What are you playing currently?
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Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I have finished Suikoden V.
It's fine. The story started off pretty meh, but as it went on I started getting more into it. It peaked around the middle. Never became super invested in it like I was by the first three Suikoden games. I was also turned off by the generic modern anime character designs, but began warming up to the aesthetic after a while. The music isn't memorable at all, though. Only track I remember is when the dragon knights recited the series' night theme with their flutes, which has a sad ring to it knowing that it would be the last time that theme would be played, ever.
S5's cardinal sin is that everything takes too long. It's a 70 hour long game but it doesn't really begin until the 20 hour mark. The first 20 hours aren't really engaging from a gameplay standpoint or from a story standpoint. The encounter rate is far, far too high. You can't walk 5 feet without being sucked into an encounter. The transition from overworld to random encounter takes too long. Battle animations take too long. There is an input delay that makes navigating menus take way longer than they should. S5's actual story is really only as long as S2, which was a 35 hour long game.
The game also suffers from walkthroughitis. There are several missable characters who are impossible to obtain without prior knowledge or having consulted a walkthrough beforehand. You can't recruit Oboro when you first meet him, but if you don't recruit him before the halfway mark, he bails on you and can never be recruited. Some characters have to be recruited in a particular order (Euram), and if you do things out of order then bye bye. Some characters I couldn't figure out how to recruit, even when consulting walkthroughs (Roy's bandits, the Maximilian Knights, the guy stuck in prison, etc), so it seems there are obscure requirements that not even the most prominent walkthroughs have documented.
I was also disappointed by the lack of an epilogue. You kill the final boss, and then roll credits. Just like that. I did come to like the new setting and characters and would have liked to have seen more closure.
The skill system introduced in S3 was the beginnings of a good idea: allow players to customize their characters so that they could fulfill different roles. In S3, the system was pretty limited, so there was really one was to build each character. In S5, at first glance it seemed like the skills would allow for more meaningful customization, but alas. My party was the Prince, Rahal, Roog, Nick, Muroon, and Zweig. I experimented and tried building Nick and Roog into tanks (Nick being a parry tank and Roog being an evasion tank).
Unfortunately, no matter what combination of skills and stats and equipment I tried, they just wouldn't parry/evade reliably, let alone counterattack. In the end, the Prince was the only one who could reliably parry and counterattack, so he became my tank (firefly/counter). Rahal could also reliably parry and counterattack, but I would be losing out on his awesome magic sword role, so I had him stick with that (Flowing Water Rune/Double-Edge/Killer). Nick and Roog couldn't be anything more than magic sword damage dealers (Rage or Earth Sword rune/Double-Edge/Killer). I turned Nick into an earth sword magic user... and was disappointed that he did jack all to the final boss, who was immune to earth.
The best part of the game was recruiting an old beaver and his clansmen who could chew through the hulls of enemy ships.
Vargas Fan
Head over heels in love :)
At the moment, apart from World of Warships..In the Transformers event where I have secured a few of the commanders, I'm playing Borderlands 3.
I don't get why the game gets so much hate, but I can see one point, that the twins are nowhere near as charismatic as Borderlands 2's villain, but Handsome Jack is a hard act to beat.
I don't get why the game gets so much hate, but I can see one point, that the twins are nowhere near as charismatic as Borderlands 2's villain, but Handsome Jack is a hard act to beat.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I have finished Vanguard Bandits. Took me 12 hours to beat.
It's a PS1 SRPG with Escaflowne-esque mechs. The game is 20 missions long, and splits into two different routes at chapter 4. You can pick whether to go down the kingdom route, or the empire route. Since there are hardly any JRPGs that let you play as the empire (and JRPGs about playing as the plucky rebels going up against the empire are a dime a dozen), naturally I went the empire route.
The story is a little bit more nuanced than your average JRPG. You fight alongside good rebels and good imperials and fight evil rebels and evil imperials. The empire route is more about removing the warmongers rather than conquering. That being said, it still feels like a SNES era JRPG that doesn't have a very fleshed out story. The lack of a wide variety of music might play into this, as you hear the same 1 or 2 extremely upbeat themes play for almost every cutscene, even during dramatic moments such as a character death or a character being informed that they have been framed and have become a wanted fugitive.
Gameplay wise, the noteworthy feature is the fatigue mechanic. Performing an action builds up fatigue, which wears off if you end a turn with more action points than fatigue points (in other words, your fatigue goes down if you don't do much in a turn). If a unit's fatigue hits 100 points, that unit becomes dizzy and can't do anything for two turns, and they become completely vulnerable. They can't dodge or mitigate incoming attacks. Avoiding or defending against an incoming attack builds up fatigue. Bosses can be fatigued and made dizzy as well. So the meta is to launch a barrage of cheap attacks at an enemy unit to make them dizzy, and then tear into them with your heavy attacks. This tactic can also be used to prevent incoming damage, by making them dizzy before they can attack you. In the second half of the game, I was able to have up to three enemy units dizzy simultaneously, which means three enemy units that aren't attacking my guys. Which means easy kills for my weaker units so they can level up.
The hard hitting winged boss mech with a star on top of him, in front of the blue one at the bottom, has been made dizzy. My team can freely take out the other mechs unhindered by him. Two other enemy units have been dizzyed as well.
Compared to the kingdom route, which had more characters, the empire route has you play with a party of 5 (and sometimes 6) characters. With so few characters to divide the exp among, I didn't really need to ration EXP very much. They were all overleveled by the end. I'd imagine that that the Kingdom route would have been overall harder since your characters wouldn't be as relatively high level.
There is a morale mechanic where you can lift people's spirits by talking to them in between battle, but it is very undercooked. Could have been expanded in a sequel.
Overall was pretty fun for a short, 12 hour long game. A sequel could have fleshed out the game mechanics and the storytelling even more, but alas.
If you want to play the game, then I would recommend checking out this website. I found it useful for understanding the game mechanics and figuring what stuff to buy in shops and what abilities to learn. You don't really need to follow the walkthrough on how to beat each mission (except for the first empire mission, that was pretty tough).
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
Ring of Red is a mech SRPG set in an alternate Cold War timeline. The divergence point begins in August 1945, when Japan does not surrender after the dropping of the bombs. The Soviets aren't intimidated and invade Japan, claiming the relatively undefended North while the Americans are bogged down fighting the Japanese in the South. Having exhausted their momentum and the war turning into a stalemate, the Allies decide to settle and thus Japan is partitioned between North and South.
A proxy war between the US and the USSR through their North and South puppets breaks out in 1950, but once again ends in a stalemate and the creation of a demilitarized zone in 1954. Another 10 years later, in August 1964, the plot of the game begins when a legendary Japanese war hero (who also fought in the Vietnam war) hijacks an experimental mech for the Soviets. The player's team is disavowed by the South Japanese as mercenaries and invades North Japan with a company of soldiers (and some assistance from rebels in NJ) to recover or destroy the stolen experimental mech.
In the story, mech development began in Germany, but wasn't ready in time to change Germany's fate. German engineers escaped to Japan and finished their work there. The mechs (called Armored Fighting Weapons, or AFWs) proved themselves in Japan's extremely mountainous terrain and have become a standard part of an army's arsenal.
You have a pretty interesting cast of characters. The main character is a half German, half Japanese boy who angsts over his blood. Two of your superior officers are Nazis who escaped to Japan, one of whom is a confirmed war criminal. You have an American marine who was discharged. An Italian who wants to prove that his race aren't cowards and volunteers to fight alongside his Japanese and German allies. Several child soldiers who have grown up knowing nothing but poverty and angst. An old man who has been leading a dwindling resistance movement in the mountains for 20 years. And one sane officer who recorded the events of the story in his journal.
Gameplay wise, the main gimmick is distance. Different AFWs are more effective or ineffective at different distances. Light chicken-walker AFWs totting around machineguns are strongest when at close range to their target, but are hit with a nasty damage and accuracy falloff the further away they are. Quad legged 4AFWs carrying huge artillery pieces are the opposite, being most effective at long range, but are ineffective at close range. Bipedal medium AFWs do pretty okay at any distance, but can also slug it out in close combat. AFWs are also accompanied by three squads of soldiers who can perform repairs, lay down landmines or electrical wire, clear debris out of the path of the mech, load special shells into the mech's gun, shoot at enemy soldiers, etc.
So the meta is this: your light chicken walkers and your heavy 4AFWs should engage the enemy first and take out their soldiers. Your Light AFWs should engage enemy 4AFWs at short range, where the enemy quad mech's weaponry is ineffective. Likewise your 4AFWs should engage enemy light AFWs at long range, where the enemy chicken walkers are ineffective. Wipe out the enemy soldiers accompanying the opposing AFW. The squads assigned to your light and 4AFWs should be dedicated to anti-personnel tactics, such as infantry squads or crews that can load incendiary ammunition into the mech. Then, you send in your medium AFWs who can concentrate on destroying the enemy AFW unharrased by enemy soldiers who can't deploy smoke or flashbangs to decrease your accuracy or deploy wires or landmines that prevent you from entering into melee range and clobbering the defenseless mech. Your medium AFWs should be escorted by squads that maximize damage against the enemy AFW, such as mortar squads or crews that can load HEAT ammunition into your mech.
The best part of Ring of Red is its cinematic presentation of combat. When two units enter into combat, a 90 second montage begins showing your mech slowly march into enemy fire. You can order your squads around. When the crew on your mech loads the next shell, you look down the scope at the enemy mech wait as the hit percentage slowly goes up. As your scope is zeroing in on the enemy mech, you can see your infantrymen lobbing grenades or being turned into pink mist or being gassed while intense music is playing. There is the fear that the enemy mech might fire first, and if they do hit your mech then your hit percentage resets (which means more time waiting for your accuracy to go up enough that you are likely to hit) and you've lost a shot in the engagement.
There is also the fear that your squads might be eviscerated before you can exit the scope and order your men to retreat behind your mech for protection, so there is pressure to fire your gun early before it is zeroed in on the enemy mech enough to likely hit. The 8 pilots are immortal and respawn in the next mission, but there is permadeath for your squads and they are limited in number. You arrive in North Japan with about 10 squads but can only recruit a couple dozen more squads of rebels. I had lost about 10 squads by the half way point of the game before I figured out the meta.
Unfortunately, the spectacular combat is also the game's great weakness. Often times, the combat sequences can take upwards of two minutes because time pauses when an infantry squadron is ordered to do something or a mech uses a special ability. It usually takes at least 2 or 3 combat sequences blow up an enemy mech (sometimes as much as 5 if an enemy mech is in a fortified position such as a city or if it is a boss mech). Missions can have you face 10 to 30 enemy mechs. A mission can easily take over an hour and a half, and there are 17 missions. So you're looking at a 30-50+ hour long game. Perhaps if you could fight up to 2 or 3 mechs in an engagement and cut down the number total engagements by 1/2 or 2/3, making the game into 10-20 hours long, the game would have been more enjoyable. After the novelty of the first few hours wears off, you really want to play the game on turbo.
Looks like a good Dieselpunk setting
Ring of Red is a mech SRPG set in an alternate Cold War timeline. The divergence point begins in August 1945, when Japan does not surrender after the dropping of the bombs. The Soviets aren't intimidated and invade Japan, claiming the relatively undefended North while the Americans are bogged down fighting the Japanese in the South. Having exhausted their momentum and the war turning into a stalemate, the Allies decide to settle and thus Japan is partitioned between North and South.
A proxy war between the US and the USSR through their North and South puppets breaks out in 1950, but once again ends in a stalemate and the creation of a demilitarized zone in 1954. Another 10 years later, in August 1964, the plot of the game begins when a legendary Japanese war hero (who also fought in the Vietnam war) hijacks an experimental mech for the Soviets. The player's team is disavowed by the South Japanese as mercenaries and invades North Japan with a company of soldiers (and some assistance from rebels in NJ) to recover or destroy the stolen experimental mech.
In the story, mech development began in Germany, but wasn't ready in time to change Germany's fate. German engineers escaped to Japan and finished their work there. The mechs (called Armored Fighting Weapons, or AFWs) proved themselves in Japan's extremely mountainous terrain and have become a standard part of an army's arsenal.
You have a pretty interesting cast of characters. The main character is a half German, half Japanese boy who angsts over his blood. Two of your superior officers are Nazis who escaped to Japan, one of whom is a confirmed war criminal. You have an American marine who was discharged. An Italian who wants to prove that his race aren't cowards and volunteers to fight alongside his Japanese and German allies. Several child soldiers who have grown up knowing nothing but poverty and angst. An old man who has been leading a dwindling resistance movement in the mountains for 20 years. And one sane officer who recorded the events of the story in his journal.
Gameplay wise, the main gimmick is distance. Different AFWs are more effective or ineffective at different distances. Light chicken-walker AFWs totting around machineguns are strongest when at close range to their target, but are hit with a nasty damage and accuracy falloff the further away they are. Quad legged 4AFWs carrying huge artillery pieces are the opposite, being most effective at long range, but are ineffective at close range. Bipedal medium AFWs do pretty okay at any distance, but can also slug it out in close combat. AFWs are also accompanied by three squads of soldiers who can perform repairs, lay down landmines or electrical wire, clear debris out of the path of the mech, load special shells into the mech's gun, shoot at enemy soldiers, etc.
So the meta is this: your light chicken walkers and your heavy 4AFWs should engage the enemy first and take out their soldiers. Your Light AFWs should engage enemy 4AFWs at short range, where the enemy quad mech's weaponry is ineffective. Likewise your 4AFWs should engage enemy light AFWs at long range, where the enemy chicken walkers are ineffective. Wipe out the enemy soldiers accompanying the opposing AFW. The squads assigned to your light and 4AFWs should be dedicated to anti-personnel tactics, such as infantry squads or crews that can load incendiary ammunition into the mech. Then, you send in your medium AFWs who can concentrate on destroying the enemy AFW unharrased by enemy soldiers who can't deploy smoke or flashbangs to decrease your accuracy or deploy wires or landmines that prevent you from entering into melee range and clobbering the defenseless mech. Your medium AFWs should be escorted by squads that maximize damage against the enemy AFW, such as mortar squads or crews that can load HEAT ammunition into your mech.
The best part of Ring of Red is its cinematic presentation of combat. When two units enter into combat, a 90 second montage begins showing your mech slowly march into enemy fire. You can order your squads around. When the crew on your mech loads the next shell, you look down the scope at the enemy mech wait as the hit percentage slowly goes up. As your scope is zeroing in on the enemy mech, you can see your infantrymen lobbing grenades or being turned into pink mist or being gassed while intense music is playing. There is the fear that the enemy mech might fire first, and if they do hit your mech then your hit percentage resets (which means more time waiting for your accuracy to go up enough that you are likely to hit) and you've lost a shot in the engagement.
There is also the fear that your squads might be eviscerated before you can exit the scope and order your men to retreat behind your mech for protection, so there is pressure to fire your gun early before it is zeroed in on the enemy mech enough to likely hit. The 8 pilots are immortal and respawn in the next mission, but there is permadeath for your squads and they are limited in number. You arrive in North Japan with about 10 squads but can only recruit a couple dozen more squads of rebels. I had lost about 10 squads by the half way point of the game before I figured out the meta.
Unfortunately, the spectacular combat is also the game's great weakness. Often times, the combat sequences can take upwards of two minutes because time pauses when an infantry squadron is ordered to do something or a mech uses a special ability. It usually takes at least 2 or 3 combat sequences blow up an enemy mech (sometimes as much as 5 if an enemy mech is in a fortified position such as a city or if it is a boss mech). Missions can have you face 10 to 30 enemy mechs. A mission can easily take over an hour and a half, and there are 17 missions. So you're looking at a 30-50+ hour long game. Perhaps if you could fight up to 2 or 3 mechs in an engagement and cut down the number total engagements by 1/2 or 2/3, making the game into 10-20 hours long, the game would have been more enjoyable. After the novelty of the first few hours wears off, you really want to play the game on turbo.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
@Val the Moofia Boss
Do you pirate your old games or do you have a big retro collection?
If you own all these games legit the value of your collection must be pretty high.
Do you pirate your old games or do you have a big retro collection?
If you own all these games legit the value of your collection must be pretty high.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I don't collect anymore. I sold my N64 and my Gamecube several years ago. I have my PS2 and my XBOX and my Wii stored in the closet but I never use them. The controllers for the PS2 and the Xbox don't work anymore. I think that the RGB cables for one of my consoles broke as well (or RBY, can't remember now).
I've found that maintaining and playing on actual retro hardware is impractical. Retro games have become subverted by a money laundering scheme that has priced out normies. The consoles and controllers are decades old and no one manufactures replacement parts, so you have to look at an increasingly dwindling supply of functional hardware that becomes increasingly expensive. Retro games were designed to be played on big, bulky CRT TVs, which are also becoming increasingly rare and expensive. Keeping a CRT TV also means more storage space, and untangling and fiddling with the RGB cords and the power cords and the controller cables is an unpleasant experience. You also have to keep licking and blowing on cartridges to get them to work. And so on.
Meanwhile, playing on emulator is extremely convenient. You don't have to worry about maintaining different consoles and their controllers or trying to acquire overpriced games. You can apply different filters to emulate different CRT screens and console signals. You don't have to fiddle with cables hoping that the console will receive your controller signal, or lick and blow on cartridges hoping that the game works. Everything just works.
And you get a lot of quality of life features that makes playing video games so much more enjoyable, such as being able to create save states. The old final fantasy games, like FF5, have a lot of "you opened a chest and encountered a rare monster that one shots your entire party! Now you have to redo the entire last 2 hours since your last save!". That feels awful. You really need to playing on emulator and use save states. Some games like Legend of Dragoon have very long battle animations and lots of battles. You can use 4x turbo mode to just fast forward through these repetitive segments. You also gain easy access to fan translations of games that were never available here (you could theoretically put the final translations on a cartridge or disc and play it on real hardware, but that is a hassle). Also, you can press a button and create a screenshot or record footage.
As for handheld games, it can still be worth acquiring stuff. Bringing a DS to jury duty helps pass the time as I sit in the waiting room for hours and hours waiting to be dismissed. I should probably jailbreak my 3DS soon, since it seems you need eShop access and the eShops closes in March of next year.
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ParadiseLost
Well-known member
@Val the Moofia Boss
To be fair, Nintendo still manufactures and sells gamecube controllers (like real ones) in Japan. You can get one for like $45.
Do you have a Switch? I've bought one recently and have started collecting games for it.
To be fair, Nintendo still manufactures and sells gamecube controllers (like real ones) in Japan. You can get one for like $45.
Do you have a Switch? I've bought one recently and have started collecting games for it.
My collection of game consoles is big off the top of my head for home consoles I have acquired over the years a NES, SNES, Three N64's, two Gamecubes, a Wii, a Switch, a Playstation 2 slim, an Xbox 360 Star Wars edition, and the Battlefield One Edition Xbox One in Olive Drab.
For handhelds it's a bit different, all I currently possess is my 3ds and my first Game Boy Advance although I did own the Lime Green GBA SP DK Country Edition and the Black and Red Nintendo DS Lite.
SEmember01
Member
On PC I am currently playing:
Fallout 4 which I just completed the main storyline.
Mass Effect Legacy Edition. Finished ME 1 and onto ME 2.
Grand Theft Auto V.
Red Dead Redemption 2.
Bloons Tower Defense 6 is more of my relaxing game.
Fallout 4 which I just completed the main storyline.
Mass Effect Legacy Edition. Finished ME 1 and onto ME 2.
Grand Theft Auto V.
Red Dead Redemption 2.
Bloons Tower Defense 6 is more of my relaxing game.
Robovski
Well-known member
Back on a LOTRO hitch, they have a free questing coupon to unlock a LOT of free content and a sale on expansions through the 31st - nothing I benefit from ut maybe someone here wants to try it out or hasn't unlocked this before.
www.lotro.com
Free Questing Coupon – Thank You from Standing Stone Games
Get caught up in time for the upcoming Before the Shadow Expansion with a special coupon Code that will let you acquire many currently-available quest packs permanently on your account(s)! However, you will need to act quickly, as this Coupon Code is only available to redeem through October...
SEmember01
Member
So I just got a Steam Deck. I got the base model and so far I am enjoying my time with it. Currently testing out various games:
Halo Wars runs fantastically on the deck.
Master Chief Collection also runs well.
The most surprising game that runs is Assassins Creed Odyssey. I can run this at high settings at around 40fps. I could probably get it to run at 60 fps if I turned down some settings.
Command and Conquer Remastered/Tiberium Wars runs pretty good. Just have to get used to the controls.
For whatever reason I can't get Far Cry 4 to launch at all. It gets stuck on loading screens just trying to get in. But I have seen videos of people running it fine.
Halo Wars runs fantastically on the deck.
Master Chief Collection also runs well.
The most surprising game that runs is Assassins Creed Odyssey. I can run this at high settings at around 40fps. I could probably get it to run at 60 fps if I turned down some settings.
Command and Conquer Remastered/Tiberium Wars runs pretty good. Just have to get used to the controls.
For whatever reason I can't get Far Cry 4 to launch at all. It gets stuck on loading screens just trying to get in. But I have seen videos of people running it fine.
bintananth
behind a desk
I'm playing another game of nethack. This time, it's a lawful monk and it's very early.
Monks start with +2 gloves, a +1 robe, a spellbook (I got sleep), 3 potions of healing, one random scroll (earth, this time), a decent amount of food, and a chance of a magic marker or oil lamp (didn't get either).
It's early and my monk is very low level. Picked up a wand of cancellation and used it on something which used a wand of polymorph to become a grey dragon which dropped scales.
Picked the scales up but did not put them on because the -20 to-hit a monk gets when wearing body armour - except when kicking - is suicidal at low level. I also have zero intention of using the wand of polymorph and do not want a monster to have it, so that's in my inventory too.
The latest bit of "ooh, look at that!" was a silver wand laying on the ground. Under certain circumstances a blessed silver wand of nothing is a better melee weapon than Excalibur so I'm keeping it no matter what.
While figuring out what silver wands are this time I was granted a wish. "Two blessed scrolls of charging" (got one).
Zap two: nothing. It was 0:1 and the scroll got it to 1:3. I have 3 wishes (4 with the wrest and loss of the wand).
Decisions, decisions ...
The grey dragon scales mean that I have access to magic resistance if I wear them.* I also need both an amulet of reflection and a bag of holding (guaranteed one of the two upon reaching the end of Sokoban).
I have 3 useable wishes and long list of "I need this".
I'm thinking:
- blessed greased fireproof +2 kicking boots (so I can wear the scales without it being suicidal)
- blessed greased fireproof +2 T-shirt (even rarer than a wand of wishing)
- one saved for whichever of the bag or amulet I don't get
- the wrest is held in reserve because there might be something as equally mundane - and as stupid sounding as a tooled horn or a blessed tin of green dragon meat** - which is totally worth blowing a wish on.
* The Eyes of the Overworld also grant magic resistance. Monks only get those the hard way by completing a quest. Characters who aren't monks can't even touch them without getting burned.
** Both of which I have wished for during past games. Other seemingly non-sensical wishes have included Sunsword (the NAO irc peanut gallery critisized me picking it over Grayswandir on dlvl2 for a Valkyrie), cursed scrolls of destroy armour, potions of booze, etc.
Monks start with +2 gloves, a +1 robe, a spellbook (I got sleep), 3 potions of healing, one random scroll (earth, this time), a decent amount of food, and a chance of a magic marker or oil lamp (didn't get either).
It's early and my monk is very low level. Picked up a wand of cancellation and used it on something which used a wand of polymorph to become a grey dragon which dropped scales.
Picked the scales up but did not put them on because the -20 to-hit a monk gets when wearing body armour - except when kicking - is suicidal at low level. I also have zero intention of using the wand of polymorph and do not want a monster to have it, so that's in my inventory too.
The latest bit of "ooh, look at that!" was a silver wand laying on the ground. Under certain circumstances a blessed silver wand of nothing is a better melee weapon than Excalibur so I'm keeping it no matter what.
While figuring out what silver wands are this time I was granted a wish. "Two blessed scrolls of charging" (got one).
Zap two: nothing. It was 0:1 and the scroll got it to 1:3. I have 3 wishes (4 with the wrest and loss of the wand).
Decisions, decisions ...
The grey dragon scales mean that I have access to magic resistance if I wear them.* I also need both an amulet of reflection and a bag of holding (guaranteed one of the two upon reaching the end of Sokoban).
I have 3 useable wishes and long list of "I need this".
I'm thinking:
- blessed greased fireproof +2 kicking boots (so I can wear the scales without it being suicidal)
- blessed greased fireproof +2 T-shirt (even rarer than a wand of wishing)
- one saved for whichever of the bag or amulet I don't get
- the wrest is held in reserve because there might be something as equally mundane - and as stupid sounding as a tooled horn or a blessed tin of green dragon meat** - which is totally worth blowing a wish on.
* The Eyes of the Overworld also grant magic resistance. Monks only get those the hard way by completing a quest. Characters who aren't monks can't even touch them without getting burned.
** Both of which I have wished for during past games. Other seemingly non-sensical wishes have included Sunsword (the NAO irc peanut gallery critisized me picking it over Grayswandir on dlvl2 for a Valkyrie), cursed scrolls of destroy armour, potions of booze, etc.