party member does damage in excess of ten times what the main character can do, something is wrong.

We're not counting the Twilight Palace and Gladsheim in that, right? Album Atrum and the boss fight right before it were pains. Surprisingly, Brute also gave me some trouble.

Part 13: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKp5nAvMaY&fmt=18

I'm surprised your phrases didn't include DRINK MY DELICIOUS LIQUID OOZE. I know that was one of my battle tower quotes (though since those allowed five words I also had WARM in there.)

I know another of mine was GIGGLE WOBBUFFET DESTROYED MY GRANDMOTHER

Gen 5 rumors! Gee, didn't we go through that two weeks ago? Oddly enough, though, it COULD be true this time...

Part 14: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaZcwp0fEog&fmt=18
Part 15: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKBcOYQ7pJU&fmt=18

Edit: And a late night update! Or at least, what qualifies as late night according to my biological clock.

Part 16: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j3Sv_MBhDM&fmt=18

Edit 2: Part 17 up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsHp94jGoc&fmt=18