Because well...yeah, this kind of thread is usually fun.
I started and finished Demoncrest yesterday. The only thing I think that would've made that game cooler is if they took the headbutt move one step further and let you bludgeon lesser demons to death with your skull at points. Of course, if they did that, that would be like all I'd ever do. I'd never finish the game.
Did a full run of RCR Advance on 'crazy' difficulty with 1 guy. Took about 2 hours, zero deaths. Acro and Torpedo are so incredibly broken. I really should do a run on crazy without ever getting them, since I always end up just torpedoing the last boss until he falls over.
Dracos
We're becoming more like the DL than before! O_O
Well, I'm playing Rez at.. lots of stuff, seeing as we're at a LAN cafe. I suspect we'll next be playing Dawn of War, wherein he'll probably beat me silly, thanks to him, y'know, actually having played it more than a couple of times in the past. ^^
Overall we seem evenly matched. He's got an edge on me in FPS games, but I have one on him in strategy...
The infiltration cannot be stopped, C-Rat.
Anyway, I'm playing Hearts of Iron 2 and Dragon Quest 8. The former is fun, as guiding the US of A into Fascism and Dictatorship by 1937 is horridly broken. You can declare war freely, and the US get a +70% production and a gigantic boost to mineral/resource generation when at war. (Think in the range of 1000 percent. No, that's not an extra zero at the end.) This has brought about a revision of Manifest Destiny - the government of Fritz Kuhn is mimicking Germany - the entire North and South American continents are theirs to take. Mexico and half of the minor Central American countries have fallen in short order, and soon flagpoles up to Panama shall be flying the Stars and Stripes. Once up to the gateway to South American is taken, the US will prepare for the upcoming invasion of Canada. This must be undertaken carefully, as England and the Allies will declare war on the attack. Further, I need to decide if I want to join the Axis or strike out on my own. If I choose the latter, I may end up declaring war on Germany as well and rule Europe through puppet states. This frees me from perhaps having to declare war on Russia, which is never fun.
As for Dragon Quest, I just finished the Alexandrian Tower. Nice and simple dungeon with easy randoms(To be fair, I'm level 15. That goes without saying.) Anyway, game's awesome so far. Incredible world map, good characters, great voice acting and writing, it all works. I'm impressed in the extreme so far and I hope it continues full bore. My only complaint is that I don't have enough time to play it.
Yeah, DQ8 takes a lot of time. Beautiful and I don't think it could've been done any other way, or should've, but it's one of those you can pick up for your entire month's gaming fun.
Dracos
My sister recently persuaded me to start playing what she calls a funny MMORPG, but which I believe is better classified as some variant of MUD. It's called Kingdom of Loathing. It contains such items as:
Quote
Tiny plastic Crimbo wreath
This is a tiny plastic Crimbo wreath. It's one of the nine tiny plastic lords who were deceived by the rings of power and now serve the Multi Czar. Wait, sorry, that would be 'wraith.' This is just a plastic rendition of a festive holiday decoration.
The bottom of the base reads "Series 1C, 4/5 (U)"
Type: accessory
Selling Price: 30 Meat.
Enchantment:
Regenerate 1-2 MP per adventure
It's a game where you buy and sell things by using Meat, get sloshed in order to increase the number of adventures you have per day, and fight fearsome monsters (such as the dreaded Anime Smiley).
Like most such games, they also have special holiday events and themes. This year, sometime before when I joined, toy factory elves went on strike. You could either work as a Pinkerton, or pick up a union sign and fight off strikebreaking reindeer.
Edit: I almost forgot to mention that the game is one of satire, and may depend heavily on knowledge of internet lore and popular computer and console games. And I was sure that I needed to add this, for all of those technophobic game-haters on this board. :)
Heh. I recall dex being a crazed fan of that. Should poke him when he logs on.
Dracos
Been playing Mario Kart DS a lot more often than expected even after beating all the stages.
Also playing Grandia II, Tales of Symphonia and FF IVa, of which I'm sure I'll finish at least one.
Having received a PS2 only about two months ago, and working on a limited schedule, I'm also playing DQVIII. I also find it awesome, but I'm a bit biased. Level 15 at Alexandria? I'm about level 15 now, and I'm at Pickham. For some reason, I always seem to have low levels when I play RPGs. I guess it's because I don't ususally just wander around fighting random monsters for hours as much as I like to advance the plot.
I'm also in the beginning of Midnight Club II and Katamari Damacy.
In terms of the NES/Gameboy, I should really finish DQ 3. I'm in the middle of DQ 2 as well, but I can't finish because I can't find my @%$!-ing boat. I'm just a tad frustrated by that.
I'm at stage 21 of Ogre Battle. Perhaps this time I will actually finish the damned thing.
Personally, it's too rich for my blood with its classing/ali/rep restrictions. I could go for something on almost the same engine with rep being far more determined by choices made, protecting cities, etc and alignments more based on fighting with similarly aligned beings and/or not being necessary for getting the all important top classes.
Ignoring that though, it's good fun. it's got a nice strategy behind deployment and encouragement not to deploy too powerful units early. It's got a neat exploration scheme. I like the little animated battles and such.
If it wasn't for the whole rep deal over it, I'd be quite happy with it as it stood.
Dracos
Just finished: FEAR. Y'know, fantastic gunplay can only carry a game so far, and an ending ripped from page 1 of the Book of Horror Movie Cliches can be kind of a buzzkill. Having said that, the firefights are reason enough to keep playing. The AI is *that* versatile.
Currently playing: Radiata Stories. The accept/cancel buttons are wonky, and there is no fast-forward. Apart from that, I am entertained considerably. It's not that it's particularly outstanding in any one aspect, but as a whole it comes across very well.
Also playing: Dawn of War - Winter Assault. The campaign needs more badass Force Commander-vs-Demon action. Otherwise, this is the game that can teach me to love RTS once more. The Imperial Guard is surprisingly well balanced.
Currently replaying: Baldur's Gate 2. I don't know why I didn't install Ascension and Unfinished Business before. It's the next best thing to playing it for the first time all over again. Still marveling at just how insanely useless the six mind control or ten dispel spells are whenever I try to use them.
That sounds like what I'd expect from Radiata. When I first saw it my greatest impression gotten from it was "This game, it was made with heart."
Dracos
This month, I finally played ICO. That was probubly the best game I've ever played. Perfect example of "Show, don't Tell". A classic that every good game designer should OWN. Watch, Play, Learn, Do...
After that, Beyond Good and Evil. Great game, with some awesome variety. The Looter's Cave scenes were some of the best fast-action obstacle-course racing I've ever played (beats F-Zero hands down). Plus, the final boss was a great tribute to all the great Full-screen bosses of the SuperNes days (Ys, the Soul Blazer series, etc etc). Only one downside: I played it right after ICO... (this was entertaining, but not as much depth...)
Current title: Dark Cloud 1. Stopped after the first stage and replayed Soul Blazer. Beat Soul Blazer. Now, back to this one. Does anyone happen to notice the similarity... (Quintet... Level-5... Enix...)?
Next on my plate: Dark Cloud 2. Maybe after I finish LaPucelle...
six million games to play... choose ONE
-22
Finished Kingdom Hearts II. Finished it again in Proud Mode for the secret movie.
The plot is cool (though it's definitely not stand-alone), and there are practically none of the annoyances there were in the first game. There isn't much in the way of the Disney elements that gets in the way of core plot. At the same time, you kinda end up hating Disney even more after the game ...
It's smooth gameplay, though it's a bit silly that they let you use pre-scripted special moves on bosses with the triangle button. Graphics and art are superior to the first game, obviously, but they're still not the best. The shitty camera angles have been corrected, thankfully. There's an all-star voice acting crew for the original characters, but I'm not sure how well that'll translate to the American version.
The level of combat at the beginning of normal mode roughly equals the level of non-boss monsters in the later half of the previous game. Winning on many of the bosses involves use of the pre-scripted moves I mentioned earlier, and use of potions. There's an auto-reload for item use now, but you're stuck with however many items you had to fill your item slots during a fight.
It seems fairly certain KH will recieve a fourth installation, probably on the PSIII. The secret movie after the end of the game seems to indicate that it'll be more traditional Final-Fantasy-ish in setting or plot elements. The corpse of Bahumut Sin (from FF7AC) appears ...
I'll be replaying this again when the American version gets released.
Games to play soon:
Tales of Legendia, Tales of the Abyss.
I dealt with Shin Asuka's incestuous lolicon tendencies for X episodes of GSD ... Let's see if I can't deal with him in Legendia ...
Hah, the fault of modern gaming =)
Playing with Civilization 4 and Mystic Ninja 64 at the moment. Simultaneously as is my wont. Civ 4 is...different. Yet like Civ 2 in many ways. I still have no god damn clue how to deal with the 'unhealthy/unhappy' of crowding that spawns right off the bat.
Dracos
Continues prepping comp
Today I played Magical Pop'n which while not unmitigated, is definitely in the awesome category. I also played some zombies ate my neighbors, which is not definitely in the awesome category, but might get into the passable category.
Truly, I could go for another round of that kinda stuff.
Dracos
Trying out the Mechwarrior 4 series this week, theoretically.
Dracos
Lots of work.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms X -- Which is mindless and time consuming, which fits my mood.
Seven Sins -- which was nod quite as horrible as I thought it would be.
Will probably return to Radiata Stories soon, since I put that up for DQ 8 and hadn't returned to it yet.
Fixing to finish up Radiata Stories fairly soon. Y'know, for a game with charm to spare, it has some genuinely creepy moments. Of course, it also has that weird talk/cancel same-button thing, which you get used to until you have to set the game down for a while.
Made a hasty rerun through of all of Aliens v. Predator 2. Scripting and some of the voice acting need some fine-tuning, but apart from that they capture the feel so freaking well... I would pay much for a proper adaptation of Aliens, and the AvP games give me hope that this is possible.
Just started a replay of Lunar: EB. I need my fix :)
I be playing Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse... In which mine family be falsely imprisoned and now, after dickering with the Genie Lords, I travel through the old dungeons, seeking to find the truth behind the nameless masters whom took control of the family genie.
And I hear the lunar bit. :) Was pondering replaying it or playing Lunar:EB a bit ago.
Dracos
Was recently inspired to reinstall Half-Life 1 (not Source), on the part of Afraid of Monsters (http://mods.moddb.com/6145/Afraid-of-Monsters/), a Silent Hill-ish mod which is both successfully spooky and irritating on very fundamental levels.
To illustrate one: take Doom 3. Make it darker - in fact, make some sections pitch black, no lighting whatsoever, and force you to stumble around in them while super-fast zombies spawn and beat the hell out of you. Now make the flashlight suck copious amounts of ass, as Half-Life's most certainly did.
If you can survive the first level - something tough to do even on Easy - the rest of the game is substantially better, with some genuinely good scares and excellent sound/graphics work. Still, the makers are a little too in love with the "make the player run through a dark stretch of area while under attack" concept, which wasn't fun the first time and only got less annoying when I gave in and turned my monitor's brightness up.
The indian empire rises again!
Dracos
On a Half-Life modding kick, specifically all three episodes of They Hunger.
The voice-overs are kinda weak, a little weird, and obviously unprofessional, and some of the levels get repetitive and lack a natural sense of direction. You also lose your arsenal of goodies a few too many times.
Those, however, are my only real complaints, and they're minor in the big picture. Hunger has some welcome additions to the HL arsenal (silenced pistol, flamethrower, minigun), and some of the best level design and scripting I've seen this side of the original Half-Life. The new beasties are, of course, reskins of other monsters with different attack patterns - some mundane, like dogs, while others are a bit more... weird - but they're by and large very well done. And I can't come down too hard on a game that features a most excellent helicopter duel.
Fun + free = Win and God. (b^.^)b
GTA 1.
And Civ 4.
Together.
Dracos
Quote
GTA 1.
And Civ 4.
Together? How he heck does that work? Cops wouldn't stop chasing you, so you ordered your catapult to flatten them? ^_^
And then sent in tanks to level the city before high flying it to the next one on the great merchant caravan.
Alongside this, I picked up Lufia 2 and C&C:Red Alert. RA single player well...I remembered it better than it was.
Dracos
Nothing of late. :\ Too much dev work to do.
Dracos
Tales of Legendia.
Ten Hours in and loving it!
Played some more lufia 2 this morning. Through to Gades, who got beaten like a red-headed schoolboy.
Dracos
Well, I tried beating Dark Cloud 1 but ended up having to do somel leveling.
Since I got a little tired of that, I decided to take a break and play some Shadow of the Colossus. Great game, with some of the best battles I've seen in an action game (one of the best games to actually include Strategy in a boss fight - EXCELLENT!). OF course, it reminded me a lot of Link, from which it borrowed quite a bit... (though I still think ICO was better for some reason...)
Also went back and played a little Lagoon. The classics should never be forgotten... (Lufia 2 / Estpolis Denki 2 WAS one of the best, even if it had a LOT of bugs...)
After that, I just couldn't resist anymore and decided to finally play my .hack games (I've been waiting patiently since I finished //SIGN and after spending a year to hunt down the last two games...). Currently: Infection. I think I'm hooked...
As they say, you can sleep when you're dead...
-22
Zeux World, obtainable from http://zara.verge-rpg.com/games.htm
This game isn't great and has several questionable design elements, but it's playable, and since I'm a sucker for big platformers with lots of secrets and stuff, I gave it a whirl and got hooked. Couple days later, it is beaten at last. Mostly. I can't figure out how to get to the Grasslands Castle, can't find the secret exit in Metropolis 3 (these two may be related...) , and the Z shown at the start of Yog-Sothoth eludes me yet. Probably won't pick it up much more, though, unless someone else grabs it.
Yog-Sothoth, by the way, is a level where gravity is reversed, left and right are reversed, your character is invisible, your field of view is limited to the center of the screen, the entire level is made of blocks that are invisible until you touch them, and the background flashes constantly in siezure-inducing colors while disco music plays. Most aptly named.
A couple hours into Cold Fear. If I ever get tired of shooting zombies - wherever and however they appear - may I be decapitated by way of shotgun to ensure I do not come back as one :)
Also, replaying Myth. I never did get good at it, but I do appreciate the challenge as something that can be overcome. 9 times out of 10 when I lost, the enemy did something other than just Zerg Rush until breaking my defenses, which I respect.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert?
Oh man, I remember that game! That was the Age-Of-Empires style one with the Soviet shocktroopers, right?
I should try to find a copy of that. Looking at the site, it seems there were a lot of sequels and spin-offs.
Ragnar:
They recently released a collection pack. Like 20 bucks for the whole series if you want it.
It's much better multiplayer than singleplayer though.
Anyhow been playing (beating) Lufia 2 recently. As awesome as ever, really.
Also been playing some Baldur's Gate 2, which this time is not getting locked up. Something I appreciate greatly.
Dracos
Punch out is the poison of the day.
Those end guys are hard too.
Ding ding Ding ding...
Dracos
Just one more ending to get in Disgaea. Then back to Grandia 3, and then on to ToP. Which reminds me, gotta pick up ToP. >_>
Baldur's gate 2 be my poison of choice at the moment. Today I wander through the dark halls of the underdark, slaughtering the unwary drow who stand in my way.
And write reviews for the half dozen games I beat on my plane trip =)
Dracos
ShinMegaTen: Nocturne and Space Channel 5: Special Edition.
Up up down down chu chu chu~
Some galciv. Some ducktales 2.
Some reading!
NOOOOOOO~
Dracos
I'm playing Shadow Hearts: From the New world, which is fun. I loaded up Oblivion since I have no patience, so I'll be splitting time. Oh, Oblivion is gorgeous, simple gorgeous!
Well, beat Outbreak and just started Quarantine. I've really been enjoying them, and I look forward to the GU set when they manage to get their way over here. If only they'd consider Fragment...
It's funny that in the process of beating these four games, I've managed to actually get four more... (two Wild Arms, Subsistence, and Kingdom Hearts 2)... talk about a battle you'll never win...
-22
For some reason, I've been at a lot of SNES gaming lately. I finished SF Alphs 2 on the most difficult setting and got through Fatal Fury (KOF). The latter was harder than the former. Oh, and I've been Katamariing again, but I can't get past one of 'em.
So yeah, nothing really new. >_>
Mario and Luigi again. Just about to beat it.
Dracos
About 15 hours into Wild ARMs: ACF. It's a good total conversion from the WA3 engine (sorta like making Half-Life: Source, I would imagine), but they unfortunately didn't bother to fix most of the problems with WA3 before morphing it into the first one.
Pros: Purty to look at, good character customization (swappable skills FTW), tons of extra stuff to do, new playable characters are fun, plot is a *little* clearer this time around, music is tasty as ever, search system is way more tolerable (marking undiscovered locations on the map, while paradoxical, is very helpful in keeping on-track), they've somewhat alleviated the Tiny Town Syndrome.
Cons: The battle system has seen no real improvement, virtually no in-game economy (no healing items in stores + no weapons/equipment = FAIL), they still have the search system (it's tolerable, but it's still not fun), camera is either awkwardly far back from the player or character models are undersized (take your pick), some of the dialogue is still strange, some scenes are *really* underpopulated or are otherwise less dramatic than their PSX counterparts.
Overall: Solid, but they could have done a lot better in several spots.
Kingdom Hearts 2. <3
It's better than the first game in almost every single way imaginable.
Got farther than I did. I got infuriated at the dialogue. They really totally halfassed it and I don't care if it was that way in the original, it should've gotten rescripted. :\
Dracos
Yeah, they did, and while lame dialogue is nothing new (and I've certainly seen worse), they still could've done a hell of a lot better. Some of the changes are amusing (the Chow Mein Insurrection was solid), but I just don't think a big armored badass who seeks the subjugation of mankind should say "You guys."
But, Rudy's still a pimp, and that's good enough for me <3
*incorporates WA into the Unified Theory of VG Heroes (note: this is not confined to RPGs), which can adequately be summarized as "mute heroes and/or blue-haired heroes are extremely desirable by the opposite sex"*
Some Fancypants, that game kwok linked. Kind of neat, though I don't dig the rebounding.
Dracos
I play in the city of doors, carrying the burden of the mark of Torment, hunting a fortress of regret with three bound to my path, a mage's pet, bought and kept, a slave, his chains but words, a thief of the dead, caught in the wake of charisma.
Planescape.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"I play in the city of doors, carrying the burden of the mark of Torment, hunting a fortress of regret with three bound to my path, a mage's pet, bought and kept, a slave, his chains but words, a thief of the dead, caught in the wake of charisma.
Planescape.
Dracos
Approv'd (b^.^)b
Currently replaying Deus Ex, which has been given new life courtesy of the Shifter mod. Said mod doesn't substantially change the game, but adds a lot of neat little things: XP rewards for taking down/sneaking by enemies, unique weapons, new features for old weapons, a couple tweaks to the aug system (upgrades possible with aug canisters, some augs work differently), and a whole bunch of other cool stuff that's implemented pretty well (skull gun aug and bullet time FTW).
V1.6 available here (http://f2.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/yukichigai@sbcglobal.net/lst?.dir=/Mods/Deus+Ex) or here (http://www.savefile.com/projects/218988) for the curious. It does a remarkable job of smoothing out the game's rough edges. Now if they could just hurry up with that remake in the UT2k4 engine... <3
Thy linkage be appreciated. :D
Dracos
Shall remember it when it comes time to play.
Hmmm... computer-wise... EVE Online, Morrowind, Black & White.
Probably won't do much gaming until I'm absolutely secure in graduating and have the various details for grad school worked out (housing, etc). Then it'll be... OBLIVION! :-p
... I do have a hankering to take out "Hearts of Iron", though...
There's a little hearts of iron cult around SR. But they're all closed mouthed about it in the actual room.
=P
Dracos
... because they're part of a secret conspiracy to go back in time and ensure that China wins WWII!
Today I journey beyond the planes,
To a place lost to hope and dreams,
or perhaps not, this prison land
curst its fate from the angel man.
Dracos
I started a game of gods and men,
A denton did I play,
with cyborg parts and bioreads,
but in darkness lost did I.
Anyhow, Deus ex was the spell of today. But damn, it's got some lighting in the demo level. Maybe there's a mod for that. I could almost always not see where I was going without the lighting mod, even with the brightness raised to 80.
Dracos
Strange... granted, there are some parts you're meant to use the aug to get around, but it shouldn't have been *that* dark out in the open or in buildings or whatever. 60 seemed to work just fine for me. Then again, I didn't get a chance to try out the demo, so maybe it is messed up >.>;
demo=training level.
Man I was incomprehensible when I wrote that. =)
Dracos
Tomb Raider: Legend.
A totally kickass game, and a nice, fresh start for the series.
Heard stuff like that. Tycho raved recently about the good things that Crystal Dynamics did with the series.
Dracos
Picking up Mario and Luigi after beating Kingdom Hearts 2. I think it'll be hard adjusting to DQ6 after both.
Verily.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Heard stuff like that. Tycho raved recently about the good things that Crystal Dynamics did with the series.
Dracos
Gotten a bit further into it.
It can be a bit unforgiving at times, but lots of checkpoints and unlimited continues balance it out.
Loads of unlockables, too, though most of them are alternate costumes for Lara. Not complaining about THAT, though. ^^;
Time Trials are freakin' hard, easily my least favorite part of the game. You screw up ONCE, you may as well restart, because you won't have enough time to finish.
[/mini-review]
Started Super Adventure Island 2 again this morning. Good game and its a pity that this was the last one in the series. Didn't finish it in one sitting this time though.
Dracos
Wilds ARMS 3.
I'm lost in the wasteland. >_>
The wasteland loses many ^_~
Dracos
I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death.
Kicked Deathtamoor's three asses.
Smacked Organization XIII upside the head with the metal slab-key of DEATH.
Hosed down the Incarnation of the Sun Rune.
Now the greatest challenge of them all..
Child raising.
*starts up DQ5*
Training my Brain right now. Stalling until I can get Lost Magic and Guilty Gear DS.
Ateiler Iris 2, too.
Smacked down on smash bros today. Original. Mmm, it's gotten more meh noticing the balancing flaws in it. Just isn't fun to play serious versus in light of it as it just degrades these days into massive reptition of a couple of choice 'too good' moves. Had some fun doing 'all random' comp stomps though.
Dracos
Could just be a total lack of soul.
Played through the Shadowgrounds demo (website here (http://www.shadowgroundsgame.com/new/)), which can adequately be summed up as "almost Aliens in a top-down action dealie". Started off mildly annoyed with lackluster audio (the music fit quite well, however) and a mild sense of vertigo from the default camera setting, which confusingly locks the gunsight forward and rotates the camera whenever you turn.
However, mercifully, one can unbind the camera from the mouse, which also unlocks the sight. Upon doing so, the enjoyableness skyrocketed. Good level design, a helpful note/map/objective system, fantastic lighting, intuitive controls (apart from the camera binding thing) and some solid action make it worth a look for anybody not tired of shooting aliens en masse. It's very little that hasn't been done before, but it's legitimately fun just the same.
Additionally, I just recently finished Super Adventure Island 2, courtesy of the resident Dracos-man (thanks, brother ^^); I must concur with his assessment and lamentation of the series' ending note. At the very least, however, it was a mighty fine ending note :)
Finished .hack. Not bad, though the ending was a bit disappointing. I mean, the plot was great but... there was practically no ending...
Beat Kingdom Hearts 2 after that. Probubly the best game I've played in a while (button-masing at its finest!). Well worth the wait in my opinion. Long and very entertaining. Only disappointment: the final bad guy's voice acting... a bit too preachy...
Started Wild Arms: Alter Code F. Ah, the memories (it was my favorite rpg on the Playstation next to Final Fantasy 7...). Not exactly perfect, but I'm enjoying it.
Select number to give...
-22
Live a Live.
Second try.
I still don't think it's good, but it's playable this time at least.
Dracos
Felt like playing through a western game, so I rented Gun for the PS2. Beat it yesterday, and now I'm getting ready to assault Evil Mountain in DQ5 with family in tow.
Reinstalled Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction for the first time in like 2/3 years. I've forgotten everything. =)
*is on USWest*
Quote from: "Serafita"Reinstalled Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction for the first time in like 2/3 years. I've forgotten everything. =)
*is on USWest*
Click! Click your way
to victory!Diablo scratched my multiplayer itch in ways that haven't been scratched in a long, long time. :)
Finally finished Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. It's one of the most wonderfully atmospheric and creepy games I've played in a while, and filled with some great action setpieces, but it's bogged down by awkward stealth mechanics and some flat-out frustrating "do it our way or die until you do" puzzles. Having said that, kicking cultist ass with a tommy gun is not a hard sell for me <3
Currently on the retail version of Shadowgrounds. Framerate leaves something to be desired - apparently to be addressed in a patch due out this week - but it's still a pretty sweet top-down actioner at its core, and I'm a sucker for a game with a good soundtrack. It gets bonus points for introducing me to both mixes of this song (http://www.aripulkkinen.com/index.php?page=music&page2=rtzonking); while not normally once for dance music, I confess I found them highly enjoyable, and the in-game version was quite well suited for the club fight scene in which it was used ^^
I was traveling on the road,
with a dog and a bunny,
past the freakshows and over the ball of twine,
I made it out just in time to see the trees rise,
then hit the road again....
Now I think I'll take a trip to the past where knights wore pink and merchants made cash and all that.
Dracos
Sam and Max, yo
I tried.
but I really can't go back. I love the game but I can't stand the early era interfaces anymore. I'm not that patient these days.
Dracos
What can't you get through?
Up to Chapter 4 of Dragon Quest 4. I shall conquer the Zenithian arc of the series before I play River City Ransom for the first time.
Oh, and then finally get to Growlanser Generations. *has had the game like for a whole year and never touched the second game in the set*
Playin' Smackdown vs. Raw 2006, bleh. >_>
I hate wrestling games, but there's a sim mode in it where you take control of either Raw or Smackdown (Rival wrestling shows) and try to have more viewers by the end of the year.
My little bro can't beat it, and he needs to beat it to unlock a the GM Mode Trophy.
And since I'm fairly good at sim games....he's begged me to do it. :p
Okay. I went heavy old school during the trip. One Must Fall 2097. Yeah, odin remembers it and probably no one else. I found my skills had degraded a fair bit and then went to play tournament mode to regain them. I love tournament mode. It's just tons of fun. Ran a Katana mech through easy. A jaguar through normal. And now doing a jaguar through hard. Then I'll do one through very hard as I'm pretty much owning hard right now.
Dracos
Cleaning the house in Chibi-Robo. Nice game.
I'm pondering silly thoughts right now as I try to get BoF2 to work past Highfort.
Thoughts probably fueled by me playing Sailor Moon Another Story, but hey..
Do any of you think a human mind can withstand playing an older Final Fantasy (say 1-5) while playing FFX-2?
Some Chrono Trigger today.
Dracoos
"A relaxing non-linear adventure....STEAMBOT CHRONICLES!"
God I hate the title screen for this game. <_<;;
Torin's passage. I'll explain more later =p
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Torin's passage. I'll explain more later =p
Dracos
Man, I remember that game. It was fun.
Shock, =p
Anyhow, finished it a day or two ago. Good game, though weak story. I did remember it well for a reason.
Playing Suik V now.
Dracos
Beat Megaman Zero 1 and Metroid Zero Mission. Having fun with Final Fantasy V now, then maybe I'll try Zero 2.
Galuf is mighty.
Enjoying my new Xbox, today's gaming includes Fable, DOA: Ultimate, and DOA Volleyball. Might do a bit of Jet Set Radio Future later.
Oblivionating today.
As Yesterday.
And the day before.
I've been having a grand old time with Oblivion. It really is a wonderful game.
Dracos
Trying to unlock all the costumes in DoA: Ultimate.
God, I suck at 3D fighters. X_x
Also: Street Fighter Alpha: Anthology. I had almost forgotten how much SFA3 kicks ass.
Quote from: "Olguin"Up to Chapter 4 of Dragon Quest 4.
I never got past chapter 2. My damn emulator files got corrupted. If you know of a good NES emulator with multiple save state slots, lemme know. >_>
Nesten? FCEU?
Zophar's domain (google it) is your friend. =)
Dracos
Currently struggling through The Way (http://www.lun.cjb.net/); pinned down by a nasty dragon thingy in Episode 5. I'm impressed with the overall production, but it has one and a half episodes left to prove to me that the plot isn't a hopelessly convoluted mess and that every character isn't an egomaniacal self-centered pathetic excuse for a human being with a criminally tragic past. Oh, and there's lots of oh-so-helpful "..." along the way, coupled with more people in the shadows than out of them.
I'm not saying it's all gotta be sunshine and rainbows, nor am I asking for Cliff's Notes, but I am asking for a main character I do not detest and a story that's less angsty than all of Livejournal, Linkin Park, and the collected works of Anne Rice combined. Oh, and it'd help if the QfG-style stat 'porting between episodes actually worked like it was supposed to, instead of randomly changing my skills and stripping me of stats that I worked my ass off for.
I'm sensing a case of reach > grasp here, which is a shame because the concept and the idea for the world is pretty cool. More to follow when I get un-stuck and emerge victorious.
Aaaaaaand it's over. I didn't reach the end of Episode 6, I just gave up. Lemme tell you why.
The whole game, and I mean the whole game is about this guy Rhue trying to find what happened to his girl after some tragedy years ago. Everything he does, he does for that one singular purpose - and he does some pretty goddamn horrible stuff along the way, both in direct pursuit of that goal and on the side. Of course, the people he does horrible stuff to also have done horrible stuff in the past, or have had horrible stuff done to them. The short of it is, the entire cast, almost to a man, woman and child, is collectively more fucked up than the entire population of fifteen randomly selected mental hospitals across the continental United States, combined.
Somehow, I put up with this. I put up with the shitty characters I neither understood nor cared for, I put up with the endless drama and 'shocking' plot twists and the fact that most of the game's graphics are ripped from FF6 and Breath of Fire 3, and half the game's music from FF7, FF8, Star Ocean 2 and Brave Fencer Musashi, and that the jousting system was nonsensical and the fact that I couldn't quit the game when I wanted to.
The minigames and puzzle sequences, which ranged from 'decent' to 'god-awful' did not exactly smooth things over, and let's leave aside the fact that one has to complete an ungodly number of not-optional sidequests on top of not-optional sidequests to get anywhere.
I put up with this because, up to Episode 6, they have a coherent world. There is a clear flow of events. The story has many loose ends to tie up, but it has room to do so. And then, lo and behold, right in the middle of a Fight Club 'you are Tyler Durden' revelation, Episode 6 traps our hero in a dream world... for hours, and hours, and hours, doing menial tasks and performing in plays and going on dates and the plot's going nowhere and we still haven't answered questions that have been going on since hour 1 and...
I just gave up. The plot was going in some bizarro David Lynch-ian 'let's make things even more convoluted even though we have questions in the goddamn real world that are sort of on hold for some reason' direction, and I just gave up. I couldn't take it anymore. The characters pissed me off, the story was jerking me around, and a glance at the forums, and a hefty dose of spoilers, has led me to believe the ending would literally have me reduced to a Hulk-like rage, only instead of hurling a tank I would curl up in a little ball, sobbing quietly.
So promising, but it went so very, criminally, unforgivably wrong. Folks, play at your own risk unless you have a very strong stomach for madness, pretense and complexity the likes of which would make Xenogears and Lain look like they were made by Fisher Price.
Bleh. Sounds like one of those 'modern' tales for computers.
Anyhow... started KOTOR. Finished KOTOR.
Good and fun, but not great. The heavy handed writing really got to me towards the end. THe filler dungeons didn't help. The fact that they made both light and darkside absurd jackasses doesn't help. Who the hell includes brainwashing and mental obliteration in 'lightside techniques'. The ending was bleh too.
Started darkside but the fact darkside makes you look like a trash compactor hit you really killed my buzz. "I'm playing a corpse! And not in the cool Nameless One sense X_X"
Starting bard's tale now. No windowed mode makes dracos sad.
Dracos
Hmm... I know I shouldn't, but I think I'll play that game (the Way). I enjoy playing games that are both "this is how you make a good game" (ICO) and "this is not" (Unlimited SaGa). And Karlinn, that post was awesome.
And, speaking of Zophar, I started Lunar 2 recently. It's amazing just how BAD the voice talents were at Working Designs. And, after that, I'm continuing my work on my Chrono-parody with Radical Dreamers... (joy!)
-22
I am eagerly awaiting the part where the Prince takes off his shirt.
....whaaaaat??
Quote from: "twentytwo"Hmm... I know I shouldn't, but I think I'll play that game (the Way). I enjoy playing games that are both "this is how you make a good game" (ICO) and "this is not" (Unlimited SaGa). And Karlinn, that post was awesome.
And, speaking of Zophar, I started Lunar 2 recently. It's amazing just how BAD the voice talents were at Working Designs. And, after that, I'm continuing my work on my Chrono-parody with Radical Dreamers... (joy!)
-22
Good luck, brother. Here's a FAQ (http://www.geocities.com/jabbo_kaldra/way_faq.txt) to help if you're serious; it's not too hard up through most of the game, but there's a lot to miss and later on it ramps up the difficulty more than a few notches.
Ahh, Lunar... the world so nice, we played through it twice ^^
Also, Dracos: Yeah, that's BioWare for you. They really don't do subtle very well; I maintain they should stick to making Forgotten Realms games, and devote their leisure time to finding something better than the Infinity engine to do them in.
Jade Empire.
Toad Demon style is made of win and love. <3
The thing I love about PoP is the interaction between the Prince and Farrah. The library part was funny; he's off doing all sorts of acrobatics and she's over there narrating stuff about love to him from a book.
It's all very heh and lolz.
Recently got Capcom vs SNK II and the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology.
Am taking to Capcom vs SNK II, and am trying very hard to master the character of Hibiki, which is not at all easy. I can still only beat the game in easy mode. ;_;
Storm: that is fun, though I always preferred the gauntlets.
----
Ninja Cop has been my poison for nearly 10 hours now. Great stuff.
Dracos
Quote from: "Ragnar"Recently got Capcom vs SNK II and the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology.
Am taking to Capcom vs SNK II, and am trying very hard to master the character of Hibiki, which is not at all easy. I can still only beat the game in easy mode. ;_;
Dan Hibiki? <_< No wonder you're having trouble, he was purposely made as a sucky character.
EDIT: Oh yeah, playing Symphonia again. Will prolly start Al-Qadim later.
The djinn lords will crush you!
Dracos
Not Dan Hibiki! Hibiki Takane!
I'm also partial to King from the King of Fighters series.
Fable again.
Being evil sucks compared to being good. Cooler outfits and more gold in exchange for everyone hating you and not being able to master the Heal spell? Ew.
On the other hands, I can open Demon Doors now without getting bit in the ass for it, so blah. :P
I have liberated the Sprites from the tyrannical plots of the Asgardian Magi in Riviera. Have acquired a harem's worth of lolita lookin' female PCs after my main character.
Time to pick up Boktai and kick undead ass.
Just beat the Boktai series.
And today, I pretty much concluded my runs of Utawarerumono action game. I've beaten every stage on very hard at this point. Unfortunately, I've got 5 characters left to unlock, all bosses I think, and little will to unlock them. Sure, I'd like to try them out but I foresee having no desire to level crush with them after level crushing a half dozen more times to get them. Bothersome.
Dracos
Old School SNES trip: Have pretty much finished screwing around with "Fatal Fury." I am currently working on "Art of Fighting."
After that, I should get back to either DQ VIII or Capcom vs SNK 2.
EDIT: Grabbed Hal's rom of an old Lupin III SNES game. Strangely addictive.
In the last couple of days:
Devil may cry 3: Pretty decent but it's going to wait.
Yu Yu H 1: an interesting fighting game, if not particularly great.
Yu Yu H 2: Not so interesting.
Yu Yu H 3: Same as 1, without the narrative. Nicer system though, cleaner and fairer to the player.
Shadow of the Colossus: Very neat. Just impressive seeing the colossus go.
Summon Night: Swordcraft story: Absolutely awesome. GBA game. Get. Has Tales Manual how it should've been. Awesome game even though it's a dungeon crawler.
Dracos
Finished swordcraft. Nothing really today.
Dracos
Super Robot Wars: Original Taisen was kind of neat. A fun play for a strat game.
Dracos
Star Ocean is filling my non-programming timeslots.
Dracos
Disgaea 2 is now taking up my time between WoW and reading. I'm only on chapter 5, so I may come back later to give my thoughts on it.
Advance Wars 2, seems very much focused more towards the multiplayer than the singleplayer campaign.
Dracos
Disgaea 2. X__X
ZOMGTHISGAMERULESSOFREAKINGMUCH.
Completed AW2. Tried hard mode. Wow, quite a leap. Got mauled several times on the first level.
Dracos
Beat ZoE.
Starting ZoE2.
'
well, as soon as my arms move anyway.
Dracos
Hey, I beat Zelda 2, and am now seeing if anything happens once you beat it again.
Beat Disgaea 2 earlier this week. I think I got the good end. Thieves+steal conciousness+steal health= brokenest class in a Nippon1 game EVAR!
Now back to Xenosaga 3!
...Er, right after about six straight hours of anime, which will take place after the normal Sat-Full-Day-Misc-Gaming-At-Friend's-House, and Sunday morning work of course.
If I'm lucky, he's gotten the canbinet to work again and I can throw down Waku-Waku 7 style!
Okami.
Damn perfect game, all I'm saying. X_X
Quote from: "Ranma_007"Hey, I beat Zelda 2, and am now seeing if anything happens once you beat it again.
Classic!
Dragon Quest IV on NES.
We rockin' it old school, yo.
Rocket Rocket Slime
Well, actually I beat it yesterday.
Not nearly as pure as the original.
o/~ Rocket Slime, burning out my fuse out here alone! ~\o
I'm still doing DQ IV, but have also taken to Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special, both of which rock.
Okami is the poison of the day.
Dracos
Finally played through God of War. I don't get all the fuss, really... It was fun, in an ICO/Zelda sort of way (without the obvious hints on actually HOW to beat a boss...), but I found it rather cliche' and a rush job at best)
Now: Star Ocean - Till the End of Time...
I'm 18 hours in and I'm unstoppable... (I love fighting and power leveling... I just wish it didn't make the game so easy...)
Also: Let my brother borrow Shadow of the Colossus.
Gotta share the love...
-22
Still on Okami...as well as Swordcrafter Story 2.
Which is causing me to die an awful lot actually. It's a weird sensation. Though I could go with a 'return to last save' rather than game over deal.
Dracos
Warning Forever (http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/index_e.html). Damnit.
You're gonna need a controller for this one.
Bri: That's the one that evolves, right?
Still hammering away on Disgaea 2. Currently a bit frustrated because my Etoile won't spawn a Thief Lover, and I want to get Lovers on it before I try to level it up (mostly so it doesn't come up with them later when I can't get them off the maxed-out item).
Not a lot left on the agenda with this, though. Need to find Baal/Prinny Baal, and I should beat the game on the Land of Carnage side to see if the ending changes at all. Aside from that (and clearing all the Dark World stages) I'm pretty much done with the game.
Ragnar: Does it ever!
I thought that was called Invalid Tangram?
Tales of Teh Abyss.
Swordcraft Fisher 2.
Dracos
Guitar Heroes. Quite fun, but my fingers hurt.
Tales of the Abyss.
Quite fun, once you get about 25 hours in.
Tsukihime.
Got through both of Arc's endings so now onto Ciel.
Children of mana almost finished x-x
Dracos
Bad addiction
Yoshi's Island DS.
Not as charming this time around, but still quite fun. ^^
Quote from: "Dracos"Children of mana almost finished x-x
Dracos
Bad addiction
How is it compared to SD3?
Just got Elite Beat Agents. So far it's just as good as Ouendan and certain areas have been improved on from the previous game.
Gin: SD3 and Children of Mana really can't compare, from what I've heard. SD3 is....SD3, and Children of Mana is a button mashy dungeon crawler.
Anyways....onto FF3 DS for me.
Dexie hears right.
Children of Mana is Diablo. With mana characters. It's not really that good and ends a good 5 hours AFTER it should've. Stupid "AND NOW A NEW FINAL BOSS APPEARS" shit. A baby too. What the fuck were they smoking?
Anyhow, was playing Neverwinter nights 2. Computer ac adapter is busted though so that's stopped.
Was also playing FFVA, same problem there though.
Made it a bit further in contact. Still fun in small bursts and great during long lectures.
Started Tales of the Abyss this morning. Loathe the main character and what they did with the sorcerer's ring was meh. I don't have a problem with the main from a concept level but damn, do they need to have him be a complete ass to demonstrate his 'out of sheltered life' shit? Come on! It's enough to inspire an article on overdone waste of flesh starts in order to increase the range of improvement. They've really gotten to taking it too far. Just got free run, but it's not been so useful thus far.
Ordered FF3 and Xenosaga 3 this morning. Amazon made another sale over ebgames increasingly cruddy interface.
Mragh.
LET THE CODING BEGIN.
Dracos
As I said, Drac, it takes about 20-25 hours for Abyss to start getting playable and for Luke to stop being such an asshat. :/
Free Run does get useful though, mainly for avoiding magic.
Anyway, balancing between FF3 and Children of Mana now.
Dex:
Unless you are playing with friends, stop wasting your time with CoM. It really never changes from where it is, so it's largely best with friends.
Dracos
Luke is dropping below Squall.
I think that says everything.
I moved back to ZoE 2 (second run) because I hated Luke.
I also don't like anyone else in the party.. But Luke is phenomenially bad. What the fuck were they thinking:
"Durrr... Let's have him kick puppies and steal lollipops from children, durrr... and act like that's a good guy!"
Dracos
Trying to install english patch on Tsukihime, failing spectacularly.
At least I have Dark Watch and Onimusha 3 waiting for me.
I have been playing Final Fantasy XII. TH=he game is actually quite a lot of fun. While I was not particularly impressed with the demo, I do think the full game is a lot of fun. The fact that the voice acting is skillfully done makes it all the better.
Yo Mon.
Contact is amusing me... though it's saddening that it rewards grinding over progress.
Dracos
Zelda: OoT: Master Quest.
Hatehatehate Fire Keese. >_<
Beat contact.
That left a foul taste in my mouth.
Dracos
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Speaking of which, how many of us got Wiis?
Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2.
Fun game, aside from some of the really stupid story mode battles. ~_~
I've got one. I'm playing Twilight Princess as well. Will give DBZ:BT2 a try as well... but maybe after I find a way to bite Midna with wolf Link. =)
Don't feel like heading into FF3's final dungeon right now. Damn lack of save points.
So...starting FFV Advance. :D
FFV is fun. Need an FF break, though.
On to Sneak King!
CV: Portrait of Ruin.
Not too far in yet, but I'm already ready to call this the best handheld CV yet. X_x
Damn slow shipping! EB games hasn't gotten me that yet.
Still on FF3 DS.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dexie Oblivion"Zelda: OoT: Master Quest.
Hatehatehate Fire Keese. >_<
Quote from: "Dexie Oblivion"Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2.
Fun game, aside from some of the really stupid story mode battles. ~_~
Quote from: "Dexie Oblivion"Don't feel like heading into FF3's final dungeon right now. Damn lack of save points.
So...starting FFV Advance. :D
Quote from: "Dexie Oblivion"FFV is fun. Need an FF break, though.
On to Sneak King!
Quote from: "Dexie Oblivion"CV: Portrait of Ruin.
Not too far in yet, but I'm already ready to call this the best handheld CV yet. X_x
Jeez you go through games quickly.
In addition to FF3 I'm now playing FFXII, Shadow of the Colossus, Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, Castlevania: PoR and Suiko-- Now Loading...den V.
I'm bound to beat at least one of these games... right? ^^;
Grandia 3. I must say that's it a fun if mixed bag o' gaming, but well worth the price tag. 'cept for the plot, but you can't win them all.
Has it dropped to 15 yet? =p
Anyhow, playing Portrait of Ruin, FF3, and Legacy of Goku 2. Dunno why the latter but anyhow.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Has it dropped to 15 yet? =p
Anyhow, playing Portrait of Ruin, FF3, and Legacy of Goku 2. Dunno why the latter but anyhow.
Dracos
How's Portrait of Ruin?
Anyway, I got it for the grand price of...$0.00. My brother borrowed it from a friend, but in all honesty it's worth picking up. Battle system's really improved from Grandia 1/2.
Quote from: "Ginnezumusha"
Jeez you go through games quickly.
I like shuffling through my games. ^^; Makes it harder to get annoyed or bored at anything.
Grand Theft Auto 3: San Andreas.
Started a new playthrough of this just for kicks. The game's really amazing for pure, enthralling 'do whatever you want'ness, something I don't think any other game has come close to yet.
Heh, I remember playing GTA: Vice City at a friend's place very often during college. I don't think we ever did a single damn mission in all that time. Fun memories though. ^_^;
What do you do the most whenever you don't do missions in San Andreas? ^_^
SA actually got dropped by me when it started giving me on rails situations where I had to use very specific solutions to problems and couldn't just be clever within the game rules.
That said, camping the police station. Yarr!
Anyhow, Portrait of Ruin may well be the best Castlevania title yet. It really is quite charming and phenomenially well done. I could go without the fact that the current optimal money gaining strategy at the moment for me involves using a large spear against nubile young women, but then there's other things to farm if need and it really is a well done inclusion in the series. Aside from one premise (Belmonts can't touch whip till wha?) that they dropped in, it's been remarkably smooth whenever they've chosen to interject story into my rocking out. After shit like ToA, I verily appreciate such on their end.
Their level design is notably very charming this go around. Finding excuses (Portraits) to go any way they want with the design without polluting the castle was great. My favorite level so far has to be Nation of Fools. It's both a carnival and a warzone and while your gravity is always down, the enemies gravity goes with what the room orientation happens to be, which can be lots of things and is a really neat effect. It also has the best version of Legion I've seen yet, and so remarkably fitting in what seems to be the shattered ruins of a world war 2 era village.
Dracos
ToA, Drac?
Tales of Abyss, I imagine. He didn't sound too pleased with the game in the review thread for it.
Oh, I missed that somehow. I'm surprised, since I've heard nothing but good about ToA so far.
I gotta go with Drac on ToA.
My problem with it is that the game takes about 20-25 hours to start getting interesting, and you hate Luke for that entire period.
That, and the world map is not only one of the worst designed world maps I've ever seen, but it's ugly as hell to the eye.
Anyway, staying on topic. Portraiting!
EDIT: Btw, Drac, I'm pretty sure Nation of Fools is meant to be a WWI warzone, not WWII.
Probably, Dex.
And yeah, Dex pretty much calls it. Having to put up with a really shitty protagonist for 25 hours is longer than I used to take to finish RPGs. That's not cool. Not that I played it anywhere near that long.
Dracos
Granted, the game DOES pick up, but by that point, I really didn't care anymore.
Symphonia started faster, had a better cast, and the world map didn't hurt my eyes. XP
Really, if I ever do end up finishing it, it'll be mainly because of Jade. XD
Still playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Roll-Goal = Most ANNOYING/EVIL/FRUSTRATING mini-game EVER.
Sonic Rivals.
A very fun Sonic game.
No longer an oxymoron, I see.
Quote from: "thepanda"Sonic Rivals.
A very fun Sonic game.
No longer an oxymoron, I see.
I don't believe it.
Was playing Tomb Raider Legends until the rental disc froze up because of a scratch on it. I guess I'll have to play Final Fantasy XII now, then.
FF3DS. =)
Just finished the sewers.
Dracos
Trauma Center: Second Opinion.
I fucking hate Deftera SO DAMN MUCH. :D
Almost done with FF3DS. Unfortunately it turns into a real grindfest, particularly if you want to utilize any of the last tier of jobs that are given way too close to the last boss.
Dracos
Still playing Second Opinion.
I can't figure out how to beat that damn Deftera in the Fallen Heroes stage. x_x
I'd love to use Healing Touch, but I can't beat Triti without it. :P
Princess Peach.
Some good, some bad. Easy easy though and the ds stuff is always awkward.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Princess Peach.
Some good, some bad. Easy easy though and the ds stuff is always awkward.
Dracos
SPP is more of a Kirby title than a Mario one, I felt.
That being said, it's fun, aside from the silly requirement to get into the final stage.
There was a requirement to fight Bowser in SPP?
Yes.
Find all three Toads in every stage in the game.
Yes, it is Dex. Admittingly, I really think it could use a better jump and more super marioish design on the world map (Alternate routes for example).
Dracos
Oh. That's why I never noticed, then. Toads are easy to find.
A few stages had rather annoying ones to locate. >_>
EDIT: Not sure what I'm gonna play today. Might finish up the Nest of Eviiil in PoR, though part of me is really wanting to indulge in some FFT.
Eh. They're still less retardedly hidden than NSMB's hidden secrets. Which would probably be all the less retarded if the game had some sense of friction.
The original Legend of Zelda.
Damn blue Darknuts and the four corners shooting at you. Need to go through level 9 now.
Original Zelda is hard. I blame it on lack of diagonal movement.
Rayman: Raving Rabbids is today's choice of game.
Currently working through Tales of the Abyss, in an assuredly vain attempt to whittle down my long-neglected console backlog.
Apart from that, Company of Heroes is living proof that World War II has not been exhausted for all its magical awesome-game-making sauce yet. Relic shall be my new Westwood until Westwood returns to claim what is rightfully theirs.
Apart from that, it's also 'replay through Fallout games' time, this time plus mods that apparently add in locations cut from the game during development. I look forward to spending ten minutes poking around the EPA, and another twenty-nine hours and fifty minutes doing everything else basically the same ^^
What's Relic again?
Dracos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic_Entertainment
They did Impossible Creatures. :D
Ah yes.
Hum, they do pretty neat stuff. I should get around to playing more of their games I have around.
Dracos
Lumines 2 and if I have time Pokemon Rescue. The 150 block challenge is haunting my dreams now. o_O
I just don't see how anyone can do it. ;_;
Guitar Hero.
Might be better at it if I actually knew most these songs. :/
More Lumines...
I beat the 150 block challenge! Yay!
... It broke out super hard mode challenges. ;_;
Back to FFXII.
Earth Tyrant was annoying. :/
Killing the King Bomb in one hit was fun.
Unlocked Kahn mode in Elite Beat Agents, trying for S-Ranks now.
Was playing Eba. Fuck eba. Now finishing off hard mode, lim 50 for PoR.
Got reviews and articles to polish and get up.
Dracos
I'll bite.
Why fuck EBA? :P
Anyway, I'm playing JUSTICE FOR ALL. :D
Tales of the Abyss:
Game is amazing. I'm only about up to the 1/3 or 1/4 mark and I'm totally enthralled.
Starting on Phoenix Wright: Justice For All. Hopefully it'll be as fun as the first game :)
And in other news my sister in a couple of weeks was able to beat FFVII and Kingdom Hearts....
At least I defeated PoR ^^;
Weak, Gin. =p
Okay... uh.. Tsukihime, DBZ: Supersonic Warriors 2, Portrait of Ruin hard mode, Deep Labryinth, and possibly Cherry blossom later tonight. Slow day, ne?
Dracos
Drac: Tsukihime? Is there an english patch out for that?
I finally got my MAME emulator working with some help. Right now, I'm doing King of Fighters '94 (Rugal is a bitch) and Samurai Shodown 2.
Justice for All and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Spirit Caller.
Quote from: "Ragnar"Drac: Tsukihime? Is there an english patch out for that?
I finally got my MAME emulator working with some help. Right now, I'm doing King of Fighters '94 (Rugal is a bitch) and Samurai Shodown 2.
There is. I can link you if you want, it's well done and lets you play the game with or without the hentai.
Ana: That would be awesome. Then I'd need to find the game itself, but I think I can handle that.
Quote from: "Ragnar"Ana: That would be awesome. Then I'd need to find the game itself, but I think I can handle that.
I can help you with that, too. Poke me on IRC sometime.
Ah, thanks!
BTW: KoF '94: King rocks. Hard.
Well, today I'm playing... nothing so far. Maybe some PoR or DBZ or something is in the future. Who knows =)
Dracos
test?
Tomb Raider: Legends and Megaman ZX.
Of the latter, it's kind of middling. It's got a cosplay premise, which I suppose is pretty good in one sense, but the characters cosplayed are all from the MMZ series, and really weren't that cool there I felt. The running world setup just means that to do most missions, you're spending half your time hiking out to the new level. I continually want for teleporters that are rare in the game space.
TR: Legends on the other hand is pretty good. Not fantastic, but it has a lot going for it and is very play friendly.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Tomb Raider: Legends and Megaman ZX.
Of the latter, it's kind of middling. It's got a cosplay premise, which I suppose is pretty good in one sense, but the characters cosplayed are all from the MMZ series, and really weren't that cool there I felt. The running world setup just means that to do most missions, you're spending half your time hiking out to the new level. I continually want for teleporters that are rare in the game space.
TR: Legends on the other hand is pretty good. Not fantastic, but it has a lot going for it and is very play friendly.
Dracos
Ugh. ZX's horrible difficulty settings and shitty map system killed the game for me. :/
I played on normal which has been a bit hard. Haven't read much about the difficulty. THe map system sucks to hell though and it's a bit annoying that I've never beaten any of the core eight without using a subtank.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"I played on normal which has been a bit hard. Haven't read much about the difficulty. THe map system sucks to hell though and it's a bit annoying that I've never beaten any of the core eight without using a subtank.
Dracos
It gets too hard on normal mode, and you can beat it with your eyes closed on easy.
Anyway....finally stole my copy of TP back from my brother, so that's on my agenda for today.
Dungeon 7, here I come~!
Took a break from playing Phoenix Wright and started on Hotel Dusk Room 215. So far it's an excellent adventure game.
Working through TotA. It's still a good game, but you can tell it was rushed in development. There are some really stupid choices and much of the game is a giant railroad.
It's not ToS, but it's still a good tales game.
CHUU CHUU~!
Anyhow, almost done with Tomb Raider: Legends. Good game for the most part. A little dark in some areas but good.
Dracos
Gonna finish up Twilight Princess when I awaken.
Just gotta say, dungeon 8 and the boss fight within are FUCKING. AWESOME.
Rogue Galaxy.
Onimusha 2 which, for a worst in the series, is leaving a pretty good impression on me. Sure it's voice acting and gift system is retarded, but the whole issun thing is god damn awesome.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Onimusha 2 which, for a worst in the series, is leaving a pretty good impression on me. Sure it's voice acting and gift system is retarded, but the whole issun thing is god damn awesome.
Dracos
Huh, 2 is the worst? I assumed that crappy Tactics spinoff I played on GBA was the black sheep of the Onimusha family...
Either way, the main four games look nifty, and I do plan on breaking into them eventually. :)
Well, that's the rumor I hear.
This is the first I've played and well, I'm enjoying myself. Good difficulty mode use too, even if they should've just unlocked most of them right off the bat.
Dracos
Finally playing Tsukihime, thanks to the efforts of Midnight and Merc, who helped me through practically every step of the process due to my total technical ineptitude >_>;
Thanks, guys!
Tales of the Abyss: Winding through the game. Much like any tales game, it improves as it goes on and you get more powerful. Shock.
Maximum Impact 2/King of Fighters 2006.
Thank you SNK for not making your 3d KoF series crappy. But on the other hand you made breaking out stages a bit annoying.
Shadow of the Colossus. This is the first current-gen, non-RPG videogame I've played since...uh, when did MGS3 come out? ...Yeah. Anyway, it's been fun so far despite the eleventh Colossus being tooth-grindingly annoying. Wonderful scenery.
Turtles..3? for the DS? Anyhow, it was pretty lame and only got about 15 minutes.
Then moved on to yoshi's island DS. Which seems less awesome than Yoshi's island was with unnecessary add ons. It seems it's actually often impossible to get all the 'medalions' the first run through as some are invisible save for other characters. Joyous addition that I don't know what it adds at the moment anyway.
Anyhow onimusha tonight hopefully.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Turtles..3? for the DS? Anyhow, it was pretty lame and only got about 15 minutes.
Then moved on to yoshi's island DS. Which seems less awesome than Yoshi's island was with unnecessary add ons. It seems it's actually often impossible to get all the 'medalions' the first run through as some are invisible save for other characters. Joyous addition that I don't know what it adds at the moment anyway.
Anyhow onimusha tonight hopefully.
Dracos
NINJA Turtles?
You wasted money on a modern Ninja Turtles game? You poor child...
Money?
No no. I've been using EA's library which lets me rent games for free to experiment with games I'd never pay for! =D
Dracos
EA....?
You're borrowing games from the library of THE EA? O_o;;;
Taking a break from more serious titles, relaxing with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue.
/me rather enjoys a nice, calm dungeon crawl. ^^
Yah, what of it?
Started and finished PHoenix wright: Ace Attorney. I enjoyed it though!
Writing some reviews instead of gaming today.
So much for a relaxing dungeon crawl.
Postgame stuff in Mystery Dungeon is HAAAAAAAAAARD. X_X
Started Ready to Rumble 2 on the GBA today. It was pretty lame as far as I could tell. So it only got a few minutes. Lets see if Ogre Battle Lodis whatever does better on tomorrow morning's drive.
This evening is some Onimusha 2. Mmm, Not finding Issun's quite as natural on this. I dunno why as the whole blur blade seems like a cleaner indicator, but damn if half the time it simply doesn't do anything when I dodge-strike.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Started Ready to Rumble 2 on the GBA today. It was pretty lame as far as I could tell. So it only got a few minutes. Lets see if Ogre Battle Lodis whatever does better on tomorrow morning's drive.
This evening is some Onimusha 2. Mmm, Not finding Issun's quite as natural on this. I dunno why as the whole blur blade seems like a cleaner indicator, but damn if half the time it simply doesn't do anything when I dodge-strike.
Dracos
Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis? I never got too far in it. It felt kind boring to me.
Today's gaming is....Pokemon Emerald! Restarting my file with Treecko, gonna start training up some good pokemon to transfer over to Diamond/Pearl when they're released.
Gonna work in some Ar tonelico, too.
Played some guitar hero last night. Hum. Wasn't bad. Lots of rhythm game discussion. Damn punk hip-hoppers.
Dracos
After maybe 3-4 weeks of no gaming, finally got back on Twilight Princess. Haven't gone to fight Ganon yet though, I admit. I did a bit of that last dungeon, but when I ran out of bombs, I went out and somehow just started doing heart sidequests. Stopped gaming once I had all 45 heart pieces.
On an related note, Dexie (or was it Stormy?) was totally right about the Fortune Teller being hilarious. ^_^
Hrm, let's see if I can't finally finish the game tomorrow. It's sad that I got to that last dungeon way before Stormy and Dexie, and yet they've long finished the game. I'm such a slacker... >_>;
Starting my third cycle in Disgaea 2.
Finally finished Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Now playing Sonic & The Secret Rings.
Beat Onimusha 3 today. Now doing some Final Fantasy 6 a.
Dracos
Grinding, grinding, reincarnating.
Trying to unlock the higher tiered classes in Disgaea 2.
Still playing Sonic & The Secret Rings.
Some levels have been frustrating me, but overall I'm still enjoying it.
Except for Captain Behemoth. I hate that fucker. >_<
*Goes back to trying to beat the Pirate Storm boss*
Finished Tales of the Abyss. Superb game, keep with it even if you put it down partway. Ar Tonelico is next, then probably Persona 2.
Man, I've been more quiet than I should be here.
Played some lunar knights. That was pretty awesome but am waiting for my cartridge to come in.
Played some Sonic Rush. It was pretty badass, though I ended up putting it down in the exact same spot the person before me did: Right at the beginning of the water levels. sorry "find the invulnerability thing in the water to survive" was a bit of a downer.
Played Izuna, which is a contender for worst rpg of the decade. Thank you atlus, for proving you fund shit twice as often as good stuff. It's almost hand constructed to be bad, even for folks who rather like the rogue/nethack genre.
About at the esper factory in FF6a.
Also, picked up a wii today. EA said they wanted to sell me one. Repeatedly. Involving putting stacks of them right there. It had to happen.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"
Also, picked up a wii today. EA said they wanted to sell me one. Repeatedly. Involving putting stacks of them right there. It had to happen.
Dracos
At last....you are one of us....meheheheheee... :D
Now get yer friend code into the proper thread so me and Merc can spam you with Miis. XD
Yes! Wii would like your wii code! =p
As soon as its online, you have my promise.
Albeit this current living space is the anti-online.
Dracos
Ahahahahaha! How silly. Still playing Sonic & Secret Rings, and I just got a gold star in the boss fight vs Erazor (main baddie). The main boss shouldn't be gold starred so easily, even if it's his first form getting beaten! XD
Quote from: "Dracos"Played Izuna, which is a contender for worst rpg of the decade. Thank you atlus, for proving you fund shit twice as often as good stuff. It's almost hand constructed to be bad, even for folks who rather like the rogue/nethack genre.
I've heard mixed reviews for it. For the most part those who like roguelike genre have enjoyed this game.
Been playing Tales of Legendia lately (after beating Justice for All and Hotel Dusk). Nice game with an old-school Tales battle system and excellent music.
Quote from: "Dracos"
Played Izuna, which is a contender for worst rpg of the decade. Thank you atlus, for proving you fund shit twice as often as good stuff. It's almost hand constructed to be bad, even for folks who rather like the rogue/nethack genre.
Drac is right here. Izuna is utter shit.
You want a handheld rougelike? Play Pokemon Mystery Dungeon instead. It's FAR superior to this crap.
Anyway...taking a break from Secret Rings for Lunar Knights and Devil May Crap 3.
Picked up Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for my PSP. May as well get some use out of it. Alternating between it and Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts. On my PS2, I have a massive backlog of games. Notable ones:
Zone of the Enders 2 - Got up to the fight with the space armada and the Vector Cannon and haven't picked it up in months.
Metal Saga - Crusing through the game with my PCs in awesome tanks and a genetically engineered dog. I'm liking it so far, but damn are the characters weak outside of the tanks.
Atelier Iris 2 - Still near the beginning of the game. Haven't done much there yet.
And I have Onimusha 1 and 2 still unplayed.
Yesterday:
Battlestadium D.O.N.- Kind of fun, in a Smash Brothers kind of way. Wish they had used Bleach instead of Dragonball. Those characters are waaay over their expiration date. It doesn't fell like there are as many charactrs as there actually are. I've only unlocked one character so far. This game gets the top prize for most rediculously retarded way to break out new characters. Also, not friendly for those of us that can't read the moon language.
Real Boute Fatal Fury Two
Metal Slug X
Waku Waku 7
Breakers
Galaxy Fight
Last Blade 2 - Having a friend with a mostly working SNK arcade machine owns. :D
SVC Chaos
Maximum Impact 2
SNK Battlecoliseum
What can I say? It was fight night.
Today I played some Phantasy Star Universe.
This was only pretty bad and corny.
Then I played some Les Miserables.
There we go. So bad, so utterly corny, that it becomes funny. It's called Armjoe or something like that, but it sports Robot Valjean. It's practically uncontrollable and totally ridiculous.
Now, I'll have to play something good like Peggle or Lunar knights or something. After I stop laughing.
Dracos
Hum.
Giving DQ8 a second chance. Dunno why, though...I couldn't stand it the first time I tried it. Weird.
Played some Lunar Knights t he other day. Also played some Super Paper mario. Lacked wow factor for some reason. Probably the annoying guy behind me.
Dracos
This month in retro...
Guardian Legend (NES)-
Classic! I can't believe I overlooked this as a kid - those stupid reptilian eyes! Can't say I've played a better shooter - with some updated mechanics, it could be greatly innovative even today.
Blaster Master (NES)-
Lol. Man that game was annoying. It was such a pain to play... I keep running out of continues...
Fester's Quest (NES)-
Lol x2. Made by the same group as BM. Short, Quirky, and fun.
F-Zero (GC)-
Woah. That game is so hard. I tried beating Story mode but I keep getting my butt handed to me. After a week, I decided to give up on it. I have better things to do with my time...
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow (GBA)-
Tons of fun. My favorite of the series so far. When I get a DS, I'll play the sequel.
Dual Hearts (PS2)-
Wow. This game surprised me. It was a ton of fun and had a great story: it was one of those games, like Final Fantasy 8, where the ending was so well done that it was well worth the price of admission. Best $10 I ever spent...
Next:
Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (PS2)-
So far, I think its great! Definitely one of their best. Of course, I haven't had to Give Up yet... (My D-Counter's at 8%)
-22
Tried God of War 2 demo. Wasn't expecting much, seeing as how I hated the first game, and I wasn't disappointed. Demo was boring. :/
Back to DQ8!
Quote from: "twentytwo"This month in retro...
Guardian Legend (NES)-
Classic! I can't believe I overlooked this as a kid - those stupid reptilian eyes! Can't say I've played a better shooter - with some updated mechanics, it could be greatly innovative even today.
Blaster Master (NES)-
Lol. Man that game was annoying. It was such a pain to play... I keep running out of continues...
Fester's Quest (NES)-
Lol x2. Made by the same group as BM. Short, Quirky, and fun.
F-Zero (GC)-
Woah. That game is so hard. I tried beating Story mode but I keep getting my butt handed to me. After a week, I decided to give up on it. I have better things to do with my time...
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow (GBA)-
Tons of fun. My favorite of the series so far. When I get a DS, I'll play the sequel.
Dual Hearts (PS2)-
Wow. This game surprised me. It was a ton of fun and had a great story: it was one of those games, like Final Fantasy 8, where the ending was so well done that it was well worth the price of admission. Best $10 I ever spent...
Next:
Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (PS2)-
So far, I think its great! Definitely one of their best. Of course, I haven't had to Give Up yet... (My D-Counter's at 8%)
-22
Man, those are some classics. Guardian Legends for the win =D
Namco made a crappy hack-off of it a couple years back, but it was pathetic.
anyhow, I'm playing Lunar Knights today. Fun and better than a good deal of grind designed games I've played lately. Amazing how much of a difference a little bit more flesh around makes, not to mention non-random dungeon design.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Man, those are some classics. Guardian Legends for the win =D
Namco made a crappy hack-off of it a couple years back, but it was pathetic.
Sigma Star Story...
That's actually next on my list...
-22
It's really bad. I didn't have the heart to tell the proud producer I met that it was so horrible.
Dracos
I'm tempted to load up Paladin's Quest for the SNES. Only RPG I never beat, from what I remember.
Quote from: "Dracos"It's really bad. I didn't have the heart to tell the proud producer I met that it was so horrible.
Sometimes, it's good to learn how NOT to make a game...
Especially since I plan to make my own version of the same idea...
Quote from: "Olguin"I'm tempted to load up Paladin's Quest for the SNES. Only RPG I never beat, from what I remember.
Ah, yes. I loved that game. Good ol' Lennus. They made a sequel...
I've been meaning to go back and play 7th Saga myself. Now that was a HARD game... (I hate that stupid dwarf...)
...They also made a sequel to that, too...
-22
Mainly because they halved all the stat gains in the US version and thus made you half your effective level at any point. For this kind of game, that was a pretty major handicap.
Dracos
Restarted Pokemon Emerald, continuing on Pokemon Leaf Green.
The road to Diamond/Pearl has begun...
Replaying Company of Heroes. "This time," I said to myself, "I'm going to turn this game inside out. This time, I will not get completely pasted on the default difficulty nine times out of ten. THIS time, I will show Jerry what's for."
And then, 30 minutes later, I've advanced exactly one city block - where I was previously pinned down by a sniper - only to stumble into the sights of a nested machine gunner. And due to a wonky save system and generally unintuitive interface, I wind up repeating that section again.
But then I get to mess with cool demo tanks or kill AT/Flak/mortar crews and steal their hardware or deploy BARs to pin down a column of approaching infantry, and all is well again ^^
Perfect Cherry Blossom: The first 3 levels, no problem. Level 4, I slowly watch the Master Spark counter go lower, lower, lower...then I die. On normal.
Oh well. I did run through Imperishable Night on easy, first time through, no continues. That has to be worth something. Even if I did miserably against the Last Boss's final spells.
Actually, playing shoot 'em ups has me wondering if there's a framework out there to program one. I imagine that it wouldn't be too difficult to write the engine yourself (just moving sprites and collision detection), but it would probably still take more time than I have available.
Onimusha 4 and Perfect Cherry Blossom.
And there probably is. I've not seen one but its completely reasonable.
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Onimusha 4 and Perfect Cherry Blossom.
And there probably is. I've not seen one but its completely reasonable.
Dracos
"They are... all... perfect..." *death'd*
I have decided, somewhat unwisely, to go through Oblivion again. It's going a bit faster this time, thanks to me excluding a heretofore unknown component from a mod that slows down leveling considerably. Sorry, Oscuro, but I like being able to kill something tougher than a single lightly-armed highwayman ten hours into the game.
But it's all worth it for breaking the siege at Kvatch. That whole quest is almost non-stop awesome.
Breath of Fire:Dragon Quarter - (PS2)
Wow. That was one of the best Torneko-style games I've ever played. I actually beat it without having to SOL. Not too shabby. I got 1/2048 and I'm considering going for a better ratio, but... I am so busy right now...
Next: Go back and finish...
Star Ocean 3
Wild Arms Alter Code F
Dark Cloud 1
La Pucelle Tactics
argh... and the stack of 40+ games I bought this year...
Time is NOT on my side...
-22
Go replay it. The game retains at least 60 percent of the narrative hidden in sections you can't get to the first time through and the replays go significantly faster (6-12 hours) then the original playthrough anyway.
Dracos
Yeah, I realized that when I started the game again. The game DOES play a lot faster since you start off with extremely powerful equipment. I was planning on playing it again through to the end but I wasn't certain how far of a rank I would go for.
However, it was a great game, so I don't see the harm in it.
Plus, I haven't challenged the Kokon Horay secret dungeon yet... and I wasn't going to stop before I at least gave it a shot...
-22
I just found the old SNES and N64, so I'm reliving good times by playing Mario Kart 64, Mario 64, Street Fighter II, and Mega Man X.
hah, awesome =)
Dracos
DQ8 still.
Just beat Dhoulmagus with a 50 tension, Oomphed Super Throw from Hero's boomerang. :D
Disgaea 2 again.
Felony farming.
Oi.
Quote from: "thepanda"Disgaea 2 again.
Felony farming.
Oi.
You are using the tower trick, right?
Of course!
God knows I wouldn't even bother if I had to do it individually. There's grinding and then there's GRINDING.
Anyway, hit 99 felonies this morning. Only 200 more felonies to go! (and no way of keeping track after 99. ;_;)
Right now:
Last Blade
Real Bout Fatal Fury
Art of Fighting 2 (NOT RECOMMENDED)
My SNK whirlwind continues!
Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, which is a game made of about twelve kinds of win and awesome.
I'm playing God Hand right now. I have Castlevania Curse of Darkness and both Valkyrie Profiles on hold.
Lezard is busy raping the countryside, Olguin. The countryside and other things. This lies at your door.
Dracos
Spent quite a few hours last night playing Metajo, one of those old turn-based square tiled tactical combat games (like Flame Dragon and Shining Force).
I think I'll write a review about it, as a study break. Too bad I didn't think about taking screenshots.
Dragon Quarter...
Quote from: "Dracos"Go replay it. The game retains at least 60 percent of the narrative hidden in sections you can't get to the first time through and the replays go significantly faster (6-12 hours) then the original playthrough anyway.
Eh, nothing you couldn't read between the lines...
1/2048 => 1/128 => 1/16 => 1/4
Trick: Side Slash and Slice. If you overpower Ryu, you can kill anything, even Dover, ridiculously fast...
Keep on truckin'...
-22
Started playing Super Paper Mario, went for about 4 hours before quitting just now. Bought the game as I was leaving work.
Drac will probably love this game given in his long past review of Paper Mario: TYD, he commented that the rpg style didn't really help the game due to pacing and levels such as that annoying dark forest area. No turn based battles, you just jump on the enemy until it dies (or bomb it or what have you).
Notably this makes the game a lot quicked than TYD, but I'm thinking it's also more fun. And while levels are pretty easy (at least in the start that I've seen, hopefully it'll have more challenging events), the exploring between 2D and 3D is very fun with Mario. Discovering little hidden areas with new enemies, items and cards, it's fun for the collector in me.
The game also has some very nice humor inserted in it, for example the first level boss is a robotic dragon. When it meets you, it thinks it recognizes Mario and starts searching its database. Its eye changes from an eyeball into that little blue circular logo that pops up whenever you're searching for upgrades for the wii. The intro to the game is also fairly cute, though I feel it's more enjoyable to watch after you meet Tippi (who coincidentally gives you tips) though, since it fits timeline-wise better at that point.
The Pixl helpers have cute pun names too. There's Tippi (who gives tips), Thoreau ('thrower', he grabs stuff for you to throw), Boomer (He makes booms by exploding), and others whose names you can look up in the wikipedia article if you're curious.
Anyhoo, yeah, enjoying the game so far, despite the lack of difficulty (which I admit is because the game seems to award explorers and I love to explore ^^).
I have it, but haven't started it.
I'm actually... In The Dark Forest of Paper Mario 2.
Go figure?
Dracos
Doopliss still sucks. Man, I can totally feel the point in this bit where the designer decided "I'm just going to be a jackass and keep the player in MY level longer."
Dracos
I beat Valkyrie Profile 1 and lead my forces to rule over all. Now I'm working on Valkyrie Profile 2 along with God Hand.
Super paper mario.
Which still includes snoring when I put down the controller.
Dracos
Super Paper Mario, here as well.
It's pretty easy to tell that the developers had a lot of fun making this one, I think.
Just finished Super Paper Mario earlier today. Man, that has to be the fastest I've ever finished a game. Even Sonic & The Secret Rings lasted me more time and has -much- better replay value.
For the most part SPM was a fun game, especially if you just treat it as a Mario title and not a Paper Mario title (just not paper enough), but not a buy-worthy game I find. Rent-worthy though? Heck yeah.
Assuming you don't try to collect every card and cooking recipe, you can find everything else and finish all sidequests and the game itself in the time you get for renting the game. And it's definitely worth one play through I say.
Having finished this game though, I find myself wanting to finish the prequel, Thousand Year Door. I never did go past Bobbery joining my party.
Breaking from Super Paper Mario. Will continue tommorrow.
Today's gametime belongs to Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2007.
Okay, been playing Super Paper Mario following my marathon of paper mario 2. Now, PM2 had it's problems, but I enjoyed another run of it. It didn't get shut off during it. Super Paper mario? Knocks me out of the flow all the time. I'm around world 3 now, so about 3/8ths through the game.
It's sad that my most minor problem is that it shouldn't be a paper mario game. Other than using the engine and the sprites, it really doesn't draw anything from the paper motif and gets weird narrative discontinuities occassionally from it, and really most the interface holdovers from the series suck. It's so annoying having to enter a menu to swap characters when it's a frequent occurence and I should be able to do it with one button press.
The porting to the wii clearly didn't help this game. Most Wii related functionality feels awkward and out of place. The control scheme has me commonly going into menus, which breaks up the flow of classic marioish action. Scarily, they have more buttons. They really could've used them to offer shortcuts to these common things. Or, like PM2 did, just provide ways to have all mario's dungeon solving tools avaliable at the same time. "No, I need a bomb, now a hammer, now a thrower...menu, menu, menu.' Heck, they could've used the wii remote for that. Some kind of toss for bomb, a jab forward for throw...I dunno, work with me Nintendo, you can do better than that.
The level design is pretty middling so far. I ran around in a gerbil wheel for like 10 minutes last night. That was the 'correct' way to play. The fastest (daresay only) route through that level. Somebody thought that was fun? Because they both did 2d-3d AND invisible objects/doors, it's almost perpetual that you really can't trust your eyes. This would be even more bothersome if it wasn't for the fact that to counter this, they made it a platforming environment where you never have a good reason to hurry up. Basically, you can never just look at 1 mode and get a good picture of what you're interacting with. Usually 2 is enough, though sometimes you need to use all 3.
They had this whole digital and 2d to 3d concept. They really don't feel like they have anything else up their sleeve. They're hammering it in hard, wearing out any welcome it might've had in my mind for being a relatively unique and interesting mechanic. It felt for a good portion of the early game that the only interaction I had was to hop on things or go 3d. Going 3d wasn't really fun and it was timed anyway, so I couldn't ever really just get in the habit of charging down the slopes in 3d anyway. And they didn't have a lot of enemies to hop on. There was talking to people, but the town was small and not fun to navigate really and there really wasn't anything involved to do with them. They didn't even have multiple text strings to read. It's gotten slightly better as it's gone on, but I still don't really feel like I'm interacting with the game universe often, and most of my actions are solely fighting to move around it. "Joy, a wall, 3d, past it, back to 2d, another wall, 3d, repeat 4 times, oh a key.'
Megastar is just like megamushroom so far, only it really feels less useful since it isn't giving some sort of minigame for more lives midpower up. At least it isn't everywhere, so it maintains the cute surprise factor.
This is clearly not aimed towards me. Sure, that I understand but it makes me sad and really is part of why I'm not enjoying it. This is aimed towards kids like a third my age. Of course, this makes some of the pixilized stylistics odd since they're more appropriately nostalgic for folks that lived through the original mario and such... but aside from those touches, everything seems geared to hit an age 6-10 target market. Battles match that, as I seem to have overwhelmingly enough hp to deal with any boss without thinking of a strategy.
This feels like it was made budget. The engine was already made and wasn't really modified all that well. They flat out took an ability from the previous game and gave it to mario again. A large portion of character sprites aren't new. Most the graphics that are new are pretty simple with a few exceptions. The 3d space is cute but really hasn't sold me as something that added to the fun value of a mario platformer.
And of course, my usual axe to g rind, the secret design is lame as usual. "Jump in this unmarked pit to be rewarded! Jump in this one to take damage!" I understand rewarding pushing against the conventions of the game universe, that's all well and good, but if pits in the same area act differently, they need some other identifier. Rewarding me for realizing that it would be within their heuristics to put crap in a pit (which they did) doesn't work if you punish me for trying that on the very next one in the same area. If I'd gone the other order, I'd never reasonably have found it.
Dracos
Diamond still. Hope to finish the Sinnoh Dex by Sunday.
Got off Final Fantasy III for a while, finally starting to play with Pokemon Diamond. I hate Abra and what a pain it is to (a) find him (b) catch him after finding him.
Finished up Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2 a second time today. Man that last special boss is stupid looking.
Dracos
I have been doing runs for the Godfather, currently Don Vito, but it seems his son, sonny, is soon to replace him or something. Yesterday, I took little Italy. Then I took the Bronx and new jeresy too. Their families were sent fleeing from the flaming wreckage of their homes. The black market needs to research some better bombs though. Maybe ones on fifteen second timers. Ones that let a man...leave the building once the bomb is set before the fiery explosion. I think I would come to appreciate that. The Corleonnes would like to thank the police, for consistently being little better than a paid mercenary squad who will attack my enemies and guard me with their lives for nothing more than pocket change or threats. I appreciate that arrangement, despite the shitty algorithm design.
I move now north, to midtown. There be barizanis there. They do not pay tribute. This will be remedied.
Dracos
I bought KOF 2000/2001 for the PS2 the other day, and have been hammering away at 2001. The problem is that the manufacturers of this version decided not to put in analog controls, so I have to use the d-pad for everything. In a fighting game.
Not nice.
The art is kinda weird in 2001, but I admit it's kind of nice in an Expressionist way.
Anyway, I'd suggest you get some other version of these games if you want to play them. My thumbs hurt...
I finished Castlevania Curse of Darkness today. Awesome rendition of Death in that game, and it brings up lots of little plot threads that could be used later on without a problem, I think.
I'm on my way to destroy Colossi 9 through 16 in Shadow of the Colossus now for the first time. When I'm done with it, I'll just go and pick up something from my backlog of recent purchases to play.
Pokemon still.
The Sinnoh Dex is largely unfinished, but I have an upcoming tourney I'm raising monsters for.
Think of running my team as Skarmory/Breloom/Milotic/Gardevoir/Umbreon/Snorlax. I dunno.
Hearts of Iron 2:
Playing Germany. Sealion went well and the British Islands are under my control by the winter of 1941. Come May 8th, 1941, Barbarossa began. My panzer spearheads have encircled over 60 Russian divisions and Leningrad has fallen. It's now early August and Moscow's defense just broke around the same time eastern Ukraine was abandoned by the reds. If I can capture Stalingrad(likely), Kybuyshev(So-so odds) and Sverdlosk(Eeh...) by the end of the year, I should be able to have Russia wrapped up before the USA gets seriously invovled in the western war.
---
Valkyrie Profile 2:
Played up to the start of Chapter 2, entered Dipan Castle. While the game is gorgeous, the gameplay doesn't keep my attention and I don't like the characters. Bleh. The foreshadowing's also painfully obvious at times; granted, I already got spoiled on Dylan.
---
Castlevania Chronicals:
I replayed this. The Herb makes the difficulty curve largley meaningless, assuming you can avoid pitdeath. I did, so the game was a breeze.
*dusts off his profile*
Latest on my plate is and has been S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which joins games like Oblivion and Arcanum on my short list of games that succeed despite the best efforts of their developers. The long version of my take on it can be found here (http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=1482956#post1482956); the short version is that it's far from technically competent, but is saved twice over by some amazing atmosphere and some very intense first-person action, with a decent (if sparse) plot to tie it together. It's finally been patched properly, and the mod community has made some welcome improvements - and this is without the SDK, which should be out later this year. Bottom line, worth the money if you can forgive some scripting problems and a shortage of compelling characters.
Also went through Condemned, sometimes known as Monolith's hobo-beating simulator. It started out dull, got interesting, got really interesting, and then got all kinds of lame. It's a legitimately good crime thriller at heart, but then it brings in some stupid eleventh hour twists that it never bothers to explain. You just don't go from a tense, well-acted confrontation with a serial killer holding you at knifepoint to fighting stick-wielding Hellraiser ninjas with a shovel; you just don't. The game could easily have been 'merely' a well-told cops-and-robbers story, but it opted instead for inexplicable nonsense, and that saddens me.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
Prolly my favorite platformer ever, DEFINATELY my favorite game OST ever. <3
Heard I should look at stalker.
Finished Godfather a bit ago. It kind of winds off weakly. They gave me a million extra dollars when I became don of new york, right after becoming don of the coreleones. Yeah, that bit was a little 'you could explain this instead of just making it happen. There was a don living five minutes ago.'
Neither felt really necessary for the fantasy.
Why? I didn't have anything left to buy and I had 2.6 million in cash at that point in time? There also didn't seem to be nearly enough quests to get a maxed out character. I got like 48 points I think, which was far from the 70ish points of a all stats maxed character. There also at that point was no way to really progress that, since the bar demands so much after a while. Maybe if I had left a lot more till later it could've happened, but there didn't seem a good reason to (beside it being stupid to do minor tasks as the don). Anyhow, it didn't bother me, but I suspect it could've been really annoying to someone who spent their points poorly, especially early on when you get them pretty easily.
Moved on to Command and Conquer 3. I'm having fun with it but the movies feel like they're not as...Charismatic as before. Yeah, we got a decently cute gal giving the general briefings, but no one up there seems to be seizing the stage. Even if they're all famous sci fi actors as I recall.
Dracos
Dracos
Been playing Custom Robo Arena lately. Decent enough game, though more for the 'building your own robot and beating other robots with it' aspect and not the plot.
Also decided to buy Odin Sphere today after reading some positive first impressions of it.
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.
On the plus side, the game is addicting.
On the down side, not only is the game addicting, it seems like it takes FOREVER to accomplish something. I need to get to this town. To get there, I need to take a blimp. Wait, I need to get a blimp ticket. The only blimp tickets are sold by the mob. Wait, I need to find the mob boss. Wait, I need to find the mob boss's daughter in order to get a ticket. Wait, I need to find a wedding ring in order to have the mob boss's daughter go back to the mob boss so I can get a blimp ticket. WTF you only have half of the ticket?!?
The following was a exaggeration of what happens in the game, but it's annoying nontheless.
Beat Command and Conquer 3, GDI route today. Despite what should've been a dramatic end, it felt like it just sort of died off rather than dramatically ended. The massive number of times my actions were 'critical' or 'war ending' really kind of threw me out if the victory sensation to a 'oh, it is really over this time?' By the end I wasn't excited at any of the overlying story. I also kind of wish the overlying story was also an overlying metagame, rather than a raw series of missions in which your decisions don't seem to matter. Sure, fun, but it seemed a missed opportunity.
The writing needed work. I really appreciate and like the return of the short film segments. They really did a lot for the experience. The GDI needed someone with more charisma. I know I never sympathized with director boyle and little more with the general...who didn't feel like he was a general. He felt like he was an aide or beaurcrat. I also rarely felt like I was part of any bigger happening, except in the worst way: "You did this difficult task, now our armies have replicated it at every similar across the globe!" ...okay...
The alien invasion felt forced. Which it shouldn't have since alien invasions are fucking easy. The best one of those missions were easily the early ones with some excellent voice work on the whole escaping scientists (even if they were a touch chatty). It was all downhill from there as you got into such odd circumstances as them...defending the swiss border and this being a major turnaround point for an enemy that is attacking worldwide? They went so aggressive on the actions being important that by the time you GOT to real war changing actions it seemed nonchalant. Seems like the had a game designer in the chair or something...
Anyhow, a lot of the last levels are pretty interestingly designed, which I appreciated. It made it more difficult through use of terrain, which didn't feel like it happens that often in rts games. Good crevease use. The game seemed to lag a lot when I got a good 20ish units out, but it could've been I had it at too high res or something. The 3d look suits the game well and looked pretty awesome. I enjoyed that.
Anyhow, played a bit of the nod. Different feeling there. Better generic speaker guy with you, but still, the writing is kind of bad. I know, they're going for cheesy awesome. That shouldn't have interfered with getting someone that really knew how to bring that out.
Dracos
Beat Jade Empire some 1.6 times. Thanks Trunky. Sort of stopped caring today when I started hitting the part where everything is a ghost and nothing is vulnerable to harmonic combos.
Beat the first two cases of Phoenix Wright 2. It still suffers from being very One peg per hole, even if two or more are appropriate.
Odin sphere or god of war will enter my ps2 soon.
Dracos
Ew, God of War. XP
Been playing Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 and Atelier Iris 3: GRAND PHANTASM (*WHOOSH!*) the past couple days.
Taijutsu Naruto is just a fucking awesome character.
Also started Sea Dogs 2, only played for a bit, though.
You can say that with a straight face while playing Naruto?
Dracos
Yes, yes I can, because it's actually a decent fighter, which is hard to come by lately. :p
Odinsphere.
I want this soundtrack so much right now.
Funny, the music actually annoys me. Or more the balancing of it. I so want to turn down the music and up the sound effects so I can play it at a lower volume.
Enjoying Pooka the Prince, Odin Sphere Book 2 right now.
Dracos
Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Emerald, and Pokemon Leaf Green, mainly the Leaf Green part.
Or rather, mainly doing things in the GBA pair, and sending them over to the DS one.
Drac, I saw that out of the corner of my eye and totally read it as "the Polka Prince."
I need more sleep.
Right now, still chugging away on Tsukihime.
Almost done with book 3 of Odin Sphere. I've grown a little attached to the machine gunning girl, though I still prefer the not as powerful pooka prince.
Dracos
About 6 of us got together last night and started playing through multiplayer in Diablo 2. We're up to part 3 of Act 1. It was quite fun.
Having finished the ever so long Odin Sphere, I moved onto Phoenix Wright:Justice for All. I still think it is more an interactive story than a game. Enjoyed reading it and all, but I don't find myself meshing with the main that much largely due to the sheer amount of backup characters they put in to tell you what to do (okay, I hate May or whatnot. His mentor. Sure, there's the good visual there, but she only comes out to basically deus ex things or point out things that by this point, it'd be cooler if Wright was recognizing such things).
Following I enjoyed a bit of Tomb Raider Anthology, but I haven't been able to get into it so much yet.
Instead I moved onto Zelda. Whose music I hate. Outside of that though I'm having a good time and if it wasn't for the important necessity of the sound effects, I'd turn them all off and rock out.
Dracos
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army: Game With Really Long Name.
From this point on, will just be referred to as "That Raidou Game."
Man, that looks like a long title. What the heck, were they trying to break the box limit?
So how is the Raidou game?
Dracos
Quote from: "Dracos"Man, that looks like a long title. What the heck, were they trying to break the box limit?
So how is the Raidou game?
Dracos
Tales of ____ + Shadow Hearts + ShinMegaTen + Link to the Past = That Raidou Game.
Sadly, the game is pretty bleh, but I'm finding myself wanting to push through anyway, to see where the story goes. :/ It's just making me impatient for Persona 3's release, to be honest.
I'm inside death mountain, beating up your gorrens...
Sumo stupid?
Dracos
Man, the sumo wrestling was awesome. :/ I just wish they had developed it into a full extra sidething, instead of just making you do it a couple times in the story.
It looks weird, but I agree, it could've been cool. Felt too much like rock paper scissors as is.
Dracos
Finished Up Your Arsenal. Awesome game. The prices for items in challenge mode are insane, though.
Started on Pokemon Pearl. Should be playing Persona 3 now, but it got delayed. Oh well.
I got into the Pirates of the Burning Sea beta.
=3
That, Guildwars, and Medieval II.
Waiting on Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword.
Dexie:
They are...and...aren't?
Try playing challenge mode a bit. You'll find that the prices really aren't that out of reach as the rewards are also boosted considerably.
Dracos
Mega Man: Star Force: Dragon Version.
Feeeeh. It's not 'X' enough to Battle Network's 'Classic'. Battle system is way more fun than the BN series's though. Feels kinda plain though, compared to how much there was to battles in Battle Network 6.
Dexie: Your quote and picture scare me. :o
Why so? <_<
Castle of the Winds.
Dracos
Finally went out and got me a copy of Pokemon Fire Red.
Hopefully it'll be as fun as the first time I played the original. Ah, the memories~!
Isn't that an odd pick for nostalgia? Or just want the simpler setup?
Dracos
Quote from: "Ragnar"Finally went out and got me a copy of Pokemon Fire Red.
Hopefully it'll be as fun as the first time I played the original. Ah, the memories~!
Who'd you start with?
Why would that be an odd pick for nostalgia?
Anyway, that was my first handheld game, right after I bought a gameboy, so it kinda marks my start to the handheld consoles.
I was also just being overly smarmy.
If I really wanted nostalgia, I'd go play Duck Hunt in my friend's attic :)
And yeah, I also like the simpler setup of the game. One of my friends who still does a lot of pokemon stuff had one of the new ones, and it's too complicated. I like the good old basics.
Now if you'll excuse me, that damn dog is laughing at me again. I'll show HIM who's a bad shot...!
LOAD BOTH BARRELS!
Wii Play, for Nintendo Wii.
It's simple, but fun. Well worth the 10 dollars.
Luminous Arc for the DS. Very basic srpg in the tradition of FFT, only dumbed down quite a bit and (so far) minus a lot of the suck.
Oddly enough, I've figured out a way to power level my healer early in the game. If I wanted I bet I could max her out by the fifth chapter. >_>
Art of Fighting Anthology for the PS2.
Unless you're a SERIOUS SNK fanatic, save your money. These games are freaking impossible.
Quote from: "Ragnar"Art of Fighting Anthology for the PS2.
Unless you're a SERIOUS SNK fanatic, save your money. These games are freaking impossible.
Hah.
*is waiting for the Fatal Fury collection*
Dexie: Yeah, that's number one on my "to buy" list right now :D
Been playing quite bit recently.
Was playing Persona 3. Love it, but I took a break for Metroid Prime 3. Will definately be getting back to finish it, though.
Metroid Prime 3...it's awesome. MUCH better than Prime 2, on all levels. Highly recommend.
Got stuck on a boss on that, though, and a PSP recently came into my posession, so I've been messing with that.
Started with Mega Man: Powered Up, which is a pretty cool remake of the original Mega Man. Totally redone stages, you can play as Roll, Protoman, and the Robot Masters...it's nice. My only gripe is that they fucked with the story, and added two new Robot Masters, Oilman and Timeman, who are quite lame.
Then I moved on to Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, which is very, very nice. A huge step-up from the insult that was Tales of the Abyss.
Dynasty Warriors Gundam.
Beat Bioshock today. The ending movie is really short, but the rest of the game is full of awesome. I recommend it.
Started playing Warhawk today, pretty fun. Too bad there isn't a single player campaign mode though.
Traveling over the last weekend resulted in some random game playing.
Gave Elite Beat Agents another go. Cartoons still awesome. Gameplay still...
Picross DS is an excellent and simple casual puzzle game. Definitely a good travel pick up.
Dragon Ball Legend Weirdnonenglish feels like a retry of the DBZ card game RPG from SNES days. Not quite as good (item use for instance is a real pain) but it's a good enough game. Solid 3 out of 5 type fair. It goes through the same story you've seen a thousand times before. About halfway through it and somewhat stalled a bit last night against the range of freiza fights. The four perspective style they're doing really suffers at major combats where you're facing off against the same bad guy numerous times.
Also played and beat the new turtles GBA game.
Stunningly? Not bad. In the right direction. Not retarded. Fun.
It has its problems, but it feels a lot more like the classic side scrolling beat-em-ups that were fun before. April the ninja girl was a bit weird and the writing was atrotious, but still, much better than any other recent offerings. The last level gets a bit shaky as the enemy coding and hit detection on it could use some serious work, but overall? RIGHT DIRECTION, YAAAY
Dracos
Grabbed Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on my lunch break. Going to give it a whirl soon as I change to more comfortable clothes.
I'm slowly stalling to a halt on Persona 3. It's feeling to be more a chore than fun. Too many personas that I barely ever get to use. More characters than I really can take advantage of and lots of groupthink from them. It still hasn't kicked into high gear. The music? Real downer. etc. etc.
Dracos
Guilty Gear: Accent Core and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
Bleh. Another High Elf Wizard in Angband bites the dust. I'd gotten a Ring of Resist Poison on the first dungeon level, too. I was doing so well...
Stupid gravity hounds. Gravity always wins.
I'm playing...nothing at the moment.
Absolutely nothing.
Is this not sad?
Absolutely pathetic. You should be ashamed.
I want a Chrono Trigger and a Mario RPG run out of you by midnight. :P
How is Accent Core, Dexie? Is it worth buying if you already have XX, or is Guilty Gear pulling a Super Street Fighters Turbo edition again?
I'd say it's worth it. Several new battle mechanics, two new characters (A.B.A. and fucking ORDER SOL, who is so badass it hurts :D), and updated voices and graphics. It's cheap, too, only 30 bucks.
I just beat Portal (puzzle game using the HL2 engine, part of the Orange Box). Well worth getting. It has a song by Jonathan Coulton in the end credits!
It came out yesterday. Only 5ish hours huh?
I hate to ask, but does it have a narrative at some point? The 20-25 minutes I watched someone play just was puzzle room after puzzle room which felt lacking.
Dracos
It
Quote from: Dracos on October 11, 2007, 08:53:14 PM
It came out yesterday. Only 5ish hours huh?
I hate to ask, but does it have a narrative at some point? The 20-25 minutes I watched someone play just was puzzle room after puzzle room which felt lacking.
It has a shortish narrative; more implied than said. Sorta like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus that way. And the puzzles are great fun. And it has advanced and challenge mode, so there's some good replay value.
Beat Rygar this weekend.
Started god of war 2.
Oddly, not as bad as god of war 1. I'd even say good things about it, had not the setup confused me once yesterday and I ended my game on a 'the game has locked up. And I was just saying nice things about it too!'
Still playing FFT: War of the Lions. Don't know how much more I'm going to play though. The lag and slowdown is EXTREMELY annoying, as in, even the Throw Stone and Choco Beak abilities have slowdown associated with them. I'm tempted to skip the Summoner class completely because of the problem. :/
Oh well. It really sucks, because it's really a fantastic port/remake. The new cutscenes are beautiful, the new translation is mostly awesome, and a lot of the little touches are pretty neat. It's just utterly killed by the freaking slowdown/lag. x.x;;
I've never played FFT before the PSP port, but I'm not noticing any slowdown in battle. Stone seems speedy enough to me.
It's pretty damn noticable if you've played the original, especially with spells and abilities with multple targets.
Beat God of War 2. Surprisingly not bad.. Giving it another run on a higher difficulty. Much better than GoW 1 was.
Finally finished Phantom Hourglass. The game isn't long, mind you, but I spread it into long segments, where I only did one 'mission' at a time, usually. The controls are for the most part, pretty solid for a stylus only game.
I did find that sometimes Link would not slash when I wanted him to, but generally, not a problem. Link's fairly fast on his feet.
Rolling, however, is a chore, as were some spots where you wanted to jot down your notes or needed to draw something, and the system has trouble getting it. For example, when fighting the final boss, there are parts where you're supposed to draw an 'hourglass' shape (a spoiler of a non-spoiler variety in my opinion, since you get told to do this as soon as you get the power, so nyah to those bothered by spoiler).
I could not get the damn thing to work. I actually looked in the internet and my answer was "spam draw figure 8 over and over until it works, and hopes it works at the time you need to draw it". Obviously, this is what I had to do. Died once, though second time fighting Bellum I actually managed to get the spam trick to work at the moments I wanted instead of just a little too late. Still cutting it too close for comfort.
On the other hand? Stylus is wonderful for use of every other tool in your arsenal. I mean it. It really was nice to use the stylus, and in a different manner than using the wii remote. It's pretty cool to actually sketch out the pattern you want your weapons to move.
General movement was also pretty good, though Link isn't good at figuring out "Hey, he wants me to go to that ledge! I shall go straight there despite the huge gap between that ledge and where I'm aaaaaaaat *falls*" as opposed to "Hey, he wants to go to that ledge. I shall run a little more carefully and get to that walk spot and then the ledge."
You just have to be really careful with those thin pathways, but otherwise, pretty good movement control.
The game is pretty simplistic generally, and its ditched a lot of Zelda game-norms, such as collecting heart pieces. You do collect stuff, but rather it's power ups for your fairies. In general, when you get a heart, you just get a full heart for killing a boss, with a few rare full heart containers here and there. The only collecting you do is power pieces for the fairies (10 pieces for 1st level up, then 20 more pieces for 2nd level up), some random salvage from the ocean floor (usually ship pieces, coins, or on rare occassion, some sand of time, which is rather useful in one temple that you'll be visiting a -lot- during the game).
Some piece of advice on one of the rare heart containers: The guy with the sales ship, forget his name, but sometimes he wears a helmet. It's pretty obvious when he's doing that. This only happens rarely, but he'll have a heart container for sale for you when he's wearing it. Hopefully you have the money for it, but if not, be aware that the helmet version makes pretty rare appearances.
It's nice that travel between islands has been shortened, and though enemies pop up to bug you along the way, generally they're not much to worry about unless they're a mini-boss of some sort, or they're in the fog area (which is the most horrible place in the goddamn game).
In general, your time will be spent as such: 40% in the Temple of the Ocean King, 20% ocean travel, 40% all other temples. If you find the frog king (which you can do as soon as you first get past the fog area for the first time, which is -really- early in the game), you can start finding the teleport spots, and travel time is more split as 45% TOK, 10% ocean, 45% all other temples.
I highly recommend exploring a lot in the TOK area, especially on each visit where you get a new weapon. Finding those shortcuts can be invaluable since you're going to be doing a lot of stages over and over and over again. Remember to jot down where the gold pots are, even if you can't get to them early on. And how you got through a room. You'll want to search for those shortcuts, but sometimes they take too much time to find and you just have to move on.
Anyhow, worth buying? Well, it's a short game, and the only replay is trying to find all the ship parts, fairy boosts, and trying to shorten your time run through the temple of the ocean king. And that's not gonna last long. That said, unless you're certain you're gonna finish it in the rental time, might as well buy it. It's an easy enough game to take breaks on and get right back in whenever you want, since you can jot down notes about what you were doing, and the controls are so easy to get right back into.
Interesting note, I thought: The first Zelda game didn't have heart pieces either, it just had full hearts.
There's a lot of stuff from the original game in PH, I've noticed. The Pols Voice, for one. It's the rabbit enemy you stun by yelling into the microphone. The Japanese Famicon had a mic on it's controller, and you beat it by yelling, but since the US NES didn't, they just let you stun it with the boomerang.
There's a lot of other little things, too, but those two really jumped out at me.
Heh, is that where the cute bunny thing is from? Never actually played the first Zelda more than a few minutes.
I kinda wish they had more mic stuff in this game though. They used it early on in various of the puzzles, but forgot about it as you started to get more and more items, in PH.
First Zelda reeeally sucks by today's standards. Full of showstoppers and just bad designs.
I'm glad they didn't overdo the mic stuff, personally. Took me forever to get the salvage arm down to a reasonable price. X_X;
...
I make a screaming face at you for your comment on the salvage arm. :-O
*stuffs a sock in your mouth :D*
Another promising Angband character is dead. Some problem with my auto-aim magic missile macro makes it occasionally cause my character to take a step instead of shooting. Which means I walked right into a death mold.
Crunching through the adv portal maps whenever I get a half hour free (And I got a slice of cake to go with dinner tonight. Just because).
Ar Tonelico is continuing to overall impress. I am having a very good time with it.
That it turned into a porn shooting last session has nothing to do with this (e.g. what the heck?)
Replaying Arcana (...why.) and Legend of Mana (trying out a custom-setup map, which seems to have some really cool added effects, if the hype is to be believed). Polter Box pet, Flail user. Yes, I'm insane. Probably going to re-run Persona 2 as well soon, before playing through Red and Riki in SaGa Frontier.
Digimon World: Dusk on DS.
Oddly, not as terrible as I thought it'd be.
Finished Ar Tonelico.
It ends with a whimper and not a bang.
Started Soul Nomad.
It starts with a beaurcrat and not an on button.
Dear god, give me some meaningful decisions! I can equip items, but they vanish? I can use abilities, but I have no idea how long they last and they take a turn. I have a button that abolishes ten or more minutes of work. Everything is set up to grind...and NOTHING so far merits it. I can toy with things and it really doesn't MATTER. I either squish enemies or they lucky kill me. I'm like eight fights in. Come on.
A little Bleach: Shattered Blade (not bad. A whole HELL of a lot better than the gamecube and PSP Bleach games. I mean, damn but those sucked ass.) and a lot of Super Mario Galaxy. This game is seriously testing my meager multitasking skills.
Just started on Super Mario Galaxy and so far it's more than lived up to the hype.
Only slight complaint I have at this time is that they reset the lives every time you restart a game.
Honestly Gin, they give you 5 lives every time you log in, there are three 1-ups lying around the base, AND you can easily get the 50 coins/star chips to get another 1-up. If they didn't reset, you'd end up with hundreds of men which kind of takes the challenge out of the game.
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
It on a scale of "Eh" to "Meh", it gets a "Feh". It's just not impressing me and I'm not enjoying it. I'll keep pushing a bit further though, maybe it'll improve.
Really enjoyed Tara's Wonderland on the GBC a LOT more than I'm liking this...
I hadn't played a DQM game before, but I enjoyed this a lot more than most pokemon titles. It really stagnated though midgame and fell apart endgame. It failed on the two basic principles of a monster raising game: Keeping your cool personally named (Hint) monsters around and providing a solid mechanism for multiplayer. The fact that at the end, they don't provide a fun way to break the game open ended it. I didn't want to grind anywhere to monster merge. It was over.
If you're not liking it now, Dex, just go ahead and stop. It won't get any better.
Currently playing Baldur's Gate 2 and DQ8. Just wiped out bohdi's layer this morning after conquering all of amn's strongholds. Yes, I'm crazy. I think overall, the thief one gives the best payoff gold wise and the fighter one gives the best payoff roleplaying wise. Hum. Crap, i forgot to finish Jaheira's plot before leaving chapter 2. In my defense, those harpers are godawfully slow to trigger. I seriously hope they don't obnoxiously show up mid-dungeon during 4 or 5 before you get back to amn. That'd really suck.
In dragon quest, I'm still around trodain. Haven't made much progress since I finished beating the BG2 modpack.
Yeah, setting it aside. Might go trade it in sometime. Eh, meh.
Til then, I'm going through the later stages of Galaxy and starting Trauma Center: New Blood.
Damn, I really wanted to like Joker. Oh well. I'll probably get it anyway. I've been meaning to look for DQM 2, though.
I should finish DQ 8, too.
Traded Joker in for Zack and Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros' Treasure.
Freakin' awesome game, if maddeningly difficult at times.
Beat Mario Galaxy. Now I just have to beat it some more. >_>
Alternating between Mario Galaxy, Persona 3, Zack and Wiki, and Geometry Wars: Galaxy.
Is Geometry Wars good?
The DS version is pretty much Smash TV DS, which is neat.
The Wii version, however, when combined with a Classic Controller, is one of the most addictive games I have ever played. Is it worth the $40? Ehh...I think it would have been better as a $30 release, but given how much time I've put into it, I think I've gotten my money's worth. :p
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.
It's...bad. Really bad. It's insultingly bad.
Sega should have left the NiGHTS franchise alone instead of tarnishing it with this crap.
Tales of the Abyss.
I blame dune.
The rest of you too.
But dune was ever present, "PLAAAY IIIIT"
Bleach: The Blade of Fate. Surprisingly good, but Renji is laughably broken. :p
I played the DS version of that. It was ughworthy, despite making a solid claim on its touchscreen mechanics.
Mainly the whole branching arcade system was suffering.
The other characters' scenarios that you can unlock lack the branching, thankfully.
It's a moot point, though, 'cause once you take the same path several times, Renji gets pissed at Ichigo and cuts off the paths you've already taken.
By the time I'm taking the same path twice, I'm already bored. The branching is dull and involves fighting the core characters way too many times for interest. I stopped after about five times returning to Renji or so.
I've been playing mostly Tales of the Abyss. I'm at the good part at this point, with the crap dozens of hours behind me for the most part. Sides from the core things its still weak on (World Map, Airshiip, Unadvancable Private Actions, Ugly heavy menu interface, load times), its a much better game at this point, but still no excuse for the ten or fifteen hours it takes to really beat through the shitty beginning part. The replacement of Luke's character with one who isn't rude, is regularly self-effacing, and acts and speaks completely differently helped a lot. And yeah, I consider it a replacement since they barely kept any personality traits for any length of time after his hair cutting. It's fine, it made it a better game. Not going to ever get a 'great' out of me with that opener and I have trouble saying good with how long a mental list of problems I can pull up on it. But it's playable and if you can start from a save after his 'disaster' I could easily see someone going 'good game' on it. Or just going good game because there's like sixty h ours it seems after his disaster which is enough to tone down the sucky and return runs keep you charmed with the other characters.
I do find it disappointing that there's only once so far an acknowledgement that 'This is a seven year old'. And that comes from guy. The others don't really actively pick up on it, even though prior to the disaster Tear at least totally says she's going to take it seriously and does kind of mother him from there on out. Jade or Tear not reacting in any way (even if just putting a bit a doubt or having him get stuff confused which they clear up) a bit more would've been nice. Or just a verbal acknowledgement of it. Not too important, but it would've given more distinction of them versus Anise who has less reason to notice or to understand.
I tried some Zack and Wiki. Annoyingly younger in tone than I would've liked. I was hoping for an excitable energetic delusional kid but instead it feels like a kid playing at being a pirate, complete with pot belly and chocolate. Embarassingly, I got stuck on puzzle 2 last time I played, and haven't gotten back to it as we went bowling. my respect for the game may be tied to what the actual solution is, as I seem to have run out of interactable sections with either my hand or my claw. I get the idea I should pull down the roof to fill the spike pit, but not how to do that. I'm totally keen with hard puzzles, but if I don't find it intuitive after seeing it, I'll be disappointed.
You're having trouble with the spike pit? >_>
Buy an Oracle Doll and get a hint. :P
Okay, in fairness, that 'chain' was completely invisible on my screen and hadn't detected yet.
I'm not too impressed with the puzzles so far as they have varied from exceedingly easy to "Well, yes if you're missing an interactable object, it certainly is a good deal harder even if you know what you need to do."
Been playing Front Mission 3, Alisa mode. Having fun even if its not as good as Emma mode. Also some more bowling.
I need to post here more. Get this going again :P
I be playing Super Mario Galaxy. It's okay. Bland overall with occassional good parts. The best thing about it so far has been bowser being badass again. That hasn't happened since Super Mario 64 and it's been a long time coming. Seeing Bowser blasting up planets or twisting up gravity is a real win and makes the rivalry much more satisfying. Mario comes off a bit too bright and there's a bit of blur on my screen. I suspect the latter is caused by the Wii outputting in 480i instead of 480p. Does anyone know what wires I need for that? The latter could probably be adjusted by color spectrum, though the fact is I think they just chose too bright a blue. But...the gameplay is what drags it down for me. The camera stuff isn't very good. I don't appreciate consistently having to deal with being upside down or told 'no you can't turn the camera in any way'. These are largely open tiny worlds. Why am I running into camera limitations? The music is nostalgic. I don't really count that as a good thing. If I wanted to listen to examples of music I've heard ages ago, I could just go ahead and do so. I'd prefer a little more originality. The game doesn't allow for much openness. Even sixteen stars in, I don't really have much of a choice of where to go.
And there's a lot of timed/race/speed sections. I'm only sixteen in and I've encountered about six. I don't really find these that fun and they're a lot more obtrusive this go with them being layered ontop of other quests.
I took it out of my system now. It might go back in, but I don't really want to do race until I beat it stuff.
You know, I've been playing this game as well for awhile now and so far it's not that bad. When
I first heard all the good things about it I couldn't wait to pick it up and try it myself. At first I loved
it and couldn't stop playing. So far I've only gotten 24 stars but I'm starting to lose interest. I do agree
that the boss fights are pretty fun though so I plan on plodding through the rest of the game to see what
happens at least until I get the 60 stars required to beat the game.
I dropped out after 16 or so. Mainly Dragon Quest Swords and Brawl coming in.
Brawl...is boring without people and the online play sucks. It is really horribly atrotious. Even with two netsaavy people it was a fucking pain in the ass to get shit going. What the hell?
Brawl local play, meanwhile, is one of the most awesome party implementations I've yet seen. It was bitching. Really, look at the difference in these two sentences. What was going on there? Did they like, forget about making one mode awesome?
Also they very clearly could've used a stronger machine for brawl. I hate to say it (No, I don't), but I think Brawl may have been a better game had it not come out on the wii....
Yeah, I went there.
Anyhow, I've also beaten Forumwarz. I am impressed enough that I will write a review. And have cake. But the cake is just a treat upon the review.
I am also playing Super Robot Wars again (Still finishing OG 1 on OGs). I am also playing Torment The Planescape. Just about to unlock upper ward in that.
DQSwords hasn't gotten too much play yet. I took it out for brawl and then brawl for SRW. It'll get in and finished eventually. I'm probably about a third through.
Anyhow, ran through Phoenix Wright 4. Was pleasantly surprised despite them really trying to experiment with too many features. I believe I will continue to follow the series. That said, the opening premise for it all was weak. "You got tricked, and everyone turned around and promptly kicked you in the nads."
Played some Megaman Advent ZX, which was surprisingly playable if...simple.
And yes, still SRW.
I've been playing Mario Kart Wii since it came out.
Talk about a mixed bag. It is an enjoyable game but it definitely has some "WTF were they thinking?" moments.
The most glaringly obvious would be the vs battles. That shit isn't even worth touching. You might as well throw a die and call even or odds since winning and losing is pretty much random anyway. Honestly, wtf were they thinking?
SOCIALIST NINTENDO.
EVERYONE IS EQUAL.
WE WILL PROVE THIS VIA COMPETITIVE SPORTS.
Seriously, I want an off switch on Nintendo's 'add in enough randomness/chaos to make everyone have an equal chance'.
They have it in smash too. WIth the trips. Though it just makes everyone's day bad.
Anyhow, I just beat mother 3.
Of late I'm into Forumwarz (OF ROCKING) and Dragon Quest Swords (Of oh god there's so many demons). Considering a mother 3 run.
Nice, I hear DQ Swords is fun. I'm still working on DQ IV for DS right now.
Beat DQ 4, and DQ Swords and Mother 3.
DQ Swords post game had a point where I concluded I'd never be good enough to win.
Which was the end for me.
Had a Gears of War 2 marathon with friends. Very enjoyable coop experience.
Fallout 3 has been my weekend joy.
It's kind of middling though in reality. Okay, but not great.
Wrath.
Iji is the most fun I've had this month. I'd say this year, but it has to compete with Mother 3 and Spiderman DS.
But it has bloody blown Fallout 3 of middling right off my screen. I mean seriously, I could wander through a sewer for several hours...
Or I could Genocide an entire race. I mean, come on.
Valkyria Chronicles is full of awesomeness and win. If you own a PS3 and you haven't downloaded the demo, you are a fool.
Prince of Persia. So utterly beautiful, such a joy to play.
Ratchet and Clank.
A launch title. ANd it shows. Oh boy does it show.
Devil May Cry is probably next. Prince of Persia still not in.
Nearing end of Prince of Persia. Just solved best puzzle ever. EVER.
Playing Prince of Persia.
Impressed, but no where near as much as jon.
A bump? Why not.
---
Starting to replay Lufia 2 to prepare for Estpolis DS.
Ran through Chrono Trigger. THen Eloquent Fist (don't ask).
Now been kind of starting Super Robot Wars MX, which I really kinda don't get yet :) I mean I can win at it. But I don't get what's going on. Maybe all that moon language would help.
I've been working on finishing up a dudeShep run in ME1 in preparation for getting some Tali in ME2. So naturally I got back into Ocarina of Time. Also, Picross3D is addictive.
I bought PIcross3D but haven't started it yet. If it is anything like PicrossDS it is likely to remain a travel game for a very long time. I mean that in the awesome way :)
DQ9 continues to devour my soul.
DQ9 is it awesome?
How awesome?
So awesome... Money is a bit hard to gather though with a goal of getting 'everything'. Getting 4 classes suited up isn't too bad though.
Today I have acquired sage and erdrick's sword. My characters ought deserve it, being around level 200ish.
I wonder if the slowy slow Dracos is the first to reach the final boss though.
I've beaten the game. My characters are somewhere around level 400. I have not started grottos proper. I'm probably gonna stop playing fairly soon as people whispering in my ear about all the cool shit I'm missing by not being online is really starting to drag ("Hey, that rare item you've been trying to get? They've been selling it non-stop this week on the online store for peanuts!")
Mmm, Another M. Tempting.
I'm really the last person to be a purist about this sort of thing, but please tell me the game calls him Roto or Loto instead of Erdrick.
It's Erdrick all the way.
I am finding new and exciting ways to save the galaxy from the Collector threat. Yes, I'm on my third playthrough of Mass Effect 2.
Are you still using Sniper?
I'm told there are other guns in the game.
But I never put down the sniper rifle ever.
Quote from: Dracos on August 23, 2010, 03:52:20 PM
Are you still using Sniper?
I'm told there are other guns in the game.
But I never put down the sniper rifle ever.
My Infiltrator makes good use of sniper rifles and Dominate. Vanguard is shotgun city.
Last night I beat my first legacy boss.
Then I did it again ten times.
Then I decided I should let him steal the xp and level up.
And did that ten times.
Then I bought pixie boots with the 20 medals I won. Cool. And he was level 10.
Save for now I know that it takes 99 victories for each legacy boss to migrate them from 'moderate' to 'super evil god of doom', and there's no shortcuts or switches back and forth. And that takes the wind out of my sails. Sure I can wipe Baramos in quick yet dangerous 3-5 round fights. But I don't want to do 1500 boss fights to have all of them at their uber states (and yes, I know they are ungodly hard at that point, but still, it would normally be on the agenda). That's really not intriguing. Maybe I can hack it away.
Anyhow, guess I'll go grotto hunting a bit and get something deeper than level 11.
I took a break for ME2 - Run 2. My God Cannon sniper rifle rings out once per enemy and the bodies fall. I've just finished Moradin last night. Odds are I'll go do Zaeed and Garrus and talk with what's his name. ANDERSON.
Moradin is the dwarven god in D&D. Morden is the Shadow ambassador in Babylon 5. Mordin is the super salarian scientist in Mass Effect 2.
Names are hard.
I'm on my third run (Dudeshep, infiltrator, jack romance). I'm gonna try an insanity run next.
Secret of Mana. Yes, probably my ninth run.
I just got flammie and well, there be problems suddenly with the emulator+rom. Trying to figure out how to make it sensibly proceed.
Quote from: Dracos on August 22, 2010, 07:45:33 PM
It's Erdrick all the way.
But why? The only game to use that was the original NES version of "Dragon Warrior". In the gameboy remake port, they use "Loto"! *Silent sobbing*
In other news, been playing MINECRAFT.
I've yet to start Minecraft.
Playing KH:BbS. I'm on Aqua's story at the moment. Going to likely do Lara Croft afterwards and then prolly minecraft.
Hey listen! I've been playing Lufia 2 in preparation for Lufia DS and it's a lot of fun! There's this one red-haired guy, he's the main hero! He's really brave and handsome and like Master but better with a sword and tougher! He can do it all! What I want to know is how come Maxim can fight and use magic but Master can?! Did someone neglect his training? Can we find some way to help this? Why can't Master cast healing magic, either? It's not fair!
Then there's Tia, this traveling fighter-girl who can cast magic too! She's like Mari if Mari could use magic! It's obvious she's totally into Maxim just like Mari is into Master, too! She sort of looks like Mari when Mari wears that cool ice dress too! Say, did all of you slack off in your magic? Almost everyone in this game can cast it! I'm not very far in but I'll let you know how it goes!
I am bamboozled by the sight of Yulia account playing Lufia 2.
My shipping details say Lufia DS arrives on wednesday for me. Rock on.
And Kam doesn't get these folks that aren't all arounders. What do you mean you have to choose between skilled, strong, and magical?
Lufia DS.
I just got Selene. My it's compact, but hey, at least someone finally casts something that seems magic associated.
Funny that they made maxim fire when I think fire was one of the things he was most stringently banned from in the original.
Fire and holy were the two types of magic Maxim couldn't use. Considering Dual Blade is holy and his hair is fire red, one needs not look far to see the irony.
So last save is right before the Point of No Return run for Doom Island.
At this point, I don't want to save anyone. I hate everyone in every town in the game (with possible exception of snarky Jessie and helpful Jaffrey). But really, the rest of them can all bite it.
Criticism below:
The game really, nostalgia aside, seems like a failure that didn't deserve to do well and thus didn't do well. It's got strong puzzles. Big Respect there, even if sometimes they camera fail on them. Combat can be quite fun but the normal enemies are ridiculously easy and the bosses are a big leap up from them (usually). This leaves it sort of very vague if you're prepped for the bosses or not. Not a huge deal as they are not hard generally, but bad design that you're not learning from the level if you're sufficiently strong or not. Paired with time attack dragon eggs (Boo) it makes those more a reflection of taking a super aggressive style of play and/or overleveling then actual diligent puzzle solving and dungeon crawling. There's a lot of sections in the game where they simply stall for time. Aggressively. If they're trying to make sure you spend the most time sitting around waiting for shit to happen, they succeeded and screw them.
Mystic board is something that I'm almost glad is 'mostly' failproof. Well, that's really too kind. It's weighty. There are 560 different variations of blocks that can go into nearly 200 different spots. You can't ignore it as it can represent between 10-60 percent of your overall setup. End game level 70 stats will be around 100 in each of 4 categories, where individual blocks can represent upwards of 20 points of difference. Each entrance into the ancient cave wipes the board entirely, so you have to put it back together or lose abilities and stats. Heavy. It doesn't benefit the game at all. Simple accessories and level based bonuses would've been way better.
I've been playing Devil Survivor non-stop of late. It's tremendous awesome and worth a look if you haven't. It's pretty compact being playing out a seven day rush toward the apocolypse in a sense with the ability to save folks or totally let them get murdered. I'm kind of surprised it won't let you drift entirely and skip major plot points for the lulz but it does want you to be a major player in the Ordeal so you do have to at least encounter some things. Everyone is locked in an area the size of tokyo and nobody is allowed to leave. Some people can see what day folks are going to die. You have an email telling the future. And there's lots of demons.
Last route I broke the lockdown. I grabbed my scared girlfriend and we killed a bunch of people and got outside. So did a couple of folks too.
Lockdown ended. A broken man found that his son had died while he was there...and got tired of it. He had demons, he was powerful. You guys were heroes. You let folks like him out...to become little gods on the world!
This time I'm going to work with my bro Naoya. I'm gonna stand on the board and not take shit from anyone. Gonna save everyone and sock every demon or angel in the face. Gonna stand as a benevolent demon god, taking on all comers. Everyone who's befriended me has been protected by my growing demon army and they've been joining my team in swarms. Supposedly they abandon me when I decide to take the throne, but for now I've got a pretty big party that's kicking ass and taking names. Weirdly, the guy who's all about power hasn't joined me. But that's fine, we're friends and nobody is getting to lay a hand on him.
Sure, the angels in heaven are going to be annoyed, and the world is going to be forever changed. But sometimes that's how it goes when you step, Kon slugs you back.
Next time I think I'll be the lonely messiah, walking the path of heaven, the sword of the tyrant, alone...
ANyhow, yeah it has a bunch of end routes, even though most the game remains the same whether or not people die horribly.
Hmm. I'll be picking that up this weekend then, thanks, Drac.
Myself, meh, been playing Angry Birds HD on the train. Some Plants vs. Zombies. So, I'm years behind the curve. :D
Last few days, I have done a lot of science. Portal-related science. The co-op mode is fun, but single-player is really where it's at.
I've been back in borderlands for my rare gaming time these weeks. Co-op campaign :)
Brian and I have just finished crushing game 1 and then we'll move onto the DLCs.
Quote from: Dracos on April 25, 2011, 06:19:17 PM
I've been back in borderlands for my rare gaming time these weeks. Co-op campaign :)
Brian and I have just finished crushing game 1 and then we'll move onto the DLCs.
Heh. For values of 'crushing' equal to 'Brian plays support until finding the legendary combat rifle, whereupon Phil can just loot or make a sammich while everything gets turreted'. Also, it's fun to lob transfusion grenades at Phil when he's in a firefight.
Ah, good fun, though.
Myself, I'm playing Okami-den, which is an awful lot like someone said, "We can't really justify a new port, but we could still reuse almost every asset in making a new game, right?"
And yeah, they're right. Okami-den is a smaller, but otherwise just as entertaining take on the original. The fact that all of the original zones had to be chopped up into pieces small enough (even simplified) to fit on the DS, AND that you're controlling a smaller dog (slightly :p) do conspire to make the game _feel_ bigger than it really is.
A lot of the awesome visual impact is lessened, so it's not quite the 'whoamg; I'm playing an ancient japanese woodcut that happens to be in millions of colors!' to 'Wow, this looks a LOT like Okami!', but in the end, I'm still cool with that.
Plus, they changed and revised some of the powers to make them more interesting; nothing to complain about there. :)
About to beat Y's: Ark of Napishtim. All in all, it is a great way to kill time before Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3, the new EDF, and Catherine crowd the rest of my summer.
Deep into Dragon Age 2 at the moment. Having fun this time around.
Been amusing myself a fair bit with Terraria.
I'll admit, I'd probably enjoy Minecraft more for sandbox/building stuff from what I've seen/heard of that one, but first person perspective games kind of give me nausea (I just get horribly dizzy after a while of watching/playing them), so this 2D clone initially attracted me with having a decent looking set of options for that sort of thing after seeing an LP of it in youtube. Minecrafters may find this game disappointing though because it's so very much unabashedly a clone even with it's other game elements.
The game's got it's own charm though due to it's RPG elements to exploration, where the deeper and farther you dig means you get new tools, armor, and things like increased mana/hp...which tends to lead to events like bosses spawning.
For example, while I was aware the game had bosses (I do use the wiki for info on recipes for crafting though I try not to use it for other stuff besides the new player guides since the NPC guide that comes with the game is more annoying than helpful), I thought they were all summoned/triggered manually.
So it was kind of a surprise for me when I suddenly see the text "You feel an evil presence watching you..." while I was fighting off some zombies and building a new house/room for new NPCs. Shortly after, a jarring screech and the relatively cheerful night music changes as a giant bloodshot eyeball appears from below me and starts attacking me and it has 3000HP and oh, hey, it's called the Eye of Cthulhu.
I go through -much- of my healing potion inventory over the course of the night as I struggle to survive against it with nothing but a golden broadsword which seems to result more in me getting way more hurt in the exchanges than it, and an enchanted boomerang...which tends to leave me defenseless for a few seconds whenever I miss.
As I'm slowly whittling away at it, chugging my potions along the way, suddenly the eye spins...and it's pupil transforms into a gaping maw of sharpened teeth and with a roar, I get charged in a repeated series of blitz attacks, finding that the damage it was doing has doubled. OW! Well, at least it's not summoning little eyeballs anymore but it's much harder to hit it and not taking a hit back, and my supply of potions is running lower and lower...
I don't manage to kill it before dawn arrives, unfortunately, and the eyeball flies off, fearful of whatever light brings with it (it's just slimes as far as I know, and bunnies as of the latest patch, but maybe it just hates slimes?). But hey, I survived! And I can prepare!
It gets better.
As mentioned, I start preparing for my next encounter with the giant eyeball. I build an arena to fight it in where I won't have to worry about zombies (zombies spawn during the night, same as that boss), stock up with more healing potions, get better weapons/armors with the stock of ores I have...but when he does eventually spawn 2 nights later, I get him down to only 1100HP and dawn is looming in the background, and I know what that means, which is terribly disappointing. =(
It looks like he's going to be the one surviving the encounter due to his flight on daytime mechanic...except a falling star SLAMS DOWN FROM THE HEAVEN INTO IT!
BAM! That falling star? -1000HP right there. I actually almost die from gaping in shock at how much it's health has dropped, but I chug down a potion and start wailing on it, counting down that HP meter with every shot I make at it's mouth with a flaming arrow. SPLUT, the eyeball explodes (to be fair, -everything- explodes on death in Terraria, but that was a particularly satisfying splut) and as I start collecting my loot, the daytime music starts chirping. Sure, not a clean solo victory, but I'll take it.
The game has a lot of faults too though, lacks things it clearly should have like craftable windows and seeing hairstyles disappear under helmets (even the ones where the face is visible can eat beards apparently) and it added some bats in the latest patch which are an incredible pest underground and need to have their attack damage dropped hard.
Those bats hit extremely hard even with armor, come in groups, are very small, and fly fast and randomly. I'd be surprised to see a new player without armor and added HP survive long with exploration with those bats due to the damage they do.
Overall though, I'm enjoying this little game for the sandbox/building, the exploration, the rewards for exploring, and the random events.
I watched a friend play through that. I have to admit though, the whole 'we're constantly updating this' is a bit of a push off.
Some of the updates are pretty nice, and it's nice to get new stuff to discover after a while during patches, but some of the balance changes can also get annoying admittedly.
Updates tend to come every 1-2 weeks too (gone through 5 patches since its release), and a lot of the changes tend to require you to build a new world, which can either be fun if you like rebuilding or annoying if you grow attached to your world/creation, although you can usually import stuff from new worlds to old worlds.
The RPG aspect of the game is unfortunately also really short, there's only three boss enemies right now, and once you get the current end-level gear, those bosses are incredibly simple for the most part (don't need to rely on falling stars anymore!).
I've currently been amusing myself trying out some of the adventure/challenge maps that people build, although some are broken from time to time due to patch updates too, which sucks. Still enjoying the game at least, and I feel I've been getting my $10 worth out of it. =)
Oh yeah, no question it is worth the money. For me it's more attention :)
Playing SpaceChem. I saw it on the daily deals for Steam's summer sale today and the mechanics really looked familiar, reminded me a lot of Manufactoria (http://www.kongregate.com/games/PleasingFungus/manufactoria), except instead of building robots in an assembly line, you build molecules/atoms.
Similar style of assembly line puzzle solving though, and it comes with leaderboards for each puzzle showing how much time people typically take on a puzzle or how many pieces they've used, so besides just solving them, you can try to challenge yourself by limiting the amount of symbols used to assemble the line or minimize the time for the cycles to work.
It doesn't quite have the humor manufactoria had and I think I might prefer that game (plus hey, it was -free-, you can't beat that), but this is pretty cheap at $5.09 with the 66% discount it currently has, and if you liked manufactoria, chances are you'll enjoy getting a crack at some new puzzles of a similar nature.
I do have one peeve with this game so far though and that's the tutorial stages, because they aren't friendly to time or symbol challenges. You're essentially given the generic solutions for those stages as part of the instructing process (kind of lame to be -given- the solution too, but I can understand it). However, you can still solve them with less time or fewer symbols, for a challenge...
Unfortunately, the game covers about a quarter of the screen's field (the lower-right quadrant) with the tutorial instructions, and it -always- pops them up if you try to experiment/deviate from the generic solution. And there's no way to just make the tutorial window vanish, even if you're going BACK to a stage you've already solved, and a few of those tutorial stages require you to do some stuff in that quadrant...which is covered with tutorial instructions telling you that you're doing it wrong if you aren't following the generic solution.
Still, that's very few worlds, so that's a pretty minor thing overall.
I did some portal 2 co-op last weekend. It was fun. I don't think the game though necessarily delivers a good co-op vibe. But then I haven't found tremendous success with co-operative puzzle solvers.
...the difficulty curve from puzzle to puzzle on SpaceChem is freaking insane. I kind of want to cry just looking at what my goal is for the current puzzle. It's muuuuuuch harder than Manufactoria because it forces you to break down the problem into smaller segments (and you can only break it down into so many segments) after a certain point, and each segment has certain symbols in limited quantities. I suppose it does encourage you to learn optimization by practicing in the simpler puzzles, but the spike in difficulty really is crazy.
Dunno if anyone's interested, but as I mentioned the game here a few weeks back, I figured I'd point out that Terraria is one of the Steam daily deals today ($2.49 sale price).
More on topic, just started to play Mass Effect. Not a game I'd typically buy due to it being a shooter, but since it's also an RPG and uses third person perspective, I figured it might be fun to try out as I've been a little curious about it in the past. Picked up ME2 as well, just in case I turn out to enjoy the first game (Here's hoping!).
http://andrewmorrish.net/?page_id=313 kinda neat.
I actually prefered ME2 to ME1, the streamlined action-RPG setup was just more enjoyable generally.
I'll keep that in mind, though I feel slightly obligated to play them in order. =)
Oh, I played them in order too. It's not a bad thing to do.
Just well, having <20 weapons was a lot nicer than "Oh, another stack of vendor trash."
I like the new EDF. Sadly, I think I liked the first one more. The increased graphics means fewer enemies on screen at the same time so we haven't had a chance to shoot missiles across the entire city like in the first one.
Still highly entertaining, though.
Earth Defense Force: Electronic Boogloo? *guesses*
Anyhow, been playing Grandia 2 in a nostalgia bent and a fair bit of Billy vs Snakeman.
Grandia 2? Beat it without spamming the Eyes of Valmar, Drac!
I...don't think I've ever spammed Eyes of Valmar.
Wings of Valmar, sure, but... What's the point of the rest of them? I always limit to just using moves that were leveled to Instant priority.
The Eyes do crap for damage, but they stop bosses from ever being able to get an attack off. For a long time. After you get the Eyes you can cast Eyes and just regular attack and kill bosses super fast. I was shocked when I realized they'd let you hit bosses with it, it's so broken.
Quote from: thepanda on July 12, 2011, 04:44:50 PM
The Eyes do crap for damage, but they stop bosses from ever being able to get an attack off.
...I never noticed that. Kinda like vanish/X-Zone or Doom, I guess. :p
OTOH, I liked the combat. Heck, I even played Grandia
EXTREME all the way to the end, and it didn't have any plot at all! :p
Quote from: Brian on July 12, 2011, 05:49:24 PM
OTOH, I liked the combat.
So do I. Thus,
don't use the Eyes. I like Grandia games; I just wish they didn't all fall to pieces 2/3 of the way through. Also, the final boss fights tend to be pathetic.
On another note, I went ahead and finished Y's AoN. I put it aside earlier but figured I should knock it out now. Good ending, great music and art design, and some actual restraint on the cut scenes (though that might have more to do with it being a ps2 game). Good times.
Can't decide if I should play Sakura Wars ~So Long My Love~, Atelier Iris, or Odin Sphere next. I had most of Odin Sphere beat at one point, but lost the memory card with that data. Atelier games tend to revolve around farming components and making stuff. I don't know if I really want to do that right now, especially since I don't have a guide. And Sakura Wars is a Sakura wars game, with all that entails.
Go play Muramasa.
Quote from: Dracos on July 12, 2011, 08:12:04 PM
Go play Muramasa.
That's on top of the wii pile. I'm still working on the ps2 pile.
Been continuing to BvS obsessively.
In the meanwhile I've been switching between DQ6 replay and Valkyria Chronicles replay.
Just picked up Deus Ex 3 though, so hopefully that should be cool.
SMT: Devil Survivor.
"I'm Yuzu's boyfriend!"
CLASSIC.
Quote from: Brian on August 24, 2011, 03:44:23 PM
SMT: Devil Survivor.
"I'm Yuzu's boyfriend!"
CLASSIC.
Man, now I want to go back and continue that game. I only got like half the endings!
Only bad part about the NG+ is it gets really hard to end this one mission correctly (Let weak N-PC deal final blow to strong enemy). "Sure... *hits enemy once, killing it*" "Uh..." "You win! But he'll come back some day and murder that other character, continuing his reign of terror."
Have you gotten Simon Belmont?
Cuz having Simon Belmont as a monster is pretty awesome.
Sorry, too busy powerleveling and cackling with glee.
Also fusing demons without much regard for their rarity. Let's see ... kobold+pixie was pretty decent. No other especially great demons yet.
'Skill cracking' is a pretty awesome idea. Been picking up stuff that way all kinds.
Have yet to run into that issue with the weak NPC ... hopefully there's some good strategies for that online. >.>
There are, and it's not an issue on playthrough 1. It requires post-game power levels to become a problem. Basically, if you are badass enough that you can look at gods and slay them with awesome...well, Not Killing things becomes challenging.
I suggest avoiding Rarity below 3 unless it's just to get their move for a later fusion. It's pretty easy to go ahead and get high rarity monsters. Fuse to awesome! :3
Do they ever get random positive attributes? I've seen a lot of demons with useless stuff like 'clumsy' or 'chipped claw' or whatever.
Oh totally. They can get bonus stat points and special moves. Or just start off with all their moves mastered, ready to fuse right away.
The higher your 'rank' from buying them, the more likely that is. Though its never one hundred percent.
It reloads available monsters every time you do a Fight OR restart the game. Sometimes I would reload a few times when I was hunting for a certain good monster to make a fusion (since leveling monsters takes a good deal of time).
The Plan: To be productive, today
What happened: Wasted the entire day playing, then beating, Aliens: The Roguelike
-- AliensRL 0.8 Post Mortem ------------------------------------------
Name : Ellen Ripley
Class : Scout
Rank : Veteran
Result : killed the queen and escaped
Score : 23138
Total experience : 15940
Experience left : 900
Game length : 29484 turns
Security keycards : 21
Military keys : 6
Armor : Power armor [4]
Sidearm : M4A3 pistol (12/12)
Primary : M41A pulse rifle (99/99)
Heavy : M56 smartgun (50/50)
Medpacks: 5
-- Graveyard ---------------------------------------------------------
###.###############..#....|.......#...
......#..°...#....#..#...þ#..Ü....#°..
.===..#......#....|..#þ...#.....a°#.°.
.===..#°.Ü...#°...#..#....#°......####
.===..#......#....#..#.þ..#.......#..°
......|..Ü...#....#..#######-######°..
##-####......|....#..#...°.....a..#...
.....a#..Ü..%#°...#..#............/...
......#......#....#..#°.Ü..Ü..Ü...#.a.
......#..Ü...#....#..#............#...
......#°.....#°...#..#......a.....#°..
......#......#.°..#X.#........°...#...
################### #################
-- Skills ------------------------------------------------------------
Sidearms : master
Light weapons : advanced
Heavy weapons : basic
Technical : untrained
Medicine : basic
Fitness : expert
Perception : untrained
-- Ammunition --------------------------------------------------------
9mm ammo : 286/400
.44 ammo : 150/150
M309 ammo : 385/500
M250 ammo : 440/500
60mm gren. : 40/40
12g. shells : 200/200
frag grenade : 5/3
inc grenade : 3/3
krak grenade : 6/3
-- Kills (1307) ------------------------------------------------------
323 juveniles
253 warriors
53 elites
17 praetorians
142 scavengers
355 hunters
14 stalkers
105 drones
40 workers
4 overseers
1 queen
[ending messages not included, since it could be somewhat of a spoiler]
I'm playing Shadow of the Colossus! In HD! I got the PS3 HD rerelease of Ico and SotC. It's the same great games, but they've been polished up; the textures are improved, the frame rate is much better, and so on.
Amazon's even doing a sale on it today (http://goo.gl/BRiad). If you have a PS3, you owe it to yourself to pick this up.
heh. I never really finished Shadow of the Colossus.
Doing another run of FF4 and Mother 3 at the moment.
Really? Actually ... yeah. I enjoyed SotC a lot.
While it was fun, and really actually an 'artistic' game (as much as we get those), it wasn't quite compelling enough to me to do the three+ playthroughs you need to unlock the 'and now you can play through with readable subtitles!' aspect.
I enjoyed it and in fact suggest the game to others, even though I only played through once.
I should pick up Ico, though I suspect I'm going to run into the 'don't want to beat x times to get moon-language -> English feature.'
And I'm not attacking that angle or saying it's bad -- just saying it doesn't do anything for me.
Did you know there is a novelization of Ico? And It is translated into English? I just saw the book at B&N today.
Quote from: Brian on September 30, 2011, 04:44:24 PM
Really? Actually ... yeah. I enjoyed SotC a lot.
While it was fun, and really actually an 'artistic' game (as much as we get those), it wasn't quite compelling enough to me to do the three+ playthroughs you need to unlock the 'and now you can play through with readable subtitles!' aspect.
I enjoyed it and in fact suggest the game to others, even though I only played through once.
I should pick up Ico, though I suspect I'm going to run into the 'don't want to beat x times to get moon-language -> English feature.'
And I'm not attacking that angle or saying it's bad -- just saying it doesn't do anything for me.
I enjoyed it, I just sort of got distracted at some point from it and just didn't feel the draw to go back.
Quote from: Brian on September 30, 2011, 04:44:24 PM
I should pick up Ico, though I suspect I'm going to run into the 'don't want to beat x times to get moon-language -> English feature.'
That's really more of an easter-egg; the point is there's a girl, and you can't really communicate with her, but you need to keep her safe and find a path you can both use.
You should pick up the Ico/SotC HD remake while it's on sale!
Quote from: thepanda on September 30, 2011, 06:04:40 PM
Did you know there is a novelization of Ico? And It is translated into English? I just saw the book at B&N today.
I did! I gave it four stars (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/199871866). It's translated by Alexander O. Smith, the same guy who did the Final Fantasy XII translation.
Spend money now with the justification that I'll surely get enjoyment out of it later....
have no PS2/3 or television. While I can get these things, eh, sale or not, it's all wasted money at the moment, so better to save up for a new apartment.
Playing Jeanne D'Arc for the PSP. It's fun but light fluff, albeit shallow.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Gotta admit, the intro sequence with the voices and the credits ... excellent treatment of a older premise. So far, really enjoying the game, though judging by Drac's comments, I can see why it might not work as well on the console. I'll probably write up a review once I finish it. :)
I have been playing Prospector (that is, until my laptop fan died), a roguelike that takes place in outer space.
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/
It's a game where you are freelance explorer who discovers new planets, trades with aliens and/or exploits and/or fight off any hostiles, mine and collect natural resources, all of which are sold to megacorporations. Your goal is to become rich enough to comfortably retire. Players can also hunt pirate fleets (if you aren't playing as a pirate), find new alien civilizations and ancient artifacts, field a small army of away team members, and more.
It's also decidedly in alpha, so screwed up menus and unescapable loops are not unheard of.
I am...not exactly happy with Arkham City. I ended up getting flung sidequest to sidequest last night during play and pretty much didn't really make any storyline progress for it. Certainly ignorable, but when the mission markers are literally popping up on screen on your way there, it's hard to not be distracted. Ring Ring.
Did a run of Ratchet All-For-One last weekend. It's serviceble 4 player co-op. Very on rails, which I'm not sure I like and I'd kind of prefer a Shared bolts model so being badass didn't basically mean "Oh, I get the lion's resource share to buy advantages".
I beat Devil Survivor again. Now on the 4th story path, and I probably won't do the 5th (He's kinda a punk, and really, doesn't seem different enough to merit). Devil Survivor 2 can't come soon enough :P
Inspired by various martial-art stories and movies, I have attempted drunken Touhou (PoFV) to see if alcohol would increase my skill. Curiously, it does not appear to differ from my typical attempts.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 30, 2011, 08:18:07 PMInspired by various martial-art stories and movies, I have attempted drunken Touhou (PoFV) to see if alcohol would increase my skill. Curiously, it does not appear to differ from my typical attempts.
I've found it's largely the same, but there's a breakpoint where your muscle-memory (if advanced) gains a slight advantage in games that are repetitious enough. Try Katamari Damacy.
If anything, drunken Touhou helps in the sense that it kills adrenaline kicking in when you make mistakes, and can keep you calmer - in a lot of the games, a lot of what ends runs is that one mistake tends to knock you off your stride and you start making a lot more.
PoFV's kind of a bad example for that, though, since unlike most of the other games it's about 90% random in terms of dodging.
Willow.
Thunderbolt. *move ten squares*
Thunderbolt *move ten squares*
Thunderbolt.
Skyrim! It's very pretty. @_@
GTA: SA:
Playing this again for the first time in years. It holds up well on all fronts and is still a lot of fun. I'm about half way through Los Santos, blazing through the early missions.
Mmmmm, Skyrims.
Quote from: Jon on November 13, 2011, 01:05:51 AMMmmmm, Skyrims.
I'ma gettin teh hype-backlashes from all the "wooo!" going on about this game in #e (intentional, children (THAT WAS ACTING! BRAVO FOR ME!)) and #sr (yeah, just lazy).
SRYS, honest thoughts on it?
Quote from: Brian on November 13, 2011, 05:41:02 AM
Quote from: Jon on November 13, 2011, 01:05:51 AMMmmmm, Skyrims.
I'ma gettin teh hype-backlashes from all the "wooo!" going on about this game in #e (intentional, children (THAT WAS ACTING! BRAVO FOR ME!)) and #sr (yeah, just lazy).
SRYS, honest thoughts on it?
First off, if you liked Oblivion, you'll like this.
I know, Oblivion suffered hype backlash. I've bitched about it tons! I've also put in about 100 hours into it, so what I say and what I do are different.
So with Oblivion as our basepoint, what's better and what's worse?
The interface I think is worse. Mainly it's the lack of a paper doll inventory that bothers me. It's a chore to have to put an item on, come out, switch to external view, and rotate the camera around to decide if an item is too goofy to wear or not. Other than that, you can't tab between different pages in your stats, like from inventory to spells to skills. You can either bring one page up from the main game with a shortcut, or hit tab and choose one which you're stuck in until you come out.
Skills are a little bit streamlined, up to you if this is worse or bad. For all that I lament the lack of spears, it is quite nice that skill in 'one-handed' means I can seamlessly drop my icy waraxe in favour of any really cool sword or mace I find, barring a few weapon specific perks. You don't really pick 'class skills' either anymore. Early on you just choose one of Mage, Warrior, or Thief, and from then on you get a 20% bonus to learning those skills... and you can change your specialisation at any time. I'm undecided on whether that's good or bad, I've just picked warrior and stuck with it.
As to that, you choose a specialisation by means of three special runic stones you can revisit any time. And rather than choosing a birthsign as in previous games, there are stones hidden across Skyrim devoted to The Atronach, The Ritual, and all the others that you can find and invoke to gain that birthsigns benefit, again changable just by finding a different stone and overwriting it. I actually think this is really neat, it lets you change to suit different obstacles and adds another level of planning for hard battles - plus you have to find them first, which is a cool incentive.
You level just by getting 10 skill increases regardless of which they are. Personally I'm glad there's no more cheesing for strength/int/whatever multipliers, but some might miss that. I always hated it, and those stats don't even exist anymore. But what do are perks! Every skill has an associated perk tree of abilities and further specialisations you can travel down, which adds some cool variety to things and keeps levelling from being too standard an affair.
Weapons don't degrade any more... one one hand, this loses the tension of breaking your favourite weapon deep in a dungeon and having to improvise your way out. On the other hand, Armourer has been replaced with Smithing so you can forge your own weapons and armour right out the box, and charging around in awesome self-made gear is a pretty cool feeling. The whole enchanting mechanic is pretty unchanged, except rather than learning enchantments from your own spells, you have to examine an already enchanted item (destroying it) to have that enchantment available for putting on new stuff.
The overall aesthetic of Skyrim is
gorgeous. Cyrodil was pretty, but so plain and generic. Where it was a pastoral English woodland, Skyrim's a rugged Celtic/Nordic highland... maybe I'm biased because I'm Scottish, but it's oh so pretty and just resonates with me. Just like Oblivion there are generic caves and dungeons as well as breathtaking ones, so that can be a draw.
I haven't played long enough for any voice acting to grate, but it supposedly has a ton more actors than Oblivion had and there hasn't been an obvious "We spent all our budget on Patrick Stewart for 5 minutes" moments, so I'm optimistic there.
Companions are well implemented into the world. Mercenaries hang about here and there offering their services for coin, you can befriend some people by doing them a favour or impressing them in some challenge so they'll join forces with you, or you can win them through others means - I got granted the position of Thane by the Jarl of the first big city and with the position came a Housecarl who I've had running around helping me bash heads since. She's been pretty sensible and helpful in combat, and if beaten she just gets KO'd for a bit so I don't have to babysit her - not that she's needed it.
I've only fought two dragons so there hasn't been time for them to get horrible like the Oblivion gates did, but they seem really cool. Other than the first plot-dragon you can see them flying around at a distance and when you get near them they'll start swooping down to breath fire on you or land for melee, and they make good use of terrain by landing on high rocks that are hard for you to reach so they can breathe fire with impunity (unless you're ranged specialised). So far they've been challenging and fun to fight (although I got horribly mauled by a sabertoothed tiger that objected to me dismissing it as a threat while I was battling my second dragon, so you have to be careful of other stuff at the same time!), and feel objectively more epic than wading through a red-tinted dungeon full of dudes to grab a doohickey. Not to mention you can't just kill dragons and get their power, you have to find the secret dragon-shouts hidden across the map to unlock that power... so I guess there is a dungeon-delving aspect as well, but the benefit is a lot more tangible than those oblivion stone things you could enchant stuff with.
Anyway, I hope all that's enough for you to decide one way or another, Brian. In short basically if you liked Oblivion you'll like this.
Quote from: Ebiris on November 13, 2011, 08:48:23 AMFirst off, if you liked Oblivion, you'll like this.
I know, Oblivion suffered hype backlash. I've bitched about it tons! I've also put in about 100 hours into it, so what I say and what I do are different.
So with Oblivion as our basepoint, what's better and what's worse?
I've never played Oblivion, so....
Have you at least played Morrowind?
Okay, assumptions like that aside: It's a fun and well detailed open world sandbox RPG with satisfying combat and character customisation.
I played Morrowind a very little bit. Kind of did not dig on constant cliff racer attacks any time you tried to rest in the overworld. Didn't get far.
I do recall Peter playing Oblivion, though, and now that I think about it--
Does Skyrim have the same, "Get the fanmade 'leveling mod' so it doesn't suck" thing going on?
If so, I'll wait until the price drops by 50%, and all the official/community patches are complete.
Doesn't seem like it. Bandits have consistently been wearing shitty leather/hide/iron stuff while I'm tooling around in dwemer/orcish stuff.
I-- Wow, I implied something about that game I don't know, and you answered as if I did. @_@
To clarify: Is the process of leveling up so bad/clumsy, you need a mod to manage your stats and make it not suck, as I heard was the case in the first previous game?
I honestly have no idea what bandit gear had to do with what I was trying to ask.
Edit: Okay, evidently both games have scaling enemies. I didn't know that, and still don't care about it; I'm more concerned about the game being fundamentally flawed and requiring player-made-patches to address issues like that.
Quote from: BrianDoes Skyrim have the same, "Get the fanmade 'leveling mod' so it doesn't suck" thing going on?
If so, I'll wait until the price drops by 50%, and all the official/community patches are complete.
There was a fanmade levelling mode to make it so you wouldn't have bandits in epic gear accosting you for 10gp. Seemed like you were talking about that, since I did go into how the whole stat management is streamlined into near nonexistence in my first post which I guess was ignored as soon as I mentioned Oblivion? I'll stop posting on the subject now anyway.
Well, not having played it myself, I didn't have any way to really know how level was attached to stats....
Serves me right for asking based on second-hand knowledge.
Quote from: Brian on November 13, 2011, 03:40:07 PM
I'm more concerned about the game being fundamentally flawed and requiring player-made-patches to address issues like that.
So far I have had no problems in this regard, apart from what I suspect to be a buggy questline.
Hey Ebiris, Thanks for the detailed post on it. Appreciated review. I was wondering what I was missing seeing the #e talk yesterday.
Hey brian, let us resolve something. Oblivion is sitting on my shelf. Borrow it.
For Skyrim, I think I'm waiting to January. Finish out what bugs are there, wait for UI Mods to step up and get polished, enjoy epic.
Quote from: Dracos on November 14, 2011, 01:10:48 PMHey brian, let us resolve something. Oblivion is sitting on my shelf. Borrow it.
...I think I remember borrowing it and never getting around to playing it, suddenly. o_o
...yes, yes-- This happened. Ooh, man. Now I feel really dumb. :p
Hum, in which case it may be sitting on your shelf instead of mine. Makes it easier to play at some point I suppose :3
Nope, I remember giving it back to you, too. :p
Otherwise ... lost in a move. :x
Then it would be on my bookshelf. Offer to lend established. :) *laughs*
A bit away from computer gaming, but..
Just played Resistance 3 for the PS3. Beat it in a day. I remember playing the original Resistance and enjoying it because, for all that it's a shooter, it had a fairly interesting concept/story. Resistance 3... fell short in these areas.
Story was short, and while fairly interesting on the surface, had no real development of the story. It felt like it should have been DLC, not a stand alone game.
As far as controls go, eh, shooters on consoles are pretty standard. The weapons are fairly interesting, however. They have good secondary/special fires, but they suffer from 'pump 80 rounds into a monster's face and it'll still punch you back.'
The monsters themselves were pretty good looking, but they have been since the original Resistance.
All in all, I'd say it's a rental.
People still rent games? Do the stores page your beeper to let you know it came in? ^_^
Yes? It still counts as a rental if you're gamefly or netflixing it.
I didn't know netflix did games. For me, if I can't stream it, it isn't really on netflix.
Doom 2: Sunder
Been messing around with map 14 again the last few days. About 80% of my attempts end before I get to the yellow key; the first 100 demons or so are the absolute worst. If I can get past all that I usually do well. The rest of the level until the last area isn't unreasonable. I haven't cracked the last fight yet, it's insanely hard and requires some luck. I've cleared this map before, but I'd like to get a really good run or two of it under my belt.
Been playing some Arkham City. Gotten to enjoying it but I think it is a lesser game for its greater amount of stuff than its predecessor.
Also played through and beat Willow. Ana, your turn next. Battletoads or something :P
I bought a controller so I could enjoy some emulated games a while back, and I found it works with some Steam games, too. While I was exploring the Steam Store, I stumbled across a title by the name of 'Waves'.
It's a 'dual-stick' shooter, which means you control your movement with one control stick, and the orientation of your fire with the other. In this case, you don't have a fire button, you just fire constantly while aiming in a given direction.
So far, the game is incredibly bright, with vivid colors, the music is strangely soothing, and the gameplay modes I've tried are actually quite fun. It seems to have a basic level of gameplay that fits into the 'bejeweled' camp of giving you tons of shiny sparkles and glitter when you succeed, but also hints of much deeper levels of complexity and difficulty. I've really only started playing this just today, but so far I have to say -- this might be my new meditation focus for a while.
Certainly, it's incredibly soothing controlling a sphere, rolling around in the bottom of some shiny cosmic canister while flinging orbs of light at hexagons of various other colors.
You can find out more about it here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/107600/
I wouldn't personally suggest this if you don't already have a controller with dual-analog sticks. But if you do?
Well, I enjoyed it.
I beat Arkham City.
It's good, but underwhelming in a sense compared to the original. The boss battles are definitely better. Catwoman is a load of suck, and folks that don't have her playable as part of the game are in a way better off~ (Hey Look, stealth assassin sections without any tools and lacking quick escape, awesome!). Riddler feels almost overkill (400+ things to collect), and I honestly had trouble finding the next spot to go for a few of the sidequest branches.
The high point is at least some of joker's tricks are actually pretty clever narratively and really the meat and potatoes of the game is still "6 guys with guns, 1 super assassin, go!"
Oh, and in bitching: It's way easier to fight 30 guys than it is to fight 3. Seriously. The biggest problem in fights is that if an enemy goes down on blow 1 or 2 instead of blow 3, and you throw the next punch, someone undoubtedly will walk up and smack you. You're also way more vulnerable if there's no one else for a punch to target. When there's a huge crowd, it's almost effortless to build up a 20+ hit combo being an untouchable wave of death, countering, flipping, and rapidfire punch your way through their guns, stun rods, body armor, and shields.
Put 3 guys in a small elevator and they've got a way better chance of getting ten+ hits on batman because generic attack is way more likely to leave you whiffing which puts in a large vulnerable frame versus hitting someone (which allows for quick counter reacts immediately).
Been playing some Little Big Planet 2.
I still think the original is a better game.
Also some Left 4 Dead. It has been fun :)
Still been dividing my time between Skyrim and Minecraft.
Gotta say -- Left 4 Dead has some great co-op design elements, and it's a fun game. I didn't enjoy L4D2's gameplay style as much; a bit too, "Well, this worked in the original, perhaps too well. Here's some new custom specials that exist just to punish you for grouping up."
It probably says something that I've got both, but have played the original about five times as much.
Well, *looks up 2 posts. Then a post after that*
There's a lot of 2 game sets that have a better original.
Oddly, a lot of 3-5 game sets that have number 2 being the better one.
PATTERNS!
By the time you've gotten to the 3rd game you've probably had to change systems. So instead of 2=1 but better you have 3= we HAVE to change up something! Anything!
Well, that pattern goes with games that are on the same system though too. Or where 2 is the system swapper.
See:
Arc the Lad 2.
Street Fighter 2
Mother 2.
Bah, my memory stinks tonight :)
... Simon's Quest!
*runs.
Been playing through the humble bundle games. Good batch of games in it. (...and it's for a good cause! ...yes, good causes! <_<)
I stopped playing meat boy , it's very unplayable on keyboard, I'm having trouble doing wall-to-wall jumping with it. I'm debating whether it's worth buying a controller for it, knowing what I know of some of the later worlds/levels, since I don't have any other game that really requires gamepad for it.
Night Sky was cute and short. I -love- the vehicles in that game, they're adorable. =)
I just wish the puzzle portion of the game was more...puzzle-ish? I haven't tried the alternative mode though, which supposedly has more difficult puzzles. I just hope it's actually puzzles though, not just 'timing' levels. They're not bad per se, but they can get annoying when you have to keep restarting a level and going through them over and over.
Cave Story is nostalgic, though the HD music is pretty dull in general. Some tracks aren't too bad, but the game really should be played with the original tunes (and it's thankfully an option!). The HD facelift to the art isn't bad on the other hand. I haven't really got complaints about it. I find it funny that Quote's outfit is yellow in easy mode, his standard red in normal mode, and a blue outfit in hard. Balrog does not go "HUZZAH!" however now. He instead imitates the Kool Aid guy, breaking in through walls with a cry of "OH YEAAAAH!" =(
Will probably give Shank a chance tomorrow, haven't played a beat 'em up since I was...12 or so? Wow, long time. Bit Trip Runner is also probably fun...then again, I was always horrible at 2D sonic, robot unicorn and canabalt. So I may just end up frustrated from it. >_>;
...the other two games (Jamestown/Space Battles) I probably won't touch much, though.
Gave Jamestown a shot. It's actually a pretty fun danmaku game with an utterly insane content. All I'll say here is 'Allied Spanish/Martian forces'.
Edit: Difficulty will cause Touhou fans disdain at being 'too easy'. There are harder difficulties than normal.
So it's playable huh, brian?
I played some Bittrip Runner and got about 10 levels in before it suddenly leaped to too hard for me to do. Many of them it's almost easier to do it perfect than to miss a beat and still win at all, since one failure sends you back to the beginning. As a rhythm game, I like it a lot, but it definitely has the 'well, if I can't beat this level, the other 40 levels cannot be played at all. Sucks.' setup. It's got a good 'you feel cool at doing good' setup though and a solid, 'we'll teach you the new hardiness' at the beginning of levels. So if you can do the first 30-40 seconds of a level, you have the skills to do the rest of it technically.
Played some nightsky. My grudge here is a lack of purpose. I'm a marble. I can spin. Yes, this worked in many old games (Marble Madness), but there's just a general lack of feedback. I am just drifting. It's relaxing, but I'd probably never pay for it in a normal setup. It just is missing either depth or excitement.
Played some Space Battles, but yeah, not my thing. again, it lacks a narrative, and the numbers are so vast I'm not getting much of a feel for what's going on.
The new music of Cave Story+ is an abomination. Utterly a terrible job. The art is pretty neat though. Maybe I should give hard a try, but then I don't generally play it for its difficulty, but for it's depth.
Quote from: Dracos on December 16, 2011, 01:53:18 PMSo it's playable huh, brian?
That's what I was trying to imply without stating, to avoid offending our highly-skilled danmaku bretheren. Also, it has multiplayer ... except, I think local only, which is something of a pity.
I do want to comment to others in this thread, RE: Controllers.
I bought a controller to use with ZSNES, because I wanted to play FFV, and didn't want to screw around with the keyboard to do it. Now that I've gotten it, though, I'm finding that a good controller is a sound investment. For any Windows system, you can purchase an Xbox controller with USB connection, and that's ... actually all you need. I got the Logitech controller myself; the model escapes me, but it's effectively a PS2 controller (dual analog, four shoulder buttons, analog sticks can be pressed as R3/L3). Incidentally, quite a few of the games I've been playing are 'controller compatible', and sometimes that's great. (Sometimes, it's awful.)
Skyrim could be played with a controller, but I never even considered bothering to try for a minute. Waves can be played with a keyboard and mouse -- but the dual analog stick is what it was designed for. I'm not sure why I'm seeing so much reluctance to get controllers in this thread ... though, now that I've brought it up: Jamestown could probably suck pretty bad without a controller.
Edit: Can't you just enable the classic music in Cave Story+? I could have sworn someone mention that was an option.
yes, you can. But I have to bash the new music every time CaveStory+ is brought up now. It's like someone painting a silly mustache on your favorite picture. "Sure, I can cover it up, but they didn't even do a good job of a silly mustache! Why would anyone DO THAT?"
Controllers are awesome. I should pick up a pc one again. I had this awesome logitech one for years that worked in all sorts of good methods and was great for emulation gaming and then when game ports stopped existing, I couldn't use it anymore and just never ended up picking up another one. They're not expensive either, but just seem to not get into the house. Merc might have a similar tale there. It's not that it isn't a cool/useful thing, just that it isn't there.
Yeah, it really is pretty much an issue of 'it's cool/useful, but I never seem to buy one when I see one, thinking I can play the games I got just fine'. I had one ages ago, just never really bought another afterwards.
One year I got my little brother a USB controller and a card pointing to a URL where he could download ZSNES along with, "I just brought your childhood back. And more."
He still says it was one of the best gifts ever.
Edit: Just got an e-mail update from Humble Bundle offering, among other things ... new soundtracks for Cave Story+.
Drac: You complainin' AWESOME. I wish I got results like that!
Edit of edit: Read it wrong. But I don't find the new music that offensive ... yet. Maybe it gets worse.
I picked up a number of games on the cheap on Black Friday, only recently have I been able to go through them.
Bastion is amazing. Action/RPG with well oiled mechanics, fun to play, beautiful music (but not enough of it in my opinion), beautiful art style. Everyone goes on and on about the narration... and it's warranted, but there's a lot more to it than the unique narration.
Bought Overlord as well. It feels like Dungeon Keeper meets Pikmin. That's about all I can say about it so far, because I haven't spent that much time on it. I'm interested in seeing more though. Interesting control scheme as well, I'd say it works for the most part, and haven't really seen it used before where the left hand on the keyboard controls the Overlord, and the hand on the mouse controls the minions.
Re: Controllers - Yes, Virginia, I do believe that a good controller is a sound investment. I personally use a Dualshock 2 with a USB converter that I picked up from Radio Shack. Very reliable, solid as hell. Pretty sure just getting a controller for a console and finding a USB converter is anyone's best option, because it always feels like the ones "for computer" are just shoddy works built cheaply.
From the humble bundle, still, and I don't think anyone else has touched on it yet:
Holy CROW Shank is a violent game. Not a 'beat-'em-up' as much as a 'slaughter them all'. The art style is actually pretty strong, and the story.... I.... I'm really not sure? It is aware enough to be self-parodying, or so over-the-top it's just kind of enjoyable for what it is?
From a design point, for an indie game, they got a lot of things amazingly right. Most noticeably, when you're in one of those 'do x or die' spots, time slows down to make it look cool, not be a contest of reflexes. This does make certain things like 'jump over the meatgrinder of doom' feel almost trivially easy, but then, this isn't a game about platforming. It's seeing how well you can combo from knives to shotgun to machettes, and back.
Grenade balance is amazing. Namely, except against bosses (at least on normal difficulty), they just kill enemies. Annoying enemy type you don't like? (Looking at YOU, shield/shotgun dude.) Chuck a grenade at them and call it a day. The Shank character has a surprising move library, enough that I expect this would be unplayable with keyboard. With controller, though, it feels like I just found one of the world's campiest (and violent) beat-em-ups. That's not to say it's exceptionally gory (though it has its share of beheadings, and a lack of remorse), but there's a lot of blood. Like, a looooot of blood.
For Night Sky, I, uh.... Cleared, I think 'the old factory' (and did find a star in the second ... level? Mapset? Whatever they are), but while I enjoy the odd physics game once-in-a-while, too bored with it to go back. I'm not sure what's really going on with it, but it just didn't pull me in.
Super Meat Boy. I think I ... missed the memo on this one? I'd say it warrants a flat 'what' but that doesn't say much.
I'll just say: Punishing design is punishing. I think Dunefar would enjoy the difficulty level.
As I understand it the draw of super meat boy is the Replay mode when you do win, where you see potentially thousands of attempts all being done in parallel together. This ends up producing an amusing video to share with friends.
Quote from: Brian on December 17, 2011, 12:56:28 PM
For Night Sky, I, uh.... Cleared, I think 'the old factory' (and did find a star in the second ... level? Mapset? Whatever they are), but while I enjoy the odd physics game once-in-a-while, too bored with it to go back. I'm not sure what's really going on with it, but it just didn't pull me in.
Cool, trying shank soon. installed it yesterday. I think really Nightsky suffers terribly just from a lack of purpose most of all. There's no narrative reason to do anything in it, and the 'puzzles' are all so simple, you can't even get one from the basis of skillful puzzle solving.
BAH. Skyrim's 'glass mooks, adamantine bosses' imbalance flaw is starting to irritate me.
Almost as much as the fact that every time I improve my skills, my enemy's skills seems to outstrip me.
Revising my previous review: Absolutely don't buy this game until it's ~40$ -- because I expect that to coincide with when the modder community fixes Bethesda's game for them. Until then, hooray for console commands, the only other saving grace.
gog is running a holiday sale, so I recently bought up all the old ultima games. I'd owned them all previously, but it's hard to fit those old floppies into my CD drive, so $3 to save myself the effort wasn't a bad deal.
Anyway, beat Ultima 7 yesterday. The game says it took 18 (game) days, with a self-imposed rule of no stealing. I'm wondering whether to start V, VI, or try to finish VII faster by abusing Telekinesis/stealing/offensive potion mechanics.
Still playing PoFV; still failing to beat Aya in Hard on match mode. However, I'll sometimes win one fight, and I'm occasionally able to sustain bonusing for more than a couple of seconds, which means I'm on the way to not completely sucking at this game.
Tried VVVVV from the added games to humble bundle. I liked it at first, even with some of the really twitchy reflexes needed (more than I expected honestly) since it has super generous save points, but some of the rooms really do try your patience. I pretty much gave up on the bonus content orbs when I saw what the rooms to get to one of them was like.
Won't be finishing it either, after rescuing the fourth guy I got tossed into the 'Graviton' room, which is a timed survival match where enemies are getting fired at me and the only control I have is left or right as I'm bouncing uncontrollably. My reflexes aren't good enough to last long, unfortunately.
Oh well, had fun with what I did play at least.
The guy who made "And yet it moves" is a fucking lunatic. >_>
I finished VVVVV. I like torturous jumping games. Gonna get started on Super Meat Boy one of these days.
(but since most of my online gaming continues to be Starcraft with the occasional roguelike for wimps tossed in, I might be a while. I bought the bundle, though! I owns it!)
V^V didn't do much for me. Got 5 shinies, would probably appreciate it more if 'rooms' didn't have the possibility of being larger than 'screens'. Gratuitous Space Battles ... got sick of it before the tutorial finished, really bummed that you don't actually do anything but design fleets and watch them fight. Don't regret the investment; just now have tons of 'indie cred' games I probably won't be doing anything with.
Played some shank.
It was pretty playable with keyboard, provided you immediately remap the defaults to something not designed to rely constantly on pinky motion.
Quote from: Carthrat on December 21, 2011, 01:30:16 AM
with the occasional roguelike for wimps tossed in
?
I tend to be interesting in finding roguelikes I haven't played before, so am curious to which one(s) you're referring.
Dungeons of Dreadmore, judging by his Steam status.
That and Binding of Issac, recently. Real-time games can be roguelikes too!
Ugh, more Skyrim. Today: The dungeon of Casters. They can all be one-shot by a heavy melee/armor guy!
Watch out for the boss, her defense in robes is better than your defense in plate, and she has a spell that can one-shot you. She also has way, way more health than a player who has devoted half of his levels to health. Times 'kill' command has been required for 'at-level' bosses: 2.
Not doing a good job of this, Bethesda. Not at all.
Now playing: Faxanadu on the NES. For some reason I feel obligated to replay this during the holidays. I chalk this up to a blend of nostalgia and...well, nostalgia. It's not a bad game, but I don't really need to play it every year.
Do willow next!
Re: Skyrim
I remember hearing that they intended boss fights as some kind of puzzle.
Still, seems lame.
Anyhow, been playing some godfather 2. The voice and narrative work is a massive step down from Godfather 1, but it's basically an excuse to play city conquest mobster, so it's still fun.
I think the only enemy that gave me real trouble in Skyrim was a Draugr Deathlord in the dungeon with the ghost that tells you about the sealed lich. I had to run away and gain about five more levels before I came back and then breezed through the rest of the dungeon after killing him.
If you're having trouble consistently are you just not using dragon shouts at all? Or did you raise speechcraft/smithing/lockpicking to 100 to gain loads of levels without improving your combat skills and break the curve?
I ... have ... a shout. >_>;;
And a pile of dragon souls--
Okay, time to see what those dudes on the hill want with me. <_<;;;
Quote from: Brian on December 23, 2011, 07:05:05 PM
I ... have ... a shout. >_>;;
And a pile of dragon souls--
Okay, time to see what those dudes on the hill want with me. <_<;;;
Have you ever played any of the Jedi Knight games where the best tactic is to use force push and knock guys with lots of hp off of ledges to instantly kill them?
(there are tons more shouts most of which are excessively useful in combat, but that's the best one if you get it upgraded)
I haven't, really. But wouldn't that cost me precious loot?
Quote from: Ebiris on December 23, 2011, 07:21:11 PMHave you ever played any of the Jedi Knight games where the best tactic is to use force push and knock guys with lots of hp off of ledges to instantly kill them?
(there are tons more shouts most of which are excessively useful in combat, but that's the best one if you get it upgraded)
They've preserved this tactic in the new Star Wars game, too. You miss loot, but I think you still get XP and mission credit for doing so.
Quote from: Brian on December 23, 2011, 08:57:26 PM
I haven't, really. But wouldn't that cost me precious loot?
Only if you fail to go down the cliff and find their bodies before the bodies despawn.
Quote from: Brian on December 21, 2011, 09:26:13 PM
Dungeons of Dreadmore, judging by his Steam status.
Quote from: Carthrat on December 22, 2011, 01:20:19 AM
That and Binding of Issac, recently. Real-time games can be roguelikes too!
Huh. On steam? I love the game genre, but I never thought that roguelikes had potential commercial success value, since it tends to be pretty niche.
Also, watching LP youtube videos of Dreadmore now, to see what it's about. Creatures being slaughtered sound so cute. oO
They're pretty cheap and part of indie bundles, which are all the rage these days.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 24, 2011, 12:14:45 AMHuh. On steam? I love the game genre, but I never thought that roguelikes had potential commercial success value, since it tends to be pretty niche.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/
http://mercyofcallouses.blogspot.com/2011/10/update-final-fantasy-iv-golbez-edition.html
Looks interesting, I'm going to try it after Christmas.
Picked up Knights of the Old Republic in the steam sale. Played through escaping the Endar Spire, whereupon the game promptly crashed.
FFFFFffffffffff
Quote from: Brian on December 23, 2011, 08:57:26 PM
I haven't, really. But wouldn't that cost me precious loot?
Bottomless pits are much rarer in Skyrim than in the Jedi Knight games. Basically, if you fus roh dah someone down a flight of stairs, it does damage equivalent to a really strong power attack. If you push them off a ledge that gets them to ragdoll it'll kill them 90% of the time (100% if it's over one storey high). Plus all those dungeons have traps and shit you can push them into, and while they merely inconvenience you, they induce ragdolling (thus death) in enemies.
That's just one shout. You can get ones that make you temporarily invincible, distract enemies while you're sneaking, put you in bullet time, invoke deadly lightning storms when in the open, freeze an enemy solid... Basically Shouts are Magic++, except without requiring skills/levelling to improve.
Quote from: Brian on December 24, 2011, 01:59:44 AM
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/
Oh. Right, I forgot about Diablo.
I stand corrected. :)
Just picked up Fate/Extra, Ys seven, Kirbey's Return To Dreamland, and Ys The Oath of Felghana.
Thank god my psp is working again. Now to decide which to play first!
I can't
stop
playing
Dota 2.
Bastion.
In simplest terms: A decent adventure/action game with an awesome presentation.
Really liked it, and the unique visual stylings almost never actually interfered with gameplay, and when they did, it was exceedingly minor. Newgame+ offers extra character customization, and the gimmick of the narrator is pretty genius. Instead of narrating the story and largely ignoring your direct actions, the narrator actually describes what you're doing/did.
I found myself laughing out loud when I first got the hammer and then proceeded with the traditional, 'destroy everything breakable in the room,' behavior you get used to in these games, only to have the narrator remark: "Kid just rages for a while."
My thumbs hurt. Was playing some super meat boy. Can't get out of Hell.
Quote from: Merc on January 07, 2012, 10:50:25 PM
My thumbs hurt. Was playing some super meat boy. Can't get out of Hell.
Repent?
Melty Blood Current Code
I picked up the latest PC revision since I hadn't played it in awhile. It's still fun, only deeper now and with a super-boss to aim for.
Went through VVVVV had fun, but it's no Iji. It's mechanics are well done, but in its aim for simplicity, it lacked any meaning to the action.
Also you casually destroy two dimensions during it, if I follow the subtext correctly. But you totally saved five people! Spoiler!
I begrudge the short 'have some other guy follow you' section. I lost 1/3rd of my lives in that section, and 1/4th in the same room.
My hate in VVVVVV went to the final tower room, where I was just not able to land on the one safe block when going to the roof (at least consistently) and whenever I did manage it, I'd get caught by the moving spike wall right past the next trampoline. That and the Gravitron, though that had the saving grace of shifting the timer each time you lasted 5 seconds.
I actually didn't mind the escort guy quite as much, outside of the one particular room I warned you of, and even that room seemed less frustrating to me than the two rooms I mentioned simply for the fact that you had time to think/breath there.
It's for the same reason I'm growing frustrated with super meat boy's dark salt factory and light hell. The homing missiles and launchers are (a) hard to predict, (b) shooting so much that you can't stand and look at the level or think. The difficulty of jumps or figuring out timing (or even levels with the lasers, which -are- predictable, even if you have to move fast with those) in that game is usually kind of satisfying when you beat those levels, but the homing enemies just make me think "ugh, that was annoying!" instead when I beat the levels (although hell is being hellish).
I do like the music in both games.
I died a bunch on the gravitron but yeah, pretty much at most ten deaths. It wasn't too hard to make it another five seconds on a fresh go.
I think I died 25 times on that section you talked about. 3 times to the spike floor passing through the trampoline. Then I just relaxed and did the motion as fast as I could without paying much attention. Died on the way to the save point. Tried again, reached the save point. Still, I can understand the frustration.
The tower levels were not pleasant.
I've been spending an odd amount of time lately playing The Binding of Isaac, which I bought when it was on sale during Christmas. It's strangely addictive.
Quote from: Grahf on January 12, 2012, 01:44:15 AM
I've been spending an odd amount of time lately playing The Binding of Isaac, which I bought when it was on sale during Christmas. It's strangely addictive.
What's that about? I've heard it mentioned a few times lately.
It's an indie game by the guys who did Super Meat Boy. It's about a baby who's mom wants to kill him so he goes into a randomized dungeon where he deals with monsters, permadeath and an evil mother.
Pretty much. It's a fun game and the randomness adds some challenge and keeps it fresh. It also doesn't demand too much time.
And thus, Soulriders finds the joys of roguelikes.
Although Binding of Isaac is nothing like most roguelikes in terms of difficulty, it still has the same draws. I've also noticed a couple of Soulriders trying their hands at Dungeons of Dredmor, another roguelike that's been gaining some popularity on Steam.
I have not played it myself. However, I've watched a good friend go through a bit of it, and it has a rather hokey yet charming sense of humor in addition to its gameplay.
QuoteAlthough Binding of Isaac is nothing like most roguelikes in terms of difficulty
I don't know if it's just because I've played a lot of games, but I don't find BoI to be as hard as I'd heard. Most of the difficulty comes from getting poor drops, which is mostly the RNG screwing you over rather than anything having to do with skill.
That's pretty much what roguelikes are. RNG gives you bad drops, bad spawns, bad <whatever> -- and that's what provides the (sometimes maddening) difficulty. The dungeons and encounters aren't designed by a team, but an automated engine....
BoI is rather lenient in terms of being a roguelike, it's basically the lightest version possible since although the enemies and room placements are random you won't generally see enemies from the later levels show up on the first area, same with bosses. There's also generally at least two drops per level, so odds are fairly good that something useful will show up.
That being said it's not a bad game, just as Kt3 said it's not like other roguelikes in terms of handing you your ass on a silver platter.
S.P.A.Z.
(Space Pirates And Zombies)-- Got it for 3.99 on steamsale this weekend. You harvest a super-valuable magical element nicknamed ... 'Rez'. Surprisingly fun so far, though I've only touched the surface. Looks like it has a surprising amount of depth to it!
I recently purchased Star Ruler (http://starruler.blind-mind.com/), a game that is like Sins of a Solar Empire if you permit (in fact, effectively require) user-customized ship designs, removed the graph-like travel restrictions from maps and made newtonian physics for travel, removed fleet size caps, removed ship size caps, removed map restrictions as to number of solar systems created in a galaxy -- so, other than sharing genres (space-based 4X RTS), it's pretty much nothing like SoaSE. They do share pew-pew lasers, explosions, and space pirates, so they're similar in some ways.
Doom: Combat Shock.
Been playing this and fiddling with all four levels. I've made inroads into all of them with casual play, and now I'm trying to get a good run of map 1. It's a frustrating map to run - it's simple until the revenant/archvile fight right after you grab the rocket launcher (as seen in this demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=We-5T9g_rNs#t=195s), which is kicking my ass time and time again. I can't get that fight to go right for the life of me. It's not that hard a battle, I've done it before on casual runs. Yet for the life of me, I can't get the damn fight to end any other way than being archvile or revenant splattered. I want a couple of good runs of this level before trying map 2 or 3, damn it.
Dead Island.
It's a strange cross between Borderlands and Dead Rising II. The multiplayer is rather glitchy though, as people have dropped unexpectedly in the middle of our sessions several times and most recently, no one could join my game.
Also, just started Playing Deus Ex HR. Fun game!
I bought Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, since everyone was saying it was so awesome, not just the two big shills at Penny Arcade.
After purchasing the game through Steam, I was treated to needing to authenticate with EA (while connected to Steam) in order to play it.
I suppose, not 'what are you playing' as much as 'what offended you too much to play it'.
Yeah, I simply won't buy EA stuff on PC anymore.
(I bought KoA:R on 360. You're welcome to borrow it, if you like.)
Don't have a 360. Also, I already own it. :|
Played it a bit, and I admit I'm in a bad mind-state to enjoy it because I'm ticked off at the hype and the EA stupidity. Still, not _quite_ finished with the tutorial, my takeaway thus far:
Very typical EA 'could have been _awesome_, but is okay'. The tutorial is annoyingly overbearing; I hope if I go for later playthroughs the entire thing is skippable. The combat system is somewhat interesting, but just as you can combo-stagger a foe with hit to finish your chain, they can do the same to you. Locking down your enemies is fun; mistiming something and having to watch 3-4 seconds of being chain-comboed yourself is arguably 'fair' but not fun. I'm playing a game to control my character, not be punished by watching continual hit-reacts until I get control back.
The game gives both skills and talent trees, and unfortunately, you can unlock things in the talent trees during the tutorial that you cannot mechanically benefit from until after completing the tutorial. The tutorial itself, which is really all I've gone through ... painfully, painfully linear. It's so linear I physically cringed away from the screen. I know it's just a tutorial, but it's jarring in the extreme when you're ready to play and the game just stops:
"You've got new armor! Hit 'esc' to access the menu and equip it!"
And everything is frozen until you do this. If you're going to take me out of the game, just take me to a skippable cutscene showing me how to do it and let me make my own character decisions, damn it!
"You've unlocked magic! Use it. NOW."
"That's not my character concept, really...."
"Then you don't get to leave this room in the tutorial."
*sigh*
"Daggers! Now sneak up and backstab that guy!"
"Screw it; if I don't, I'll never get out of the tutorial. Sword-junior is okay for sword-guy, I guess."
*sneak up on one guy, tutorial message forces me to break stealth before the next*
"Really, game? Really?"
"Yeah, really. :D"
Moving on.
"Now you have a magic stick. Use it!"
"I'm sword-guy, stop shoving magic down my throat."
"Then you can never clear these cobwebs and finish the tutorial."
Okay, maybe that last is being really irritable on my part -- but it also lets me know this is going to be a standard for progression through the game. Always going to need something with fire to pass cobwebs, and I don't know that I'll get fiery sword options, so my sword-guy is already almost never actually using a sword. Anyway.
"Now that you've almost finished the tutorial, face a boss!"
"Alright, this isn't so bad. Whittle him down and-- WTF is this? You put me on a rail for the entire thing, then spring some mechanic on me entirely unexplained?"
"<trollface.jpg>"
It doesn't matter that the results of the mechanic are explained later, and in that instance it has no bearing on the gameplay -- they even fail at being consistent! If you're going to force me onto a freaking rail, why drop the ball there?
Alright. So -- after that, the tutorial's not done, but you're allowed to explore. Which lets you get into (among other things) a small starter-dungeon, without the ability to use the next mechanic (fate). This is just design for the tutorial/starting area; they're pissing me off with this mostly because outside of the fact that if you let an enemy hit you, you don't get to play until their animations are finished, it looks like it could be a really fun game.
Gonna go all Drac on this game in summary so far: U DESIGNIN' ... POOR.
Moving on to the other elements. The art style has been labeled as like 'Fable'. I only played the first game of that series (and only the first version; evidently there were more than one), so I don't know about that. I can say it looks an awful lot like a slightly smoother version of WoW-- To the point that one of the villages shown in the opening movie looks like a carbon-copy of Redridge, just with a bridge at the west end, as well. Not offensive, and maybe in some ways a bit prettier -- but also unremarkable for all of that. Pretty, inoffensive ... probably the graphics are about the most positive I can say so far.
I'll keep playing because I believe there's going to be a good game beyond this awful presentation that makes me indifferent to the plot. There'd better be, at least.
Quote from: Brian on February 07, 2012, 11:04:03 AM
I bought Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, since everyone was saying it was so awesome, not just the two big shills at Penny Arcade.
After purchasing the game through Steam, I was treated to needing to authenticate with EA (while connected to Steam) in order to play it.
I suppose, not 'what are you playing' as much as 'what offended you too much to play it'.
Huh. I haven't gotten that yet but it sounded really cool and I wanted it. Annoying to hear that they are being dicks about it.
Having a love-hate relationship with this game. I truly am. The gameplay gets a bit better, after clearing the wastes of tutoria, the game does pick up.
...and then EA decides that they are going to e-mail me marketing bullshit even though I specifically opted out.
/me rages.
"Join our communities!" "Like us on Facebook!" "Sign up to our e-mail list!"
And at the bottom:
"This is a transactional message which has been sent to you by EA.
If you have opted out of marketing communications this will be the only email you receive."
So, what, 'transactional message' is the legalese to sidestep marketing spam? When I opt out, I fully expect that I am _opted the fuck out_. A total lack of 'click here to unsubscribe' or even the freaking intelligence to _declare_ that I am opted out, making me wonder if they signed me up for crap anyway....
EA, you're making it really hard for me to like your games.
Yes, it is. Basically, if they can make an argument that the email is about something you already bought from them, they get to send it to you anyway.
Sucks.
Yeah, I sent a scathing e-mail to their marketing and PR addresses.
I won't be buying anything from EA again.
Brian: That sounds incredibly annoying on so many levels.
I know that this is a what did you play today thread, but I think I'll post something that a lot of people -- myself probably included -- will be playing in the future.
Apparently Double Fine are going to be working on a new point and click adventure game, and decided to get funding from said game from Kickstarter. They started with the goal of $400,000 which would cover both the game and a documentary that would entail the making of said game.
It's been less than 24 hours, and they've already raised...
(http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/5452/drevilonemilliondollars.jpg)
ONE MILLION DOLLARS
Or to be precise $1,169,017 dollars. They've utterly shattered the previous records for both highest funding and fastest funding on Kickstarter, and there's still over a month left to donate.
For anyone interested about learning more about the project, this is the link (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure).
Crowd-funding is definitely going to be a rising area for Cult-favorites that don't nominally sell reasonably well. It's good to see. But at the same time, it's just a supplement at best to traditional forms of funding for large projects like games or movies. It's really not uncommon for more money to be needed during the project than initially estimated.
HUm.
Anyhow, Sleepy me is playing Mana Khemia. I'm at Orientation there.
This is pretty much why I don't buy EA games. Not won't, but just don't. Pretty much, every time I've decided that maybe THIS EA game will be worth getting, despite all the crap they pull, they turn it up a notch, and I pretty much don't want to deal with it.
Anyway, if you think they're over the line: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/spam-unwanted-text-messages-and-email
"The CAN-SPAM Act defines commercial messages as those for which the primary purpose is to advertise or promote a commercial product or service."
Good news: The FCC does enforce this law. Bad news: Last I heard (admittedly, this was in 2006, so maybe it's different now), the FCC anti-spam division is seriously understaffed and enforcement is via government
I've been playing Amalur further. I still think EA sucks, but the game itself gets better after the shaky start. I guess every RPG needs to have a crafting system these days, too....
Well, they've taken random factors out of the crafting, at least as far as blacksmithing goes, which is nice, and left it in the salvage option. Not perfect, but scummable, if you really need a specific elemental hilt, or the rivets, or whatever. I do admit, there is something nice about getting elemental weapons pretty much constantly, but at the same time, once you get the fiery sword, well ... what more do you need?
Warriors getting spells was kind of weird, but they're not abrasive; quake is actually pretty nice. Comes across as almost Exalted, since you stomp and make explosions. The fate mechanic is kind of interesting in theory, but in practice boils down to optimized exp-farming.
I think I can suggest getting this game for a console, but not PC.
New indie bundle that might interest people: http://groupees.com/bemine
The site is pretty slow, it was actually meant to be up on valentine's day but it crashed almost instantly then. Crashed again on wednesday and -finally- went up yesterday, though as mentioned, site can be slow.
Just finished Uncharted.
For a really supposedly 'epic' game, I was underwhelmed by the combat. It didn't tend to be 'fun,' and it was yet another 'cover simulator' style of shooter. Problem being ... I've played much, much better cover simulators. I could be a bit hard on it just because it's a bit older, by now -- so I may be comparing it against games that came out much later.... But I'm preeeeetty sure Gears of War came out before Uncharted, and Uncharted's CS wasn't as good as GoW's.
Other than that, the game is pretty much an interactive (and very long) cheesy summer 'blockbuster.' You know, the kind the studios churn out that's never going to win any awards or make a persistent memory, but draws in tons of cash, despite the absurdity (nay, even stupidity!) of the plot? It's one of those.
I found the story to be about the second most enjoyable part. The most enjoyable part was the graphics, which tended to really be top-notch. Was very impressed with the visuals -- for a game that predated Tomb Raider: Underworld (a comparison I must make, as I am tragically very, very familiar with TR:U), it feels that the graphics are better.
So ... yeah, the combat really sucked, though. Instead of being really interesting, they pretty much just use gimmicks like mobs spawning behind you while you're in cover, or ahead of you when you're not in cover. They'll spawn in places you can't see, but logically, if you think about it ... those guys would have to be chilling, while you shoot their buddies around them, just biding their time. (And I know they spawned, because you can't peg their spawns with grenades -- well, you can, but it doesn't kill an idle guy -- they just show up and step out of cover when it's bad-luck-time for you.)
A lot of the combats broke down into (for me) very dreary tedious retry-after-retry, just waiting to get the combo of good luck and decent cover to take out the waves upon waves of enemy attackers. I think in TR:U, you end up killing maybe a total of 60 people throughout the entire plot. In Uncharted, the total is a lot closer to 600. Okay, TR:U also has you killing metric tons of spiders and other critters -- Uncharted uses the non-zombie post-Apocalypse chart.
(For those of you that don't know, in a post-Apocalyptic survival game, if you dismiss zombies/mutants, your encounter chart is about 95% 'asshole with gun.')
The game does a lot of things that TR:U does, with a lot less emphasis on trying to be awesome about it. Where TR:U slowed time down when you had to react to some given 'panic' event (or whatever they called them), Uncharted doesn't -- but it does give you a QTE (Quick Time Event) minigame and button-prompt. I actually kind of like Uncharted's way of doing it better. TR:U gives you 'time slows down a bit -- figure out what to do. Uncharted gives you 'press this button to not die.' Not that either of them are the most epic examples of gameplay, but anyway.
Back to the combat and why it sucks. Everyone you fight pretty much has a gun. And you also have melee options. If you use your super-melee ability and do a 'brutal combo' (square, triangle, sqare), you get a nice showy murder sequence, and they drop double-ammo.
Since you can't use this while other people are alive, I'm not clear on what the function of this combat option is. Killing the last guy alive? Because if he's got buddies, they'll be shooting you to death while you're locked into your showy execution animations. Assuming you pull it off -- because if you shake the controller, sneeze, or blink too hard, there's a chance that your murder sequence just won't work. Which means you'll pretty much be sticking with the cover simulator style of killing enemies unless you don't have a choice.
There are also grenades, but they have an interestingly small explosive radius. It seems to be a bit under 5 feet.
I could go on about how much I hate the combat in the game, but instead, I'll say ... the final combat was just ... awful. Heavy cover simulation, enemies immune to headshots (you just knock their helmet off with the first bullet to the face), disintegrating cover, limited ammo, and then to top that all off when you're done....
...the final battle is a QTE. Really.
Weak.
At least the story was interesting, and I liked the option to look at the various treasures I looted and get a 3D model of them to inspect.
Moving on-- The game also has puzzle aspects, which I found entertaining, if not particularly hard to figure out. The really hard part was the platforming/DICE. And ... TR:U beats Uncharted there. Lara doesn't walk off cliffs, and has 'smart' jumping. Nate could really have benefited from that. I also have to give TR:U points over Uncharted for more clearly defined markup. I may be biased from six months of testing TR:U, but generally you could look at something and know it was climeable.
I have no idea how many times I died in Uncharted because something looked grabbable ... and wasn't.
Anyway. Bottom line, the game is alright, gameplay wise, and fun, in a campy/cheesy action-movie way. I'd suggest only playing on 'easy,' -- not because the game is too hard, but because the combat's just not that great.
I got this in a bundle for 29.99 with the sequel -- hopefully they've improved their 'cover simulation' angle a bit when I take a crack at that.
Uncharted 2:
Do not spend money on this game. It is not worth it.
Find a video of someone else playing it and sit back and enjoy. An interesting concept that improves on some elements of the game preceding it, then decides, "We need to make combat harder." Not better, harder. Hammering this point home -- they give you some new weapon options over the previous game, but don't expect them to do any good.
I just finished a level where I shot soldiers in the face with a grenade launcher -- on normal difficulty -- and they did not die. It takes two headshots with a grenade launcher to down these super soldiers. Okay, whatever, at least the game can be fun outside of the combat, right?
Nope.
The very next enemy encounter is against some stupidly powerful superboss thing (actually, judging by how it was introduced, this is the game's next mook unit, and they just make a showy 'boss' fight out of the first one to arrive), and to hammer home how 'tough' the game is, you can't actually win the fight. You have to do well enough for someone else to save you, but you'll (if you're like me) die about 12 times and even vainly lower the difficulty to 'very easy' because you're sick of all this crappy combat interfering with what can be a fun game, when it's not about tiresome gun-battles.
This is where you'll find out that lowering the difficulty doesn't improve your survivability, or let you ignore the combat. It does make that supermook take less damage before someone else saves you, but by that point you'll have noticed that even on normal difficulty, while you have 'limited' ammo, it keeps replenishing your supply.
That's right -- the enemy takes so many bullets, they hacked in a fix to keep your ammo up. I'm not sure where the idea of having fun went, but it certainly wasn't going through 8-10 reload animations while also trying to not get killed, all trying to down one stupid event-boss.
I might be able to overlook the annoying new enemy unit and that poorly (incredibly poorly!) designed encounter if combat itself didn't devolve into such a chore. The game really does have fun moments, and some good dialog (in the cheesy sense), but it's buried under some really just un-fun and lousy design elements. Early in the game there's a stealth mission (and you know stealth missions are always going to be fun in games that aren't completely about stealth) that's not exactly punishing, but does tend to not give you enough clues, resulting in many failures and retries. After that, the first enemies you encounter are as tough as the very end-game enemies from the previous game -- and headshots are both harder to pull off and just not as effective.
The graphics remain solid, amazingly so. The puzzles are generally fun. If you enjoy cheesy action movies, again, the story can be enjoyable, too.
But I cannot fathom anyone actually finding the combat fun, instead of only having (sadly rare) fun moments -- from fighting the annoyingly tough 'miniboss' enemy on a train that takes literally multiple clips of autofire weapons to the face to down, to mooks that are evidently protected by forcefields-- Someone on their design team evidently thought that the enemies in the previous game were 'too soft' and boy, did they ever fix that.
This game is not worth any amount of money at all. I can't even suggest buying the 'Uncharted 1+2 bundle' from Greatest Hits (which is how I got it). Mostly, I'm just wondering how this game got the reputation it did ... because it's not very good. I'd much rather watch a cheesy movie with gun combat -- or remove combat from their game entirely to enjoy the puzzles, DICE elements, and story. Suddenly, I really have no complaints at all about TR:U's combat being trivially easy in comparison.
*sigh*
Now to see what awaits me now that an NPC has saved me from the supermook.
Okay -- finished Uncharted 2. I was right about the supermook. They become a common enemy, and weaker in later encounters (boo). I bought the 'unlimited ammo' and 'one shot kill' tweaks so that I can make Drac play the game and see if that makes the experience more fun (my expectation is that yes, it will).
On to inFamous 2! ...oh, it won't let me load the saves I made on my old PS3. That sucks. And it gives you bonuses and cool stuff if you played the original? But I can't benefit and save-hacking failed me? Yeah, trophy protection. Boo to that!
So, back to the original inFamous. ...forgot how much fun this was! I also did so well in tutoria the game said, "We're promoting you to 'HARD' difficulty!" While flattered, I realized that much of the difficulty came from reduced EXP gain, so set it back to 'Medium'. Yeah, inFamous is actually a pretty fun game. Story's a bit 'meh,' but the gameplay carries it forward anyway. So enjoying that again.
*nods* Definitely a fun game.
Been alternating between BvS, Mana Khemia, and Saint's Row 3. Saint's Row 3 has been awesome. Not entirely unqualified awesome, but generally the game is fun and encourages/rewards being an asshole.
"So I'm gonna steal all their shit."
"They know you will. Won't they try and kill you?"
"Yeah, prolly. So you gonna watch my ass, right?"
"Shit yeah, dude. I got rocket launcher. Let's go."
*Follows flying after the guy in a helicopter with a rocket launcher, blasting up parts of the city*
I was just wandering around this morning and I found a tank. Just sitting there. I got in. Score challenge on blowing the crap out of things.
BvS?
Quote from: Merc on March 07, 2012, 05:21:51 PM
BvS?
I'm guessing Blants versus Sombies.
Meantime, I've started in on Mass Effect 3 for 360. Not quite sure what to think of it yet.
Billy vs Snakeman. It's a...largely Naruto based browser game. I stopped playing it like a year ago. It has some pretty dedicated followers though.
Hmmm, I want ME3.
But I got plenty and a need to not waste money.
Doom: Combat Shock.
Argh trying to get a play through map 4 is cold blooded murder. There's so many stupid ways to die and I loathe the beginning. Getting nowhere with it at all.
If you own a PS3, get Journey. It's $15. Avoid trailers if you can; especially avoid spoilers.
Trust me.
(If, after playing it, you honestly think it was a waste of your money, I'll refund it to you.)
Jon: I've been looking at that. Sadly my PS3 is running out of space on the hd, dunno if I can fit it on. Is it PS3 only, or also PC like some downloadable things are?
For what I'm playing currently: Dynasty Warriors 7 Xtreme Legends. Chaos difficulty, even on only 1 star stages, is in no way shape or form fucking around. Archers will ruin your day and how. Really liking some of the new weapons, especially whatever it is they're calling the giant sais. The chick who uses those has an amazing EX and her musous are also great, the second being an unblockable grab from the AIR. May be the first of those I've seen. So far, a great expansion to what's easily the best Dynasty Warriors yet.
Sadly, it's PS3 only; Sony has exclusive rights to it. The download size is only about half a gig; delete the game install for some game you haven't played recently.
Tales of Graces f.
Boy is the plot cliched as all hell. But boy is the combat system fun, detailed, and frantic.
Really, all of these Tales plots lately have just been vehicles to drive interesting battle mechanics. You don't play the Tales game for the story, you play it for the combat, and the amusing characters within the cliched story.
Graces f certainly doesn't dissapoint on the combat angle, though. Most fun I've ever had with a Tales game, and the one with the most balanced cast I'd think. Even more impressivly, everyone so far has been fun to control at points. Can't think of any other tales game(or any ARPG, frankly) that's managed that.
You know what I like about it?
Co-op.
Aye to all of the above.
You know what I like about Tales?
Every single one of them supported good co-op and actiony battles.
Quote from: Dracos on April 03, 2012, 07:34:59 PM
Aye to all of the above.
You know what I like about Tales?
Every single one of them supported good co-op and actiony battles.
I love the little theater bits where you get a real sense of who the characters are and how they relate to each other.
Funnily enough, the Grandia games also have really good combat (so long as you don't use the Eyes of Valmar in part 2). Sadly, the stories go to shit half way through the game and the final bosses are a joke. -_-
But other than that, Hey! Grandia!
I think Grandia II was great.
Never used the Eyes. or any other Valmar parts, come to think of it. The normal spells were too much fun, plus, who doesn't love hearing Milenia scream, "Deep fried goodness!"
Heck, that audio clip is in my MP3 playlist. :D
I didn't use them, either until the end. Mostly because I was convinced by RPG logic that those spells wouldn't be very effective on bosses.
I tried it out just to see if I was right.
Turns out using the Eyes is only slightly less broken than using phoenix down on undead.
I wrote about Star Ruler last January. I've been playing it intermittently for two months now.
Pros: Almost everything that every Space-based 4x game should have is part of this game. And it's moddable to boot.
Cons: If it even exists, crappy, and sometimes wrong, documentation. This is a real killer, since if you're not interested in code diving (i.e, 99% of us) to figure out the economics of the game, the game sure isn't going to give you many hints. And the economics is a huge deal.
Tutorial does a good job of teaching you how to play, but lack of mechanics knowledge means that it's hard to understand what your choices mean (e.g, what are the real tradeoffs of researching two levels of megaconstruction instead of energy weapons). There's a wiki, but it (1) just copy-pastes code into most sections (2) that code is for old versions of the game, so is flat-out wrong in many cases (3) the page that describes what many of the functions do isn't accessible by link traversal.
And that's a shame - I'm *this* close to being a raving fanboy about this game and telling everyone that they must buy it, but that most people won't understand how to play without stupid amounts of research they shouldn't have to do in the first place. Expecting people to do that and have fun is an idiotic expectation, and I try not to be an idiot. Right now, the game is awesome if you like Space 4x games so much that you're willing to put in the effort to figure it out by immense trial and error. Otherwise, go play something better documented, like EVE (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Gaminess/Evelearningcurve.jpg)
Excellent post.
Anyhow, playing some mass Effect 3. Just started it last night.
First thought?
"What the fuck? Why does that bitch have my ship? Why does the earth federation get my ship? Even assuming I am loyal, that ship just happens to have the same name and is totally a Cereberus ship from top to bottom which I took from them. I'm also a spectre. They don't have the authority to ground me."
Sure, this all gets revoked minutes into the intro, but weak first impression. I don't even care all that much about the big disaster going on. Just that THAT IS MY SHIP, BITCHES~!
I also checked over my imported save with an editor. "Huh, that whole quest arc got erased. Yeah, No. I did that."
This isn't to really comment on the game quality either way, just that the intro was a real "Eeh?" coming from the end of Mass Effect 2 as a winner that saved everyone, and finding myself a war criminal more than a war hero.
You did kill 300,000... well, I was gonna say 'people', but they're batarians, so eh.
I didn't. I figured my Shepard was in jail because they thought she was a terrorist the same way Ashley thought she was a terrorist.
Then again, the only good part of ME3 is the middle, because that's where you get to make choices.
Fallout 3 (again). I mentioned this in IRC (a lot), but:
I had the disc version of FO3, but none of the DLC; Steam offered FO3 + all DLC for 19.99, which was cheaper than buying all the DLC for my disc, so I just grabbed that (and New Vegas, but I haven't touched that yet on account of replaying FO3). With all the DLC, the game is a bit different in some ways.
Found a bug where Three Dog randomly congratulated me for purifying the wasteland on the radio, even though I didn't do that yet. Could be because I have the '100 extra songs and Three Dog jabbers less' mod ("More Where That Came From") installed. >_>
I had intended to play through the game as normal and avoid the DLC entirely until after doing my normal shenanigans (that being ... get Pyro, a Shishkabab, raise sneak/melee (yes, I know sniping is easy -- that was run #1; this is run #4 (and my second melee run)) and then run around hitting everyone with a fiery lawnmower blade until I can grab their stuff). One of the DLC is evidently some insanity involving an alien abudction, which I wasn't ... really expecting. I found a crashed ship and mistook it for the 'you find an alien weapon!' encounter.
It was not.
One traumatizing probe sequence later, I'm annoyed that I was abducted carrying my max capacity (I had just retrieved the prototype medic power-armor and a fatman), but thankfully, most alien loot is weightless. Mostly I'm thinking this is going to be a largely bizarre side-trip, but it did have some very interesting interaction options so far. I suspect I'll like the other DLC better, because it'll feel more in keeping with things.
The alien spaceship is kind of cool, but at the same time, feels ... run down, beaten up, and like another crummy part of the wasteland. Even the shiny parts of the ship look scuffed as heck -- thematically, really unsure what to make of it. So, weird. Annoyed that I was abducted two nights ago, and it'll probably take me tonight and tomorrow to finish playing through and getting back to the D.C. Wasteland. This is probably not the proper mindset to explore this content. Should have just reloaded a save from before the abduction, but oh, well.
I'm also playing Orcs Must Die for some relatively mindless fun. It's ... alright. I don't care for 'leaderboard' games much usually, but this one is less offensive. I caught it on a Steam sale a while back (go fiscal responsibility!) so I didn't pay much for it -- but I feel I paid about the right price. There's two packs of DLC, one of them giving more levels, and one of them angering me in its blatancy: "Use these DLC weapons and toys to beat your friends on the leaderboards!"
$%#@ you, underhanded marketing ploy. $%#@ you right in the #*&%$@.
Aside from that, it's been described as a tower-defense game, which it somewhat is; you also get to run around in third person with your hero and manually kill orcs, which adds a little. The gameplay is not terribly deep, but it's generally somewhat amusing -- the entire thing is comedic, which is kind of welcome. At the same time, because it's so shallow and I am a perfectionist, I tend to keep replaying levels until I get all the skulls to upgrade my tools -- which is pretty pointless because tar pit, elven archer, arrow panel, and if I'm feeling particularly clever, poisoned spike trap.
Yeah, it's nice that you're giving me new and weird traps every level, game. I've got a small handful that I like and have upgraded; a more compelling design would not be giving the player a choice in which traps to bring to a level (until replay at least). Unfortunately, the game rewards my effective strategy of 'don't change anything you don't have to,' so I don't adapt much.
Consequently, I play one level every few days and lose interest.
Quote from: Ebiris on April 04, 2012, 05:19:30 PM
You did kill 300,000... well, I was gonna say 'people', but they're batarians, so eh.
I haven't played that DLC I guess? So I haven't at least. I wasn't really aware of that plot element. Even if I was, yeah, they're not humans and I'm a spectre. It really shouldn't matter. I'm effectively super special forces. *shrugs*
Is Orcs Must Die better than Dungeon Defenders?
I've never played Dungeon Defenders, so I couldn't say. :x
I have both. When I finally get around to installing Orcs Must Die, I'll let you know how it shakes down.
Just completed my second playthrough of Journey. The soundtrack is exquisite.
BvS continues to devour timespace. I am not yet globally number 1 having consumed all content. I must stay away from MMOs.
Running beside it is Mass Effect 3, where I've been negociating with criminal empires to add their forces to my army. Ignoring multiplayer until the end since I am told it has a decaying effect on it.
Tales of Graces F co-op is remaining super awesome. Sure the story sucks and everyone rags on Ashbel the eternally forgiving for things he didn't do, but I could kill things in it all week long.
And have!
Finished inFamous 2. I'm mulling over the 'good' ending, and I guess I'm ... okay with it. The gameplay was nice -- they polished a good bit from the first game. In some ways, not quite as good, but mostly, fun.
I caught an interesting possible sequel hook, but probably they're not going to further the story. The grapple power was really cool, but it was kind of a pity that it's not really ... useful. Devourers are much more of a pain to fight than Titans, so that felt a bit inconsistent.
Otherwise, I'm player 2 in Tales of Graces f with Drac, which is a bit less engaging than getting to do stuff outside of combat. Fortunately, the co-op bonus and alternately fun/horribly mockable storyline help carry through.
Tales of Graces f? What a coincidence, I'm playing that as well with a friend. He already beat it, so I'm doing a New Game + and he's been my copilot. It's been a fun time, but I've been spending quite a bit too long in areas trying to grind out titles. It's a bad habit. :d
So who do you guys tend to control in ToGf? I swap around between nearly everyone, but Sophie's my favorite to use, with Asbel and amusingly enough Malik right behind.
Drac's Asbel 100%, I'm whatever needs a particular ability spammed to unlock a title -- but prefer Sophie.
I think I spent more time laughing at the story in ToG than I did taking it seriously, but it was relatively enjoyable the whole way through. Some of the character interactions were great too, especially anything with Malik being a troll.
Probably one of the funnest combat systems in an RPG I've seen in a long while, though. I played Sophie primarily, while my friend handled Asbel, and occasionally Malik.
Got a good 90 hours out of it in the end. Haven't spent that much time on a JRPG in ages.
I've been playing Malik, a little bit of Hubert, and Richard. Asbel when I haaaaave to.
My friend loves to play Pascal. Just loooves to play Pascal. He says the AI does a terrible job at handling her.
(The plot in Graces? Yeah. I've been wanting to refer to it as 'Tales of Graces: Friendship is Magic' for a while now.)
Pascal is the best character so far (IMO). On account of being cheerful and really helping turn the mood around when she was introed.
As I joked to Drac, "We gotta get Cheria all the 'bench' perks; Pascal should never need them."
I thought Richard handled pretty well.
Pascal is the most balancedest, yes. Trying to molest the group loli is a pretty hilarious way to be intro'd.
Once I eventually get Richard back I'll be giving him a try. Hubert...I dunno. i like his moves, but the AI does a much better job of staying alive as him then I do. Pascal I...admit, I just don't have the patience to control a mage, or a long ranged char. I prefer to be in melee whenever possible. Malik I only control becuase his A artes are a bit easier for me then Pascal's, and I love using his secret MA, which the AI never will. A MAN SPEAKS WITH HIS BACK!
So, my bro picked up this little Steam game titled called 'The Legend of Grimrock.' It advertises itself as a throwback to the days of dungeon crawling grid movement and grid paper maps.
And boy, so far, that's exactly what it is.
However, it does have modern updates. There is an option for an in-game map (because, let's face it, as awesome as it is *remembering* the old school maps, doing it again is not as much fun as your memory tells you it is), the controls are as basic as Ravenloft, you start with no gear at all, and you get no instructions what-so-ever. The graphics, though still kind of old school, look, so far, great. They're nothing amazing like Crysis level, but for this type of throwback, they're great.
Basically, your party are four criminals you generate from four races (Human, Minotaur, Lizardmen, Insectoids) and three classes (Fighter, Mage, Rogue). You've been granted pardon by your King, but the catch is, you are released at the top spire of Mt. Grimrock, a legendary mountain no one has ever made it down from.
King's a dick, apparently.
All the old school trapfinding and puzzle solving? It's all there. No hints. No help file. Nothing. Just you, your four dudes, and a whole lotta dungeon crawling.
It's a $15 game on Steam, but it's $13.50 until April 18th. http://store.steampowered.com/app/207170/
It's also $13.49 on GoG (http://www.gog.com/gamecard/legend_of_grimrock), which includes such bonuses as no DRM and some artwork.
Speaking of old school dungeon-mapping games, I've been playing Might and Magic 2.
The game itself is a (what is now) almost-standard fantasy RPG, with random puzzles and trivia scattered across large grid-maps. What makes it interesting (and what you won't see in most RPGs these days, except maybe the Elder Scrolls alchemy mechanic) is rule mechanic abuse baked into the system. While it's not necessary to win the game, the fun is in exploration to find (1) ridiculously overpowered monsters unnecessary to the plot (2) ridiculously overpowered bonuses unnecessary to the plot that let you kill the ridiculously overpowered monsters unnecessary to the plot, to obtain (3) ridiculously overpowered treasure which almost constitutes a win the game button. Speaking of winning the game, one major quest item is unobtainable unless you abuse the game mechanics - and yes, it's designed that way.
On the flip side, since it is an old school RPG, it's not above sudden and unexpected fuckery. My two "favorites" are the monsters and areas that will, completely without warning, vaporize all of your gold, and phase spirits which can appear in an army of 250, are immune to physical attacks, and which will drain your magic as their initial attack. These are all relatively rare, but the juxtaposition of thinking "I am invincible" before horrible and humiliating death as intentionally designed experience is usually only found in the classic roguelikes (or, hell, Rogue itself). But Might and Magic 2 manages to pull it off without being obnoxiously broken about it - and you can save the game, so there's less incoherent screaming than you'd have from dyin^H^H^H^Hplaying Angband and the like.
So.
Mass Effect 3.
Just delivered the least satisifying boss fight I think I might've ever encountered. A fight that hands down was being trivially won.
Before a Cinematic has the boss hand us all our asses, walk in, take our prize, and then fly off unopposed.
And then he writes you an email, taunting you for clearly not being good enough and him being better.
Seriously, Bioware? You couldn't have the whole thing just be a cutscene? You had to have a battle with him barely ever managing to move from my allies array of lockdowns combined with constant headshots that instantly were ending each phase of the battle and then have him declare victory?
Fuck you guys. That's more annoying than the mage boss who backstabbed you (twice) in the end fights of DA2. Man, I'm startin' to thing the right way to play ME3 is to stop midway. Railroading but something fierce.
Also, the main character proceeds to mope about it and everyone comments on you suddenly being a stressed out bitch. Really?
But Dracos, don't you see? It's really a deep and clever metaphor for PTSD (that's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for everyone, as they obviously do not know what it is) and it's melded seemlessly into the plot to create a compelling end to a trilogy!
It's not like it's a complete railroad that ignores the choices you make.
</sarcasm>
Man, if you thought that fight was bullshit, you're really gonna love the ending.
Bah. I fail it; split the topic a few posts too late.
Oh well.
I played Shoot Many Robots, which is a 4p co-op 2.5D side-scroller. The plot is as deep as it sounds; the gameplay, slightly deeper. Surprisingly fun, and handles a lot of the 'co-op' ideals better than (say) Rachet and Clank All-4-One. That is to say, provide cooportunities, not coopetition.
Finally got the chance to play a little bit of Orcs Must Die!.
In comparison and in contrast to Dungeon Defenders... I can stand Orcs Must Die a heck of a lot more. It's not a "tower defense" per se, but it ends up being more of a trapfest fiesta slaughter as you gleefully headshot the stragglers, because your traps are definitely not enough to kill everyone. And I think it's better because of it.
It's also definitely not anywhere near as "grindy" as Dungeon Defenders feels. The levels are short enough, to the point, and doesn't feel like it takes forever like a number of the Dungeon Defender levels. Honestly, the RPG system in Dungeon Defenders felt tacked on, and it really makes it feel awkward and makes the pauses inbetween waves stretch on forever as you go scavenge up items, manage your mana or whatever, and do all of that.
Orcs Must Die! also looks about 1 million times more polished than Dungeon Defenders. (Might be a slight exaggeration.)
I just wish the guy wasn't so flamboyantly cocky, it's almost annoying despite him being an obvious satire.
I thought that Orcs Must Die! would be truly awesome if it had a co-op mode.
So, got a PS3 again. Whee.
I beat Mass Effect 3. The ending is as terrible as suggested by everyone. I highly suggest stopping the game after the 2nd major arc. There's even a cutscene finisher there and a dramatic hope for the galaxy type thing that goes on. It's simply a superior finish point and the writing doesn't even start unraveling there.
I have been playing Trolls of Graces F. Beat the Arena, though I can't solo the end guy for the master arena yet. 151k hp, a little much. I think difficulty levels matter for the arena, but am not entirely sure? either way I turned it back to easy and slaughtered through. Co-op has been fun, but the game is simply poorly built for it (Waaay too many out of battle/menu mechanics of significant depth). Titles have become mostly irrelevant to gain skill for as playing almost constantly on Evil creates ridiculous skill ups. Looking ahead, it seems it will get only 1 playthrough as the grade shop looks super shitty.
I restarted FFXIII-2, I kinda already miss my army of monsters.
Been playing Might and Magic III.
Different than II in that party order is not as important. The exploits I've discovered so far (which I haven't found repeated by casual google search) include 0-time strength/poison resistance grinding with no cap, and a reusable well which was probably supposed to add +50HP for any party member who was not over max HP, but instead adds +50HP if any party member is not over maxHP.
Things that were actually supposed to be part of the game include archery that actually works as a long distance attack (in 1991! Why couldn't JRPGs have figured this out?) and lairs that you could hunt down to eliminate wandering monsters (the player had the choice between grinding and stopping pointlessly stupid random encounters in 1991! Why don't most RPGs today do this?).
I just finished Dear Esther. I guess it takes a little over an hour? It was ... different.
I thought I understood it, so I checked the wiki to confirm (or figure out if I missed anything), and it turns out that what story is delivered to you is semi-randomized, so.... It was alright, I guess? I think it might have been improved with a faster walk speed. The surroundings are relatively pretty, but frequently not detailed enough to warrant the time you spend with them.
If it's on sale again on Steam, probably worth picking up for the novelty, but I can't really be sure it's good. The theme is about unhappiness, so ... yeah. I don't know, mileage will really vary.
Just started the original Prototype, for some reason I find the way the dodge is implemented to be strange. Also the camera is very jerky. It seems quite solid though.
Devil Survivor for the DS.
This is one of the worst games I have ever played. It presents itself as a strategical combat game, and there's actually an interesting storyline behind it. Unfortunately, that storyline is hidden behind an RNG-based combat design that means that any amount of power-leveling (which is subject to diminishing returns, and so not very effective anyway) means nothing in the face of an enemy that just gets lucky and has the status ailments for their spells proc.
Effectively, in about the middle of the game, it becomes blindingly apparent that the game was never actually balanced around your power, but the power you're supposed to have by playing on New Game Plus. Specifically, the map pits you against an enemy that is invulnerable to all attacks. The hero character has an item that will do about 1/8th the enemy's health in damage, and no one else on your team can do anything to that particular enemy whatsoever.
Before undertaking the battle, I spent the better part of a week of real time power-leveling my characters to the best of my abilities, because I was tired of enemies getting lucky and destroying my party, and foolishly believed that having more levels would save me from the hopelessly random nature of the battles.
Alas.
I 'strategically' cleared all of his allies from the map and then began the very tedious task of trying to kill him, running my healers out of mana by the time I actually reached him. It's probably important to note that he has an attack that will actually hit every member of your party on the map simultaneously -- and heal him. Incidentally, that healing offsets 90% of the damage you can do in a full round of the hero attacking him. So, this fight was going very poorly in the first place, but I had hope. Hey, I could get lucky, too, right?
But, no, as soon as you attack him, he summons allies -- the same number that he had when the map began. Those allies then proceeded to in a single one of their turns, get 'lucky', destroy two of my parties from full health (with ranged attacks that I couldn't counter), heal all of the damage I'd done in the three rounds it took them to get to him, and then getting 'lucky' again, hit the hero with a status ailment that locks him down (stone, which also gives a high percentage chance of any physical hit instantly killing the stoned character).
Did I mention that when the hero dies, even if you've got ressurect spells, it's instant game-over? Because it is.
So, in one round, I went from full health and having the enemy boss to 60% health, to having one party capable of acting, at all, and no mana to actually heal anyone with. Then it was the boss's turn. "Hey," I thought. "I could get lucky. He might miss, and the ailment might wear off before I lose too many rounds. Maybe I'll get a few crits in, or something."
This is where I discovered that this particular boss has an attack that instantly kills anyone with a status ailment.
I threw the cartridge in the trash. Random elements that can throw out any pretense of 'strategy' and also make any amount of power-leveling you are capable of the first playthrough of the game so utterly irrelevant are not good design, especially when a given battle has a minimum playtime of ten to twenty minutes.
I cannot encourage people to avoid this pile of crap enough. It is not worth your money -- I don't believe I could be paid enough to play it again.
The Perpetual Testing Initiative has coaxed me back into Portal 2 for the moment. The quality of the maps obviously varies wildly, but most seem to suffer only from insufficient playtesting (i.e. confusing deaths, unclear routes). When you consider what Valve is able to throw at the game to get it to that level, I'm amazed by what a single person is able to do. Props to Valve for making the actual design interface so easy to use as well.
Persona 3 Portable has enraptured me for the past week. Many complain about the 'dating sim' aspects, but it doesn't put me off at all. The game was redesigned with a VN-style interface outside of the dungeons due to the PSP's limitations, but I find myself preferring it here to in actual VNs. In my opinion, the format lends itself extremely well to the PSP, and I'd like to see more of this in future handheld titles. I almost find myself avoiding the actual 'gameplay' segments in favor of advancing the story.
I picked up the latest Humble Bundle so am working my way through that. Also finished my Fallout3 playthrough, and am working my way through Fallout: New Vegas.
Some irritating bugs aside (one of which required a restart of the game, since I had hit separate issues making three companion quests impossible to finish), the game is actually awesome. If it had gotten more bug fixes, I'd say it's an all-time favorite. Well, it's that anyway, I just can't really suggest it to other people because of said bugs. >_>;
Anyway, from the Humble Bundle, working my way through LIMBO. One of those tedious and lackluster games that has a single saving grace:
"It's artistic." Okay, I get it, the entire game is 2d and black-and-white with silhouettes.
That is all it has to make it different from any other platformer (http://www.dorkly.com/video/30941/dorkly-bits-mario-is-too-mainstream) (note that the LIMBO dude is the one next to Tim, from Braid). There's no original or genuinely innovative puzzles, but the 'artistic' style does add a false level of difficulty, insofar as you'll frequently need to retry a timing or memorization-based-difficulty puzzle dozens of times before figuring it out.
I don't think I've ever had to consult a FAQ this much to figure things out because the levers and buttons I've been working with manipulate stuff that's off-screen, or invisible because it's a black object on a background of the same color. While I know this game's gotten a lot of praise, my takeaway is, "Interesting art style," followed by, "Wow, this is tedious."
Forest level, swamp level, industrial level. Water physics puzzle, navigation-puzzle made more difficult by a swinging light (yes, they did that), gravity manipulation puzzle.... Every so often some element of the artwork makes me raise an eyebrow and think, "That's kind of neat...." Before I die on it 15-20 times and it becomes very old.
I'm all for it because of the bundle, but generally, beyond that ... not a good game. Too busy being 'artistic'.
Edit: Oh, wow, the ending is terrible, too. -_-
I experienced a setback in Fallout: New Vegas of getting three of my follower quests either bugged or 'impossible to complete' on account of doing something before the NPC asked me to (getting the plant data from Vault 22 before Veronica wanted it, Laugherty not spawning the evidence for Cassidy, and wiping out Nelson before recruiting Boone). I'm now replaying, only as a testament to my irritation, cheating like a bastard. (Strong Back and the perk that makes items below 2 weight have only half the count right off the bat is a game changer.)
When I finish Old World Blues, I will have gotten all of my SPECIAL stats up to 10 (I left room to buy all implants, despite my rampant cheating).
Game plays ... awfully fun this way! Also, understanding how faction armor works and that you usually want to avoid it (unless you're infiltrating) helps a lot -- get my reputation boons much faster. Reinforced leather armor is light, but remarkably durable; I'll actually be going with the Stealth Suit MKII from OWB as my main armor, since with Toughness and the damage resistance implant, well, you won't need better until you can wear power armor. Hell, this may be the first Fallout I don't bother with power armor at the rate things are going ... having strength 10 (+1 implant, +2 OWB augmentation) kind of means I'd just be taking an agility hit.... Gotta think about that.
Other than that, I spotted Saints Row: Third on sale for 66% off so grabbed it (16.99ish). Very worthwhile. While it's very violent, and more realistic looking than Shank, it's also somehow so over-the-top (yes, compared to Shank!) that it feels more cartoonish than, well, a cartoon. Strange, but I'm okay with that.
Especially when it comes to Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax. Or them just giving you a tank. Or.... Man, that game is fun! :P
Been playing Devil Survivor 2. Having a blast for the most part. Save for damn splitting boss. Screw that guy.
Picked up Yakuza 3, 4 and Dead Souls/Of the End for PS3 the other day. God damn these games are Japanese. I mean that in the nicest possible respect, but that's honestly the best way to describe them. Long (and frequent) cutscenes, losing progress upon death, random encounters, New Game Plus. And it's exactly why I bought them. I like that it's so unapologetic about being a brawler-RPG with level-ups and random encounters set in modern-day Japan. Plus the fact that they had the balls to release a full-length, fully featured zombie spinoff a la Read Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare.
Apart from that, Diablo 3 has been tearing my soul out. I've put around 15 hours into my now level 30 wizard, and I'm still on Act 3 Normal. I actually die so much my items occasionally break, causing more death. Call me crazy, but I think ~300ms of lag is a bit much for singleplayer.
"Hey, guys, let's only let people play on our servers, no matter what!"
"Even if they only care about single player?"
"YES."
Genius. -_-
I'm sorry to hear that it's not working out for you, though. :\
It may be against one's sensibilities, but I've found Diablo 3 to be loads easier if one buys a cheap but level appropriate weapon from the AH every few levels. A decent one at level 30 can be had for no more than a couple thousand gold (more than that, and the marginal benefit is pretty small). If I recall, weapons around req. level 30 have around 50 DPS natively plus the socket for other nice things.
But yeah, lack offline single player is fun. I can't imagine how people play hardcore characters when even just a bit of server instability could spell permadeath.
Last night I sat down with Tales of Graces F. I logged on, but there was some server lag and some asshole had lead a train of monsters right to the spawn point, so my hardcore character got killed before I could even do something. I almost rage quit, but I really wanted to get some co-op in, so I swallowed it and created a new character. 'cept I was now way too weak to party with brian and hal, so they both had to too. We finally got it all together and then twenty minutes later hal had to go to bed cuz we wasted so much time.
No wait, that's bizzarro universe. I sat down, hit go, co-op happened instantly with brian and we went around solving sidequests and spending a metric goldton of ryo. We murdered things all over the map because it was there, then went into the hidden dungeon and murdered some more. When we screwed up on the highest difficulty level, it was no big deal at all. Also, Crono is overpowered...but nobody is gonna nerf him.
Good times were by all.
Pretty much, yeah.
Not to say that people are wrong for liking D3, but I can't really admire the model. It's got a leveled playing field, but not allowing single-player offline, even...? Meh, I'll shoot zombies and tolerate forced level playing fields where it actually makes sense -- because of balance, not because the backing company wants to turn it into an e-sport.
I keep hearing Torchlight 2 is the better Diablo sequel.
Well, it's not actually out yet.
But I hope it is!
*muses*
So yesterday I finally continued with Devil Survivor 2: Space Prometheus route. My characters had been leveling a while. I instawipe the free battle enemies around. Still, I didn't notice my NPC was level 55.
Didn't matter, my main had gotten up to 55 to, and my monsters were beefy. Party size 2.
Start the next plot battle. 2 of us versus 2 heroes of them. And a dozen of their friends. And a superboss. Part of getting everyone back together. Brute force
"Okay, cool, I'm super strong. This will be doable. Power Overwhelming!" Strategically slowly beat them to death as they come... soldier guy rushes through and does an ungodly amount of physical damage to space prometheus. Then repeats it. Hero is unable to close it.
Okay, gotta neutralize that guy? Could not find a way to do it without having my main character get killed. Every time I did so, one of the other heroes (Brute Force overwhelming) would walk over and use assassinate on my main.
Fine. Screw it. Let me just try to continue with space prometheus. He's almost taken down Shiva the destroyer and there's only one phys heavy party left.
Space Prometheus proceeds to take on all comers in a brutal 1 versus eight or nine fight. Holy grenades flew from afar as a combination of extreme range, magic, and going twice whiddled their forces until I realized my nearly dead party was surrounded by... 3 leaders and no demons. And it was my turn. *step back, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain...*
So glad to have an actual full party again. That was crazy. The kind of sudden difficulty spike that really has the ability to be a road block to players.
Yeah, when you're powergaming as hard as you have been, and the game still makes you fight that hard for a win....
Yeah, I honestly think had I not been ridiculously powergaming, I would've gotten steamrolled there. Possibly even if I just charged into the horde and ignored Shiva slowly moving forward to murder me.
I don't even know how brutal shiva may have been. He was never allowed to move. I dedicated one of my guys to nuking him from out of his range until he went down. That was just too many enemies for a reasonable fight against 2 characters, especially with offense beating defense.
Edit: Maybe if I had Null Phys or something, that would've made sense. But I didn't, and didn't see any way to get it.
Admittingly, I think this is intended as a harder route. Most routes you get 4-6 guys for it, but still, it was open. I went down it.
Well, my main problem with the Devil Survivor series is that it's kind of unforgiving because as far as I can tell, the design is balanced around your later playthroughs.
It would benefit vastly from a stronger first-play railroad saying, "No, really, you don't want to choose option X without tremendous powerleveling your first time through," to guide you on the relatively 'easy' path. But it doesn't, so if you play by, "This seems like the cool choice," well.
What you ran into there, or I ran into with the stupid keychain thing in the first game. Then it becomes _doable_, but where's the _fun_?
Each consecutive fight in day 7 has been easier. And I really haven't been upgrading since my initial power level at the start of the day.
Fight 1: 2 characters versus 1 super boss + 2 heroes + 7 parties.
Fight 2: 4 characters versus 1 boosted hero + a passive boosted effect for everyone + 1 hero + 7 parties
Fight 3: 4 characters versus Boss Fight that you're supposed to run from. Almost 1 shot the boss before he triggers his plot power ("Hey, I'm immune to humans...AND I can banish all your demons") and I have to run.
Fight 4: 4 characters versus 3 heroes, 2 parties, and 3 groups of demons (that are constantly resummoned by one of the heroes until I murdered a ton of them. Sweet xp)
Fight 5: 4 characters versus 2 heroes and 7 parties. No special tricks.
So far, each fight has dropped the number of special 'gotcha' elements. By fight 2 I was steamrolling. The last fight, I just had one of my characters beat two groups of enemies to death with her fists, since she was out of mp but they couldn't hurt her. Everyone else just sat around and watched.
Agree with Brian. An easy route would be wise. It also helps with getting a good story setup on your first run, since each special boss fight yanks time away you would otherwise spend on that.
I've been having fun with Dungeon Defenders and Vessel, two of the games I picked up on the steam summer sale.
Dungeon Defenders is actually a bit more fun for me playing solo, as I've found the community to be the typical "You're doing this wrong! WTF?!? Do you even know your class?!?" etc type community. That's likely to be the case with -any- multiplayer game, of course, but it's still annoying if your group doesn't consist of just you and friends. And, of course, the one friend I have that plays it likes to play in hard mode and public matches.
There's also the fact that players are competing for available mana and limited resources with which to place towers, which can make it a bit annoying to join a running game and not be able to place anything (unless you're playing a Barbarian).
Still, I've been playing this game a -ton- in solo mode, and it's fun to figure out set-ups to kill the mobs of spawning enemies. And I'd love to play it with other people in SR if people pick it up next time it goes on sale (hopefully before winter sale time).
As for Vessel, that's just a typical puzzle platformer, but it's still fun, although a lot of it really takes time to figure out because there is -zero- tutorial on what you're trying to do, how to get upgrades, where to progress, etc. You very much have to poke and prod everything. Or flood it, as the case may be in a fluid-based puzzle game.
Just finished my no-deaths run of devil survivor 2. Got a good chunk of grade this time. Cool. Kind of a nice ending for a "Screw You God / Freedom" ending. The world is nearly destroyed, but Humanity Lives On.
I really enjoyed the last dialogue with Polaris.
Polaris: "Oh, so you've arrived. Are you ready with your request for god?"
Hero: "Yeah. Die asshole."
Polaris: "What? You can't be serious."
Hero: "Okay. Seriously, Die in a fire. We hate you."
Polaris: "You've won my attention, and you are going to do this with it? Befoul my presence with such? I could restore your world."
Hero: "Yeah. We're all here to kill you. So let's get down to thumbtacks and stop wasting time."
Next I think will be my superboss run and hopefully finishing out the list of moves and monsters. I have 2 of 5 endings gotten. I'll probably team up with... I dunno. Haven't decided with which. The real fun endings are gotten. I guess we can become egalatarians maybe. I've gotten all the reduce cost things, so hopefully I can get the remaining 30 demons I don't have yet. Well, 30 or 35. I'm pretty sure Alice is a recruitable Fiend, even if I haven't seen her in any route yet.
I probably can also follow the Mystery plotline now. Hmm.
Killed 4 of...9 fiends? Forget how many. Anyhow, killed Q, Sage of Time, The golden foot kid, and Trumpter. Still have the necromancer, belial, beelzulbub, and Alice left. Maybe someone else.
Anyhow, at the start of Wednesday, wandering through Nagoya. I think there's a 4th fiend waiting for me somewhere if I hunt well.
I feel a real difference on playthrough 3 of this versus DS1. DS1 I cheated on later playthroughs to speed up XP gain.
Here I don't, and my human characters come off as vestiges of the demons they're alongside. None of them have even gotten to move once as my demons murder everything.
I think I kind of liked my cheating go through more there.
Civ V can be kind of fun, but it always crashes on me in the end-game.
I just finished Sega's Binary Domain. It's basically a B-movie, action/sci-fi specifically, about humans vs. robots in a future that's varying degrees of dystopian.
Nothing particularly special about that. Squad-based combat, third-person shooter, cover elements form the core of most combats. Not that spectacular there, either. You can upgrade your character (and his squad) with money you get from destroying robots, and you get extra money (and the respect of teammates) for doing particular things. Headshots, melee, and one-shot-kills. Interestingly, you can really maximize on trust/money by shooting a robot in the head and then meleeing it to destroy it.
Neither the gameplay or story art particularly deep, and a few points in the plot caused some real snickering. It does skirt around some interesting philosophical issues, but in the end.... Actually, I'm not sure. They claim the game changes depending on how much trust you build up, so i may just have coincidentally ended up getting the most pro-nakama ending the game had to offer.
Not a surprise for nakama-bot, I guess.
Anyway, it hints toward some interesting questions, though doesn't explore them as much as, say, Ghost in the Shell. I found the in-game answers reasonable for that universe, at least.
So, I got it on a steam-sale for not very much, I think 14.99, and it was well worth that. Don't know if I'd say go for full price, but I'd say it's worth putting on steam-sale watch list; it was 75% off last Friday. The only way the game could have been better was if it had a multiplayer co-op mode.
Oh, wait, it does~! Now to find someone to play it with....
Beat Alice today in Devil Survivor 2.
Kinda sad they don't let her keep her supermove, but it is pretty crazy:
She has a move that party wipes. Almighty. To anything without almighty resistance, it does 100 percent hp and mp damage. For the whole party.
Made it kind of a race to finish her off when she started using it. Especially as she could do it to two parties per turn.
So, reasonable they don't give it...but at the same time: What's left? There's nothing that's gonna compare against Alice as a boss anyway and with that I believe I've unlocked every single monster in the game.
Played Jagged Alliance 2, with the 1.13 mod for the first time. I'd read that the mod had some great features, and the few youtube clips I skimmed were all using the mod, so I did as well.
It's a turn-based tactical shooter, like X-Com, where you, a mercenary commander hired to conduct an insurgency, must retake the Island of Arulco from a tyrant. Unlike X-Com, where you are hiring and training an army of nameless minions against the alien horde, the JA series centers around quirky mercenaries, with unique voice-acted dialog, etc. The mod not only fixes many of the original bugs, but ended up rebuilding the combat and inventory mechanics from the ground-up, added in what is probably every firearm since WW2 (I read somewhere that EVERY AK variant is in the game. I'm not Iddy, so no clue as to whether or not that's actually true, but I believe it) and many hand-weapons (you can even buy katana and shuriken). The micro-management levels of this patch are high, but if that's your thing, then you may enjoy this game.
Anyway, there's this event called the Drassen Counterattack, that the original developer, Sir-Tech, removed for being far to difficult for the early game. The 1.13 developers, naturally, re-enabled it, and I hadn't realized that it was enabled in the default install. What does that mean? Here's a video to explain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_9S2pm0rfA). You don't have to watch the entire video (unless you really enjoy tactical squad-based games, I suggest you don't), but at least check out the running-time.
In contrast to that video, I was playing on "experienced" difficulty rather than "insane", so I didn't have nearly as many enemies to deal with (2 waves, maybe about 80 enemies in total, rather than the 150-200 elite troops in Insane). But since I didn't know the Drassen Counterattack was enabled, I failed to prep for it whatsoever, so: (1) That guy had 40 vet militia supporting him. I had 25 green, and 3 regular. (2) That guy armed most people with sniper rifles. Since I did a hard push towards Drassen on day 1, the time-variable function that unlocks available weapons wasn't in my favor. No sniper rifles; my best weapons were my two custom-characters that generated with MP5s (and one with a shotgun), and the three mercs I hired had pistols. Also, no LMGs for suppressive fire (which the 1.13 mod models). (3) That guy had 8 or 9 characters in total, including Wolf and Scope, who are top end (and correspondingly require $). I had 5 (cheap-ass medic, budget shooter, the obligatory native recruit, and two custom).
What I gather you were supposed to do was fall back to guerellia war tactics: pick off the stragglers, fade back into other areas when pressed, and keep harassing from different points until you've picked off most of the occupying. Then, invade in force. What I did was scavenge some nice ammo (glazer and HP rounds), fortified the mine foreman's building (which only has one window), and used it as a secure base to fall back on while sending one sneaky merc with a Calico-960 to tag enemy troops, then lure them into ambush.
After I'd finished, and was dealing with the mechanics of retraining my militia and fixing my gear, I wondered what was that annoying glow on the screen. It was the sun: I'd played through until 6 in the morning. Which is simultaneously annoying as hell (for throwing off my sleep schedule) and pretty cool (I don't know of any games released in the last couple of years that have grabbed my attention in the same way)
Diablo 3 updated a couple of days ago.
I kinda washed my hands of it a couple of months ago, but there's a lot of really good changes put forth, so I gave it a try.
It's almost like a mini-expansion.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/7029347/Patch_104_Now_Live-8_21_2012
Edit: And I do like the changes. I really do. I just wish they had done most of this in the first month, instead of waiting so long.
I started Skyrim a bit ago. Enjoying the atmosphere. Some of the fights. But I got a stone to grind.
I think the Spikiness of the difficulty is terrible and I don't understand why it is not addressed in any mod. I am 5 dungeons in, and so far all but 1 has been filled with ineffectual helpless mooks combined with a boss that can one shot me.
I can appreciate dynamic scaling and all that, but what the fuck is with the group being so disconnected? I should have a feel from fighting the very first mook in an area whether or not I am over my head. I shouldn't get all the way to the boss before suddenly getting flung around like a rag doll. It's not like the mooks are fighting me at the same time as part of a grouped encounter. Instead, it's almost always a one on one with me having sniped or brawled through everyone on the way.
What I want:
____--__--^|
| |
What I get:
^
| |
| |
_____| |
Stupid design. Anyhow, likely to keep playing a bit longer. Prolly cheat. I still like the stealth god gameplay from Oblivion, but I dunno if there will be a sensible middle ground where I survive long enough to use potions and poisons in a fight and yet take enough damage where I care to bother.
Tales of Graces F. I'm not far in, just got Richard to join the party for real after that cliff fall. I'm not a huge fan of childhood arcs after the fuckmobile that was Breath of Fire 3's first half, but this one isn't so bad. The writing's good and it's doing a really good job of establishing Asbel's character. Kid's a self absorbed dick, but most kids that age are.
We must have played different versions of BoFIII.
My two cents? BoF3 was a step back in every way (barring SNES to PSX graphics). The childhood arc was particularly interminable, a constant drumming of uninteresting scenarios and getting into unbeatable boss battles all while a horrible Muzak style OST played.
So yeah, I'm guessing different versions.
Instead of getting into that with you, I'm now trying to remember what other games had childhood arcs.
Playing Deponia. It's an old-school point-and-click adventure game with really large characters, modern dialog, and so forth.
The main problem I have with it is that everyone -- absolutely everyone -- treats the protagonist like crap. They give him a hard time about everything, he's got no respect, no one trusts him, and most people aren't willing to help him out.
Also, he deserves all of that. He's a total loser, basically starting the game by trashing his ex-girlfriend's house (where he effectively crashes on the couch, because he's too lazy to work), being mocked by his 'friend', and then becoming a huge buttmonkey/pratfall.
I guess I'm supposed to be amused at his suffering, but it's really hard to get into a game when the main character is so utterly un-likable.
Bought Dead or Alive 5 ... what. Don't look at me like that, I actually like it as a fighting game!
Anyways, the system is much, much different from the last one I played, which was three. Not so much so to be unrecognizable, but still quite jarring nonetheless.
Story is roughly as incoherent as ever though....
Quote from: Brian on October 05, 2012, 12:43:39 AM
Instead of getting into that with you, I'm now trying to remember what other games had childhood arcs.
In addition to what was said already? Breath of Fire 2, um... wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
I dunno. It's hard to count BoF2 when you compare it to the much more extensive arc of BoF3. But I'm not really pulling out any other examples, either.
Maybe, just maybe you could count Final Fantasy Tactics? Although it's less "childhood" and more late teenage years. But in a way it kind of fits. It's an arc about a formative time in life where an unfortunate event happens, that springsloads the main plot.
Sorta. I couldn't think of any other childhood arcs when I thought about it.
Hum.
Been playing Borderlands 2. Damn it's a big game. I think the drop rate math is bad though. Or ...at least it doesn't map with how I play?
It's been made more MMOish in the drop math. Most of the legendaries are actually tied to drop from specific bosses or shoot the moon odds on the jackpot (I got one, in maybe a thousand or so pulls over the game so far?)
An average playthrough of the game feels like it is going to see maybe 2-3 legendaries, total. One of those being a quest given one. Some lucky players may see between 4-8. Some unlucky players may see just the quest given one.
On Borderlands 1, even if a lot of them weren't necessarily the one you wanted to use, an average playthrough saw maybe a dozen. Before the nerfing of new haven, you could usually get 1 or 2 just opening the chests a few times in a row. This was good because any given legendary has a small 4-8 level range of usefulness at best before the dramatically growing stats of weapons makes it vendor trash.
The math, if anything, is harsher in BL2. Weapon level moved from being maybe 50 percent to being more like 75 percent of whether a weapon was even worth looking at. Usually if it isn't your current high level, the answer is 'no, it isn't'.
Legendaries in BL1 could show up anywhere. Powerful enemies, big chests, vendors, quests.
In BL2, they show up almost universally from boss drops. These drop rates are low, and worse pretty much require quitting the game to reset the boss for another run (Well, they may refresh after a while, but for any of them near a warp/reload point, this has been the case). How low?
I did runs of the boss in the Wildlife area that takes about 10-15 minutes to run to on saturday. About 10 runs and no legendary drops. Really lame. But how bad is it really?
Last night I did Hunter Helquist runs for the Bee legendary. Got one. In about 100 kills of him. I got to the point that I could kill him every 50 seconds, gaining a level and finishing up both the 'blow a guy up past his shields in 1 shot' and 'kill an unaware dude' challenges. Was/is continuing to collect them to pass on to the multiplayer co-op games where we wouldn't want to stop and murder a mini-boss that many times.
But even so...that's just simply not good. In borderlands 1, I just would spin up new characters all the time to do duo co-ops with people. We would get cool weapons and things and it'd be no big thing. Sure, I'd sometimes upgrade us at very end game, but generally it would be things we had already found. What it seems to mean is in BL2, on average only one person will have a cool legendary to play with during their runthrough. Instead of them being freely shared resources, it'll be an enormous 'Well, one person gets to have the cool gun' moment anytime they show up. If they show up.
We'd do reruns of things looking for super gear in BL1, but the end result was usually a pile of cool gear options. Now it might be...1 green.
Sure, in single player I can 'fuck you' game and have the slots generate some legendaries after enough boss kills, but I shouldn't 'want' to do so. It's a lack that just wasn't there in the original Borderlands and I don't think it is bettered for it.
Really hoping someone manages a rebalancing odds mod. Something like say 1 in 2 for boss fights would do wonders given how in an average run you would only fight them twice without farming. That way I don't feel so encouraged to send items from one character to the next, or Dupe to get around the fact that the one time that item dropped might be the only time it occurs in a hundred attempts or more.
Hey, maybe they can add instanced loot too :P Though i think that problem is only excaberated by the fact that if a blue or purple drops, there might be only 1 of them that showed up in the 3-4 hours that the group played, and only one person in the set will get it. Yay that encourages sharing doesn't it!
I think MP is supposed to seriously bump up the drop quality. I'm not certain, but maybe in the ideal 4 player game, legendary drop chance is reasonable?
Well, our own experiments in that regard haven't been particularly encouraging. It's been said that way, but I think the actual element in play is drop quantity. Since a boss will drop more items in multiplayer, the odds are inherently better that one of them will be good.
Or at least that is the story I've heard said. General premise folks have given is that the effect of more players hasn't been very noticiable for rare drops.
I will give the context that singleplayer, it's actually fairly common for a badass/superbadass level enemy to drop only a single green for getting killed. Not a lot of opportunity. I think these generally dropped more items on multiplayer.
Tales of Graces f: Up to the Seaside Cavern. I'm playing slowly, doing a lot of weapon/armor dualizing and bumping up the stampbook. The game's fun except during boss fights. So far those degenerate into attack->guard to full CC->repeat with an occasional dodge thrown in. I'm told this clears up later, but right now longer fights tend to drag. Doubly so when you have a short party. I suppose it adds a layer of tactics to battles, but at the same time I feel the enforced pauses disrupt the fast-paced flow of the battle system.
Anyway, speaking of dualizing, I'm up to a longsword+13, leather armor+11 and so on. It's a lot of effort, but heavy dualizing is providing distinct benefits. So is stamp collecting and requests. The entire game feels structured around 'do something, get some sort of reward, repeat'. Most RPGs tend to do this by the basic nature of the games, but ToGf goes all in here. Something's always improving - the Eleth Mixer, your level, your weapons/armor, your stamp card, your title level or a new title showing up and items coming out of your Mixer. This game strikes me as a plot wrapped around constantly distracting you with other things to do. It would seem like a shame to play it at anything but a crawl, doing everything you can as far as you can.
Gonna rack up over 100 hours on this, calling it now.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 09, 2012, 12:23:25 AMThe game's fun except during boss fights. So far those degenerate into attack->guard to full CC->repeat with an occasional dodge thrown in. I'm told this clears up later, but right now longer fights tend to drag.
Nnnnnnnot really, in my experience. They just get more brutal. The fights are a bit more fun if you turn down the difficulty for the bosses, because then you can play around a bit more.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 09, 2012, 12:23:25 AMAnyway, speaking of dualizing, I'm up to a longsword+13, leather armor+11 and so on.
Those cap at 99. It starts to get prohibitively expensive after a while, though. At some point you will find special materials that can be dualized with weapons to turn them into different weapons. Leveling the base weapons gives you an enhanced benefit, because the new weapon doesn't inherit the full weapon's upgrade cost.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 09, 2012, 12:23:25 AMIt's a lot of effort, but heavy dualizing is providing distinct benefits.
That's about 40% of the game.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 09, 2012, 12:23:25 AMSo is stamp collecting and requests.
And that's another 40%.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 09, 2012, 12:23:25 AMGonna rack up over 100 hours on this, calling it now.
I think Drac and I got around ... 140ish? Maybe more? Probably around 40% of that time seriously was in dualizing menus.
I still would say you're probably doing something a bit wrong if you're finding significant pauses in your activity in battle. It could be you're still early but:
If you block at the right time for enemies, you get a big boost in CC. Same with Dodging. Since dodge countering tends to produce more CC than it costs, as well as give you an unblocked opening for attacking, this usually is where the offense pauses briefly. The guard can also be part of an attack combination by charging your next attack. I dunno, maybe it's my memory of later with lots of CC up abilities.
I'll agree with not taking the bosses at super high difficulty. They're generally a ridiculous spike and on chaos, sometimes they just simply cast way too fast.
Because I figured it was time to tackle the backlog on a thing that I'm actually compelled to play a little more often I started Fallout 3 yesterday.
After some initial meandering around, encounters with various things that I probably shouldn't be fighting judging by how fast they murder my face right off I seem to have finally found a bit of a groove I've settled into. I think that by complete accident I completed the Operation Anchorage DLC, so now I'm just a ninja. With an electric sword.
I think this'll work out alright, unless you're anyone I want to murder, then it won't work out alright at all.
If you finished anchorage, you'll also have power armor. The stuff you get from the DLC room is bugged/broken, incidentally, and never runs out of durability. So ... you won't need to replace your armor. Ever. :p
I finished the FO3 GotY edition about a year ago; except for the alien abduction bit, it was great!
I have that game.
At some point it will get many hours.
Hum. Beat Borderlands 2 playthrough 1 yesterday.
Killed many warriors. Got the True Warrior challenge by ignoring his extremely vulnerable heart.
The Bee Shield is ridiculous at boss killing. It's so-so for normal enemy fights so far and amazing for sniping. But against bosses, one can just sort of evaporate them with your opening flurry while they're posing. I do 99.9 percent of the last boss' health before he's finished posing, and have to wait, since the logic requires him to realize he's almost dead and position himself so.
And yet still, he chunks like 10 pieces of loot in the lava and maybe 1-10 pieces of loot lost under his head.
Anyhow, killed last boss lots of times,
but the legendary drops were none.
Loot in Lava, makes Drac sad. No Haiku.
Basically, I enjoy the game, but the drop reward mechanics are disappointing and make it seem like hunting for good things is pointless. I don't feel I have a non-cheat way to make progress in the hunt for good loot. Repeated boss killing doesn't do it. Chests have had zero occurrences of legendaries. If I had an answer for Shields and Class mods, I think I'd just start ignoring it and planning on giving random bonus items to my co-op friends as we played to provide the sensation of getting them normally as rewards for exploring and playing.
Pokemon White 2. This time, with polish!
Enjoying most of the new features, particularly the new mix of pokemon you can find early. Before the third gym, I had my team of: Oshawott, Sunkern, Growlithe, Mareep, Venipede and Riolu rolling. Good stuff. Sunkern and Mareep will prolly get swapped out eventually, likely late game, while the others may stick around for the ride. Oshawott and Venipede are the only ones I know aren't getting swapped at all.
ToGf: Asbel just got kicked out of Lhant. That was an epic level dick move by Hubert and a botched bit of storytelling. I was with it until Hubert decided to take over things. I'm fine with Hubert being pissed since he was the victim of Lord Lhant being a titanic asshole. The combo of taking over, an unwinnable boss fight (really guys?) and getting told off by Hubert made me call bullshit. I can accept the first one, but the rest of it made me roll my eyes. I'm not willing to accept what the game's saying here - that Asbel fucked up in every possible way, from his choice to run away to his training.
Yeah, that was some epic BS.
We learned very quickly that the theme of the game, at pretty much every level involving the story -- is trolling. ...you'll see.
I thought it would have worked better being a bit less personal. More tell and less show. Let the military forces inform Asbel of what's happening and throw him out. Let Hubert watch on and have his inactivity tell the story. A softer touch would have gone a long way there.
I just finished Rochard.
I'm ... honestly no longer sure where I got that game from. A humble bundle, probably. Or it was on some really cheap sale so I snagged it. My Steam library is stuffed with small quirky games I grabbed from sales/bundles for 'a later day'.
Rochard is a very short game (~4 hours, maybe). It covers the journey of a space-miner and his friends as they deal with a horrific dry-spell in terms of finding whatever it is they're looking for before finding Something Unexpected in the reaches of space. The game is a platformer with soft/easy action sequences and generally pretty simple puzzles. There are gold completionist medallions to collect, and some light physics effects for puzzle-solving.
And platforming violence.
...in fact, I think I just did.
You get your anti-gravity lifter, gravity reversal rooms, low-gravity mode once you patch into the station's anti-grav generator, and a host of offensive upgrades. Some are purely optional, squirreled away in corners, ducts, or areas reached with quirky physics puzzles! It's not a metroidvania game -- it really lacks that complexity. It also doesn't allow much of any backtracking.
The story isn't particularly deep, so it instead goes for mildly amusing -- and that strikes a good balance. If you can pick this game up cheaply, I'd have to say it's probably worth it. The challenge really isn't there (unless you're going for the 3-hour speed-run achieve, or the 100% collections achieve), and it's got an eye-rolling sequel hook, and also a really annoying unskippable credits sequence (isn't paying you guys for the game appreciation enough?) -- but beyond that?
An enjoyable game. I'd endorse it.
...in fact, I think I just did.
Playing XCOM. I was a big fan of the original, and modded it to hell and back with a DOS based text editor. The new one is simpler in a lot of ways, but still captures the feel of the original pretty well. I'm in the process of a rather comprehensive modding project for it as well; rebalancing all the guns, tweaking armor, aliens, all that stuff. Should be even more fun when I'm finished with that. It's still rather unforgiving, although not as bad as the original, but that mostly just adds to the tension instead of merely screwing you over without you being able to do anything about it.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 13, 2012, 12:54:28 AM
ToGf: Asbel just got kicked out of Lhant. That was an epic level dick move by Hubert and a botched bit of storytelling. I was with it until Hubert decided to take over things. I'm fine with Hubert being pissed since he was the victim of Lord Lhant being a titanic asshole. The combo of taking over, an unwinnable boss fight (really guys?) and getting told off by Hubert made me call bullshit. I can accept the first one, but the rest of it made me roll my eyes. I'm not willing to accept what the game's saying here - that Asbel fucked up in every possible way, from his choice to run away to his training.
I thought the most BS part of it really was the context:
Asbel went off to train as a KNIGHT for 7 years. Hubert just taking him down in one on one combat was silly. Being tossed out by Hubert's troops would've made sense, but really Asbel should've been narratively well past him in physical battle.
I think it could be supported in the narrative but it wasn't. In particular, Stratha's forces were shown to be advanced. It could be done, but it wasn't. Really, that entire section was botched.
ToGf: Finished up the civil war arc and killed Cedric. The game's a lot of fun if you ignore the occasional bad design/character choice. It's like 90% goodness broken up by 10% WTF.
Is Pascal's loli grouping routine something that didn't translate right or is it meant to be a mine of creepy subtext? On the other hand, Pascal gets bonus points for making a few insinuations about Richard and Asbel's close friendship. If you know what I mean. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Pascal's funny until that comes up and it's like oh stop chasing after Sophie, dammit!
Boss battles have felt chaotic so far, with Cedric and Victoria being really bad for it. I suppose they have to be hard to stun and fast to have a chance with 4-1 odds, but it's simply hard to keep up on boss battles with all that's going on.
Just take every action as the person Trolling.
That said, Pascal taken seriously is a stinky smelly otaku tinkerer in cute little girl form. She has dozens of habits in the game that would be horribly offensive in real life and characters do comment on them. But taken in a non-serious cartoony she's messing with them fashion, they are funny. Is she going to eat 10 banana pies or 12?
She's also the most awesome character in the game, only possibly competed with by Malik.
Yeah, Pascal is best character. Admittedly, I never took her grabbiness toward Sophie in a pervy manner. It's easy to see that subtext, but it doesn't really fit her character. She's curious and silly, so I was able to file it as 'harmless'.
Also, Sophie is master of dim mak, and Pascal is just a squishy. If it bothered Sophie beyond humor value, she'd take care of it. >_>
Maybe just my ability to overlook some things that would squick other people. :\
Edit: Also, yes. If you remember that every character is actually just doing their best to troll every other character, the story is awesome, and Hubert is just a scrub who only knows brute-force trolling methods. And isn't even very good at them. ;)
ToGf:
Oh, what's this? Uncharted Sandstretch? Wow, the fights take awhile and they sorta hit har-20000 XP?! Hello!
So, I discovered Borderlands 2 punishes you for being slightly overleveled last night. You will encounter more badass enemies that can be 'storylevel+5' up to level 52 (Max level is 50). Given that buyable gear is locked at story level and droppable gear rarely goes more than a couple past that, this is pretty eeeh.
This is also something that as a player, you have no control over whatsoever. If you've been playing everything, you WILL be overleveled.
I am pretty sure actually that drop quality is negatively affected by being overleveled too.
So, framework of the game? Awesome.
Tuning? U So TERRIBLE.
I haven't tried the new DLC but the forums seemed an ocean of tears about it last I looked.
I really like the new characters and the more varied enemy types, but overall well...
All Sirens Borderlands 1 >>>>>> Borderlands 2.
Basic recommendation is to not do Playthrough 2 single player at all. At least not as Zer0 or Gunzerker. The inability to have a valid way to deal with the Super Shield Nomads will make it intensely frustrating.
Oh also good learning:
Every 5 levels, all numbers are effectively doubled. Exponetial curve and all that really takes off around level 30.
This means if your weapons are 5 levels lower than you, you will take twice as many shots to take something down and go down in half as many shots.
Oh, also bitchy bitchy:
Super Shield Nomads drop their forward guard in one of three cases:
1)They are giving an order. Sucks if they are the only enemy around cuz they'll never do this.
2)They swing their shield at you because you are close enough.
3)You hit their shield or possibly hand with sufficient damage. SUFFICIENT? This means that if you can knock their shield aside, they're only barely threatening. If you can't, they'd be a complete war to take down.
So basically, if you are overmatched, the mechanics of the enemy can make it nearly impossible. If you overmatch them, it can turn it into a cakewalk. Note actual way of playing doesn't seem to have any bearing here. Grenades (due to sudden SPIKE of damage) can sometimes qualify as sufficient, but they better be the same level, cuz otherwise the enemy might just ignore them.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 17, 2012, 06:29:54 PM
ToGf:
Oh, what's this? Uncharted Sandstretch? Wow, the fights take awhile and they sorta hit har-20000 XP?! Hello!
Run. Really. Not worth fighting there early. The enemies are stupidly scaled and the scorpions particularly are supposed to be level 92 enemies.
That whole area is meant as a close to end game scenario. Weirdly enough the dungeon after the sandstretch isn't nearly as brutal with its enemies.
Are you kidding? I'm gaining levels like crazy there and they drop nice advanced materials+shards. I'm going to build a fucking house there.
Huh. Drac and I tried it repeatedly and it wasn't worth the difficulty.
Must be the benefits of your brother's NG+. We'll keep that in mind when we have the mental fortitude for a second playthrough.
Edit: Actually. We were on chaos. At that level, the enemies there tear you apart, so that didn't help. I tried to talk Drac into turning it down to easy for power-leveling purposes, but that didn't turn out particularly well, either.
Yeah, we tended to run on Chaos all the time.
That said, I think they still ended up being ridiculously dangerous on Evil and were just not fun/interesting on much below that.
Chaos tends to really adjust the mode of play, since Interrupting spells largely becomes impossible.
You know, Borderlands 2 is kinda interesting. I can get into it a little bit. The scaling isn't so awesome, and the legendaries that are only available from save editing confuse me a bit.
But playing through it this evening, I suddenly had a thought of what would make it a really cool game.
What if Borderlands 2 had ... wait for it ... CO-OP?
I mean, what if you and a friend, who had bought the four-player-pack anyway, were able to play the game ... together?
Man. I'll just wish they'd add that feature. It would be so awesome....
Tales of Graces f: I just made it to Fodra before calling it a night.
Would I be wrong in calling Sophie the main character of the story? She feels like it for me, especially since Asbel routinely gets smacked down.
So the community added adjustable drop rates into the game. Borderlands 2 became a rewarding co-op game overnight :P
Quote from: Anastasia on October 28, 2012, 12:50:33 AM
Tales of Graces f: I just made it to Fodra before calling it a night.
Would I be wrong in calling Sophie the main character of the story? She feels like it for me, especially since Asbel routinely gets smacked down.
Of story 1? Yeah, probably nothing wrong with that.
Agreed. Speaking of ToGf!
ToGf: Up to the endgame with Ghardia Shaft. I'm doing the sidequest samba now, going around and all that happy crap. I'm working on a pet theory for this game, one that revolves around the distinct similarities between Lunar 2: Eternal Blue and Tales of Graces f. Let's see now.
Lunar 2 and ToGf both take place on a verdant and lush moon in orbit of a desolate planet. Both stories revolve around a mysterious young woman from the desolate planet. Both young women are meant to destroy a terrible threat to the verdant moon, have a lack of emotional and social skills and become strongly attached to the male lead. That's really just off the top of my head, but now that this theory's in my mind? I can't stop seeing it.
Eh ... the Lunar2 story still somewhat builds on the original Lunar. ToGF doesn't have any significant story-ties to any other game at all. It's pretty much just another Tales game that happens to have some factors lining up.
Certainly, Hubert isn't a good analog for whats-his-face, who joins the good guys wearing a mask, etc.
You can't possibly be talking about WHITE KNIGHT LEO. Because he doesn't wear a mask.
Getting back into New Vegas. I just finished the Lonesome Road DLC.
Short. Kind of surreal. Interesting, though.
Finally getting around to finishing up Borderlands 1. I figure with 2 out there I should at least make an effort to polish off the first one.
Main story is done, last fight was long but not particularly hard. Poking away at the expansions now.
Quote from: Brian on October 31, 2012, 12:44:07 PM
Getting back into New Vegas. I just finished the Lonesome Road DLC.
Short. Kind of surreal. Interesting, though.
Yeah, pretty much my impression. It wasn't the best of the DLC arcs, as something about Ulysses' motivation doesn't add up for me, but the dude's voice is so striking that it works well enough anyway (seriously, he sounds like Discworld DEATH does in my head).
Huuum...
Only Oda can rule Japan! Isn't that right Oda?
So just finished Nobunaga Oda's first (blue) track in Sengoku Basara and it was awesome. Oda teamed up with the only one he could ever trust... Oda.
They just were not ready for two demon kings going through the country. Murdering absolutely everyone. Then going to back down to hell to do it again!
Remains fun co-op smashery. Recommended. *nods*
Quote from: Halbarad on October 31, 2012, 03:24:48 PM
Finally getting around to finishing up Borderlands 1. I figure with 2 out there I should at least make an effort to polish off the first one.
Main story is done, last fight was long but not particularly hard. Poking away at the expansions now.
Heh. Fun games by themselves, but they really shine in co-op to my mind. 2 players though is the idea size usually.
Borderlands 2 finally has a community fix (A cheat) that adjusts drop rarities. This dramatically betters the game back towards BL1's level. And given that aside from that it is vastly better, it is now the improved experience.
Tales of Graces f: Finished the main story and did the first dungeon of the f arc. I might do a big post about this later, but in short? ToGf is a good but flawed game. 7/10.
I'm not optimistic about the f arc so far. The skits have been universally blah and the tone/direction feels considerably different. I was hoping for something like Lunar 2's epilogue and it isn't hitting those notes.
Finished Fallout 3. By the end it just didn't seem fair to my enemies: stealth suit, paralyzing palm, ninja, and deathclaw gauntlet added up to quick, messy deaths all around.
Rather than continue directly on into New Vegas, I'm going to see what Deus Ex: Human Revolution has to offer.
Well, NV is a different game. I appreciated the various changes they made, and the hardcore mode looks interesting, if not particularly my speed. Still -- the fallout games in general don't shy away from letting you become an incarnation of death and disaster -- and possibly salvation -- in the wastes.
I, for one, am okay with that. From your first play-through, when you're panicking on engaging your first super mutant with only the hunting rifle you scavved off some bandits, to your latest, when you've got ninja, silent running, pyro, and a full-condition shishkabab as you sneak up on that unsuspecting supermutant behemoth (it takes two hits, incidentally). You can become almost any flavor of badass, pretty much -- including the one who never kills anyone. I've never tried a full diplomancy/pacifist run through FO3, because there are too many bad people who deserve to be melted with energy beams -- but the designers are content to let you win if you choose to play that character type.
And I think that's pretty cool.
In a way, it's a lot like Morrowind, except more streamlined -- if that's possible.
Fallout 3 folded with rather ridiculous speed, I think. I was able to beat super mutants to death with just a baseball bat right out of Vault 101. I...really don't feel like that should be possible. (Fucking crabs were still able to murder me with ease, though. So glad those things didn't make a return appearance in FO:NV.)
ToGf: Probably not going to finish the f arc. I lost interest as soon as it started. I don't know why besides a sense that things feel off with the game. It's a solid 7/10 even with incomprehensible burnout at the end.
I played Journey.
Twice, now.
Nice art. Good music. Gameplay is pretty solid.
Too short, and utterly lacks substance; the defeatism of the story also really grates.
Costume upgrades are interesting.
Second playthrough was just to show Drac the game.
I don't see what the fuss was about; while the stats say people went rabid over this, I am utterly baffled as to what the draw actually is. I wouldn't suggest this to anyone as a game. If you could cut out all the gameplay and turn it into a short movie (it'd be around 15 minutes, tops, probably), it'd probably be worth it.
The high point was when someone in gold robes on the second playthrough showed me a fun little bug to clip through almost all of the second-to-last stage.
That was awesome, I admit. The whole kick through the mountainside bit.
Aside from that, it was a mediocre arthouse project. Tremendous shader/sand work, to be sure. Though a lot of the sand shader was basically throwing a generic ocean waves vertex shader with sand texture. A good one, don't get me wrong, but it had the result that it broke suspension of disbelief for me after a bit. That wasn't sand Brian was sliding through. Sand doesn't move like that, even loosely packed.
The entire game was finished in slightly longer than the time it took me to finish dinner. I was baffled that no matter how popular the game had been that there was actually 4 people around on the same level that Brian was on still at this point over a year past launch. While cooperative, it just doesn't seem the type of thing that would be more than an occassional fling after someone had completed it a few times, even for the most hardcore fan.
The collection stuff was mediocre as well and kind of a lost message. The collection thing should've just been the story of the journey. Not additional magical tags hidden in out of the way spots. It kind of didn't go with the experience..something thrown in just to be gamey, but not gamey enough to really be rewarding. Pretty sure the journey did not involve sitting under sand waterfalls. Twice.
Just underwhelming.
Played Breath of Death VII.
I remember hearing about this back before Cthulhu or any of the others as if it was some big worthwhile thing. An indie project with clever design that elevated it above the offal.
I'll grant that it was stable, and hey even got released on xbox arcade. But I don't see how it elevated into even minor internet notority. Was it that it stuck game memes in? Really? The game could pass as one of those awkward not quite off the nintendo RPGs of the late 1980s with its three big claim to fames being:
A)Auto hp refill. So every battle could involve enemies doing almost all your damage. This is a good idea. Some credit for using it... but Final Fantasy XIII did that over a year before this game was made. If the most expensive and mocked AAA title has already done the mechanic, that's not really something that should be stirring waves as a big innovative thing. That's pretty much just taking the popular way of doing things of that very time and going ahead and sticking it in your 8-bit style game.
B)Selecting Level Up Results - Not saying this was poorly done... but it was poorly done. Look, the concept is neat and I enjoy level up trees as much as the next guy, but having the entire tree be invisible is not neat and leads to folks having dramatically different experiences. Going almost pure magic or pure strength works out well, but going down a mixture (easily doable) leaves you a cripple that will get crushed in a frustrating manner. Having no foresight leaves you no idea if the character your building will get abilities that make use of stats that seem otherwise pointless.
C)Limited encounters per area. Sorry, I've also seen this mechanic a lot. Here, it actually often created the result that it was simply more efficient to sit around and kill everything then wander through the level. If things went poorly and your mp got drained, you could easily just escape out...and moreso, you could do that and then go fight the boss unhindered.
It's a solid offering and for a 2 person development effort, not bad. And hey it's often sold for just around 50 cents...
But it's not a meaningful competitor for attention and frankly isn't really a stellar indie offering in the grand scheme of things. It's level of humor writing pretty much stops at the "Oh look, the cast is dead. This is funny, zombie humor!". And it's actual plot twist is delivered in such a haphazard way that it basically rolls over without narrative effect.
Yeah, haven't picked up ToGf since the last post. It's not bad, but the f arc lost me for a bunch of reasons.
Faxanadu: I replay this old NES game every holiday season. It's one of those weird traditions I picked up one year. Anyway, I'm near the end. It's still a quirky, solid NES action-RPG. That's not enough of those.
I just bought and downloaded Symphony (http://www.gog.com/gamecard/symphony), an AudioSurf-like game, but which generates SHMUP levels instead of racing tracks.
Naturally, I decided to generate levels using the PCB soundtrack. Fun, although as expected, the game didn't suddenly start to include spellcards.
-
Having played a bit more of it...
Both your ship and enemies use Warning Forever mechanics. Your ship gets four guns, which can be swapped with unlocked and upgraded weapons, and of which you can change the axis of attack before starting a song. The controls are...mouse. You can even put each individual weapon on continual autofire (or button triggered or button-triggered autofire). The particular weapons you unlock appear to be based on the characteristics of the particular song you play.
You get an infinite number of lives; the objective isn't to survive, since that's already given, but to hit the score target before the song ends.
There are six levels of difficulty, which range from pp to ff (corresponding to loudness in sheet music). I'm not so great at SHMUPs in general, and had a pretty easy time from pp to f. mf was moderately annoying. f is pretty annoying, especially when enemies fly all over the screen and (what seems to be) your entire ship is detected for collision. Of course, I did pick a directory full of Touhou music, so maybe I did this to myself.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
My brother talked me into this. After just a few hours, I was already planning on getting a new graphics card. I do have to point out that to play it decently, you need a 2GB card at the least. Anything lower makes playing difficult or ugly. Trust me on this. On a completely unrelated note, never design a character on the lowest settings.
Heavily story-driven, with the 'typical' Bioware "morality/conversation choice wheel" for the numerous cut-scenes. And when I say 'numerous', I mean it. EVERY quest has at least two scenes, one to start it and one to end it. I'd say 90% have at least one more scene, with a whole lot with more. Fully voiced, including incidental 'overheard' conversations as you run by. They even have the alien languages.
Those choices affect your characters Light/Dark alignment and the affection levels of your NPC Companions (basically a combat pet that can talk to you, gather raw materials, and do special 'fetch missions'). I'm not sure how/if a character's L/D levels effect NPC interactions, but they do effect what you can equip; certain items/gear are only usable if a character's Light or Dark level is high enough. Affection levels also unlock new Companion-sourced quests and conversations, including romance.
Some minor grinding, but it's all 'Bonus quests' done while working on the normal quests. For example, killing 10 Flesh-eater Adepts while going through a tunnel filled with them. You'd have to kill most of them anyway, just to get through.
Speaking of killing, the fighting feels like your character really is special. Most fights are at least 2-to-1, usually 3/4-to-1, the "one" being your character. You also get solo-instances, with non-respawning mobs. Grouping, especially in group instances, gives an additional reward in the form of Social points, allowing the purchase of special items. Haven't really looked into this too much though. Did a few instances, and a Flashpoint mission, but I was too busy heading to the next area to look to much into it.
At a certain point, you activate the Legacy System. This allows the creation of a surname and 'family tree' that will tie all your characters on that server together. They then can start earning Legacy points, which can then unlock special skills, races, and the like. Even if you delete the character that created the 'family tree', it'll still exist for any other characters you create on the server.
Finally, it is technically free-to-play. However, there's lots of restrictions (http://www.swtor.com/free/features) (mouse over the areas for more details, some are just level restrictions). Even quest rewards are curtailed (though those seem only to be money chests). The restrictions are rather annoying, but not crippling. I do have to admit that I'm already planning on using pre-paid time cards for this. Unfortunately, it'll have to wait until my next payday (see money spent on graphics card). Some of these restrictions are lifted just by a one-time purchase of 450 Cartel Coins ($4.99 US). Not a horrible thing, especially since a lot of the restrictions are aimed at making gold farmers have a harder time, or at least a more expensive one.
Is anyone else playing? Or at least willing to give it a shot? If so, I'm on Ebon Hawk/Republic side, same name as here. You'll have to level up to 10 to send a whisper though, unless subscribing.
I recently finished Bulletstorm, which is 1-2 days of playtime at best. Not sure about the replay value.
It's an FPS designed around stunts, or 'skillshots' to kill enemies in a variety of horrifying and gruesome ways. The story's actually kind of bad in a lot of ways, so it comes together in a surprisingly entertaining comedic violence sense -- well, very graphically violent, but the game does not take itself seriously, and probably neither should you.
The 'stunt' elements you get for killing your foes in creative and specific ways award points, which you use to upgrade your weapon's capacities, or get them new abilities. The game limits you to one main and two secondary weapons at a time; your main weapon never changes, but you can swap out the secondaries any time you find one or hit a drop station (which are pretty much everywhere).
Much to my surprise, the game, for all that it is crude, constantly full of the most vulgar swearing imaginable, and almost absurdly violent ... is actually a lot of fun. The first time you perform a given skillshot you get a massive bonus, so it really incentivizes trying to get all the different kills at least once, and even though every weapon has about a dozen skillshots, there are dozens more generic and environmental skillshots.
Damage surfaces abound, and you have the ability to pull enemies (or things) at range close, and also kick them away. As you can imagine, this makes for a lot of kicking tough enemies into various environmental hazards -- giant fans, crackling sheets of electricity, fire, piranha infested water, the vacuum of space, and so on. I didn't get 100% of all skillshots before I beat the game, but I was able to fully upgrade all of the weapons (which was good, because the same points are used to buy ammo -- not as bad as it sounds).
It's surprisingly entertaining, and the price is ... well, I don't know. 19.99 seems pretty fair for around 10 hours of gameplay, more if you're a completionist. It's just as easy to put it on a watchlist -- pretty much any sale would probably be worth it. Of course, you don't need to take a gamble -- if you're on steam, there's a demo.
The game ends with a very blatant sequel hook, and I for one, would not complain about more. For a game I picked up yesterday and beat today, I had an awful lot of fun with it.
I finally got around to beating Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
I played it on the highest difficulty, and as a pacifist.
The ending is, much like the original DE, a decision-hub. Choose your ending. You can even save there and immediately get a different ending if you don't like the one you picked.
Interestingly enough, even though the footage for the ending sequences is largely the same, it's brought up in the ending narration how you played the game (I think; while I viewed all the endings, I wasn't going to replay it again). A nice little reference to, "Always attempted to not abuse power."
What really surprised me was even when I picked was I was sure was the 'bad' ending first, instead of making my efforts feel pointless, Jensen's speech about why he chose that option made it ... really profound and poignant. It turned out to be my favorite of all the endings.
It makes me want to compare DE:HR to another blockbuster title -- one of a trilogy -- where the endings were also very similar ... but all bad.
Interesting contrast.
Anyway, the game turned out to be surprisingly philosophical, and I found the endings moving. Even the illuminati ending wasn't terrible. Overall, good stuff -- while I haven't really tried it as a proper shooter (instead, I treated it like a stealth sim -- we have plenty of shooters), it's really good at what it does. It's fun, if it requires a slightly different mindset from most games.
It's got RPG elements-- Leveling up, quests, side-quests, character interactions....
I'm a bit surprised at how little there is to complain about. Absolutely worth picking up on a steamsale if you haven't tried it, unless you can't handle first-person PoV.
Quote from: Brian on December 15, 2012, 08:47:22 PMunless you can't handle first-person PoV.
You mock my pain! =p
Quote from: Brian on December 15, 2012, 08:47:22 PM
Interestingly enough, even though the footage for the ending sequences is largely the same, it's brought up in the ending narration how you played the game (I think; while I viewed all the endings, I wasn't going to replay it again). A nice little reference to, "Always attempted to not abuse power."
What really surprised me was even when I picked was I was sure was the 'bad' ending first, instead of making my efforts feel pointless, Jensen's speech about why he chose that option made it ... really profound and poignant. It turned out to be my favorite of all the endings.
There is a subtle variation with the speeches that Adam makes depending on just how many people you've killed throughout the course of the game. Basically if you do pacifist or near pacifist then Adam's optimistic, if you fall somewhere in the middle then so does he, and if you kill pretty much everyone then he's pessimistic.
I am curious though, is the ending you're referring to the one where
he sinks Panchaea so that no one can put a spin on the events, not even Adam himself?
Either way, that ending made the most sense to me, since it seemed the most in line with a lot of Adam's own outlook and motivations. To me at least it was the
Sarif/fully embrace augmentation ending
that seemed to be the worst in terms of just ringing the most hollow. Even if
you played Adam as someone who loves what the augs give him despite the fact they weren't his choice
it still doesn't make that much sense to me.
Yeah, that lines up with my experiences, Grahf.
Quote from: Merc on December 15, 2012, 10:35:13 PMYou mock my pain! =p
Actually ... I was thinking of Gate. I didn't know you had the same issue. :(
But I meant it as a fair warning, not something to sucker you into getting the game only to find out too late.
Don't take it seriously.
I do have the issue also (and I didn't know Gate did!), but it's not like I'm going to be buying more games any time soon anyway.
I have more than enough games just sitting in my steam account or bookcase that need to get played some day, that I can do with missing certain titles. And I tend to check for the first person perspective thing before I buy a game anyway.
Playing Hotline: Miami. What a strange, frenetic, hyper violent thing it is.
Dying easily ten times or more a minute seems to be the norm, relatively expected since with the press of a button you're plunked back down at the beginning of that particular section. Given that enemy A.I. is somewhat sporadic at best -- ranging from incredibly stupid to borderline prescience, sometimes in the span of a handful of seconds -- it can lead to some incredibly frustrating moments. Still, given the explosive outburst type of action the game seems centred on said frustration is often short enough lived.
The story ... I'm not sure where the story is really going to be honest. I've only done up to about mission six, but even with what little you're given things don't seem right. The fact that
the shopkeeper you encounter after your missions is the same one regardless of whether you go to the pizza place, the convenience store, the bar, or the movie place
must mean something, because it's not just lazy art direction, I'm sure of it. Given how the game begins I'm starting to wonder if
the entire thing is an incredibly long psychotic break of some sort that the player character is experiencing.
Playing RAGE which seems to be ... kind of halfway between Fallout 3 and Borderlands? So far, the equipment variety really falls behind, and I haven't unlocked the crafting system. Sliiiiightly more depth in gameplay than Borderlands, but less than FO3.
Really only just gotten through the first half (presumably) of Tutoria, so I'll have to see. At least reasonably fun for the relatively mindless run-and-gun action so far.
Darkest Hour
This is a revamped Hearts of Iron 2 mod released awhile back. I picked it up for cheap on Amazon. It's Hearts of Iron with some tweaks and much better AI, so it's fun for the same reasons Hearts of Iron 2 is. The decision system is a huge step forward and allows some elegant options events can't handle as smoothly. I'm playing as America from 1933 on and it's pretty fun. It's easy, but a human with America's resources (also the resources are upgraded over HoI2, which I completely agree with, game balance be damned. America in WW2 wasn't balanced.) can bulldoze almost anything. I'm aiming to take out Japan as normal, hopefully by about '43 or '44. Meanwhile, Germany will depend on how they do. If Germany forces Russia to the Bitter Peace, I'll focus from '45 on with liberating Europe. If Russia's won, I'll make some new suns over Moscow, St. Petersburg and Vladivostok before getting down to stamping out the commies. Should be fun either way it goes.
Playing La Mulana. It makes me feel nostalgic. It's Indiana Jones + Metroid!
So I've finished Wild ARMs 3 lately.
I can't remember the last time I've felt this way, but that game has absolutely grown on me. In the beginning it suffers from having split perspectives among the four characters, and just not really having a strong hook. However I kept playing it because I found the gameplay intriguing, as healing items are limited, gold and experience from random fights are limited (and you, in fact, get far more gold just by exploring than by grinding) and items being really useful, but limited. Oh, and no weapon/armor equipping to futz about with, but you instead shift around guardians, the things that give you spells, and they can have a big impact on your stats, the guardians you have equipped.
Anyway, as the characters were rather limited and hampered in the beginning, all four of them, I didn't care for them. But character development happened, gradually, and I found myself genuinely enjoying these characters that I previously felt ambivalence for. I didn't even realize how much they had grown until, after I beat the game, I restarted the game in a New Game+ just to play around, and the previous boring character interactions that I had chalked up originally to bad writing suddenly meant a LOT more, compared to how they ended up. That is, the way they were introduced and and who they talked to and what they did was actually pretty significant.
The more I remember it, the more I like the game. And I haven't had that kind of reaction to a game in... well, I'm not sure if I ever have. And it wasn't a situation where it was awful until some magic moment, it grew better steadily until I absolutely loved it.
WA3 went some weird places toward the end -- and with the ending -- but all-in-all was a really fun game. The optional bosses are kinda....
Well, anyway, I enjoyed the WA series until that point quite a bit.
I enjoyed it precisely because it went weird places - those places that I couldn't easily predict, but made sense when I looked at it in hindsight. For me, the entire Wild ARMs 3 experience was about how many tropes existed and got subverted when I wasn't expecting it.
Last week, I dug up Angband 3.0.6 and tried playing it again (the Windows client appears to work perfectly on Windows 8). This afternoon, during my lunch break, I lost a really promising character in an unseen 1-hit kill. After about five or six days, my high-elf wizard had managed to slap together a set of fairly badass gear, and was diving pretty (and surviving) far out of depth dungeon level 72 at clevel 38. He had all the resistances except Nether, Chaos, Disenchant, up to +31 speed, ESP...basically, I was set to win, as long as I was careful.
I wasn't careful enough. While running back to land the finishing blows on a Ringwraith, the Mouth of Sauron (a unique monster) 1-hit killed him with a mana storm. And my first thought was "Huh. Well, that sucks. Time to roll up a new character."
And then I remembered that according to the industry, I'm not supposed to react this way. I'm supposed to get pissed off and ragequit. It was a fairly surreal moment.
Man, if that's how you react to roguelikes, you are EXACTLY the kind of person who should be playing them. Ever given Tales of Maj'Eyal a look? It's my favorite of them right now.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 06, 2013, 11:06:18 PMAnd then I remembered that according to the industry, I'm not supposed to react this way. I'm supposed to get pissed off and ragequit. It was a fairly surreal moment.
No, according to the industry, that is how you should be reacting.
Most people who actually play the game don't fit within the spectrum of the industry's target audience. They like other parts. Then the industry adapts to cater to their actual playerbase instead of the one they wanted.
See also: Dwarf Fortress.
Fire Emblem 13 is a thing that I now have. It is very good. Only beef with it thus far is low deployment numbers for the maps. I'm not used to getting more people then I can field THIS early in an FE. Also that it has no Normal mode. It has Hard, which is in fact Hard. And it has Easy, which they apparently mislabeled and are calling it Normal. It's pretty comedicly easy. Ah well, I'll just play on Hard then~
The last two days I was playing Cave of Bugs with Hal and Brian.
Apparently we had a fantastic experience with only having one game unsolvable bug on our first playthrough.
As opposed to a half dozen we encountered in the very first puzzle space on our second.
Overall, despite the interesting writing and cool narration, despite the neat co-opness and clever artstyle, it is a puzzle game that has regular game stopping or experience changing bugs. Given that puzzle games naturally tend to walk into walls anyway, I can't recommend anyone touch this.
With 3 folks it definitely has camera/keep the team together awkwardness that could be solved with more controllable cameras, camera indicators, and most relevantly, the auto-suicide bringing you to the person who has the camera (and being usable off screen), rather than just bringing you to the last checkpoint.
We certainly had more of our fair share of 'all 3 of us go down this ladder, one misjumps and dies, and now he's carried off camera and can't do anything until we play the camera juggling game again.' And while the puzzle solving was fun, the camera juggling game (played often) was not.
Also, designwise? Give a shake head to the waterways in the game. No real indicator whether or not going through them would drown you or not. Camera juggling alone could cause a death there from having you stall for even a second in the water, but also just some of them being too long without any indicator until you've already swam a ways and drowned. Coloring of the waterways would've done wonders there.
Been playing Fallout New Vegas.
Having a lot of fun with it.
But then I played Lonesome Road DLC. And so I must Rant as it pissed in the gaming pond hard. It'll have spoilers. Spoiler: Nobody should play this.
Lonesome Road is pretty much a package of all the worst parts of fallout 3 (and derivatives) in one go, with a carrot lure of following up on the initial setup and also getting some upgrades and stat ups for your awesome robot and story for your eyebot.
Good side: Some chatter from your eyebot. You get upgrades for it and a stat point.
That's it. Everything else is bad.
Even the good side doesn't go anywhere you didn't already know. All of the liveliness they give Ed-e in the DLC vanishes the second you leave it and during it, it is hugely distracting to have Ed-e beeping at random things without any seemingly rhyme or reason to most of it...only just a tiny fraction that itself teaches you to pay attention to the noisey beeps. The story revealed is basically: Ed-e had a shitty life, then met you. Well, really? I didn't get that from it being a disassembled wreck when you meet it. Oh, right, the 'Good' end of this DLC includes murdering Ed-e? What a 'good side' indeed.
I'll start from the beginning. From the start, the DLC locks you in this old world facility with the statement you can stop at any time. Unlike the rest of the game, it views this as the alternative option and will solely give you shitty retarded options in every other case. I mean firing nuke, blowing up nukes, murdering everyone, etc. Every option offered within the DLC (with max everything) are just bad options and the game lambasts you throughout for continuing to play it. Literally, the main NPC calls you up and reminds you that you are a terrible person for playing it at the end of pretty much every segment. And there's no other option to continue the game. It repeatedly offers you "Blow up nuke or Quit Game" with no path around. It really strongly begs the question of how all these other people were wandering around these area without a problem with their enormous blocked passages between zones.
There are no quests. The entire thing is just walking forward and murdering things. There is one person you can talk to in the entire DLC and he is super douchebag Ulysses. I'll get back to that later, but seriously, no quests. Just rewards for walking farther in it and having murdered and nuked what was behind you.
By the way? Rival Mailman has to be among the dumber ways to pitch the rivalry. And it comes off especially dumb if you're anything but hardcore NCR, since a lot of Ulysses' bitching isn't about you at all. Using a mailman (an explicitly replacable entity) as forces of great impact was retarded, and while during the main game it's no big deal (just your job), here it is treated like you should've been responsible for every package you ever delivered, IN A WORLD WHERE SUPER-ROBOTS ARE READILY AVAILBLE TO DO CHORES.
Anyhow, right after the beginning, you get Ed-e, who you were forced to abandon not 5 minutes earlier because it is DLC. As already noted, you will either be killing Ed-e (the only companion you get for the next few hours) or murdering thousands and reshaping the more of the world in terrible nuclear fire. Because those are the only options, should you actually play this game and not take its implicit suggestion to uninstall new vegas entirely. Really, what the FUCK was going through their heads that they thought placing players in a situation where all they could do is horrible atrocities with the reminder that you can stop anytime if you don't want to commit horrible atrocities was an okay thing? If I had encountered this before old world blues, I would've just stopped playing entirely. Anyhow, Ed-e is along with you for the ride, to tell it's story too of its hard life, in case there wasn't enough sadness going on.
Wandering out of this location (A nuclear base), leads you to a really nuked over overworld area. Where apparently everyone there has decided to form a side known as "We are somehow not dead despite being at ground zero of a nuclear disaster, have retained our awareness, and have decided that we can somehow survive in this place". Basically, they take the ghoul capabilities all the way into complete ridiculousness. How are these people not starved/dehydrated to death? They're not descended to feral animals, but they've basically decided that they should team up with former enemies against everyone just because? In a world where both individuality and factions run strong, these are your army of intelligent faceless mooks. They don't want you to leave or anything, they just are shooting at you because you're there? Way to descend into frothing pointlessness?
We then start getting lectured about this awesome place growing here before it got nuked. There is literally no indication of this anywhere in the setting or dialogue. Everything that I encountered was either from long ago in history or just destroyed entirely. There was no indication at all of any post-fallout society anywhere here. Not one bit. Way to setting fail guys. Were you too focused on the road to realize that it doesn't sell that I blew up some city here if there is no city nor even a cleared out spot that would've made sense for people to have been living in? There is one bunker, but that's it. Nobody you kill has any story or journals or dialogue or view of the events. And your character actually is delivered as not remembering it... so there's nothing but Ulysses rantings to go on that there ever was a divide. Nobody in the gameworld even comments on it (With one extremely vague exception that doesn't use any names). By the way? Way to continue the trend of completely incompetent NCR. Awesome that we get choices between: Slavery, Tyranny, Incompetence, and going solo for the real world, despite NCR being traditional good guys. Nope, here they were retarded again, thanks Obsidian. Apparently the NCR mailed itself a nuclear detonator of some kind and then blew up the nukes. Because anyone in fallout would be so horrifically stupid as to be playing around with nukes for military purposes.
"Hey guys, it seems there's a lot of nukes here. We could fire them at Caesar."
"Okay, someone take general completely stupid outside and shoot him. Preferrably staring at any of the toxic wasteland sites that are literally within viewing distance of almost every human settlement in the world from the last nuclear war."
Basically, everyone here and the impulses that set off the original disaster are so incredibly stupid that it becomes farcical that they're being taken seriously. And then blame the mailman. Of course, they're the ones that made it possible. No one else would've provided a way for them to get their horrible disaster from Navarro (Enclave not NCR usually, btw) to Divide.
Fallout New Vegas surprised me by resolving the most important problem to my eyes with Fallout 3: Shitty, hard to traverse terrain. Guess what? Lonesome Road brings it back, with regular blocked routes, unsurpassable hills, lack of a free roaming goalset, and 3d maps (so that your local map maker stops being helpful. Sure I know I need to get on that hill, but I sure don't know that I need to go the opposite way, climb up the side, up the tower, climb over it, leap down onto it, and then cross the bridge...) Sure, it was a minor bit, but for me it ended up adding about a half hour to getting through the tiresome DLC and certainly didn't help an already miserable experience delivery.
Most of the DLCs had named villains of some kind that had opinions. Usually these opinions were "Shoot you", but they had them. Here? Named guys just are mini-bosses. They have no story, no dialogue, no reaction, no bypassing (well Rawr is bypassable I think), and basically are just upgraded versions of the rather beefy mooks that were everywhere. Just generally a large step back from the 'everyone named should have personality' of New Vegas.
All of the DLCs had some special weapons. Here was the Red Glare, the biggest, noisest and generally why bother weapon to pick up. It fired missiles. Cool. Direct hits meant you needed like 3-6 hits to kill each one of the enemy. Or I could shoot them with Christina's sniper rifle. Or the gauss rifle. Or smash them with a power fist. Or any number of things that actually took them out in 1 or 2 hits without firing giant party damaging explosions everywhere. Why in the world was Red Glare so weak? It seemed nothing actually turned it's giant explosions into devestating hits, despite it's enormous visible explosions. It just really wasn't much different than just pulling out one of the fancier pistols.
The DLC was big on East vs West. Nobody bitched on it like Ulysses. But the East was basically one state (Arizona) and the west was basically california... Ignoring that Fallout 3 was in DC. The rest of the country can be ignored though. :P
But the worst? The Worst was Ulysses. His background is that of a failure and a hypocrit in reality, but he's built up as some sort of superman in the other DLCs. Even though his tribe got killed off, and he served with Caesar, and he apparently stalked you for ages without killing you. He's a hypocrit who has ended two (almost three) entire cultures, but completely holds a grudge on the whole divide getting destroyed. Go mailman, pretend you're just a mailman, when you trained tribals to kill and murder en masse. But anyhow, he basically sets this whole thing up to kill you without dirtying his hands... or get access to a nuke? Who knows! Cuz I sure thing if all he needed was some eyebot code, it would've been easier to walk around the mess whatever way he did (through the unpassable walls on either side of a region he has marked~), then to involve the hero at all. And that was in classic shitty villain fashion the only way a lose condition for him showed up. Hey the hero got killed, guess no nuke since the device was destroyed with him/her.
Ulysses won't shut up about history, but at no point is this part of expressing an actual philosophy. Compared to all of the sides outside, he's basically taken a 'let the world burn and self-destruct in the worst way possible' philosophy. But he's very bitter and bitchy about it too. He is the singular least motivated individual in Fallout New Vegas. Nobody seems so utterly purposeless as he is. Except maybe the faceless mooks shooting and cutting each other in this DLC. They might be possible more lacking in motivation. This seems singularly wasteful as they spent multiple DLCs building him up.
The wiki has some designer quote from Chris about Ulysses being awesome. But the thing is, You the Player have no agency in this interaction. You weren't even there for your character having caused the disaster. And so his whiny bitchy self-destructive lecture sessions miss the point. You didn't pull the trigger that started his obsession with you, so it's very difficult to even feel associated with the blame he's trying to stick on your character or his own incompetent murderous intent. So as he walks the player down effectively a corridor of switches where each time you pull one, the next door opens and something terrible happens (like firing a nuke off), you also don't have any agency, since when the game will give you skill checks or options at all (and they're ridiculously high when they show up), they don't actually matter in changing anything. You can no more finish it without firing a nuke off or blowing up dozens of nukes or murdering lots of people than you can start fallout without getting a character. It's an inevitable and thus stupid line of events.
I think that's about all that was bad with it. Actually, there's one more. The DLC doesn't as I understand affect the main game at all. Despite doing something that should be literally country reshaping, nothing changes.
It had one good part. When I finished it, I turned right back around and pulled out the mystery man magnum. The guitar music played and I shot the main character of the DLC in the back of the head and chucked him off the cliff. That was gratifying. :)
Beat new vegas. Many asked me my thoughts. Overall, had fun with it, though I can see why it didn't get the stellar praise that it was going for.
New Vegas: Good, but crashy and some silly storyline deadends, one character has no good endings at all -80ish. Not surprised really that it alone failed to meet the high standards for quality though, even though I enjoyed it way more than FO3. I definitely encountered upwards of 30 crashes in my run, and this is the fully patched way after release version.
Old World Blues: Great, 85ish. The characters were really fun and it had a silly scifi vibe.
Dead Money - Kinda meh and with a stupid lesson at the end?
Oh, here's a ton of gold, and not only is it too heavy to carry, but it isn't worth too much anyway and most things won't have much money to pay you for it regardless.
Honest Hearts - Not bad, but kind of scripted/forgettable.
Lonesome Road - All the hate in the fallout universe, gathered in one intensely shitty DLC.
I liked Dead Money a lot because the NPCs were great and it generally succeeded at evoking a tense, creepy atmosphere. Also holorifle, I love that thing so damned much. I still don't entirely understand the hate some people leveled at Dead Money because, what, they took away all your shiny toys and the game was actually marginally difficult for a few hours? That said, Old World Blues is definitely the most recommendable of the DLCs. I laughed more at the first conversation with the Think Tank than I have throughout the entirety of most games.
Honest Hearts really only has the survivalist journals in its favor. I hope you found all of those (especially the last one), because they're excellent work. Otherwise, yeah,
manages to be shockingly uninteresting. I guess I do like that both of the ending options are fundamentally successful but sad in their own way? It's something. Lonesome Road, well, at least it
had an adversary that communicated with you, more than can be said for Honest Hearts. Ulysses is inconsistently written (it felt too easy to talk him into standing down) and trying to make something profound out of mailman was indeed a very wrongheaded starting point for the character, but I give the voice actor credit for doing his level best to breathe some personality into the guy. Dude sounds like my mental impression of Discworld Death.
Yeah, the DLC is wildly uneven. I do think that the base New Vegas content is the most impressive effort at worldbuilding I've seen in a game, though, and I adore it for that despite the crashing and the frequently laughable lack of challenge. Critical reviews concluding that FO3 > FONV baffle me like nothing in the world. I am not sure I've seen a game fill so much space and use it to produce a world so less worth caring about than did FO3.
Pardon my favor for that guy who keeps askin' me not to spoil the stuff for him. :)
I never finished FO3. The sewers finished me and well, the Nation of Tod destroyed my ability to believe in their world building. "You're from the WASTELAND!" *looks 3 feet to the left, to where a giant rad scorpion is dead against the side of the fence* *looks down at the lack of actual floor, just barren poorly textured ground* "Sure. Sure I am."
Honest Hearts can easily be declared bland (as much as the Ranger stuff seemed neat. I didn't track much of it down). But I found it blandly unoffensive. Dead Money...There was a lot I liked there. I definitely had trouble seeing in it though with how dark and foggy the area was and despite reading how to and having a stealthy char, I really had trouble dealing with the final encounter how I was intending to. Overall, I could see the makings of a great experience, but I felt that the terrain design brought it down and the story telling didn't quite manage to bring it up, so it got more of a meh from me. I certainly don't look down on it. The NPCs were great. I kind of wish they didn't hamstring you to one at a time, and they got to shine in a yammering at each other way the whole way though.
Stealthing through the final encounter? Yeah, I think that enemy just has ridiculous awareness or something, even with maxed stealth it's tough to evade being detected there. I think the only way to do it is ignore the front door and backtrack through the entire area, which is kind of ridiculous. Besides, if you just stealth past, you don't get their gauss rifle!
Quote from: El Cideon on February 26, 2013, 12:01:30 AM
Stealthing through the final encounter? Yeah, I think that enemy just has ridiculous awareness or something, even with maxed stealth it's tough to evade being detected there. I think the only way to do it is ignore the front door and backtrack through the entire area, which is kind of ridiculous. Besides, if you just stealth past, you don't get their gauss rifle!
That is exactly it. All of the rational ways to leave that encounter get blocked by forcefields. So the only way is indeed to run through the entire area (which does appear to be a loop then). The encounter also has super-vision, so if you have line of sight at any point, you are spotted. Just doing an all out run was the only thing that seemed to work.
In IRC, someone mentioned that I should try out the newer versions of Angband because it "actually has graphics." I don't know what sort of heresy that is, but since I'd always intended to check out some of the Angband variants as well, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and try ToME, which stands for Tales of Middle EarthSomething Unpronounceable But Avoids Cease And Desist Letters.
It used to cover lots of areas and events in Middle Earth, but the developer removed everything Tolkien related in the new version 4. There are still versions of the old 2.3.5 floating around, the last made by the developer Dark God, if anyone is interested in wandering around killing Ringwraiths, saving Gondolin, and such. As a bonus, it may even include ASCII "graphics" rather than the new stuff, although I'm not sure about that.
Gamewise, ToME was well known for having a story, lots of races and base classes, and lots of minibosses that would drop randomly created artifacts that would range from pointless to amazing to absurdly stupid (activate every 200 turns for death). It's kept those to a large degree.
My thoughts on a few aspects, in no particular order...
Story: Traditionally Western RPGs, like Angband, had about this much story: (1) Go to General Store (2) Buy Lantern (3) Kill Morgoth. Eastern RPGs went the other route of letting you fight the final boss for hours and hours, burning all of your rare items in the final battle and doing millions of damage, only to find that you've done no damage because your defeat is a scripted event. ToME takes the road of not restricting where you can explore (if you want to go to Dreadfell at level 1, go ahead!), and presenting the world's history and current events in little scrolls you find called lore. This is where I'd hoped RPGs would go, rather than adopt railroading wholesale. So, three thumbs up on this part from me (or two for now. I'll steal someone's thumb later on).
Characters/Classes: point/tree system for both races and classes. As noted earlier, there are lots of choices. In a questionable move, most of them are locked, and have to be unlocked in-game. I could even understand that, if the classes were really niche or challenge classes. But who decided locking classes like "Wizard" by default was a good idea? That's a shame, because there's lots of types of skills/power sources, and the game give you plenty of opportunitiLetes to branch out into other areas. Restricting people from reasonable starting choices is pretty nonsensical.
Controls: mouse and/or keyboard. This can be detrimental if you're only using mouse since the pointer is not very precise, and missing a widget may be interpreted by the game to run somewhere. Running into a pack of frost giants when you were just trying to reach the stat screen to level up is not a pleasant way to die.
Extra lives: Like non-ASCII graphics, this is one of those things I find disappointing, but most will not. There are two default adventuring modes: Roguelike, which gets you one life. Adventure, which gets you an extra life when you reach certain milestones (I don't know what those milestones are, because I've never used this mode). So if you ever wanted to try playing a Roguelike but wanted a kiddie-pool option rather than the glorious rush that comes from surviving by the skin of your teeth on your one and only life, this game offers one.
Dungeons: Randomly created persistent dungeons of fixed depth. I think ToME shines here; the developer has thrown together some nice ideas or nice twists on old ideas. Those ideas don't always work (Trollmire, an attempt to make a forest look like an actual forest rather than the traditional Rogue-halls and rooms, is annoying to actually explore), but sometimes they do.
While it's slightly rough in a few spots (e.g, Invisibility spell states that because you're ought of phase with the world, "your damage is reduced by 70 percent." Does that mean damage I deal, or damage I take? That's important information to know before I sacrifice 200 mana for a spell!), and it does have some mechanics bullshit that I disagree with (which I won't get into here), it feels mostly well crafted and is probably a nice balance between starter roguelike, and...well, Rogue.
Finished my play through of Tomb Raider tonight at about 3 sittings and 92 percent. Had a good time, got surprised by things that changed since I'd been attentive to the project, and hope those getting it have a good time on tuesday when it comes out :)
I'll fling up some comical blooper moments later. Like the ghost flashlight.
First I gotta tease the rest of the folks about it. :)
Playing the DQ8 postgame.
I fought dragon 2 (of technically 9, or maybe eight?). It took like an hour and a dozen deaths. My strategy kinda didn't go all that right, but I had enough power to really only spend 30 percent resources to take it down. So not great for the eventual "AND YOU FIGHT THEM ALL TOGETHER" fight.
I suppose the Dragonlord has good reason to be cocky about literally holding off my group of level 50 monsters for an hour. I think the most 'heeey' bit was him going 25 rounds without using a certain spell effect. Then when my counter for it backfired on me hard...and I took it down, immediately doing it twice in a row. "AHA AN OPENING, GIGAFLASH".
Finished my DQ8 run. Now trying out Amalur.
It's tutorials really do want you to be reallllly specific.
So, recently played Divinity 2.
It's the third game in a series called Divine Divinity (Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, and Divinity 2: The Developer's Cut). I picked up all three on Steam sale for fairly cheap. So far, it has been an excellent investment. As a note, Divinity 2: The Developer's Cut is actually two games in one, sorta. They released a stand alone expansion that continues exactly where the original release left off. Additionally, if you start the original game, and have the Dev's version, the game *automatically* continues into the expansion, completely seamlessly, which was a really nice touch once I figured it out.
I've only played a bit of the first two. Reason for this is they're traditional third person, world down view RPGs. I got into the first one and realized they were going to be time sinks. Since I had school, I skipped on them to play Divinity 2, which is a third person action RPG, figuring those types of games tend to be shorter.
Well, not sure about that anymore. I've got 41 hours into it and have failed/missed a number of quests. There is simply a *lot* to do in the game, in addition to the game having moral routes.
The game starts with your character being an initiate Dragon Slayer. Your job is to, predictably, slay dragons. Unfortunately for you, your predecessors were *really* good at their jobs, so there's only one left. The dragons you fight aren't actually dragons, btw, but Dragon Knights. They are basically mortals who, either through their own power or by being chosen, were given the power of a dragon. Things get a bit crazy for your character in the first part of the game, though it takes a decent bit of time for you to get to that point.
Predictable plot spoiler:
At some point, you come across the Dragon Knight solo. Which is sort of a bad thing, considering you're the newest Dragon Slayer. Not only are you the newest, but you haven't fully completed the rituals, which leave you vulnerable to some of the dragon's abilities. The dragon, predictably, abuses this and you wind up getting dragon powers. This causes a bit of conflict later in the game.
This includes the ability to transform into a dragon form. They've separated the dragon form stuff from the non-dragon form stuff. Basically, when you're a dragon, everything is air to air combat. No normal ground units will even show up if you fly to the ground, and vice versa; no air units will attack you unless you're in dragon form.
The game is long and involved. It has a ton of moral choices and a ton of quests. I haven't done a second play through of the game yet, so I can't say how significant those choices are, but they are there. The evolution of the game is fairly predictable, but also manages to throw a few loops in there. Some quests take a bit of actual problem solving instead of just handing it to you on a plate, and the hidden things in the game are the same way. The puzzles in the game often require you to run back and forth in the current areas you're in, but with the number of quests in each area, it's easy to hit things up as you go from one to the next, so it's not as off-putting as I was expecting. The puzzles also sometimes require you to actually use the lore of the world and read books, as well as the 'special' treasure chests in the world require you to find keys, and they don't always drop off of monsters. A lot of the time, you have to solve mini-puzzles, explore, and find actual hidden keys. A few of the chests require you to make a minor moral decision to get access to the keys.
Hidden rooms and hidden buttons tend not to stand out at all, and are fairly easy to miss if you're not watching for details, which is pretty nice. Also, a lot of the times the first hidden button or key you find leads you into a mini-puzzle that you have to solve with no lore assistance at all, which I found to be kind of nice. I like solving things.
As for character customization, there's a fair bit. You have basic stats that you put points in, 4 per level, and then you have an ability tree, which you get 1 point for each level. Initially, this will seem a bit stingy, since you can put multiple points into a single ability, but the game has Skillbooks in the world and as quest rewards. These books, surprise, give you one additional skill point, and they become fairly common quest rewards further into the game.
The intro makes you pick a 'class' but after that, you have free and full access to all trees, those being Mage, Warrior, and Ranger, with a fourth tree based on Dragon Slayer specialties (weapon specializations, inventory upgrades, ect). Class abilities are point buy, with an initial cap of 5 points per skill. Those caps can be raised over the course of the game by both questing and abuse of one of your dragon slayer abilities: Mindread. It's exactly what it says, and using it initially creates an experience debt. While that sounds sorta bad, while the mobs in the game don't exactly 'level' with you (so if you do everything you can, you *will* be slightly OP, which is sorta nice in that it makes you feel powerful, but not insanely so), their XP seems to keep pace with you, so the experience debt never really became an issue for me. At least that I noticed. Additionally, abuse of this ability is encouraged because using it will grant you additional stat points or skill points fairly often.
I can say that it was much more involved than I expected, really, with each area of the game having a significant amount of space and side/mini-dungeons to explore. The hidden stuff, while sometimes a pain to figure out/find, was all pretty accessible, and while some of the puzzles and jumping puzzles were sometimes annoying because of some minor clipping issues (just barely catch the edge of something sticking out and you fall straight down), nothing really got me overly annoyed or frustrated. All in all, it's a pretty good balance throughout.
You can pick it up in a pack on Steam sale, the Divinity Anthology, which is normally $29.99. It goes on sale fairly often, so unless you need something *right now,* I'd hold off until a sale hit. The first two normally run $5.99, with Divinity 2 going for $19.99.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on March 23, 2013, 01:45:39 PM
It's the third game in a series called Divine Divinity (Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, and Divinity 2: The Developer's Cut). I picked up all three on Steam sale for fairly cheap.
I've only played a bit of the first two. Reason for this is they're traditional third person, world down view RPGs. I got into the first one and realized they were going to be time sinks.
I bought the first two from GOG way back when, before Divinity 2 was even out. In fact, I think those were the first games I ever bought from them.
The first one is just as you describe it. There is one additional interesting aspect, where equipment abilities are randomly generated, which means you can get random crap and the occasional exceptional weapon. I spent most of the game using a sword that had the freeze spell that activated on hit and Vamipirism, even though there were many theoretically "better" weapons around.
The second one is buggy as hell. The first one was the same, but they'd later patched it so that it was actually stable. No such consideration was given for the second when I bought it. If you plan on returning to the earlier ones, you might want to check to see if they've patched it (or see if you're willing to put up with Ultima IX levels of crashing).
Played Master of Orion 2, which I'd bought off of GOG months ago, but had not gotten around to playing again until last week (after I finished Ultima 5 and 6 again). Won an 8 player game on average through a series of fortuitous circumstances.
Started playing Bioshock: Infinite last night.
Feels a bit more ... arcadey than the first two. Setting is fabulous, though.
Just need to figure out what's wrong with my video card, since it likes to flash bright spots all over the screen, and randomly stretch shadows from any object to the horizon ... and it's doing that in quite a few games now. :|
Playing more Reckoning. Just got my first solid 'What I make from crafting is way better than what I already have, a 100+ rise in Armor Rating redirecting me from my set pieces.
Learned that the Widow's army of spiders doesn't count as dangerous enough foes to have fate.
But killed them anyway.
Final Fantasy 4 PSP
I'm replaying this, just got Child Rydia. It's Final Fantasy 4 so I don't have much to say. The only real thing of note is that I forgot now pretty the game looks on the PSP. Say what I will about FF4 rehash number...5? 7? Whatever, but at least they spent some time with the art assets.
I wish they'd do that kind of remake for VI. Oh well.
I've been playing a lot of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The story is about what you'd expect for a Metal Gear game, although they only really start getting preachy about stuff near the end of the line.
The gameplay itself is quite good, Platinum has a fine track record when it comes to these kinds of things, and they don't disappoint in this case, at least I don't think so. That's not to say it's without problems of course, the main one being the camera, god the camera. Worst enemy in the game, the only one you can't beat. The VR missions are also the usual, which means they were designed for completists and/or masochists.
Overall though, a very enjoyable and replayable game, which I suppose was the point.
Ditto. It doesn't seem like it's that big an effort versus the likely payout.
I've been playing three things lately.
Assassin's Creed 3, which is basically the same as the last few Assassin's Creed games except the protagonist is some beardless putz. Also he wears blue. Ish. Stuff. I have enjoyed the Assassin's Creed series, but this is weaker than both Brotherhood and Revelations. I'm not sure why I think that though.
But either way, if you got bored with those there's no point playing this.
-
I've also been playing Half-Minute Hero, which is an amusing gag game and has given me more than enough amusement to justify the $3.50 I paid for it.
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Third is . . . Deadlight, a post-apocalyptic zombie platformer. I think I'm about halfway through, maybe a bit more.
The good: It's not a bad platformer; platform games aren't usually my cup of tea but this is fairly smooth and the controls are responsive and intuitive.
The bad: I haven't finished the game, but the hints are all over the damn place. For the love of $#@%, can we stop doing these apocalypse games with the hamfisted 'twist' that the main character has mental problems of some kind and their reality is skewed. Seriously.
Quote from: Rezantis on April 01, 2013, 08:13:08 PM
The bad: I haven't finished the game, but the hints are all over the damn place. For the love of $#@%, can we stop doing these apocalypse games with the hamfisted 'twist' that the main character has mental problems of some kind and their reality is skewed. Seriously.
Hmm...has anyone ever tried the reverse? The backstory could be that you're a mental patient who continually experiences shifts in reality, and you *know* that people are out to get you. Partway through the game, it's revealed that you're actually shifting through quantum realities, and there is a inter-reality organization that really is out to get you. Of course, since you're considered a mental patient in most realities, it's a bit hard to get actual assistance...
I forget the name of it, but there was a point-and-click adventure game based on something like that.
What I'd like to see is a game with a surrealist/nonsensical/"It's all a metaphor for X" type story where they mock the growing and irritating trend by having the reveal be that you're a relatively normal guy who got captured by some dudes who are trying to brainwash/program you, and then has an ending that's not subjective and ambiguous as hell, requiring a legion of redditors and people who don't actually understand quantum physics to try and explain why it's 'good'.
....
Also, I finished Bioshock: Infinite. Really liked the gameplay and the setting.
Ken Levine should be given a copy of the ending circled in red pen with the note, "See me after class."
If that didn't happen after the first two games, he's not going to learn now.
Actually, the first two games had decent endings, if you got the good/best ones. In any case, they weren't ambiguous and impossible-to-understand-without-the-hive-mind.
And ... Levine wasn't involved with Bioshock 2. Which I only found out recently.
That explains a great deal about Bioshock 2.
I found Bioshock 1's megahappy/superevil ending dichotomy strident and jarring, and both of them weirdly truncated, but I guess the game's worthwhile plot basically ended after you killed Quark with a golf club anyway. (I guess I should note that I love Bioshock 1 anyway just for the logs and the voiceacting and the art deco.)
I never got any of the bad endings. Something about one's 'eat little girls for power' mechanic didn't appeal to me.
Yeah, ditto. That was Youtubed.
FF4PSP: Not much progress as I've been busy. Cleared the waterway and got Edward. I'm losing stream and I think I'll switch to a Star Ocean 2 PSP replay instead. That appeals a lot more.
Okay, I'm going to update my comments on Deadlight: AVOID.
I haven't seen a plotline so pants on head retarded since Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy.
More Reckoning. Finally in the last region.
I've had fun and overall have positive thoughts on it, but it's hard to recommend for completion rather than for appreciation of the attempt of entering the huge RPG market.
Cuz it is huge. Skyrim huge.
Age of Wushu.
What an incomprehensible game. I'm not sure if it's deliberately incomprehensible or not.
Iddy was talking about that a while ago I think.
Quote from: Rezantis on April 15, 2013, 09:43:37 PM
Age of Wushu.
What an incomprehensible game. I'm not sure if it's deliberately incomprehensible or not.
Yeah, I played the beta. Any english instructions that are provided (and it's not provided) are horribly disjointed. There's english instructions that have been made and posted in forums that you have dig around and find.
I will say this, once you manage to figure it out a bit, it becomes a pretty fun game. But that figuring things out thing is a *real* pain in the ass.
Beat Reckoning. I should yammer on that. Maybe later today.
Started Ni No Kuni. Spent more time reading statistics on it than playing so far. >_> <_< Yeah, I bad.
Started One Piece: Pirate Warriors. Not quite as fun as I was hoping. I like the musuo and the boss fights, but I think Sengoku Basara has been more fun. Main detractor is that there isn't a block (just a dodge) so I've been getting used to that, not having a good response if you get pinned by gunfire (Thankfully few bosses have it), but mostly Quick Time Events. It has a bunch of actiony/puzzle segments that are sewn together with QTEs. They're tremendously forgiving and pretty much can sit there for 15 seconds thinking on some of them...but they really delay the whole "Okay, there's a horde of guys, lemme thrash". Actually, cuz I bitch: The whole delayed event setup bugs me too. It's a minor thing, but you'll reach an event spot, look around and realize what it wants you to do...meanwhile it will be telling you it and won't let you do it until it tells you to.
I haven't tried the co-op mode yet. I suspect all of the QTE puzzlers don't exist in that mode because they'd be very incompatible with an actual other person waiting around.
Tried out a new game one of my friends recommended: Warframe. It's free-to-play on steam, but has a cash shop to accelerate gameplay. It's a 3rd person shooter where you pretty much go through a map and slaughter stuff. When you start, you can choose from one of three warframes which are kinda like classes. As you go along, you collect materials and blueprints that allow you to make new warframes.
So far, it's kinda repetitive. There are 3 types of enemies (soldiers, machines, infested) which do add a little variety. I happen to like machines the least. So far, the rate of "getting cool new stuff" is kinda low, so I'm not sure what kind of staying power it has.
I downloaded that game and got through the intro. It looks like it has co-op, which is a plus.
Slow grinding is less of a plus.
More Ni No Kuni.
I am overleveling in 'the game that can't be overleveled'. Just passed the jellyfish boss, who basically went: Bolts from the Blue, Bolts from the blue, Army of Helpers, Bolts from the Blue, Dead.
Actually not sure if he got the third one off. I do know that at the army of helpers, pretty much gold glims came out everywhere, resulting in two Mitey super attacks and one Bonehead super boost. He went down real fast.
Man, I had to do some real work to get through that fight alive. Used so many consumables....
Mmm, I do observe that basically if you're seeing Gold Glims, you are already slaughtering or dominating the fight, and so they're mostly irrelevant.
When you could really use them, odds are they won't be showing up because you're not doing enough damage to trigger Nice counters of sufficient magnitude.
I've seen that as well.
Kind of like Tidy Tears only generally kicking off after you've lost one or two party members, instead of, you know ... _before_ then, when it'd be a bit more useful. :\
I'm wandering around Hamelin at early level 40s.
Monolith has finally classed up to Megalith. It is a ridiculous monster that gains +6 defense per level and already had 100+ points of defense over the nearest contender. Also awesomely just has defensive slots and magic buffs. It also has 'everyone attack me' as a move. That's pretty nutsy.
It'd be awesome if he ever had a reason to come out as my front line is a horrible death dealing rush squad that vaporizes everything in front of it. Even the Drongo hits for 20+ damage when not cheaply throwing lightning bolts around. I haven't bothered to up-tier its magic since its better to be cheap and it almost one-shots things anyway.
Bighorn has passed mighty and will firmly be dominating when mighty has to switch over to tier three. I got a Naja and it's remarkably fast in how its catching up in attack power, despite being 20 levels back still.
Metal slime island is a rather convient combination of both best xp and gold per time. I went to go get money for hamelin there and in the meanwhile classed up Naja and Monolith...where Naja then gained 20 levels in 5 minutes. Admittingly, five awesome minutes of almost constantly running into the Tokos. Currently using Toko strategy of "See toko, use Slice 'n dice, have dead toko without worrying about pathing." 400 auto-hit damage seems to be pretty much an instawin on them. Haven't missed a toko since I tried it.
So out of my nostalgia for Ragnarok Online 1, I gave the newly released NA version of Ragnarok Online 2 a spin.
Ugh. Basically everything that eventually drove me away from RO1 was still there and present in RO2. I could go on about it, and if anyone asks I will, but it's safe to say that it's a WoW clone with Ragnarok Online nostalgia slapped on it. Nice music and I enjoyed the graphics, but loads of other terrible things.
I have started playing Wild ARMs 4 last night. It's fast on track to being a beloved game of mine, in the same way Wild ARMs 3 was. I'm not sure if my enjoyment is also due to the fact that I'm older now and there's a lot more subtext I can catch, but the development team for this game tried a whole slew of different gameplay concepts that is a lot more popular now, that wasn't so much back when it came out. The music is also great.
Made a discussion thread (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,102759.0.html) for Ni no Kuni, since we were taking over the entire thread. :p
Playing Resident Evil/Biohazard 6 with a friend. I like the co-op idea, but the game has problems.
I think it was really designed for a controller, for one thing. For another, while it's really the RE design in general, the toughness of zombies is frustrating -- especially when it's combined with one-hit-kill-traps. Zombies are also always smart enough to avoid the traps, and some zombies are armored, making them invulnerable in some areas (time to play guess the weak point!). I have the gamma set to 'OMG, you're cheating; nothing will be hidden' and it's still frequently dark and hard to tell where you're supposed to be shooting on the zombie.
I think the pinnacle of frustration was chapter 3 of Leon's mission, when you and the other player are forcibly split up (a recurring theme in all chapters, really), and have to navigate both sides of a labyrinth. No ability to use your healing items on your buddy. If positioning is right, you _may_ be able to activate a trap, but you can also kill your ally (instantly, in one hit) with that trap.
I was fighting a red zombie that after taking 5-6 shots to the head would become vulnerable (it otherwise regenerates all damage after a short period of being staggered). Once it's 'vulnerable', it takes 7-8 shots to the chest to actually kill. A zombie hiding underneath a spinning blade trap (so, prone, very hard to hit), was spitting at me, timing it's very-long-duration stun to hit after the fourth shot against the red zombie's chest, staggering me long enough for the red zombie to recover (which resets all your damage to its core). I tried hitting the spitter, but it had a metal helmet on, so the head (the only part I could really actually shoot, since it was prone, underneath a spinning blade trap) ... was invulnerable.
Great. The next three tries to solve the area met with similar frustrations, most of them involving context crouching suddenly not working while I was trying to crawl underneath the blade trap myself, and once _that_ was finally lucked through, a corpse that I had shot several times to confirm was just a corpse suddenly sprang to life to shove me back into the blades as I passed it the third time.
That last gimmick is the one that really irritates me about the game. You'll see a body, you'll know it's going to become active and attack you later ... but the game won't let you do anything about it.
It's really not that hard to make a co-op game with zombies.
But in my opinion, Capcom managed to totally screw it up.
The only reason I'll keep playing it is because I want to chat with my friend....
...but I have to call him with Steam, because the in-game voice is brokenly awful, dropping around 60% of all sound data.
I've given up hope for any sequel that Capcom touches.
Just like I've given up hope for anything EA and Activision touches.
Playing X-Com. I'm not a fan of difficult games, and even on Easy it's very easy to lose guys.
Found out how to mod it and found an 'easier' mod, but it made some things too easy, so got some help from Pax to manually mod the details (and now have a mod patch for my own easy-mode). Basically, turn the arc thrower into a pistol instead of an item, increase health from armor, add some movement to power armor, remove random will gains, reduce weapon fragment costs for most research, and increased alloy/elerium costs for most research.
The base mod I was using has you swimming in alloy, with a comfortable bank of elerium, so that worked out fairly well.
Also, it was suggested that I remove the random element from psi and just make everyone gifted, so I did that too. Given that it's otherwise just a massive time-sink, yeah, that works for me.
Having fun so far!
Struggling with Syobon Action 3. Sadly, some obstacles require too much time to figure out how to bypass them, so I occasionally watch the walkthroughs in order to find out how to do it. Doesn't make pulling off all the stunts easier, though.
Hope to return to playing The Witcher after the finals.
Finally getting around to beating Saints Row III. Now in the DLC stuff.
The base game is hilariously over the top. You start out a crime lord and as Drac says, you really do end up as a supervillain.
Beat the Genkibowl challenge, was was amusing and bizzare. Working on Gangsters In Space DLC, which has an amusingly jerkish director-character, and the player character is a painfully bad actor. Funny stuff.
Once that's done I'll move on to Weird Science. Almost done with all in-game challenges. Have a few base jumps left (easy), and 13 more survival challenges (really annoying to find).
I am farming the upgraded hidden boss. The hardest thing by a good margin in the game.
I can kill him in about 4-5 minutes on average. Which means that finishing the last quest will still take a godawful amount of time. We shall see if my patience holds. I have 6 of the 10 items needed for the horrible alchemy quest. By the time I get the tenth, I probably will have all other supergear.
I have destroyed Ni No Kuni.
Well, only 92 percent monster collection and alchemy creation. But destroyed everything else. If there was variety left, I'd probably max the remaining monsters or alchemy, but basically it'd just be more fighting the super post game boss.
Which I already killed 45 times.
Anyhow, last quest, get.
Mmm, I have this one piece game already on my system. *starts playing*
A friend pointed out Precipice of Darkness 3, and I seem to have been sucked in. Story and movement are pretty railroady, but I do like the class system. Eventually, each of your guys can have 3 classes (1 set, 2 variable) and you aren't able to have duplicate classes.
I got hold of Monaco, and I've been playing it mildly obsessively over the last week.
I think I'm in love. This game is brilliant.
Monoco is awesome. I'm up to playing it again sometime :3
I have (almost) finished Monaco - trying to do a full clear of the final level, Identity.
I feel like the dev has completely outsmarted me. In a good way. That bastard.
Playing some Mario RPG.
Also, Monoco, Tonight.
Za Crew is gonna get together and take vegas. Vegas!
I just about burned out on monoco last night. Went from Oh Yeah to "I...could do without" in a matter of hours. There was the beautiful arc of "Oh, this is how I control things again" to "Okay we're a capable robbing duo" to "Man, this is getting really hard and there's like no hiding spots anymore" to "You know, those new mechanics would be nicer if we didn't learn them by trial and error" to "Well, disguise is just above useless in a level where everything is flooded with lights and it at least is better than what lookout is putting up with." to "Man, it sucks we didn't quite understand how that mechanic worked and now are asked to redo the last 12 minutes of getting every coin on every previous floor."
I really want to like Monaco a lot more.
There's just this thing where I'm not very good at it.
Played a bit of Torchlight II today; it's really actually quite fun. Found some mods I like that add variety and make certain things more reliably rewarding (fighting mimics, locked chests), and add respec in as a real mechanic instead of something you need to cheat in.
Okay, so, Marvel Heroes came out, free to play. I recently just beat it, with about 15 hours into it, maybe a little more. Over-all, I did enjoy the game. It was fun, I liked the story, and enjoyed it. I have some reservations and disagreements with their choices, however, but that's later.
Game play wise, anyone who'd played Diablo will be comfortable with it. Works the same. Mouse 1 is basic attack, no Energy (read: mana) cost. Mouse 2 is whatever special ability you want to assign to it. Instead of using the number row, they chose to use WSADF for additional hotbar abilities.
When you start the game, you pick one of five starting characters: Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Storm, Thing, and Daredevil. Once you pick, you're locked in until you get another hero token drop, buy the character, or beat it.
So, let me start off the comments by saying that while I enjoyed the game, Marvel Heroes made some poor choices.
Like I said, it's set up like Diablo. But unlike Diablo, which had side areas that are entire dungeons on their own, the side areas in MH are single rooms, with one, maybe two groups of five or six mobs to kill. The main areas are pretty large on their own; large enough to be solid maps. However, each area only has three or four side rooms, and one or two actual dungeon areas, those dungeons being main story line dungeons.
However, I beat the game with about 15 hours of play into it, with 100% mission/quest completion. Maybe a little more. So, in essence, this is about a 15-ish hour MMO.
And, after you beat the game, the end game reward is a randomized token for a new hero. As I mentioned, at the start of the game, you get to pick 1 of 5 starter characters. There are 20 characters total you can get, either via drops or micro transactions.
From what people are reporting, the token you get for the end game reward has a *much* higher percentage chance to be one of the other five starting characters. So, your reward for beating the game is loaded dice to get a character you can make a second free account to play.
They have also included a function to reset the story line back to the prologue after you beat it. However, doing so will not allow you to get the end game character token reward again. You only get that once.
Once you beat the story line you get access to the PVP portion of the game, which is currently still in beta and says so, as well as three tiers of Daily missions. The daily missions are basically just individual/group boss runs and events. The first time you roll through the missions, you get a Cube Shard from the boss loot drops. The boss loot drops, from what I've seen, are higher level gear and a low chance for a hero token to drop.
These Cube Shards can be collected and turned in for a Fortune Card, which gives you a randomized bonus reward. The list of possible rewards includes various boosts, like XP or drop rate, or costumes and possibly a token.
I personally have gotten two of these cards so far, my brother has gotten one, and our buddy has gotten one. All of us received either a boost to XP or boost to drop rarity.
A good point for the game is that they made everything you can buy through their store 100% available for in-game drops; if not a very high chance of actually seeing any of it.
Now, as I said before, I enjoyed the game. I really did. Boss selection was cool, and they did an amazing job with the graphics on the environments and characters.
My main two complaints are these:
1) The game is *ridiculously* easy. You mow through groups of 10-15 mobs with no real issue (Diablo has this, too). Bosses are really easy to beat in comparison, too. Basically, you wind up with someone getting aggro, running in circles around the boss, with someone else plinking away and occasionally moving. For example, in fighting Juggernaut, the fight lasted less than a minute and I think our group of three used 2 medkits/potions; and Juggernaut is supposed to be one of the toughest guys around in Marvel.
2) Content vs. Cost. I have no issues with paying for characters. I would *happily* pay $10-$15 for a character; on this note, at launch all characters were around $20. They have since lowered the price for *some* characters down to around $10, as response to forum postings. An additional costume for your character is $10. I would like to see this drop to about $5, with special edition type stuff staying at $10. Some characters have few options: Storm has 4 costumes; while Iron Man has something like 12-15.
Their pricing is off base, I believe, and forum postings tend to agree. I don't see the value in paying for a new character to play in a game that has only 12-15 hours of content, and absolutely no variation or exploration in it.
Over-all, the game is good and has plenty of potential, but the *content* level of the game is just not in-line with cost of additional things in the game. They may, in time, fix this with expansions, but what people are worried about in forums is that the current high cost of the additional characters and pieces of the game against the low content means that their micro transaction model won't make much money.
Paying $20-30 for a character is perfectly fine, but the game length is currently not even acceptable for a single player game, much less an MMO.
And without additional money coming in, the chances of them shutting the game down without releasing expansions is high. With that in consideration, it's even further weighted against buying anything, as everyone is sort of expecting the game to shut down quickly.
Pretty much everyone agrees that it's a fun game, but the content is not worth what they're asking.
But, it's a free game. I know they want to make their money, and I fully support them. I think this is a combination of poor pricing and poor production management; if each area had 4-5 *full* side dungeons that were randomly generated like Diablo does, it would more than double current game content. Why they didn't do this, I have no idea, as Diablo shows it's fully achievable. How they didn't make this happen with four years of production, I have no idea.
I've been playing Mark of the Ninja.
Which is every bit as awesome as its reviews have suggested. Very fun stealth/platformer/Ninja goes and murders a bunch of screaming guards simulator.
I'm score scumming Mark of Ninja.
Doing all sorts of murderous tricks.
I thought my 1 dart, six deaths was pretty epic.
But today I did 1 stab, 14 kills. It was extremely epic.
We used to have a scale of awesomeness that capped at epic.
Now we have a scale of epic.
The times, they are a changin'.
And yet, they stay so familiar.
Quote"Well, disguise is just above useless in a level where everything is flooded with lights and it at least is better than what lookout is putting up with."
Disguise is never useless - the extra couple seconds it buys you is often priceless. I'm looking at you, palace levels. X_x
QuoteWe used to have a scale of awesomeness that capped at epic.
Awesomeness has never had an upper limit!
--
Anyway, I played something funny yesterday: Broforce.
http://www.freelives.net/broforce/
Check it out - it's just a brototype right now, a combat demo, but it is totally worth a look.
I've been playing Defender's Quest (http://www.defendersquest.com/), which was on sale last week on GOG. It's a tower defense/RPG hybrid. Basically your party runs around on the overworld map (on rails), and fights a tower defense combat with party members (whom can level up).
I generally don't play tower defense games, because they feel like a waste of time after I've played for an hour. And I generally hate RPGs on rails (hence, I barely play any new RPGs). But the Flash demo (http://www.gog.com/news/online_demo_defenders_quest), which is the first third of the actual game, kept me involved enough to work through it. Once it was on sale, I thought it was worth the few bucks GOG was charging to finish the exported save file game.
Doom: Slaughterfest 2012
I've been picking at various levels throughout it, mostly pistol starts with no saves. The map design and quality varies map to map since it's a community project. None of them (barring the bonus 3 maps) are bad, though I haven't seen too many that qualify as good. I've cleared maps 1-6, 9, 11, 16 and 33. A lot of these maps aren't hard so much as that they require figuring out how to successfully navigate and manipulate the hordes of monsters you have to deal with.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 08, 2013, 01:21:19 AM
I've been playing Defender's Quest (http://www.defendersquest.com/), which was on sale last week on GOG. It's a tower defense/RPG hybrid. Basically your party runs around on the overworld map (on rails), and fights a tower defense combat with party members (whom can level up).
I generally don't play tower defense games, because they feel like a waste of time after I've played for an hour. And I generally hate RPGs on rails (hence, I barely play any new RPGs). But the Flash demo (http://www.gog.com/news/online_demo_defenders_quest), which is the first third of the actual game, kept me involved enough to work through it. Once it was on sale, I thought it was worth the few bucks GOG was charging to finish the exported save file game.
Was kinda neat. Didn't buy though.
Defender's Quest was fun enough. The gameplay is relatively fun, but more time (or better understanding) could've been spent on improving the UI.
Also, for as much as the Steam page touted the game's plot as "written by an actual English major!", I found it (the plot) a tad cliche, and a touch pretentious, but with some decent-to-good parts on the other hand.
The music was nothing to write home about.
Graphics were on varying degree of "bad" to "fits the style".
(Bam, complete review.)
Pretty much nothing in it escaped the amateur level. It had a cute concept, but the vast amount of work in it is about the level you'd expect out of an advanced college gaming class that got polished a bit, rather than a fleshed product. Maybe I'm just judgmental of the level of art going on too. The vast majority of the character art seemed like basically two weeks work for a single artist. It's simple unshaded art of the level that shows up in a lot of flash games that is basically 2-framed. Most of the actual in game art has the same level.
It's a nice first effort, but without the polish to really stand out.
The math felt complex to me, but I'm not much of a math guy. I did totally get sucked in to the point where the demo ended.
I might have sprung for it if I didn't have a huge backlog of unplayed games.
well, complex but irrelevant for the most part.
Or at least most options are so subtle in their effects, it's just hard to experiment.
That's really unfortunate.
Regarding Defender's Quest, "written by an actual English major!" amused me. Yes, the plot was cliche, but it was competently done and made no bones of pretending to be more than it was. I picked it up a few months ago and played through it, I quite liked it overall.
I'd give it a mild recommendation. Not something where I'd yell PLAY IT, but worth a few bucks and I'd be interested to see what that dev does in future.
QuoteOr at least most options are so subtle in their effects, it's just hard to experiment.
Yeah, a single point here or there does very little, but sinking several points into the right abilities makes a very big difference. It's not all that expensive to respec characters, though.
Quote from: Rezantis on June 25, 2013, 09:43:12 PMAnyway, I played something funny yesterday: Broforce.
http://www.freelives.net/broforce/
Check it out - it's just a brototype right now, a combat demo, but it is totally worth a look.
This game will make you want to gun down a million terrorists with a machine gun fired one handed, then say your catchphrase that includes a pun about freedom.
Side effects include growing hair on your chest (even women), voting Republican because that's what Reagan would do, and randomly replacing syllables with "bro."
Full game features:
* More explosions, camera shake and action than anything else, ever.
* Fully destructible terrain.
* Local bro-op play and online multiplayer bro-op.
* Deathmatch arenas with leaderboards and rankings.
* Unlockable "bros" – each with distinctive attacks and special brobilities.
* A level editor, the ability to challenge your friends and share your custom levels.
* Design your own Brofort – with unlockable rooms and additions to defend against terrorist onslaught, or just hang out.
* Vehicular action sequences, dinosaurs, aliens and epic Contra-inspired boss fights.
* Nuanced and strategic combat, explosive action and deadly stealth.
* For every terrorist killed in Broforce, a terrorist will die in real life.
I admit, I have trouble looking past its name and graphics to try and picture myself playing it.
Waste five minutes of your life, bro!
Slightly more seriously . . . the Broforce prototype is actually a very well executed little game, Drac. Rather like Monaco it looks a lot better in motion than it does in stills. They haven't tried to do anything more complicated than a fun way to blow shit up.
I reckon it's worth a look; if it doesn't float your boat it's not going to have taken more than five minutes to download and try the thing.
Or just play it online. Not a big investment either way.
Playing some Muramasa.
I'm hella rusty. 100 monks even got to beat me down once.
But it's fun getting back into the sword swinging action.
Sharpening stones.
I really enjoyed that game ... will probably give it another re-playthrough or six when you're done.
My backlog of games at this point has on occasion been mistaken for a moon by escaping rebel starships.
Dark Souls. Bought it on the steam sale, got killed twice just running the installer.
Based on this (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,2263.msg1041993.html#msg1041993), I bought Hotline Miami when it was on sale at gog a few weeks ago. Just as billed, it's strange, frentic, and hyperviolent.
I think it's fun as hell, but most games that I like tend to require fast, accurate reflexes and the minimum amount of plot. This is pretty much the opposite of how most people play computer games these days, so keep that perspective in mind.
Played a little Shadowrun Returns. Not a big fan of the lack of manual saving ability.
This is the same issue I ran into with DARK. While I enjoy DARK, in order to save as much as I wanted, I needed to switch the game to easy to unlock unlimited saves (otherwise you get like ... 2 per level plus autosaves). At least it's an option, there (though, from what I can tell, difficulty only controls the number of saves you get anyway).
From what I can tell, Shadowrun Returns lacks the ability to manually save because coding it was complex. Not ... really happy about that at all.
I've got a huge backlog of other games to play, so Shadowrun Returns is going to gather dust for a bit while it waits for either an official patch or a modder who figures it out first.
Finished my muramasa run.
Now to play something new before the next set of games arrives.
Been playing some Bioshock Infinite.
Had a rough start and started cheating to see the story. Ran into some apparently graphics related crashes (Finally figured that out and fixed it by the fourth time taking the Zepplin down and then crashing on a fink factory load screen). Rough and I'm angry about it at the moment, but it's not really much of a fair statement to the game.
Got rather ticked off at the UI just flat out lying to me with hovering over potential enemies. "Oh? Not red crosshair? No lifebar? Okay, moving...Now they're shooting at me. Thanks UI, I could've at least shot them first. Shame about the whole early game suggestion about not shooting everything that moves."
Seriously, I've just had a real bad go of the game's attempt at a society with times to shoot and times not to. I think I'd almost rather at this point just shoot at everything that moves since it seems that there isn't much of a penalty for it, and then hey, at least you get in the first shot. I get it, they're ticked I looked at the cash register (which is only usually red) because that's their money, but why are the slum guys ticked that I just robbed one of Fink's vending machines? Convenience? Cuz they sure aren't making that money. It definitely eliminates my view of them as people when I possess a vending machine and everyone in the next two buildings starts shooting immediately. Why aren't some of the characters trying to get away from the crazy robber dude?
The aggro system just really frustrates me in it, because it demolishes my recognition of the NPCs as people and reduces them to a mere shooting gallery. No one ever calls out "Hey, you can't pass" before a checkpoint they want you not to be at. No one ever tries to run when you kill all their friends. If it was a doom-like where everything was out to kill you, sure. But Bioshock tries to mimic some resemblence to human society, and it just falls over when the random civilians act the same way as the police which act the same way as the military grunts (Nevermind the guys wearing demon/clown masks in the factory. I'm not sure where that came from). There's a lot of group based aggro AI in the game, which only really tends to aggrevate the issue when it gets applied to random bums on the street.
I'm probably done with it, and I know my experience with it seems to be far out of wave with the common play. I know I definitely don't feel in the flow with it. I'm not really cool with how the game pretty much has a horde of cops and robot guards to deal with before you get shield (which seriously changes the flow of combat in making meaningful fade back as a strategy). I found a lot of times when I was in sync with the combat it felt sort of shooting galleryish (and fun), and when I wasn't, it felt like bullets were coming from everywhere. Dealing with the shaking floors really was tiresome though. Very not fun when it's not that the NPCs are dodging but actually the ship they're on is just swaying so much it effectively moves their body a foot or so distance around.
I found the rendering/shader work neat, but strangely didn't care as much with the mesh-work (The models, especially the hands felt weird), and apparently my eyes weren't all that good at catching all of the various symbolism they were suggesting with their alternate realities intermingled storyline. I could've really gone for a little less on the environmental shading, and a lot less on the fog at various points. But it did make it different.
What really ended up grinding was just an inability to 'click' with any of the cast. The best of the lot were the two kooky quantum-physcists. They were neat and oddball and probably had some interesting things to say as the game went further. It's really not a surprise relative to the other Bioshock game that I played, but I suppose I just wasn't in the mood for a cast of just obvious jerks. The entire group very much gives a plague on all your houses, but you're politely prevented from just putting a bullet in all of their heads. In Bioshock one, that was going on, but at least the Little Sisters were just naive characters on your side once you saved them and most of the characters you fought were just openly bat-shit insane from the start. Here? Guy meddling with some kind of time thing in order to manage to be a prophet I assume, fine primary villain, I get that. And your debt holders aren't any better, whoever they are. Next? Fink? "Come, join me and oppress lots of black people or die!" Fitzroy? "Hey, I might be a scullery maid who drummed up a revolution, but I'm more interested in convenient stories to enrage the ridiculously oppressed people and my gigantic showy building sized posters then winning, so I'm just going to tell you flat out I'm going to kill you. I can also call you up in the elevator of Fink's company. Just like that." Main character? Hey, I'm just here because of a debt and I can't even fake it long enough to get out of the city. Sure, I'm an anti-hero, washed up soldier but I can't get any positive waves, just trying to get through the day. Kidnap and rescue, like a jobber. Maybe the girl? But something threw me off caring about the girl too, and it wasn't like the protagonist had a good vibe with her. She just was the innocent to say "Look, I think I see some goodness in columbia" and be wrong repeatedly.
Anyhow, quitting for now, enough for me to forget what's the bother. Maybe I'll let's play the rest of the story. Maybe not, since the rest of the folks will probably be downers, and I get the sense it isn't a Good Guys win story.
After all that's said, the ending is still the worst part of the game.
Dragon's Crown is a bit slow and has an enormously clumsy localization.
But it is fun. Will try it more.
Also the sorceress is hillarious ridiculous. So is stone dwarf. And so is everybody in the environment.
Quote from: Brian on July 26, 2013, 11:05:17 AM
Played a little Shadowrun Returns. Not a big fan of the lack of manual saving ability.
Honestly, it threw me briefly but I don't consider it a big deal; it's much like needing to save at a save point.
Quote
I've got a huge backlog of other games to play, so Shadowrun Returns is going to gather dust for a bit while it waits for either an official patch or a modder who figures it out first.
I think that's going to be gathers dust forever, I wouldn't expect to see that happen period.
Dragon's Crown.
It has it's rough spots, but once the "Complete multiple stages for stacking rewards" rolled out, there was no looking back.
The Shadowrun Returns team has said they are working hard to add the ability to save anywhere, so that's a positive.
Recently blew through Saint's Row IV. Had some very strong points, and was a great game. Was severely lacking in actual content and felt ... disappointingly short.
It also pretty much recycles the world from SR III, which was a bit annoying, though kind of handy insofar as I knew my way around already. They really improved the movement mechanics, a lot of the other mechanics are much better in general, but at a bit of an expense in some areas. They also toned down the number of activities, and some of the more annoying activities from SR III didn't come back -- but neither did the SERCs, which was a bit of a letdown, especially since Fraud stayed in. On the other hand, they also added ratings to activities (gold, silver, bronze), so they're a bit more forgiving if you only want to clear, not ace, something you don't like.
I could go on, but I'm going to make Drac bribe me into a full review because I am a bastard. :3
This may not be a completely fair comparison, though, since I only played SR III with all DLC, and so far, SR IV has no DLC. So this is an issue that may be resolved. On the other hand, while I enjoyed it, my thoughts are that if you have not already spent money on this game, don't bother until all DLC is released and you can just grab a 'complete' pack, probably on a Steamsale.
Currently playing LoZ : Oracle of Ages/Seasons. I am attempting to get as many rings as I can before using the Secret to start the next game (as well as get the last Piece of Heart from Maple RRRGGH). I rather enjoy playing the games, and would have liked to see what the third potential game would be like story-wise.
Played and recently beat the Deadpool game. It was mostly very fun, a bit silly, and had a very fun combat system. It is, unfortunately, not very long.
It had a few major annoyances, though one of them actually surprised me in its resolution. There was suddenly a stealth segment, which is always especially fun in games that aren't specifically designed to be stealth games, and I was getting annoyed at constantly failing it. After the dozenth time or so, the character complained, "Alright, already, let's just skip this part!" and then did. I approved of that.
Later in the game I ran into some buggy issues that made getting through a segment with maximum points very, very difficult, which was _quite_ frustrating. Other than that, the main game was smooth sailing and great fun. Especially the part where I abused the game's exponential reward system for high combo values with a pair of regenerating mooks and the lowest damage weapon in the game. Got an achievement and 300k exp, which seemed like a lot. Later in the game, when I was regularly dishing out 100 hit combos for 50k-ish exp, it was a little less astounding, but still fun.
The very end-game was three fights, which seems to be the new standard. 1: Wave after wave of mooks. 2: Unpleasantly difficult boss fight. 3: Jokishly easy final boss fight. The first two were extremely frustrating, and didn't at all map well to the difficulty curve of the rest of the game, but I was able to finally beat them (turned out I was under-utilizing gun kata).
The game is fun, and I'd strongly suggest it, but not for more than 20$.
I went through Mario and Luigi 4: Dream Team while I was away.
I found it a pretty good game, with lots of Luigi manning up focus. The Giant battles weren't my speed though. I think 3 was better, but this was still a good game.
Playing Magrunner. Basic premise, "What if we had a Portal-styled game where instead of a silent-protagonist and a hilarious psychotic AI, we instead used a slightly more traditional cast, and copious amounts of Lovecraft?"
So far, I've been liking it. The game has no combat, at least, so far. The main character and his mentor/guide seem cool. I've only run into fishmen and ... uh ... I've got no idea what the hell that other thing was. I think it was dead. The character I was playing really did not want to look at it, and the game got me good enough I didn't even think to quicksave and jump at it to see what happens.
Fun.
So beaten main game dragon's crown.
Unlocked hard.
Conclusion of thoughts so far:
Dragon's Crown is a good game, that deserves to be a better one. It's overall a fantastically playable co-op action rpg dungeon crawler with online and offline modes. It's got gorgeous art, lots of awesome bosses, tons of tributes to the D&D nerdy culture of the last many decades, tons of tributes to the old school game's its carrying the torch for.
But it also has a lot of annoyances. Hit detection (and particularly depth) can be really a pain in the neck, sometimes enormous creatures just being obnoxiously difficult to land any attacks on. The controls are really sensitive, such that it is still a challenge to fully control/articulate what characters will do. Some of the timed bosses are a complete nuisance. The disconnect in progression and loot distribution for local multiplayer is frustrating (1.02 patch hopefully fixes the latter at least). The ui could be more informative on the bag menu (1.02 hopefully fixes too). Respec'ing is a post game thing, and the build system is actually pretty complicated, which sucks since it makes experimentation and figuring out builds so difficult. Repitition is a huge part of the game, and so very much of it is by requirement rather than by option. Unlocking the full depth of available play is a massive time sink. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get a new character to 'respec' and 'special dungeon' available levels in less than 5 hours, and probably generally more like 10-12. So it's not like you can just go "Hey, bob, play the tutorial, and then lets roll through the crazy areas". No, if they have a character capable of say, rolling through the B-routes on Normal with you, they've spent several hours on that character already. The characters are big, and while that allows for beautiful art, it makes the screen very full for the chaotic level of action. The action can get very chaotic and also the effects can start obscuring a large portion of the screen. It's not uncommon for a full half the screen to just be on fire in the middle of a combat at any point.
Every patch has been making really dramatic improvements as well though, so maybe it'll hit there soon. No, I think it never will.
I'm done with Magrunner. The later puzzles boil down into unrewarding tedium where one you figure it out, it's a numbing grind of repetition to get the solution to stick. There's a fair bit of bad design, too. At one point I had to make a long range shot at an object to assign it a magnetic field to solve a puzzle. You get a zoom and a targeting laser, but that was the worst possible location to include the game's 'you're looking at some unspeakable horror, so your targeting and the screen jitter occasionally' mechanic.
I get it, game. I'm some place beyond the spheres, and _C'thulu itself_ is occasionally appearing in the background of the level to stare ominously. _It_ doesn't cause me madness and screen jitter, so why does the stupid lobstrosity next to my target? After all, the only consequence of missing is deploying a magnetic field somewhere I didn't want, thus destroying all of my progress thus far, and giving me incredibly tedious setup time to undo the damage and get right back to the point I was before.
Took me ten tries of knowing what the solution to the puzzle was but needing to get lucky with the mechanics to complete it. After that, the next room had something even _more_ annoying.... Game doesn't have cheat codes or console commands, and I don't trust website offering a download for the 'trainer', so unfortunately, I'm done with it.
Time to watch a video of someone else's playthrough to see how it ends. If you're not put off by tedious elements like that, this may be the game for you, and it's pretty cheap when it's on sale. Otherwise I suggest paying only the time it takes to youtube search a playthrough video.
So, I actually important JoJo All Star Battle, because when I found the series a short time ago I immensely enjoyed it. Even with the language barrier, I find it to be quite enjoyable. Is it the best of deepest fighting game out there? Not by a long shot. It's still quite entertaining though.
Ruminating on it somewhat, I think that this is actually the epitome of a fanservice game (although in this case fanservice takes on the somewhat rarer non-sexual connotation) in that if you like the series, you'll like this game. If you're indifferent, then it's probably a middle of the road fighter.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go beat up some super vampires with a sexy president.
Went through Dragon's Crown Labryinth of Chaos yesterday with Brian. Then did it again, swapping characters.
This is clearly meant to be the middle ground between finishing Normal and being ready to play Hard (which is just a really brutal difficulty hike otherwise, primarily due to things being balanced for 10-15 levels above the Normal level cap). Compared to my brutal slog with my Amazon to get up to level 50, we did it rather trivially, not really struggling at any point in the dungeon and we got cool equipment for it too.
Actually, in fairness, some of the bosses were super tough. For me as the dwarf, the majority of the difficulty was anything out of the dwarf's reach (which turns out to be an unfortunate percentage of the bosses), and other than that, some bosses just hit insanely hard. Though, the killer rabbit's really tough even on normal, so....
Well, I was comparing versus the Amazon run I did where not only were the bosses, but also the random encounters, a complete battle for survival. We exited both of our runs with upwards of 5 lives each. I exited my amazon's run with 0 lives left and dozens of completely spent npcs who had been resurrected several times.
Played Bioshock Infinite through. I actually don't mind the ending.
It's the best of all possible worlds. So I'll take it.
Quote from: Rezantis on September 13, 2013, 08:45:09 PM
Played Bioshock Infinite through. I actually don't mind the ending.
It's the best of all possible worlds. So I'll take it.
I liked it too, but either the ending seemed too rushed, or the shooting seemed to kind of drag. Not sure which yet.
Quote from: Rezantis on September 13, 2013, 08:45:09 PM
Played Bioshock Infinite through. I actually don't mind the ending.
It's the best of all possible worlds. So I'll take it.
I liked it too, but I have to agree with Ergoemos. Something in there felt either really rushed, or not quite fleshed out enough.
Ducktales: Remastered.
Got this on PSN today and gave it a whirl. I haven't gotten far beyond the intro stage, had to quit out of Transylvania midway and had some bullshit happen on the Moon. It's fun, looks gorgeous and has high production values, but damn I wish I could scene skip. It's all well and good that it's like playing an episode of Ducktales. Nevertheless, I wish I could focus on pogoing off things and collecting filthy lucre instead of having constant interruptions.
My death on the Moon was pogo-ing on the spikes over a pit section (the part that had a bonus super treasure in the NES version) and having it not pogo. Take one hit and plummet into oblivion. I forget if this is NES faithful or just random bullshit. I haven't heard any complaints about the controls, so I'm chalking it up to random bullshit. It still killed my momentum to play it today. I'll give it several hours tomorrow evening and see how it goes.
Went back for some DC co-op tonight.
Brian and I rushed 18 consecutive dungeons, killing somewhere around 25-30 bosses, collecting some 13 million xp, enough to level us from 67 to 77 in one go. We got an amazing amount of high tier treasure...some of it even for us :P
Ducktales: Remastered
Gave this another play today. Got to the boss of Transylvania and lost my last life on her. One death was my own fault (didn't jump out of the minecart) and the others were due to pogo glitching. I've read up on it online and there's reports of pogo randomly failing. It seems to vary from person to person, but I've taken a bunch of hits from arbitrary pogo failures. It's annoying as hell. I don't mind the difficult parts at all, but the random deaths due to the pogo not working sucks. Ducktales NES is an awesome platformer in part because the controls are good. Unreliable controls sap the fun out of any game double-quick.
I'll give it some more playtime tomorrow.
Beat Psychonauts with a 100% clear. Was pretty good, though some of the very end-game segments got a little tedious. Could see what they were going for; generally a very enjoyable game.
Some of the sets and level themes were just brilliant, especially toward the end. Black Velvetopia, Lungfishopolis, and Waterloo especially.
Pretty much the only part of that game I hated was the Meat Circus platforming. Lord.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was complaining about. :X
Ducktales: Remastered
Finished! Short version: It's a good remake that could use a patch to fix annoying problems, including some design decisions. Still worth a look, 7/10.
It's fun, there's enjoyment to be had and lots of treasure to find. I wish there was a mode that took out the cutscenes and item-hunting from each level. I'd love to just play the game, not get stuck with a bunch of fetchquests and cutscenes. It felt like the game its own way in regards to delivering fun to the player.
Points for beating up that one fucking extortionist statue in the Amazon, though.
Picked up FFXIV: A Realm Reborn during the Gathering. Been playing it for the last two days. So far I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. It's a vastly smoother game than the first iteration, the graphics are obviously tons better, and the classes are fun to play.
On the down side, apparently they removed some classes, so sadness there.
I picked up FFXIV: ARR last week. Been having a blast playing so far. What server are you on Iddy?
Quote from: DY on October 01, 2013, 11:03:38 AM
I picked up FFXIV: ARR last week. Been having a blast playing so far. What server are you on Iddy?
Exodus, I think.
Ah, I'm on Siren. Which class are you playing? I've been leveling an archer, pretty fun so far.
Quote from: DY on October 01, 2013, 12:53:04 PM
Ah, I'm on Siren. Which class are you playing? I've been leveling an archer, pretty fun so far.
Got a 15 Archer I just finished Pugilist 15 for Bard on, and an alt Marauder I'm getting to 15, then switching to Lancer for Dragoon.
Nice, I'll probably be lvling a Dragoon for Bard. Any thoughts on crafting? It's a lot more involved than I thought it would be. Completely different set of gear and levels. It's unique but makes it harder to have your crafting profession be on the same level as your main class/job.
Quote from: DY on October 01, 2013, 02:51:50 PM
Nice, I'll probably be lvling a Dragoon for Bard. Any thoughts on crafting? It's a lot more involved than I thought it would be. Completely different set of gear and levels. It's unique but makes it harder to have your crafting profession be on the same level as your main class/job.
Haven't delved too deep into crafting, but I sorta like that it's actively involved beyond 'run here, gather this, click button for production.' As for leveling it, the levequests have tradequests, which is what I'll be using and abusing for crafting XP.
Brian and I were playing some Tales of Millia (Xillia), which had some ridiculous stuff like:
"It was probably Exodus, trying to kill me since I've been stopping them for 20 years." - 20 year old woman. What, was she going around, levitated by the four as a five year old killing them?
Sponsor:"Okay, so they've changed the rules on us. The last round is going to be a 1 on 1 deathmatch by the old king's rules, even though both groups in the final are okay and the current king Forbid this from happening again."
Millia: "Well, it's bait for me, so I'll go and let them take the shot so we can kill them all. You guys spread out in the crowd and take out the inevitable snipers."
Announcer:"Welcome everyone to the arena, on one side we have a young woman with a sword. On the other side a heavily armored dude carrying half his body weight in a giant canon *LIGHTNING BLAST* that apparently fires lightning before anyone even called start for the fight."
Elise: "Oh no, I'm a little girl being robbed and then kidnapped in plain sight of dozens of citizens and guards. Nobody is doing anything. Everyone continues to cheer."
Announcer: "Pay no attention to the people shoving their way through the crowd or the fact there's a kidnapping going on right in front of you. Instead, eyes take center stage, as our 1 on 1 becomes a 1 on 3 as his two friends join up and both let loose with cannons! Now we have 3 people wielding unreal technological superweapons right in front of us, flaunting our customs and just trying to murder someone right in front of us all."
Millia: *yawns*
Rest of the crew: We'll leave the kidnapping to the admitted Exodus member, and all join on the field. 4 on 3! We're not even trying to react in any sensible pattern~. *curbstomp*
I beat the Ancient dragon on Infernal on Dragon's Crown. I think I may be done with it aside from co-op fun. I might still go take a swing at the demon king though. Who knows?
Infernal is really just too hard for casual play. Even at maxed level and cheating to have more skill points, its exhausting to keep up the level of focus it requires, and the various small annoyances of earlier parts become more dangerous ones here. The bosses are excessively beefy, even at max level. The reward balance feels off in it, where the amount that had to be struggled to get the same amount of high ranking gear is much more. Sadly, I think if you play at non-infernal levels, you get less gear. Maybe I'm wrong and that would just be a more fun way to play after taking out the ancient dragon of 'oh god that thing had a lot of hp'.
Part of this is that basically infernal becomes about stacking modifiers heavily. Having level 70-99 gear is less important than having a set of gear that gives +20 percent each to damage versus that boss type and -% to damage taken. Certainly, going into most infernal bosses without being willing and ready to use dodge heavily is a mistake too, which makes NPCs barely more than sentient meat-shields. A set of level 99s didn't even last 1 minute against infernal ancient dragon. The equipment part of the game already takes a long time without consciously balancing to put together suites of gear specific to various bosses (Basically a dragon and a demonic set is pretty much a must).
I kind of wish in game progress and the difficulty level weren't so tied together. Labryinth of chaos has to be done on infernal with level 90+ chars to get to floor 7. Two sets of prayers are only unlocked on beating the higher difficulties. XP gains and level cap basically prevent progress after a bit. I'd be down on just leveling up the monsters and continuing at the earlier levels of difficulty if that was an available option, but instead the option is: "Stop unlocking things, getting the best gear" or "Deal with the fact that certain enemies are now mini-boss fights able to do 700 damage trivially by themselves."
Hmm, had a crazy co-op tales run tonight. We ground the Xagat floodplains into a muddy mess, skipping basically a full 10ish pieces of armor and weapons forward. Everyone has their best armor possible and are really close on weapons.
I've played Hawken for an evening a week for the past two weeks, mainly since I'd recently switched computers and haven't gotten around to installing UT3 so a group of us who used to LAN regularly have been playing Hawken so that I could still join in.
I could go in depth, but I think the following sums it up: "Non-pay-to-win Free-to-play No-Ammo-Count Mech-skinned CoD. With jump jets." Not a bad game, and the fact that I used my unupgraded starter mech to tear through a decent number of mechs that are usually unlocked at high XP levels on my second day of playing and second hour of game time implies that money+playing-since-closed-beta doesn't equal domination, as it does in other F2P games.
I still lean on the Battletech side of the scale, so it's not really the mech game I was looking for (although still fun). But if anyone here prefers one-big-hit-box, less-think-more-dakka, and mechs, this might be your game.
Beat Tales of Xillia last night.
Got a terrible grade shop it does.
Almost as bad as most of the story.
Which isn't quite as bad as the villains.
Sat down and played Antichamber. I don't know what I was expecting, but I walked away disappointed. The entire thing just struck me as kind of pretentious, and not even all that challenging. I had more frustration with the controls during my playthrough than anything else. Some moments were kind of cute, but those were pretty few and far between.
About 1/4th through the Tales of Xillia NG+. The Devil weapons pretty much make everything disintegrate right now even on unknown difficulty, meanwhile buying other good gear is sort of a funding mess. Sort of falls back to Grade Shop being bad.
About 80 percent done with the collectibles on SR4, which means it's probably an hour or so left to get the rest. Then actually collecting the rest of the crew. Sorta unimpressed with it versus SR3, and the weapon challenges are obnoxious. You can end up having to do a dozen full engagements to get enough kills for one challenge, and also deal with that most of them cause explosions, which don't seem to count for the value. So you can shoot one guy, they can explode and kill 3, and that counts as 1 point instead of 4 toward the 250 that might be needed.
Yeah, I didn't try with most of those for mainly those reasons. Also, the game seems finicky about not counting sim-cop kills on your tally, has to be aliens...or something like that, I was definitely over the required limit for each weapon associated with the Future Tech trophy (the challenges list testified to this) and the trophy didn't trigger until way later. I blame the Inflato-Ray being ass.
SR4 is notably less engaging than SR3. I still had fun with it, but for some reason it turns out that flying around on a hoverbike is cooler than just flying. It's not without a few fantastic comedic moments, though.
Being able to move faster and fly better than any of the vehicles can offer pretty much eliminates the entire vehicle portion of the game, and really they feel like they control even worse than SR3, if that's possible. Having everything be Aliens basically reduces from 5 main enemy groups (with specials and otherwise) to 1, and that decreases considerably the variance available in a random encounter.
The numbers for the weapons challenges are just stupid high. A mass encounter going from no aggro to miniboss showing up might only net a total of 30-40 enemies to kill. Taking that and putting 250 kill per single weapon reqs is just silly.
Got a bit further yesterday. Have almost all collectables (Still some locked). Some of the main missions are fun, some seem like sort of disconnected. Getting past villains as callables just seems weird and a lot of the callbacks just sort of drift by me as not being into the earliest games in the series. Half the cast sorta doesn't feel like they have my back which is annoying.
I've got 48 of the challenges done. Not sure if I'll actually get to 65. Having some of them tied to abilities you only get if you get other challenges seems sorta weak from my view, but at least it isn't a map completion blocker like the last one.
Map completion blocker? Not sure I ran into that.
Unless you mean weapon challenges.
Some of the non-weapon challenges suck anyway. You can fight a horde of aliens any time you want just by causing havok. The real issue is the unreasonably high number of guardian kills you need for that particular challenge. Because that means you have to cause havok enough to summon a guardian, and then you have to play the annoying 'actually kill the guardian' minigame/QTE ... something like, 25 times?
Arguably, it's the grindiest part of the game, to me. I think it's where I gave up on completing all the challenges, anyway. They seemed doable until looking at the required time investment there.
Quote from: Brian on October 30, 2013, 02:37:40 PM
Map completion blocker? Not sure I ran into that.
Unless you mean weapon challenges.
Some of the non-weapon challenges suck anyway. You can fight a horde of aliens any time you want just by causing havok. The real issue is the unreasonably high number of guardian kills you need for that particular challenge. Because that means you have to cause havok enough to summon a guardian, and then you have to play the annoying 'actually kill the guardian' minigame/QTE ... something like, 25 times?
Arguably, it's the grindiest part of the game, to me. I think it's where I gave up on completing all the challenges, anyway. They seemed doable until looking at the required time investment there.
30.
I got that as part of doing Inflato-ray and Abduction. In the enemy base area, they basically show up every 10 seconds sometimes if you just start killing back to back.
I mean the enemies that if you beat, wipe out your notoriety gauge thing. Maybe I was just doing it wrong...?
Quote from: Brian on October 30, 2013, 04:46:12 PM
I mean the enemies that if you beat, wipe out your notoriety gauge thing. Maybe I was just doing it wrong...?
Most of the time it is a nusiance. There's a small part of the map where the notoriety gauge fills so quickly and enemies are always present, it doesn't matter that they wipe it, it's practically instantly refilled, so you can have one appear, kill it, wipe the notoriety gauge, turn around and shoot immediately at the freshly spawning enemies that will show up as soon as the combat ends there, and end up pushing your noterity right back up to max. At the smallest, I basically would shoot one vehicle, killing 3 things and the next warden would just fall right from the sky. The game would actually take a bit to realize it'd show up and sometimes have the warden joined by the just spawning enemies too.
Huh ... too bad my interest in the game already ran out.
I ... don't have high hopes for the DLC saving it, either. :(
Playing Hearthstone. Got an invite to the beta yesterday, and tried it out. Seemed a bit buggy yesterday (and well, it is a beta), but seems to be working better today.
Wish you could turn off some of the animations, but otherwise a fun enough card game.
So, played Beyond Two Souls.
*Really* damn good story. Really damn good graphics. And absolutely mind-boggling work done on character faces, expressions, and the eyes. Amazing.
The only down side to the game is that it's not a game. It's an interactive story/movie with QTE. The QTE isn't *terrible,* though.
A good note for it is that it is two player. Real two player. No split-screen crap. There's two characters in the game, and each person controls one. Pretty neat how they did it.
In hind-sight, my suggestion is to Red Box it and play it on the easy difficulty so that there's less of an interruption from the QTE. If you like the game after Red Box'ing it for a day, the direction it helps push gaming towards is worth supporting by buying it, IMO.
Trying to replay the original Rachet and Clank.
After two hours of fighting the final boss, I remembered just how unfun the original game was, and why I'd never bothered replaying it. I really wanted the unlockables I'd gotten before in the second game in the remake, but obnoxiously large boss health pools, and multiple stages of the final boss fight including instant-death falls without checkpoints....
...so I'm going to learn how to save edit, because quite bluntly, the challenge of the final boss wasn't fun when I beat it years ago. I really had managed to forget how poorly that fight was designed, but playing the remake, where they took advantage of zero opportunities to improve the original game up to the quality of any of its sequels.... Really, really disappointing. They remastered it for HD, and I don't believe they really even improved texture qualities.
As much as I'm a fan of the series, this was a blatant shovelware move for cash.
Very disappointing.
Finished part I of the Bioshock Infinite DLC: Burial at Sea.
It let you carry all your weapons instead of only two, which was nice. Seeing Rapture again was kind of neat, though I think it was a slightly AU Rapture. Story wasn't super consistent. Uh ... I didn't figure out the secret to getting the new weapon, and the new plasmid/vigor didn't show up, either, unless it was the frost one. That was in Bioshock, so ... nothing special there.
Otherwise, the narrative wallowed in the worst parts of Infinite. The ending was utter crap in every sense.
Yeah. I want the two hours it took to finish that back.
Your grade is dropping, Ken Levine.
Continuing at Saga 3 DS (Translated for more awesome). I forget now what's not translated as it feels like its been a while since I've seen anything.
Having a lot of fun with it and particularly power gaming in it. As far as getting all skills for all characters, it seems pretty weighted toward spending a lot of time as Esper (and as little time as possible as Monster and Robot).
Monster can be really powerful if time is sunk getting it ready, but it is almost always a weak step in. You never end up starting as a monster that is anything but fragile against the current enemies and so switching someone into monster basically means you got to carry that character around for a number of fights. You also don't get to step out of it without losing your current state. I try and step someone in every so often to keep filling in my monster guide, but it also seems clear that pretty much I should be doing that with each character once per general worldish spot, since folks easily get locked into few monster loops from their starter. One or two super meats can easily put a beastman or monster into an unstoppable power though.
Robot is the FFL2 Robot and I just have trouble seeing the point. Maybe I'm not seeing something but since you already have restore inventory? Well, maybe its strength is the ability to be strong based on equipment rather than grinding? It still has skills though to build up. It feels like the math isn't in its favor, so I haven't really bee using it.
Cyborg is halfway between human and robot. Weakened stats, but its boosted by equipment. They seem usable, but sort of inferior to the other three big classes. Mainly their slowness hurts them since it makes them hard to combo with and even their strength is matchable by a trained Human. Good early game and just asking to take damage later on. Basically, because Number of actions is what makes you advance, it's handicapped hard in late game where the first 2-3 characters could end up killing everything and preventing an action at all.
Beast is Beastly. They build hp and agil the fastest, have the fastest agil, and martial arts moves are easy to build and effective. They're just absolutely a solid type to have everyone spend some time as. It's especially beneficial for espers as it quickly builds HP, which they suffer for. Basically, just a really solid character class that always contributes well and only has a slight strength penalty. I suspect the only reason they don't also get magic experience is that they already are that good.
Human is your baseline. Like everyone else they get 2 weapons they specialize with, but they also can gain tiny amounts of experience with any weapon as well. Kinda useless there, but they get the best strength and the most valuable weapon categories, so really they tend to be awesome to have in the party anyway. Their real disadvantage is getting stats above 100, since they are the baseline and the baseline generally can't go over 99.
Esper has 2 weapons like everyone else...but gets nine magic categories too. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Darkness, Buff, Heal, Revive, Ancient. So everyone else has 2 categories for leveling skills in and the esper has 11. They also have the lowest hp and halved strength and spells can be really slow to level. They also don't play nice with other characters, since they have low tier stuff that can be 'hit group' or 'hit everyone', which most weapons don't have for only 1 usage cost. They're easily the most expensive class beside Robot (and I only say that because I haven't played around with Robot). Despite that, having spells is just too valuable and once you have the spells unlocked, you don't need to be an esper anymore. Having an entire team capable of casting Risera makes defeat sort of impossible save instant wipe, since everyone can cast Revive everyone. Having an actual magic score also boosts your restoration and resistance to magic damage anyway, so it makes whoever gets left as an esper much more effective if they have to heal.
I forget why I started to ramble.
Viva La Graces.
End za Fodra.
Working on my way through the Rachet and Clankathon in preparation of game ... nine, I guess, technically? Let's not count all-4-1, and the arena game isn't really part of the continuity. So I guess it'd be ... seven by that count.
Anyway, I recently finished games 1-3, remastered in HD. In all honesty, it was a shovelware port, and as far as I can tell, they farmed the job out anyway. So, yes, the game renders in HD, but they didn't do a lot of work on the textures, and they ... are not optimized for HD. Also, the old pre-rendered video can be oucherifically non-HD as well. The gameplay is actually just exactly the same original three games, with none of the improvements backported.
The name of the game is economy, though, so I shouldn't be too surprised. I didn't notice many bugs, but I did encounter one particularly glaring and constant one. The 'water' in most levels where the water is a death plane didn't render right, making it look like the world abruptly ends in a faint wavering shimmer; I seem to recall those effects being much tighter in the original game. It was interesting seeing the approach on boss design shift as the games progressed, as well as how they planned on handling the ship segments, or if they were going to have racing segments at all.
The third was clearly the pinnacle of the original series, introducing numerical health tracking, the best exp system for weapons so far, and reducing the gold/titanium bolts to costume unlocks, instead of tying them into upgrades (especially grating in 2, where you had to win races for some of them). More importantly, it also introduces Nefarious as a villain, and since he came back for the second game of the Future series....
The weirdest thing to me is Angela being left behind in the Solana galaxy without a backward glance after game two -- then again, the president's daughter vanishes after game three. Also, Angela sure looked like a lombax, so I ... guess she was retconned out? Just some very lombax_like_ species? I'm curious enough to see what the fanboys on the Rachet and Clank wiki say, so let's find out.
...well, that was a mistake. Nevermind. Pretend I didn't mention it.
Anyway, after finishing the original trilogy, and the first game of the future series, I finally got a chance to try Quest for Booty, the interum originally download-only title. I bought it off Amazon for like ... six dollars. It arrived from some company called 'Fleshworx' or something similar to that, so my best guess is some skeevy sex shop thought it was porn, and then realized it wasn't, and then unloaded it on Amazon.
Weird, but true story. I almost didn't open the package.
That being said, Quest for Booty has some interesting moments, but is four hours of gameplay at best. It really plays like a demo of Crack in Time (minus Clank) more than anything else. If you don't have it ... I don't know that I'd suggest getting it. But I think it may be included free if you pick up Into the Nexus ... which means I have two copies.
So, yeah.
Rachet and Clank!
Finished the new Rachet and Clank. It's basically a long episode, not a full-fledged game. 5 planets, 12 weapons (and gold bolts), and a very, very short story arc.
Had some good, like the art details, the weapons all being fun, and the new gravity related mechanics.
Really, my only complaint is that it's so freaking short.
Finished a Steam sale game called 'Castle Storm' (http://store.steampowered.com/app/241410/). It's a sort of canon game (like Rampart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_(video_game))). It's basically 2d (with 3d graphics; you know the type), with you firing rocks, spears, and sheep (or boars) at the enemy castle and sending out your troops to defeat the enemy.
It's pretty engaging; most canon games don't really give you troops. The purpose of them is to get the flag from the enemy base and bring them back, since the troops can't actually destroy your castle -- only the gate. Well, each side gets one unit that can attack the entire enemy castle, but it's not typically as effective as what you can shoot at it yourself. You also get an array of spells to use on the battlefield, with varying effects. Direct damage, aid, some utility, and a unique spell that summons your hero as a troop unit that you then control to run around smacking the enemy units into oblivion.
It's a surprisingly fun game, though it's not hugely long; I beat it in two days. They mix the levels up quite a bit, and have the main storyline (in campaign mode, anyway), and some side missions. The side missions sometimes progress a side-arc, and are sometimes just relatively silly, "Shoot a bunch of turkey or boar," things. The only time the game bogged down for me were some of the very few missions where you only controlled a hero and had to defeat either a lot of enemies, or a specific enemy, but you could backtrack to previous missions to grind spells to upgrade the hero in question (making it a lot easier) in all but one or two missions.
Other than the sometimes jarring mission format, the only real complaint is that the castle editor can be a bit clunky ... but that's a learning curve of only a few minutes.
I think it's worth the price, but it'd absolutely be worth it if it goes on sale. I enjoyed it enough I'll probably grab the DLC for the extra missions at some point....
Picked up Disgaea D2 during my week off. It's... got some odd changes to the way the Disgaea mechanics have changed over the years, and I'm still working out whether I like them all or not.
Good:
- HL sinks. Item World bills can be passed without having to luck into getting an Innocent Town floor, although I'm still extremely early in the postgame and haven't pushed this to its limit yet. Both stats and growth rates can be raised, and it takes a lot of HL (rather than Mana) to pass these bills. This isn't a bad thing, since in all the previous Disgaea games you usually end up with trillions of HL by late postgame and absolutely nothing to spend it on.
- A lot of effort seems to have been devoted to eliminating savescumming. Numerical rarity values are gone (THANK YOU) which means much less effort in trying to find matched-rarity items for rarity bonuses - you just need rare/legendary items matched on a character to get this now. Mystery Gates (another source of savescumming frustration for the perfectionists) are also gone.
- Ranking items up to legendary. It's now possible to run a common or rare item to the bottom of Item World and raise it to the next rank up (Rare/Legendary). You do lose the level-up bonuses from the previous IW run, but it
Neutral:
- Weapon mastery is back. This got thrown out after the original Disgaea, and was always one of the most tedious things to grind. I'm reserving judgement for now, since I haven't really started the serious grind on this and they seem to have included some decent mechanics to help with it (the Cheat Shop and the Dojo).
- Reverse Pirating (intro'd in Dis4) returns.... kind of. Instead of choosing to go on a reverse pirating run in a leveled item (which you can prepare for), you get randomly dumped into a reverse pirating-style stage, with a partially healed team and (if you're optimizing item growth) almost no space for spare innocents. So far the need for reverse pirating seems a lot lower (it was the only source for certain rare but essential innocents in Dis4), so it's not as big a deal, so reserving judgement for now.
Bad:
- Item duping tricks are gone. This was actually one of the best things to be added in Disgaea 3 and 4, since it makes actually keeping a team of powerful characters a viable strategy.
Disgaea 1 and 2 kind of suffered from a tendency towards making a single godlike character that could run the table by themselves, simply because of the amount of work required in getting a full set of maxed-out equipment for them. It also makes getting maxed-out stacks of innocents a lot harder (since you used to be able to dupe an item, then combine the innocents from all the dupes).
Now, to get a max-equipped character, you'll have to get the ultimate armor (a Trapezohedron), then run Item World through it three separate times, stealing another Trap from the Item God at the bottom each time. Repeat this process for every additional character you want to have capable of dealing damage at the top end and it's a pretty draining time investment.
- It's not a huge feature of any Disgaea game, in fairness, but the main storylines have been getting progressively more annoying/hard. The first two games were somewhat challenging (although a joke if you spend any time in Item World at all), but starting with Dis3, the trend has been towards building story maps with highly annoying and obtuse geo panel arrangements.
In addition, powerleveling during the main story is almost required now, where it wasn't previously. I did manage to basically solo the final with Laharl, but I was triple the final's level. The sad part is that if I was anything significantly -less- than that (I'd guess around 2.5x), I would have been one-shotted and lost. Disgaea pulling these kinds of stunts is expected, but generally not until the postgame, when bosses start handing you your rear as a matter of course.
Yeahhh, I went into the final thinking I was overleveled (60-65 for most of the party) because of some Item World shenanigans and got stomped on the first attempt. Enemy levels seriously ramped up in the last couple chapters, such that you would not keep up with them from plot missions alone.
(Of course, I also maintain a team of like 20+ characters, so resources may be comparatively thin.)
That's really unfortunate too as I think the cutesy little narratives were one of the early game's strengths.
Been playing Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. Near end-game again, in that part where getting from the monsters you have to anything new and possibly better gets really tough (Going from B to A is easy. From A to S is hard, and without cheating going from S to X for even one monster is almost impossible). I'm cheating to accelerate things (Faster XP rate), but otherwise limiting to what I can find. Managed 1 S rank, and should soon manage another, but unsure I'll manage any X before beating the main game.
Comically triggered the "You Can't Start Endgame Yet~" block which happens if you complete the big scavenger quest portion of the game without actually concluding the background plot, so some beaurcrat shows up to block the way and let you know that you are a finalist of the competition, but you can't go ring the victory bell right now.
Been playing a lot of Far Cry 3. Not a perfect game, but a surprisingly decent one, so far. Skill tree, really big world, lots and lots of weapons.
There's a mod that I forget the name of that adds/changes a lot; I'd suggest getting it before playing the game.
The game also has co-op, but you have to jump through Ubisoft's hoops (login names, their own friends lists) to be able to do it, so I haven't even gotten to try. Not sure what it's about.
It pains me to say this, but.... It's something Mass Effect 3 got right. If you're not going to use steam, don't sell your game on it.
Tried to play State of Decay a bit, which is a zombie-survival game. Kind of weird in some ways, as you don't get a single character, but instead switch characters, but also interesting because you maintain a base, monitor resources, and get upgrades. Characters have friendship stats with one-another, and other survivor groups (enclaves) have trust ratings with your group of survivors.
The game is generally a good concept with some truly crippling flaws:
* The only difficulty is Hardcore
If a character you are playing is killed, they are dead forever. If a player you are not playing is out doing something (because the AI will have them doing stuff ... which is almost 1/10th as effective as any actual player action), they are dead forever. You cannot manually save and make backups without cheating (which I did, but not regularly enough, it seems).
* Time passes even when you don't play
The game calculates the last time you played, and the current time, and simulates that much in-game time. It also evidently takes the number of real-time days you've been gone and uses them to calculate how many resources your group has gone through. The game also works so that one real-time hour is a day (and the next real-time hour is the night), but you can't just stop playing every other hour to only deal with daylight -- despite the resource drain/allies getting themselves killed while you weren't there factor, if you stop playing at dusk, it'll always be the exact time in the day/night cycle that you left.
* Special zombies and encounters are either too easy, or too hard -- there's no good balance
This is generally the state of the game. Either you're killing everything without too much trouble, or your character gets jumped by a 'feral' (a super-zombie with an instant-kill attack), or a 'juggernaut' (like the feral, but bigger, so can be terrain-exploited with doorways ... sometimes). Otherwise, the SWAT zombies barely register as specials (I guess they're bullet resistant? Melee is so superior, you're not likely to notice), screamers are only a real problem if there is a horde nearby (one of the few cases where you'd bother using a gun), and bloated zombies are so-far so rare that I'm not sure what their deal is. In all cases, running them over with a car trivializes them (though, the juggernaut will destroy smaller cars).
* Night time is pitch black
Zombie eyes glow, which helps, but even with the gamma turned all the way up, it's freaking impossible to see at night. You have a flashlight, but it really doesn't help as much as it should. This wouldn't be so much of an issue except that you don't have any options to sleep, or otherwise do anything to make the time pass other than either playing, or just running the game and going AFK for the full hour it takes for the day/night cycle to shift.
* Balance issues like you wouldn't believe
Other than the aforementioned specials, the game gives you melee and gun options ... but melee weapon durability is vastly superior to ammo, and guns also have durability anyway. You could have your character specialize in either guns or melee, but ammo is so scarce that I cannot imagine unlocking rank four of shooting before rank four of fighting, and you only get one specialty. Melee is also practically silent, and even though supressors are cheap (for the seemingly slim selection of guns that can get them), they don't make guns quiet enough. Add in a realistic reload time (read: VERY LONG), and melee is simply the superior option. If every shot to a zombie were a kill, heavier weapons did splash damage, or ammo were relatively plentiful to offset the noise factor, it might be worth it, but as it stands....
I want this game to be good, but it's incredibly resistant. If you get it, get Zombie Standard Time to make backups of your saves, and also dismiss their real-time/game-time nonsense, and I'd get the brimstone mod for more durable weapons. I can't say that getting the Romero mod would be bad, either, since it evidently gets rid of specials, and they just don't add enough. I wish this were the game it deserved to be.
Been a busy gaming season :)
Played through Link Between Worlds. Aside from the minigames it was amazing start to finish, a fantastic re-invisioning/sequel/thingee of Link to the Past, with nice but unsurprising punches.
Tried Shadow Warrior but my comp wasn't being agreeable.
Tried Scribblenauts Unlimited and well, I just wasn't jiving with it. Sort of in the way I expected too. Both that it really is a kid's game and geared toward them as well as it's vocabulary just regularly not being up to snuff. About one in three nouns I'd add would need to be rewritten, and it got old on that very quickly. It also had very little caring on whatever I was doing, part of it's flexibility I suppose, but it got a bit annoying to have the positive end results sometimes being horribly opposite whatever I'd put in. It's a result of things going to set end results mostly rather than a reactive object system. They tried really hard, I can see that at least and they really did get a pretty large vocabulary in there.
Went back to Dragon's Crown for a bit. They broke cheating skill points and generally put sanity caps in everywhere they could. Added in a neat Ultimate mode... but sadly the ride to get a character there is just too ridiculous. I hacked some equipment and found it went from overcrazy to pretty casually fun with it.
While experimenting with egg nog and trying to figure out how to properly add alcohol, I evidently thought it would be a good idea to renew my World of Warcraft account.
Damnit.
What have you done?
Went back to my Amazon character in Dragon's Crown and gave her the same super equip treatment. Unlocked ultimate and intended to do a double loop and ancient dragon run before swapping games.
I discovered that actual ultimate is way different than the tower of mirages. I lost a life pretty much every screen and twenty on the pirate boss. Most hits were almost fatal by themselves from sheer damage (Zombie grabs did 400ish after damage reduction). The Pirates got Parry, Evade, Berserk, Throwable bombs, and cannons on both sides of the map in addition to spellcasting, the genies, their sheer numbers, and a multi-million hp pool. I was soloing, so their stats were lower, and perhaps a group might've made a difference, but basically my takeaway was that proper ultimate made the already insane Hell look like a cakewalk. I can't believe there are people that normally get through it without cheating. I went through 3 million gold worth of continues just getting through one level.
Picked up Disgaea d2. I agree with Hal so far, albeit that I'm only at the start of chapter 3. I sort of got derailed by leveling, item world and oh hey, is that the Cave of Ordeals? It's a lot of fun so far.
I played through Phoenix Wright 5: Dual Destinies.
It's an okay, but not stellar entry in the series. Definitely a nice move to 3D + animated movie. That's a cute touch. The new character Athena is not bad, adding sort of a punchy charm in her own way. It's good to see a sort of teamwork vibe going on. It was also nice to see a lot of the old prosecutors around in non-antagonistic roles.
They really went hard on 'powers'. Apollo's is Perception of course, and Athena's is Psychology. Phoenix's... is Bluff. Which they really hammer on hard and it gets annoying. Certainly, it's not new, but the tone is unpleasant. In Ace Attorney Investigations, the Deduction angle they went with for Edgeworth was far more flattering. It's sort of annoying that now, years into his career as an expert who's called in for the toughest things, that everyone still calls him a bluffer.
The prosecutor for the drama this time is a convict who comes across really poorly. Proceeded by whipping and coffee throwing, the focus on swinging an imaginary sword just didn't do it for me. It felt like he was missing a prop the entire time and everyone was acting as if he held it. He also always had chains on, except when he broke them. Like constantly. I don't think he particularly stands well among the rivals of the series, even after all the reasoning gets trotted out.
The game is definitely stronger into the "We're a drama" bit. Amusingly, it's the first game to even mention Perjury, despite that lying under oath has been a staple of the game since the very earliest bits. It's a little disappointing, since I actually like the court feeling more like a puzzle, but it's not new.
The game works around two narrative points, The Dark Age of the Law caused by the bullshit Phoenix flipover and this prosecutor ruining people's trust in the law (for some reason relevant, despite them dropping the Juror system thing which could make it relevant) and the actual murder that the prosecutor was tossed in for.
A problem of course is that one case is totally irrelevant to both (and would normally stand as an intro for Athena, except it's the second case), and one case is irrelevant to one, leaving it feeling weird when they say they were only involving the prosecutor in relevant scenarios to the overarching situation.
The game does play neat with time (even if not as well as Apollo Justice did), interleaving the cases to slowly reveal why certain things were taking place.
Playing Torchlight 2 now. Finding it fun.
I've only gotten a little bit into Dual Destinies (actually the first appearance of the convict prosecutor) and yeah, he's really not impressive. His super violent/intimidating schtick makes it impossible to take seriously that he's not thrown instantly back in jail, and kinda just feels like trying too hard.
I dunno, maybe he'll grow on me, but he doesn't even seem like the type you'd love to hate, like Von Karma was.
Their concept with him was definitely just a mess. Easily the least interesting prosecutor from my perspective.
I finished Castlestorm recently. I'm of two minds about it.
The story was garbage. I was okay with simplicity, but getting it as a bundle, they basically have your victories in the main game amount to barely more than nothing and don't even celebrate the main character being heroic. For a story following a generic good guy footballsy protector of the realm bit, that just felt dirtish. The girls are all half naked, except for the princess who is a generic damsel. Fine, I get that they're going generic high fantasy, but it felt weird to me. The vikings as a whole are undressed, but the others don't stand out quite as front and center on it. Mainly though the 'You win, Only Not' angle they took for both their DLC put a foul taste in my mouth.
The gameplay I had a lot of fun with for the most part though. It's a tower defense, focused on side by side castles shooting at each other and sending troops at each other. You get a set of balista shots, a set of spells, and a set of troops. Sometimes special missions, restrictions, or encouragements ("Hey use this troop to win the day"). Basically a lot of the time it is either:
Playing Hero on the ground fighting things (The start of both DLC is nasty on that front) - this sucks if that's the level, but is a lot of fun with just summoning a hero character mid battle and slogging through some enemy troops immediately.
Castle to castle destruction, first to take out the castle (or bash the gates open and take their flag) wins. As the castles get destroyed, you lose access to valuable troops, but just for that encounter.
Also playing a bit of Suik 5 and Shadow Warrior.
Amusingly, it appears that Drac and I have independently picked up Suikoden V at the same time, and are actually quite close to each other in terms of story progression.
Also, what I -will- be playing is the Wildstar Beta. O_O
I'll totally race you...*waves from in the back*
Quote from: Rezantis on January 22, 2014, 07:44:47 AM
Amusingly, it appears that Drac and I have independently picked up Suikoden V at the same time, and are actually quite close to each other in terms of story progression.
Also, what I -will- be playing is the Wildstar Beta. O_O
I was going to sign up for beta, but then I decided to wait to play it until release. I want it to be *super new* instead of having already run through things.
Let me know if it's as awesome as it looks. No NDA spoilers, obviously.
You and Rez can be the divergent SR contigent then. :P
*is still weak on his MMOness*
I wouldn't normally advise such things, but for the Suikoden 5 players: follow a recruitment FAQ. I love the game and consider it one of the better entries in the series, but ye gods is it stocked with arbitrary and permanently missable recruitment windows. Do you want ninja detectives in your army? Yes, you do.
I view that as a must for Suikoden games, because after all, the game is vastly bettered by the presence of more characters as well as the unlocked Got them all endings.
And seriously some of them are completely obnoxious anyway. It took me over 30 rumor changes to get the salt rumor for Sairoh. I had tons of salt by then both in my store-room and in my inventory.
Or "fight in this dungeon with a limited party many times until dice come up New Character"
or "Run from x battles"
Or "Finish the game in 16 hours" (What? No time for awesome Cooking Battle Antics?) Well, that's just for Clive's special side story in fairness.
~~~
Just unlocked the castle and Viki. Movement is so much nicer all of a sudden.
I am so glad to have gotten hold of Viki.
But yeah, you -really- need the recruitment FAQ. This is a serious case of Guide Dang It.
Just past recruiting the Beavers.
Doing another run of powering up random backliners I'd never otherwise end up using :P
Richard continues to be Richard of Win, The Unstoppable Monster who occassionally just dishes out 5000+ damage, just because.
You are beating me. I had to stop for study and exam. ;_;
Okay, and because I played some Wildstar.
I have acquired Richard, hit Lelcar, and spent like 600,000 potch. I probably shouldn't have spent that much. But shinies!
The ones I can't be assed using would be any S range mage. I mean, if I -need- a mage, I have Viki and Zerase and Sialeeds . . . all of whom have basic attacks that actually function if I need them. I'm not sure why I'd actually want to use Cornelio or Josephine. Granted, Kisara isn't bad, especially if you bring Logg and Lun.
Why use Josephine? Because she is FASHION DIVA.
Yeah, S-Rank mages pretty much are crippled in that game. The lot of them lack enough punch or bonus defense or whatnot to compete with the mages that don't have that problem. And while they don't need to really do damage, they do need to at least hit for Magic Drain to trigger.
One thing sorta in their favor: S5 MAG values get so high by endgame that you're unlikely to ever be hurting for spell charges. Like 3-4 L4 castings on the top-tier mages high. Not like the game has many real dungeons anyway.
Yeah, a bit, but that helps all mages, it doesn't really change that even though some of the short range mages are fun, they're basically still dealing with at least as powerful (and often way more) medium and long range mages, that can safely sit in the back and blast magic.
You know who really suffers in S5?
Cluster based attackers. Seriously, almost no enemies are ever close enough for a cluster to catch two of them. Columns are more rare than usual so also suffer, but row and all attacks just have a much bigger impact in this game relatively. That normal attacks can sometimes multi-hit even further disadvantages column and cluster, since just going attack might result in 2-3 hits going on at x1 (or like 6 if you're using Richard).
Yeah, that's just it. Don't get me wrong, the S-range mages aren't useless, but I can't see why I'd want to use them instead of Viki or Zerase (who are both ludicrously powerful), or even Sialeeds and Jeane.
And yeah, row attacks are by far the most useful multi-attack, and the only one I tend to use.
In other news, apparently I had a 'no rumours' trade event, so I went back to the castle and asked Sairoh, who directed me to Haud. They were buying gold for 900,000 potch. So long story short, now I have like six and a half million potch. And that's after buying Richard one of the one-million-potch armours that Mohsen has for sale . . .
Oh, lucky find. Yeah, that's a rare one, but it shows up. Especially if you horde gold in your store-room.
Save some cash for the Eyeball rings in Nivra. A set of those on your meleers basically renders them near invulnerable. Especially if teamed with Murad and What's her name.
Well yeah I'm not about to argue that Zerase isn't broken as fuck. Seriously Konami what.
Viki would be more broken due to having a Rage Rune and A-rank chain magic . . . except that Zerase can use the Magic Absorb rune.
I kinda shelved Zerase. The ability to spam away with level 4 spells out of the star rune is a -little- ridiculous.
I took the S-type mages out to recruit Levi and walk back. Doing nothing but spamming spells.
They went from level 20 to level 44 during the walk.
Then went back to the storage room where they belonged.
Zerase is crazy and definitely top mage. But yeah, any S-type mage needs to deal with that they're like 4-5 amazing long/medium mages.
Still, Richard is Richard and tops out the 'What Were You Thinking, This Guy Just Totally Is Ridiculous'. Level 47 starter?
Slowly grinding most the group up to 52ish before I go wander into storm fist. It's pretty much an absolute slaughter anyway, since so much of the cast are superpowered at this point.
I just cleared Stormfist!
. . . yeah, it's an utter slaughter. The final boss you fight in Stormfist lasted two rounds.
And I defended on the second round with everyone except Zegai (who had a Crazed orb), because I was curious to see what sort of attacks they had. Oh well.
Does the game get any harder? Or is there a bonus dungeon? There seriously hasn't been a difficult battle in the entire thing.
Suikoden V's villains die the way they lived: a major load.
The final boss approaches competence (by SV standards) but that's really it. It's sad, you have so much broken and practically nothing to exploit it against (a multi-party dungeon kinda tries to make you spread your top talent out, but that's too little too late).
Yeah, the end game enemies do a better job of being durable than the bosses, and S5 in particularly lines you up with full everything against bosses, so you can just abuse the heck out of level 4 runes if you want.
What really strikes on end game is how silly the War numbers start to get. These guys have lost battle after battle, losing tons of men and their best generals. The entire country is well aware at this point what way the setup is going...
And yet they're still able to field 3x your number in forced recruitments that don't even run away :P It's not like S3 where you're facing off against enemy nations or S2 where you're up against several well organized countries in their own right...
Nope, you're facing off against a remaining 2 cities that haven't totally fallen to your dominance, and despite that they have a ton of resources compared to the entire country being behind you.
Childerich is definitely meant as an attempt to evoke the kind of 'man that guy's a beast' that blight does, but he just is totally ineffectual and seems horribly stupid to be out there used in that manner. At least with blight, he was a tremendous power house with a true rune and royal blood, so it was reasonable that nobody could tell him no. With Childerich? What's he even supposed to do?
It should've been Gizel, being an effective schemer really that was the tactical boss rival for a lot. None of the other villains really had the vibe and none of the generals came off as some super rival for Lucretia to work against. Sure there was a bit of that, with Dolph's antics, but basically the front of their general squad was a group of super-loyalist morons for the most part.
Finished up last night.
I forgot how completely shitty the ending is down most routes. Just total nonsense as a 5 minute thing before it actually gets to anything decent as a closeout. Olg had warned me but I had really blocked it out for being terrible. The politics stuff was kind of silly too, if you get/take the return to the kingdom ending.
Started up NG+, but couldn't bring myself to walk through the hours of pre-treachery where they slowly build up the situation.
Dunno if I'll go do an S3 run (prolly not), or more likely head back to Shadow Warrior which totally lost me in its secret design.
Shadow Warrior it is, barely moved in it though. I don't feel particularly awesome playing it, which is slowing me down. For a crazy bitchin' mafiaso wielding a katana and magic, I should feel more awesome dealing with the enemies.
I also get to follow up every fight with a 'you did shitty' ranking, even if I barely get hit and use a variety of weapons and spells. Not sure what doing good by the system is since that's how they explained it to me.
I'm doing better at it, but my opinion of the game isn't really improving. Apparently I'm often 3 or 4 stars now that I can dash in and use twirl around and kill everything.
I don't like that most attacks (Both for enemies and player) don't feel like their range is linked with the visual. I was fighting a Warlord boss (and dying) and the vast majority of it's attack (a swing two axes down thing) was in fact an invisible area sphere around and behind it when it did that which counted as being hit. I definitely wasn't getting an earthquake vibe, and it didn't knock me much around. It had some grapple effect to keep me from getting far that I think it wanted me to do something with, but didn't really seem to come across. Eventually I just used hit and run with a machine gun from across the map and behind cover, which felt weird with out little cover was an option the entire game to date, and how they'd swamp me with enemies from every direction anyway previously. With that he went down easily.
Most enemy attacks lack much physical presence or orientation. Or at least, enough that I'm really picking up on it in the thick of it. Enemy appearance is...often sudden. I tend to know by the blaring loud music long before I've spotted the enemies. Including when enemies are just sitting there unaware, fiddling around on the floor for no reason.
The environment art seems really weird. A lot of it is old traditional japanese homes or bamboo forests, despite that we've left residential land for urban. A lot of the terrain is explosive on hit. Whether it's a car, a motorbike, or just a video game arcade cabinent, almost anything that can be interacted with by weapon will explode.
You run through a lot of water in the game. A lot of moats, small strangely walkable lakefronts, rivers, etc. Last night I ended a battle, looked and saw that the pool around me was a bit deeper than usual. Dove in to check for the obscure secret hiding. Died instantly on touching the water. Way to go game design~ :P Stopped for the night with that.
Playing Etrian Odyssey 4 at the moment. Having fun and in the fourth 'land' where it starts revealing that not everything is roses as it was in the repeated ignorant of history people. Been playing on casual, which is fun, excepting when the game goes "You lose".
Some of the boss fights are still impressively hard, and I think things hit harder on normal. Generally I find enemy attacks are in one of 3 variations:
1)Mostly irrelevant small damage.
2)Status/Bind/Instadeath effect, dealt with moderate damage to row or team.
3)90 percent of party health in one shot.
So while within handleable ranges, but with bosses occassionally doing number 3, I don't know what room there is for more damage to show up. Maybe it's just reduction in damage dealt by players to monsters in normal.
Tried to steam-roll the last level last night at gate's poking.
Got tired before finishing sadly. ;_; So many long floors and foes.
Just played "Dysfunctional Systems: How to Manage Chaos (http://dysfunctionalsystems.com/)". Its a very short visual novel about a girl who comes from Earth from the far future, having been chosen for the job of managing the development of other worlds with sentient life. The intent of the job is to guide the planet's development and edge them towards sustainable long term growth. Its a pretty well developed premise, despite the shortness of the "game" (depending on your opinion of such VNs).
I think the art is simply beautiful. The characters are interesting and dynamic and the music is varied and well placed.
Anyway, its only a dollar on Steam for the next day or so, if you have about a couple hours to spend. Its also available on Desura (something I have never heard of but looks like a Steam clone) for five bucks and on Apple devices, also for just a dollar.
The developers, Dischan, have a another product that they give away for free call Juniper's Knot (http://junipersknot.dischan.org/), a story about a boy and a demon. This one is free and you can download it from the website directly, but it is strictly a visual novel, no choices or "game-like" aspects. A good story (I thought, at least) and definitely worth the price of free.
So solidly in postgame Etrian Odyssey 4.
I've got a set of 5 level 99 (retire 70) team members that are pretty much mauling everything, though did actually lose against the Fallen One last I tried it at level 75.
Post game weapons are a real fight to get.
Huh, I never hit submit.
Oh well, way past that...
So kinda being worn by my mental goal of putting together 10 super characters, primarily by the 14 day stall time between runs of the bosses. I can totally see why Guest bullshit is a big thing because it has numerous advantages (Reducing number of ingredients from well over 100 down to 18, duplicating valuable/rare/one time goods, reducing XP drain by providing high tier characters in the party without them getting a share of XP). Even replacing one of your maxed characters with a guest similar to it, is a 20ish percent xp speed up to the rest. Full
I've beaten every boss on casual, excepting the full strength warped saviour. I should probably wander onto normal, but basically even there, there are 6(or 7 if you count warped saviour twice) bosses of any relevance for any characters past level 55, which sort of turns any legitimate push toward max into an enormous grindfest regardless of difficulty setting.
I played/watched a Beat Dance playthrough of the full power Warped Savior. It was kind of silly, but a little faster for farming I guess. I can easily see that the real one is usually partially chance, since it'd rely on getting certain blocking effects to avoid it's ability to basically dish out 1000ish a round. Of course, having a lot of rune mages work, but other than that not so much.
Tried out Sniper and Imperial. I'm not actually sure I/R is actually better than my R/I. Runemasters are just super badass. Sniper is kind of neat, but just basically ineffectual on the high end bosses. More levels may help, and it's nice that it's back row, but it's basically inferior to both Nightseekers and Arcanists, partially due to how stat recovery works, but partially because Crit multiplication is just weak compared to damage multiplication (Current peak of 3000 wiping out all prep, versus a similarly leveled 70 nightseeker able to do 8000 repeatedly in rounds while keeping ailments around).
Imperial just doesn't leave many points for anything else, whereas Runemaster can basically have a background Drive it can pull off. Heck, it might even be more obnoxious with twin ELM daggers, but it's still fun to just move the runemaster to the front to start swinging a drive blade around, then back to blast with spells.
I bought Windforge last week, and beat it yesterday. It's a game which involves the mechanics of Bionic Commando and Crafting, combined into an RPG that features steampunk airships. You must raid the temples of a world-wide technology-suppressing cult and steal tablets containing ancient knowledge.
Pro: So basically, I was never into mindcraft - designing and building gradiose houses or castles for no purpose other than intricate architecture was never my kind of game. Figuring out how to circumvent the game's levels using its own mechanics, or designing a flying wall of turrets and artillery cannons to more efficiently blow up enemy ships, and having a set ending goal is more my speed. Windforge delivers that.
Cons: Firstly, new indie game, so bugs are to be expected (as opposed to commercial games from large corporations like EA where bugs are unheard of...oh, wait.) Many of the game-crashing and game-breaking ones have been patched, but it's still an ongoing process. Secondly, you're a whaler. The society is based on whaling. It is expected that you will, at some point, take one of your flying ships and harvest at least one flying whale using heavy weaponry. It doesn't feel as awkward as being cast as a heroic Nazi concentration camp guard, but the fact that I'm making the comparison in the first place...
Anyway, feels like it's severely lacking polish (I feel as if I've played a beta, not a finished product), but I felt that it was worth the $15 I paid for it.
*eyes Assassin's Creed IV where he just murdered a Humpback and a White Whale earlier today/last night*
Some games just like their whaling elements? It seems no more reprehensible than other kinds of digital hunting or murder.
I played Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea (both parts) over the weekend.
Pros: Beautifully crafted. We get to see Rapture when it was shiny! Some really excellent set pieces and individual scenes. The first part is particularly well done.
Cons: If you thought Bioshock Infinite turned rather wanky as of about halfway through - as I did - the second part is double wanky with cheese. It was horribly lacking in internal consistency and I couldn't dredge up any real sympathy for anyone involved, including the protagonist.
I was gonna give a more balanced read on ACIV, but frankly, now my read is: Stay the fuck away from Ubisoft products.
God damn uPlay garbage.
Bravely Default is Adorable. I'm still super early in it, but just finding it cute as could be.
It's pretty awesome, yeah.
Hey Eb, care to trade 3ds friend codes? :) *should go remember how that works, been just doing it locally so far*
So far I only know a couple of other Bravely Default players.
Yeah, streetpass hasn't really worked out for me. But my friend code is 4613-7288-4945 if you want to add it.
Dunno how much time any of you spend over at the DL, but the games topic there is almost uninterrupted Bravely Default talk lately.
Friend code 1134 8001 6947
What's dl?
RPGDL.
Gate, Cid, Ko, Rat, and I think a few others came from there to here, and hang out there a lot :)
Oh man, I forgot that even existed. >_>;
Are Kefka and Ghaleon still curb-stomping the upper tier?
I don't think they've done that for a while? But I'm ignorant :D
Quote from: thepanda on April 05, 2014, 08:07:36 PM
Oh man, I forgot that even existed. >_>;
Are Kefka and Ghaleon still curb-stomping the upper tier?
Nah, tournament shut down a few years back. The site's still around as a general social/gaming thing.
Added both Eb and Panda.
Friend code: 0619-3293-4488
Think we both have to add each other to show up in BD.
... and my wifi is shot. Again.
Damn Comcast routers.
Tried Nemesis hunting tonight. Wiped 2 out, and then got mauled hard by Tax on Cupid, a level 30 nemesis that repeated the Merchant/Magic Fencer battle.
...But the Magic Fencer got Death as a sword effect.
And the merchant had a constant supply of +3 bp for him.
It was kind of an obnoxious slaughter, despite me being technically over-leveled. I just didn't have an answer to him being able to do 4 death attacks a round.
I've been playing Castlevania Fighter recently. It's a Mugen product (I know, I know. Bear with me.) that focuses on a long string of upscaled boss battles from throughout the series. You pick one of 20something characters and see how far you can go. It's a lot of fun in a dream battle sort of way.
http://cvbla.dimondsoft.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_iveFe9fU
Started the 'alternate' route on Bravely Default. Lots of very neat/cool touches to the start. Especially the title screen (Seriously, if you haven't gone and seen it Eb, go take a look at it on selecting your save)
But whoever decided it would be shielded under a rapid button pressing challenge was an asshole. Rapid button pressing is a terrible design mechanic and the designer who put that in should feel bad. I honestly had to fight with it to get it to register and try numerous button hitting techniques because my normal just simply wasn't up to the challenge.
I can easily see how Ebiris was wondering if it was even possible because frankly, I had the same wonder while doing it.
I should not have to fight with my controller to communicate intent in a video game. Pretty much every time this type of thing comes up, that's precisely what I have to do.
I did the alternate route first, and I haven't even fully beaten the game yet, but they certainly wanted you to be very, very sure that you wanted to access the other route.
Yeah, but they do that by the dialogue, not by a super shitty 'fight this control scheme' setup :\
Yeah, what I did was put my hand in a sock and then slide my finger back and forth across the X button so I could get up to the required speed of mashing.
Still it's pretty awesome once you get there! And the title change was very cute.
I'm in chapter 7 now on my way to the true ending, and I really like how the sidequests are getting mixed up with group boss fights. You only got one of those in chapter 6 which otherwise rehashed chapter 5 a whole lot, but now it's the norm and it's pretty cool.
edit: Not to mention some of the dialogue for the new groups is awesome. Eternian board of Girl Power!
Belated, but also playing Bravely Default. Friend code is 1134-7508-4351.
I'm halfway through chapter 6, enjoying my current All Offense party. I could probably go even better, but the core is a job 14 freelancer/job 14 Thief and at least one Job 14 Time Mage. Basically I use round 1 to steal, and then round 2 "Godspeed strike->Mimic x15". Even better if you have Slow and Steady on someone and a Brave Robe (you can lose the time mage with that). This does 160k on round 2, and potentially 40-80k every round afterwards (depending on first round actions/brave robe).
It's not quite as obnoxious as as 4 Ninjas with Jump and 1 level 14 time mage hasten world combo, which basically is complete denial to any boss that lacks Slow and Steady or ridiculously high speed, but it's pretty amusing. If there's no players to target at the beginning of the round, enemies simply do buffs/default or Nothing. As long as you always go first (high speed), they basically sit around as you slowly poke them to death. At high level, this just becomes a 40k a round silliness.
I still do enjoy Pirate/Swordmaster: Free Lunch -> x7 9999 and Dark Knight "Drain Blade, Rage, Rage, Black Blade" 99999 combo, but there's really just a lot of variety once you start getting the higher tier moves. Silliness like for instance black mage group casting poison to build BP on the party (followed by Esuna) or Arcanist "Pardon me, you're poisoned, and now taking 9999 the entire rest of the battle from Exterminate".
Still in Chapter 6, having now mastered all jobs on all chars and bought all costumes. I've put together a random-hodge-podge group for chapter 7. Strangely, ended up with no vampires, so probably won't keep it past 7, but I've got my absurd double shield thief of 300 defense, 100ish magic defense, and 60 evade, my freelancer/singer rocking out with an axe for BP spamming and some hasten world (because why not). Dark Knight Ringabel basically to be the damage bringer with rage or black blade every round. And a spirit master/salvemaker for defense and dark bane. Probably not really a good team, but I'll see how it goes against the chapter 7 difficulty hike. And also being able to obnoxiously steal as desired (Don't mind us, we're just stillness until we've robbed all your stuff).
Spoiler for the final battle
Gate's World was destroyed
I'm sorry man.
edit:
Aaaand finished. I doubt I'll new game+ it since half the chapters were basically that, but it was a fun ride. The teaser for Bravely Second after the credits was pretty aces too - using the gyroscope got me surprisingly immersed in it. Can't wait for that to come out.
You may want to give the Nemesis stuff a try. They can be kind of neat, but probably aren't enough to hold interest long. They're certainly challenging puzzle fights.
Ebiris:
Was your your ringabel a merchant? Your Tiz a performer?
Poor Gate's world. Always destroyed.
More blather later.
My affinity with ebiris has increased!
Anyhow, while the last boss was very neat in a lot of ways, Chapter 8 and end was an enormous drop the ball bit. Seriously it only works if you went out of your way to avoid learning things and seeing the characters make decisions. Really disappointing. It's actually very clear that the game that we got that impresses was not the game that originally got made. Repetition was built to create a game with minimal assets and cleverness made up for it, but at the end, meant that a lot of things started falling apart after a while.
The Vampire Castle. The entirety of Bravely Default chapter. The crystals. Many things started feeling really cheap and artificial by the repeating of the same exact dialogue, despite changes or even 'Hey I've done this six times before'.
The three big flaws of the game to my thoughts are:
1)Repetition without development. At least an entire world could've gotten cut out without much loss, and just frankly what happened in chapter Bravely Default with them acting surprised was painful.
2)Button Mashing Crystals. God, so painful. And that it hid the alt ending under a super button mash challenge.
3)Hidden passages were just sort of unreasonably difficult. 336 skills and zero of them are 'Show Hidden Passage'? Really? The adventurer boss fight is entirely hidden in one of those too. I don't see how someone without a faq really FINDS him, much less beats him.
The mechanics and some of the clever plot twists and delivery angles are really the star of the show. It does make me look forward to Bravely Second, for all that the last chapter really took the wind out of my sails for continued play. Damn brainless yammering.
Nah, Tiz was a Dark Knight and Ringabel an Arcanist. I'll agree with your points pretty much entirely.
[spoiler]
Throughout chapter 6 the party all but confirms their knowledge that Airy is evil, and at the end they sound genuinely anguished at going through the pillar another time. I'll admit Airy's cute giggling and "I did it! I did it!" bit at the end of chapter 8 could have been taken innocently if they had any doubts about her evilness, but there were no doubts to be had.
The stuff with the other worlds during the final boss battle was really cool though. Just a shame the fight kept going to cut scenes and when it came back your buffs were gone. I ran out of dragon fangs from making so many giant's drafts.
[/url]
I never ended up using Giant's Drafts. I did buy a ton of dragon's fangs because what else was I to spend my money on after chapter 5? I had rejuvenation going on 2 round cycles, so I pretty much had infinite MP to play around with and keep my guys healed.
I was using Blood Blade on two of my characters, followed by weapon swaps, and I really got quite sick of the buffing juggle that started off the 6ish phases :(
I think I actually did more than his max hp during one of the immortality sections. He got hit with some 270,000 damage in a round.
Definitely a very cool final battle, closing out a terrible final chapter.
Did you go fight the Adventurer (Optional Dimensional Hasp boss)?
I didn't, no. Did go all through the hasp but never found him.
I refuse to spoiler tag this because it is frankly Super Bullshit:
He's hidden behind the last treasure chest in the dungeon. You walk straight through the wall, turn right, then later turn right again, and then he's there.
Absolutely a "If someone doesn't tell you about it, you will not find him" boss. The hidden walls were obnoxious enough with the Diving Rod to at least let you know there was something to find.
I misplaced my copy of ni no kuni.
This made one unhappy, but we live in a glorious time where for the price of a sandwich, games can reappear. And so it has.
And now "Sherrie" is again "Myrtle", for silliness.
I'm cheatin' this go around, mainly to ignore Collection as a thing, but later I'll start copying my monsters over. NG+ without the NG+ feature :3
Been playing more Ni No Kuni. Again remembering how lame the random math was on recruiting things, as well as the absurd balance (Monsters ridiculously stronger than others, other monsters with ridiculous xp costs, post game monsters with xp to max equal to going from 1 to 99, or greater than that), but it's still a beautiful fairy tale setting.
I've decided to give Outlast a go. Should be exciting.
You know, the investigative reporter is a really good 'Why am I willing to stick around in zombie hell' answer.
Quote from: Dracos on May 24, 2014, 08:26:07 PM
Been playing more Ni No Kuni. Again remembering how lame the random math was on recruiting things, as well as the absurd balance (Monsters ridiculously stronger than others, other monsters with ridiculous xp costs, post game monsters with xp to max equal to going from 1 to 99, or greater than that), but it's still a beautiful fairy tale setting.
Haven't played Ni no Kuni, but it seems a shame that they basically hired Ghibli to put a beautiful skin on... gameplay-wise, what was it... it sounds like an unbalanced Pokemon clone?
Or at least, as someone who likes Ghibli but has low tolerance for RPGs and grinding, that's obviously what it would feel like to me....
It's a pokemon clone with only the standard balls, and quests to have specific pokemon at certain times.
It's a beautifully themed game, don't get me wrong, but the core mechanics don't do it many favors and the math is plain bad.
"Oh, hey, Dark Souls is free on xbox gold. KL talked this up; I should go ahead and download it!"
Two hours later...
(http://i.imgur.com/4lE3pYR.gif)
"SKELETONS!!!!"
You're not supposed to go that way immediately. >.>
(You can, but seriously don't.)
Yeah, I figured that out.
Eventually.
Welcome to Dark Souls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYbOVTQnbAA). (Spoilers!)
So for the past couple weeks, I've been One Way Heroics-ing it up. I crushed that poor game, or all but. Every difficulty level, but not Maniac modifier. Every character epilogue. Every special item.
I suppose I didn't do the 20k marathon either, but basically it didn't really have much left for me to beat into the ground.
Had surprising amount of fun with it, for all that it really isn't much there. It's very simple, and generally is mostly Punch Things. Training Bracelet was definitely the break the game item, as whether or not your character is strong, it can make your allies godly quickly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00g2ZbI3ung&list=UUwPnX0XSfxswF0rL78NzNIw
Playing some World of Tanks, Extinction mode in Ghosts, Charlie Murder (kind of fun) and maybe Kirby if I can get people to sit down and play.
That Youtube link = truuuuuth.
I leave for Gate. Maybe for Pax.
Castle Vault. Old Forest 3.
So ridiculous.
I continue my monsterously long Tales of Maj'Eyal playthrough. I don't play particularly fair, but having a good time.
So far:
Cornac Human Berserker - Technically died in the vortex of time, got cheated for more lives and saying screw you time clones of no escape, died in the Room of Death to the Horde of Overpowered Multi-colored Wyrms. 15 lives in.
Lightning Draconian Berserker - First game complete, in exploration mode. Died like a dozen times against the Room of Death, preventing it from being a legitimate win. Saved Melinda and managed to end with 18 lives. Afterwards has had a long productive life as an item carrying mule, since seriously 750+ encumberence. Decks out future folks in random artifacts, because artifacts are awesome.
Faerie Brawler - First abandoned character after it died on the second enemy. Really, what the fuck, that starting level is very mean.
Faerie Brawler - Second abandoned character. Fiddling with UI Addons, and got stuck with one I didn't really want. Both of these basically dropped instantly.
Faerie Brawler, Try 2 - First legitimate win, and first time attempting to slaughter Athamon. 5 deaths, 3 of which were against mr obnoxious post game boss. Beat him on the 4th try. Hadn't stacked enough fire resist really and it made a huge difference just specializing the build on that.
Antimagic Razor Draconian Berserker - This character felt honestly unstoppable for much of the game once it got going and got anti-magic. It was a test of both anti-magic and exotic weapon proficiency and ended with 22/5 effective talent level for that, having a monsterous physical mutliplier and casually dishing out 6000 point damage hits in the late game. Screwed up against Athamaton as I'd swapped regen infusions at the very end, so half the time had a monsterous 4-500 hp recovery...and half the time had 80. That drop really hurt against him. As soon as I fixed it, I steamrolled him easily. 7 deaths.
Archmage Yeek the Dying "Please, Please Let Me Die" - played to break myself of Melee, Melee, Melee play in the game and also to unlock a lot of shit. The Yeek starting area is super mean, and just keeping to one or two deaths in it is an honest challenge with their being tons to pay attention to, and not to mention a surprise 'way too hard for most classes' boss sitting right outside the exit. Just poorly set up. But that didn't stop poor Archmagus Ye, or his 29 partner Yeeks, that were all dragged by the Way across the world, blasting and dying and just generally alternating between 'Things just die 11ish squares away without seeing me', 'Things die by horrific amounts of lightning', and 'Oh my shield went down, I'm dead'. Character build was bad...but what ruined it largely was losing one of his bigger shields before heading east due to a buggy interaction with another talent. Stuck with only two solid 'anytime' shields, 1 partial shield, and 1 'sometimes, but almost never when it'd be useful' shield the yeek had trouble keeping things from murdering it, resulting in one of its brothers rising up to carry on the run. Lightning largely suffered in late games as it was basically: Get hurricane or go home, and hurricane became very hard to actually trigger. Was planning to go wildfire, but the bug on fire damage and split counting between types wrecked it. Either way, the Way ensured that it got there as a beaten wreck of an ewok ripoff, having monsterously destroyed the natural way of things and then brainwashed almost all of mankind, while striking a setup for a massive war.
Next I wanted to try the Dark Faerie silliness and the Monk I'd read a bit about so...
Dark Faerie Monk - Got to the end of the faerie opener, reaching level 5 and just not really looking forward to it. The class pretty much dictates how you need to spend about 48 of your class skill points to really be playable, which is an enormous percentage of the total by level 50 amount. It also quickly moves between large amounts of complicated minor passive buffs, which just was more complicated than I was looking for. Run just canceled.
Dark Faerie Sun Paladin - This one was actually reasonably fun, except that it just didn't work as a Dark Faerie. The cloning racial meant that my helpers were constantly spawning and using blinding sun attacks that would also hit me. Even with an enormous early game investment in anti-blindness, I still was basically getting hit every major encounter. Run on pause until helper clones not inflicting status ailments is fixed. Hopefully, Tinkerbell shall fly again for silly. 3 lives through to dreadfall.
Now currently trying out:
Thalore Oozemancer - this character is a ridiculously capable monster with tons of options. This is supposedly post nerf, but it completely mopped up the room of death without any trouble. I walk around with a standard 21 percent resist all, that soon will go to 24-25 percent. When any serious battle shows up, this promptly escalates to 70 for the first 7-10 rounds of combat, with a casual 111 percent buff to nature damage, tons of resistances. Can pretend to be a mage, summoner, or punch monkey without trouble at any time. Can even double doing mage and summoner duty, since one of her AoEs both does tons of damage, lays down a damage field, and summons a bunch of oozes that all then shoot once to twice a round at whatever. Sometimes that can just be dropped in a room the oozemancer isn't even in, and they'll kill everything without the player even involved. Currently level 37, just got back to the east. 4 deaths, all in the early game. Basically if Slalin isn't one-shot, she isn't going down. "Oh you did 90 percent of my health? Well, time to take it seriously. Tremendous wave of instant action buffs and heals and summons. Followed by double turns for the next couple of rounds.... and healing and regen options in the wing (There's a half dozen massive heal (sometimes + massive damaage) options). Fun, but definitely overly powerful character. Speaks strongly though to Saves not really doing enough. Despite an outrageous willpower and cunning (126 and 86 currently), + a reasonably strong save gear, I still regularly get hit with confuse. You'd think physical effects would be the ones getting through, but nope, mental tends to hit through just as often. Main weakness anyhow? Can't carry much. The 15 encumberance 'bonus' gear the character got handed during the game by being online at the right time sinks most of her carrying capacity. Will be glad to max Will, Con, and Cun so I can start tossing points to raising that (What, defense?).
Oozemancers have perhaps the most awesome problem: Basically almost every option they can choose to take is good or very good. Where most classes have one or two archetype builds that you build and plan around, I'm pretty sure 'random clicking' would be a totally workable powerful build on an oozemancer.
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2014, 05:25:03 PM
I continue my monsterously long Tales of Maj'Eyal playthrough. I don't play particularly fair, but having a good time.
Oh hey, that game.
I keep playing elven archmages on Roguelike, and dying to typos. I'mWinningI'mWinningI'mWin*SUDDENDEATH* is how I roll.
I'm currently replaying Dead Space.
This time around I figured out that the sluggish controls and laggy aiming were not inherent gameplay features. As far as I can understand it, the problems are caused by the in game v-sinc option running the game well below the framerate it should be at. Disabling it caused horrible screen tearing, but you can force the application to run v-sinc through your video card instead, which not only gives you a HUGE performance boost and drastically reduces load times, it makes aiming SO much easier.
The game is quite a bit more fun now, but I think I'll pass at playing it on the 'impossible' difficulty setting I just unlocked.
Finished Oozemancer. Enjoyable.
Trying what was to be an Anti-magic mindslayer, but then I stumbled on Stone Alchemy as an option on the very first screen and rolled with it, playing toward just having ridiculous stats through tons of stacked gems on everything matched with The Way mindstars. It's working though really, not quite sure its clicking. The setup just weirds my head. It's a spattering of physical, mental, fire, ice, and lightning effects that for the most part are best at mid range, lacking good get in close or hit from far options so far. Was kind of expecting a psionists, and instead what I got is a mental powered magic fighter, which is weird. Everything else has so far been good at being consistent: 1 or 2 main categories, whereas Mindslayer just feels all over the place.
Tried Solipist for a moment and it was at least more in the right vein, but it felt weird switching midrun. It certainly felt more along the mentalist route, and while probably super op, at least was doing mind damage. That I think was my real grudge. I had 50 psionic options not to deal mind damage with mind slayer.
I've been playing an old 90s pinball game, Crystal Caliburn. It's a table centered around Arthurian myth. Your goal is to accolade all the knights of the round table, find the holy grail and bring it back to Camelot. Doing so triggers the last battle, which is the game's wizard mode. It's a fun and satisfying game with a good feel to it, that sort of thing that pinball games struggle to nail.
It's a good call if you want a 90s pinball fix.
I won my first game of AI War.
A 4x RTS with inspiration from tower defense. The premise is that humanity has already fought a war in space with the AI and lost. The AI has already started working on other projects outside of the galaxy. Humanity is mostly destroyed. But the AI missed a last scrap of human resistance - you. Your job is to build a fleet and to destroy two AI cores.
That's all the story we get for the basic game. This is not a story-driven game. It's a game about strategy and logistics. It's fundamentally a about tradeoffs: for every strategic objective you destroy or steal from the AI, it becomes more and more aware of you. As "AI progress" increases, it sends larger waves of stronger ships against you. So you need to scout the galaxy well, find which systems you need to take and which ones you can afford to skip.
Been going through Shin Megami Tensai 4 during the yellowstone trip.
While I do enjoy the model and am slowly gathering all the poke...demons...
I've got four big 'hey, that's just not very cool'.
1)Difficulty is horrendously spikey. I've had the same strategy on a boss lead to an almost no damage overwhelming victory and a complete and utter loss. I got to watch the boss get an enormous string of crits that took a party from full health to one guy barely standing. I'm currently in the middle of a quest that I'm saving at heavily, because there's a more than 10 percent chance that the enemy horde just instantly wipes my party, despite my party being able to return the favor. Sometimes it just goes first, even when successfully map attacked, and if it's 'do 120 to all + poison' attack shows up in that surprise two attack setup, the fight is pretty much over, especially as it can get followed by a 120 point physical flurry to the lead. Surprise attacks are nastily capable of just killing off a demon, regardless of level difference. Given I'm overall consistently winning, I'm not getting the feeling that these are strategic mis-steps, but that the randomness range often has significant percentage chances of just getting mauled standing right alongside apparently effortless victories. I'm on normal difficulty for the record, which apparently makes article writers cry.
2)Scouting is very random. Enormously so. This has been a thing in SMT games from the beginning as I recall, and it's really no less pleasant now. The upgrades seem to provide for getting more monsters in a scouting success, but that's actually not seeming desirable, given I'm usually scouting to build up a fusion tree toward a specific result. While after playing for a while, I do see more options, there's no real sense of whether anything is successful or not. A very satisified demon can just decide to leave the battle, which is almost more annoying than failure (Which at least gives another chance). It's sort of a shame that it's still such an unclear and random mechanic so far into the series.
3)Given that things can end brutally in a sudden and random fashion, it seems almost mocking that the game provides a restore from dead for a cost feature. I've found it prohibitively expensive in macca (which is annoyingly slow to come by even with fundraising) to ever use, encouraging me to save often and fail out rather than use it. It's practically faster to exit the game then to trigger a game over through that. Heck, the macca scarcity is pretty annoying on its own, but having a 'you lost, and now we suggest a high punitive cost' is just mean. The one time I've chosen Macca, it requested more than 10 percent of my net take so far, more than I had at the time.
4)If your lead gets knocked over, the rest of your monsters are really not in any shape to do anything about it. At least in earlyish game. This is unfortunate, especially as you just generally don't have anything special you can do to protect your lead. He does have more hp and all, but a random assault can leave you suddenly without him, pretty much removing several battle options from play, most notably: Use item to heal or revive the lead.
I have other complaints, such as encounter rate/control being just in the way, but they're minor compared to those four. I'm pretty early, just after the first Transport, but I don't suspect those will change, since they seem fundamentally messed up.
Took a side trip to bravely default and mauled some folks, before deciding to continue the Neutral route in Devil Survivor.
I have 4 of 6 routes finished, but never did finish Gin's story, the tale of the Rock Star that Saves the City.
Gin's story: He slept, he showered, he asked for breakfast, he was denied.
Hmm.
So I have finished.
Song of Hope was played, demon and angel kind banished from the world, Haru rocked out in front of the computer.
It was kind of an interesting finish. Before the gate of kings, Babel, I had saved everyone, and down this route pretty much everyone but Kaido and Naoya joined me, so I had an enormous 10 person group. I could've almost fielded an all human battle party. Which actually would've been sorta clever, but a real stretch on abilities since everyone shares the same one off pool.
Anyhow, in my final group, I went with Kon, Atsuro (Bro of Bros), Yuzu, and Black Frost. Since I was doing song of hope, and banishing all demons, Black Frost was banished midway through the fight. He took a moment to turn and say goodbye, talking about how much he'd learned, and his intent to be a hero of love and justice in the demon world. Black Frost, beloved by all children, vanished to his future as a sentai hero.
This left Babel versus the original three. And no support, because seriously, all of the demons get banished before you take on the final version of Babel. It makes for a heck of a challenge dealing with him with 3 characters, one of which is an instant game over if he goes down. Tiny set of abilities, and he has his usual 'you best be doing this element to get any progress' setup. Luckily, he started with lightning weakness, so Kon was able to do most of the necessary damage in the first pass. Otherwise he certainly wouldn't have managed it. It ended close. Atsuro down. Yuzu silenced and half dead. Kon with 6 hp left.
Yuzu finished it off with a punch, everyone cheered, the other half a dozen folks that could've been helping out came out of the shadows to celebrate, and the world went back to normal, despite the massive destruction of tokyo.
Metatron came off as his least civil strangely down this route, even less so then when you openly declare war on god. A complete "Step out of line and we'll totally kill all humans. It's all on you, king of bel".
Anyhow, turns out Kaido is not actually considered a route by the game, so I now have a perfect save, complete with all routes displayed on the opener, and all the top tier demons as well as a complete Tyrant set in my stash.
Game has been completely abused. Now to see whether I can get going again in SMT IV.
Started SMT IV back up.
I'm...just not really able to bring myself to tolerate its world map. It just actively irritates and bothers my eyes to look at it, I can't tell where I'm really going, find the map painful to even orient myself with or tell what's roads and what isn't. I started it up, struggled my way between the first two locations and slaughtered a boss bird for a quest, and then just didn't want to walk back.
So, game on halt on account of tiresome worldmap.
Started up Paper Mario Sticker whatever. So far...Victorious but unimpressed? There's no leveling, and you get most of your wealth per area by just getting through it, so stomping everything is sort of a pointless activity, there because its there kinda? They're more aggressive than Paper Mario 2 was with being paper, and it being just something everyone takes for granted in the world setup. It makes it come across... well, as playing with paper dolls rather than playing a story. The introduction of main series style level separation doesn't help ("Hey World 1-3, let's go~!"). The introduction of non-paper objects also doesn't help. They're strongly going for (and getting) some guy playing with his stamp collection and hobby collectibles as a theme.
Personally, still feel Paper Mario 2 is the high point of the series. The story book thematic they went with there was strong, the RPG elements carried, and it more felt like it was asking you to participate in a story rather than play sticker collection.
Playing a survival horror game called Claire.
Though many people who have reviewed the game make a point of mentioning that it seems heavily influenced by the Silent Hill series, I'll try not to do that very much. Some of the sound effects are similar and some of the gameplay is reminiscent of the SH series, but Claire is a standalone creepy adventure title. The game is a sidescrolling exploration simulator. You walk around in the dark as the title character, Claire, while creepy beings of unknown origin stalk you through the corridors of a hospital that has somehow gone strange and otherworldly. The music is moody, the gameplay is simple, and you have no choice but to run from your enemies whenever you encounter them.
The main thing the devs got right here is
atmosphere. In order for a survival horror title to actually
be scary, one must have an atmosphere that sustains a feeling that the player should be afraid. The actual Silent Hill series has failed to do this consistently since SH4, due to the fact that "team Silent" abandoned the series to work the Siren games and it's been picked up by a different developer in each iteration and each succeeding game seems worse than the last. SH is dead and I won't reference it again.
So what does Claire do right? The game is genuinely unsettling in several parts. The sound the monsters make, the strange effects you encounter in some of the rooms, the confusing and mazelike quality of the hospital you're exploring, the writing and dialogue, the mystery of the whole affair. I LOVE these things. Even the retro style visuals work well to create a scary atmosphere.
Sadly, not everything is good. Puzzles with me are really hit or miss. There was one puzzle that I simply couldn't figure out on my own, due to a lack of clues within the game world itself. It was one of those: "Oh, how was I supposed to know THAT?" scenarios. Unfortunately, said puzzle prevented me from continuing the game until I solved it, even though my exploration ethic is fairly meticulous, the clues simply did not add up to the answer demanded by the game itself.
Also, the game trapped me once in a scenario I couldn't escape from and I died. The main objective pointed me straight at the trap and there is no way of knowing not to go into it unless you've already gone inside and died. When I reloaded I had to bypass the trap and wander around for a while before the game supplied a new objective and highlighted it on the in-game map. That's just not good game design. You should always leave your players some way out, even if you have made a death trap for them.
Why did Claire not go into the really obvious elevator she was looking for? No reason, the player made her go somewhere else because she'd die if she went in there. Not well thought out.
Anyway, haven't beaten the game yet. It's good spooky fun though. If you like that sort of thing you should check it out.
Beat AI War on 7/7 AI levels (each AI can go to 10, but 7 is considered average difficulty).
I also beat it before on 7/7 between my earlier post and this one, but that was also with a map style that's suited for defense, and all of the expansions enabled. I'd noticed that I tended to pick options and settings that increased the number of toys and benefits - arguably, this made the game easier, albeit more complicated. So I decided to turn off all the expansions and try playing a pared down AI War before writing up a full post about it to get a feel of the core game.
AI war is a fundamentally single player (although co-op mode exists) 4x RTS that, like many modern RTSs, have multiple resources to keep track of. But in the end, the game revolves around a single negative-resource: AI Progress. Capturing strategic points will get you more tech, more metal, more hacking points, etc, but it will also advance AI Progress. Destroying critical structures may advance AI progress. Certain addon features, if not captured or properly dealt with, may advance AI progress. Dawdling may advance AI progress.
And AI Progress is bad. It dictates how many ships are part of the waves that will periodically invade your planet. It dictates the level of ships that are used to reinforce planet defenses. It's the difference between a probe of 100-ish mk I fighters and a 10,000 strong wave that rips through several fortified planets.
The result is an RTS that is fairly atypical - rather than rushing to capture most of the map and resources, a player needs to weigh the strategic benefits versus costs. In an 80 planet map, one might take less than 20 planets - a far cry from most RTSs where players rush to conquer most of the map as soon as plausible, and buy technology as soon as they can pay for it. This isn't a game for the casual gamer who wants to be done in an hour, but for those who wish there was more "S" in RTS, AI War is worth investigating.
Been playing Alien: Isolation the last few days. As a quick review: Amazing. The game genuinely gets my heart rate going, I get paranoid as hell, and it looks amazing. It's caught the look, feel, and attitude of the original movie amazingly well. It's strong in every way it should be.
For complaints, I only have one. NPC patrols aren't random. They have a tendency to patrol right to you, without having ever caught sight of you. I've tested this a few times with different NPCs in different areas, and they always end up shuffling right on up to where I'm hiding. It's a bit annoying, but paying attention to the hiding spots around you makes it semi-negligible except for just slowing you down.
Update: After having racked up 10 hours in the game, I need to add to my complaints section. Once you move past the tutorial section of the game and the Alien becomes a regular in the game, *it becomes a regular in the game.* I've gone through two sections of the game since the Alien has become a viable threat, and in those two sections, it's *always* there. And I mean *always.* It's constantly patrolling right past you. I even tested it and stayed in the same room, and the same hiding place for over half and hour, and it always came right back to where I was hiding.
This wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that it sort-of ruins the point of the Alien. It moves away from being this thing that could be God knows where to you knowing *exactly* where it is, all the time: in the hallway outside of the room you're in. And if it isn't, give it 10-15 seconds and it will be.
Now, this doesn't stop it from being a great game. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. But it does make it annoying.
I've heard basically that game has a good start, and outstays its welcome hard as the game goes on.
But haven't really paid attention over Hyrule Warriors All the Time.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on October 10, 2014, 04:59:13 PM
It moves away from being this thing that could be God knows where to you knowing *exactly* where it is, all the time: in the hallway outside of the room you're in. And if it isn't, give it 10-15 seconds and it will be.
That sounds too
Five Nights at Freddy's to me. A bit more troll than horror (trollor?)
On another note: vicariously enjoyed Among The Sleep (http://www.krillbite.com/ats/) in the form of some Let's Plays. That didn't seem like a bad way to enjoy the game given that it's mostly story and atmosphere and not a lot of actual gameplay mechanics.
Gotten more play in on Hyrule Warriors.
It's got an unfortunate bit with Hard, which seems balanced for folks in the level 30 to 40 with tier 2 or higher weapons. Mainly folks with tier 1 weapons still just struggle to do damage. Bosses will take several guard breaks to take down, and usually take a few rounds to guard break. That everything along the line takes longer to get through makes many of the things just difficult to stay ahead of, even if you're not getting hit and mauling things rapidly.
Without help, most characters under level 40 are just going to struggle very hard to get tier 2 weapons on the adventure mode, if they weren't given them in the main game mode. They just don't hit hard enough and that makes achieving the time requirement while also being cautious so to remain under the damage taken requirement difficult. Tossing 15 levels toward one of my characters made an enormous difference of moving from a C to a just missed A.
In general, I could go with more of the heart container challenges being harder and the Weapon challenges being more lenient, since they're really significant upgrades rather than just small bonuses. I know, that sounds weird, but a few of the characters just get pretty much handed powerful tier 2 or 3 weapons, and the others have to struggle quite a bit for them.
Roaming through Persona Q.
Anyone else playing something fun?
I've been playing Destiny a lot, really enjoying it. Also been playing Star Wars the Old Republic, the newest expansion dropped this week and I'm having a blast going through that. Though, I really need to focus on my backlog of other games heh.
Playing Dead Space 3 with a friend of mine. The weapon crafting system is quite fun once you have enough resources to build the parts you need. You can make the most stupidly impractical things if you want. ^_^
So been playing a few things.
Persona Q: I've played this to finish and had a good time with it, even though in hindsight it feels like an average EO, with the talking too crammed together. I'll try and give a longer go over of it, but I did have a lot of fun with it despite a lot of obvious minor flaws.
Poker Night at the Inventory: Well...it was cute. But the player AIs were just pretty bad. Too much of it involved characters going all in on trash, or massively raising on trash, which made it awkward to play. If anything, worse than their previous poker game. The characters all had special items, but they dropped them pretty quickly. Overall, just kind of disappointing as a relaxing cardgame to play.
Poker Night 2: From Disappointing to just bleh. Ran poorly on my machine, with control bugs, and if anything, the AI was obviously worse, with enormous pre-flop bets right off the bat repeatedly. "So uh, what's the point in coming on when the pot was 400 and is now 8000 to call?"
Final Fantasy 13-3:Lightning Returns: Well, it's really a shame on a lot of levels right off the bat. As advertised, everyone wears enormously impractical outfits that don't accent the character so much as just say 'this person is eye candy'. It's set in a weird Right Before the Fall pile of excessive indulgence mixed with 'Holy City' starters. It casually drops tons of broken mythology type bombshells: Here's a whiny little kid complaining about her doll in the lead in for the apocolypse...no wait, she's really extremely long lived and btw, every city is floating in a weird bubble of chaos? Wait really, that's how you want to introduce both those concepts? By a crying child asking for their cactaur doll? Much like the previous games, it immediately plays around with you being less informed than anyone else in the setting. Being a god's servant it still feels wrong to be so excessively uninformed compared to those around. Basically, a way of trying to cram the mythos they're wanting to build on top of the gameplay, rather than working together. Then there's the everpresent timer. That did indeed annoy me after a short bit. Yeah, not clicking here.
Got a bit further in Hyrule Warriors. Evil's Bane is unlocked. Starting to work on Legendary, and got probably about 1/3rd to 1/2 of Master Quest unlocked. Really wish they had Recc Levels on things, as its easy to have a super easy level next to something I have to stop because my level 60 Zant simply isn't hitting hard enough for it to be plausible.
Trying out Infamous 2 now.
Continuing power leveling in fire Emblem Awakening, sitting right before the last boss. probably going to challenge Apothesis after. And get mauled by things meant for Gate or higher level players, instead of "I can totally powergame" level players.
Been doing occasional Smash. Kinda been playing weakly at it.
Haven't checked out the january Hyrule Warriors DLC.
For various reasons have acquired a copy of Dragon Age Inquisition. Was 5 bucks, so... May have to do something with it.
Trying out On the Rain Soaked Precipice of Darkness: Episode 3.
Had it for a while, but it's a nice simple thing to play with. Currently at the transdimensional section.
Found a cute little game called Spooky's House of Jump Scares (http://www.indiedb.com/games/spookys-house-of-jump-scares) in which you must navigate a 1000 room house of horrors run by a cute little ghost. Said horrors mostly being on the same level as a child's halloween haunted house. At first, anyway.
The graphics are pretty much on the level of a higher res Wolfenstein 3d, and the jumpscare/horror conceit works with them being objects in the world rather than just images appearing on your screen like in typical flash jumpscares. There are also a few arcade machines featuring the titular Spooky in other types of games that you can play if you find them in the randomised layout of the house.
It's free, so I'd suggest playing it if you're in the mood for some spine-tingling horror, at least for fifteen minutes to see if it grabs you.
Huh. I might check it out later.
I watched a video, but I wonder: What do you do with that? Sorta, what is going on there?
You explore the haunted house and try not to die horribly of course! Also read notes from previous inhabitants/explorers.
I'm not saying it's super in depth or anything, but it's fun and terrifying~
Did some more Hyrule Warriors this weekend, and also some Tales of Maj'eyal. In the latter, I unlocked doomelf and went through Reaver and half of a Demonologist run (so thick). Reaver was pretty strong, only dying at athamaton from having found no dispersion gear, and having no way to say 'go away' to his reflection.
Unlocked the giant boss illustration, and gave it a try....and was mauled horribly. As much as it might be neat, the giant bosses were very high level, and came 3 at a time. It basically ensured I was getting hit with both Gohma and Manhandla going side by side on top of a giant dodongo.
I've been playing Hoplite on my phone. That is a very neatly done little game, and I'd recommend having a look - it's free with the option to spend $3 for some additional content, but there's plenty of gameplay to start you off.
I started playing Pokemon X.
First one in like 20 years.
I just started playing Pokemon Y a week ago! (And then put it aside for link between worlds, but I shall return to my trusty water frog minion!). We can trade! :-p
I have a water frog minion too.
Wyld was also getting it.
I think we already are marked as friends, but I haven't seen you or anyone else show up?
We are actually not friends on 3ds yet (possibly on ds?) as I only just recently picked up the 3ds for the first time when the new one came out. I was pretty much the only guy that didnt pull one out in the gathering in california. Well me and Corwin. :)
Well, post your code.
I'll post mine at home :)
Mine is 0619-3293-4488
2767-1109-9468
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,2212.msg1056308.html#msg1056308
*types "Kitten Game" into Google.
The best description I can think of: the object of the game is to increase numbers.
Been playing a lot of Bloodborne lately. The game is pretty brutal, but extremely fun and addicting. I have it on PS4 so if anyone wants to co-op in it send me a message.
Star Ocean: Second Evolution.
Got a new copy of this (old copy broke) and I'm replaying it. Just got to Nede and the game's as fun to break as it always is. You can completely go nuts if you know how to do it and vanquish any illusion of difficulty, even on Universe.
So let's see...
I've taken a break from Pokemon. I'm at 677 of the 721 existing pokemon but just got suddenly exhausted with it all. Not really anything left to interspace it with and the high xp options get boring after a while (especially as you can't really up the challenge that much in those spaces without risking what youre doing it for).
I picked up One Way Heroic Plus and have played it quite a bit. I've cleared the bonus boss and wandered through dimensions on Very Hard at this point, so I suppose I've seen everything the new version has, even if I haven't managed a Tourist victory and certainly have some endings left to get. I was a fan of the original One Way Heroics, but am not sure the expanded version is actually better. It does have more content, improved balancing, less save/scummable crafting, new minibosses, new areas, quality of life improvements, and new characters, so quantitatively it is better. But I'm not actually sure it is a better experience (Aside from the QoL improvements, which rock clearly), even though it certainly is more of one.
I still find that Hero, Bard, and Force User are considerably more capable than their peers (despite bard being viewed as weak and getting a buff). All of the shield and bow users struggle by virtue of having a mandatory fill in their accessory slot, which hurts hard versus the classes that can do whatever they want (where whatever they want usually is a 2 or 4x exp booster). Many of the rest have a wall of negative cha making getting allies hard. Even with the introduced xp penalty for having allies (I don't think that was there originally), having a couple of strong allies can make a world of difference (My 3k Very Hard Bard run had King and Duke early and that just cascaded into an unstoppable force fairly soon). Force User technically is also someone that can compete, but is generally sitting between Swordsmaster and Force User, so...options I guess? I've beaten the game at this point on at least normal with everything but tourist and ninja.
Getting stronger gear going is much more of a struggle and really finally only happened for me on my last three runs, despite starting with a full vault of stuffs. High end scrolls are painfully rare until even late very hard mode, and even just building quality and sturdy up so valuable 'takes an entire playthrough to get' weapons don't disintegrate is difficult on the lower difficulties. The higher difficulties are more of a challenge to get started without them now due to the random early miniboss, which acts as a pretty high 'you better have gear or spells, since you don't have levels yet'. I'm sure there are tricks (like spawning the group into a mountain which happened once) but in general, getting going on hard and very hard wants for some things that likely show up on doing long runs. Actually, doing long runs is pretty critical to getting equipment that can handle long runs well.
Started up Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. Not sure what to think yet, but they've definitely made their beginnings more accessible going from 1 to 2 to 3. Shantae comes off more Ditzy ("Oops, those two just died") in kind of a disturbing way, but clearly lives in a world where common sense isn't there (Mayor can sell whole town, New Town Owner can Shell the Town (and sees any reason to do so given they are his citizens now?), the government seeing nothing wrong with driving a tank through town).
I beat ZigClimb (http://flend.net/zigclimb/index.html), a minimalist Roguelike which had source code sized <1K.
This is not exactly the most feature-filled gameplay extravaganza ever, but is academically interesting in seeing what can be done with minimal resource requirements. If you like classic roguelikes in general, it's worth a look.
Since part of roguelikes trying to figure out the underlying mechanics, I'll throw this into two levels of spoilers. The first is the tip on the webpage, and the second is what various things mean.
Monsters a, b, c...refer to power levels, where a is the weakest, and they grow stronger as the letters increment.
To kill a monster, one needs to have a weapon that is not less than four levels of the monster.
[spoiler]
H - HP
L - Level. Objective is to read L:10
WA: Weapon/Armor rating.
* gold collected (has no purpose other than points)
map symbols:
( new weapon - may be worse than old weapon
% new armor - may be worse than old armor
! restore HP to 10.
* gold
mechanics:
lower level monsters can kill higher level monsters.
uncollected items
monster AI will not close a 1-space gap no matter how long you wait (and thus expose itself to first strike). If you're trying to hunt monsters, moving towards the monster when it's two spaces away is necessary
[/spoiler]
The same author has what seems to be Princess Maker: the Roguelike elsewhere on his site, and I plan to try that in the near future.
I have restarted playing EVE Online.
Woe is me, and I shall gift all I meet with hatred and discontent.
We'll pray for you, Iddy.
Playing some Valdis Story. This is neat, though juggles hurt and its a bit mastery focused for me.
Odin Sphere has returned.
Just finished a run of Helen's Mysterious Castle. Kind of a cute time extremely time based combat system (Everything is measured in ticks and manipulating what happens when is a lot of the battle). Music is...actually not all that bad, but the sound output definitely is a bit painful. Story is a little weak and a little 'oh, you pulled all the punches', but the combat system made it a cute time spend.
Been playing Pathfinder Adventures. Which has a buggy digital version.
I've recently played a bunch of Call of Duty games. They're all pretty same-ish, though I stayed away from the main ones for the most part and worked my way backwards through all of the Black Ops series, which I find a bit more enjoyable due to the focus on storytelling.
CoD, for when you don't want to think too much and just want to shoot guys.
Also,
press X to pay your respects.
Finished up Torment: Tides of Numenera. I think that the pieces that the game was put together with don't quite fit right.
Was playing some Ys Oath of Felghena but now starting up Tales of Bersaria, where Betrayal is polite.
Quote from: Dracos on August 26, 2017, 12:02:32 AM
Finished up Torment: Tides of Numenera. I think that the pieces that the game was put together with don't quite fit right.
Was playing some Ys Oath of Felghena but now starting up Tales of Bersaria, where Betrayal is polite.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is one of my favorite RPGs of that era. Did you play the enhanced edition or the original version?
I've decided I hate free time and am playing Kritika Online. Cause the last time I played a Korean MMOARPG it ended up SO well for me....
I've been addicted to idling to rule the gods, which isn't all that good.
I also have Slay The Spire which is a card game not quite as catchy as Monster Slayer that I am poking wanting to see if as more gets unlocked it feels deeper. I've beaten it once with a Reflect Damage build.
Anyone plan to pick up Monster Hunter World for PC later this year? I plan to and want to try and pre-plan a guild/server and group stuff.
Never quite got into it. Though certainly I'm seeing a lot of excitement around for it.
I heard the combat is kinda like Dragons Dogma so I'm vaguely interested in it.
I never got into it either. I've no plans to buy it.
I've always had interest in the series, but I own one of the 3ds games and I've honestly not played it more than like 10 minutes. Generally have too little time for gaming and when I do, I'd rather play other stuff more.
I've been playing Idling to Rule the Gods (bad addict) and Slay the Spire lately. Should get back to deeper games.
Been off and on replaying Lufia 2 recently. Just started the second half of the game after Gades. It's a solid 16 bit game that's better with a fixer/retranslation patch. Really one of those late 16 bit RPGs ala FF6, BoF2 and others that hit it out of the park.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 12, 2018, 12:00:57 AM
Been off and on replaying Lufia 2 recently. Just started the second half of the game after Gades. It's a solid 16 bit game that's better with a fixer/retranslation patch. Really one of those late 16 bit RPGs ala FF6, BoF2 and others that hit it out of the park.
I've been looking for something that style that I could play on my phone/tablet while traveling or at work. Something that'll work offline and that I can move my save from my phone to tablet and back. Does anyone have suggestions?
After a stint of playing Silent Storm and the sequel Sentinels, I've been playing Star Ruler 2, a space-themed real time 4X game that tries new mechanics. It feels like LOGH but with somewhat less politics (but still more politics than most 4x space games) and more pewpew guns. I've played through a few games and have failed horribly at them so far, but still having fun with it.
SR1 was a 4x game built around a ship design kit. I loved that game and wouldn't have been too disappointed if SR2 was just more of the same, but it's not. The default races have distinct characteristics, and while much of the SR1 ship design philosophy is still around, you can't build things like artillery that can wipe out planetary populations from across the galaxy anymore. Planetary Thrusters and Ringworlds are still in, though. Governors and city development have been replaced with government-directed civilian development incentives, and instead of money, you have budget cycles (and including letting the player borrow against future cycles). So it is more in line with how one expects a government to function.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on March 15, 2018, 05:06:51 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 12, 2018, 12:00:57 AM
Been off and on replaying Lufia 2 recently. Just started the second half of the game after Gades. It's a solid 16 bit game that's better with a fixer/retranslation patch. Really one of those late 16 bit RPGs ala FF6, BoF2 and others that hit it out of the park.
I've been looking for something that style that I could play on my phone/tablet while traveling or at work. Something that'll work offline and that I can move my save from my phone to tablet and back. Does anyone have suggestions?
I don't play JRPGs, so I'm sure that others can better answer your question. But a quick search on Google found the following:
"In 2009, Taito ported Estpolis (Lufia I) to mobile phones in Japan. Other than some new supplemental artwork - which appears in the character portraits above, since none were featured for the original release - and a slightly different screen ratio, the game uses the same graphics."
Might be worth following up to see if anyone has ported/translated it.
One suggestion: Emulators and uploading your saves to a cloud or similar solution, so you can play across platforms? I have no idea about emulation on phones, though.
and way better than it's remake of "I can walk up this city again...walk up this city again."
Been a surprisingly long while since I've played a video game (not counting tabletop simulator with Drac/Hal/Kal). Picked up Monster Prom on a whim thinking it'd be some thoughtless fun.
It's a dating simulator for a school of monsters, and it's been EXACTLY the thoughtless fun I was expecting it to be.
Fairly reminescent of Cards Against Humanity wrongness, with a very healthy dose of dating sim randomness. A lot of the options are going to give you random results no matter how sure you are they're the right thing to do (or in most cases, the worst thing to do. You're a monster after all).
But the dialogue is often funny regardless of a success or failure, and while some of the humor hasn't been to my taste, a fair bit has amused me as I started the game off trying to woo the very bitchy gorgon Vera with each of the player characters.
Got shot down three times (brutally, I might add... I wasn't kidding about her being a bitch), before I finally triggered the right conditions for her on the fourth time, mostly due to luck honestly. And probably having a lot of charm and money?
(https://i.imgur.com/jV017KV.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/NUa543N.jpg)
We made a cute couple. Even if she was probably taking advantage of me for my money.
aww :)
I've been playing Battletech, a turn-based tactical game with large stompy mechs shooting enormous lasers, but whose creators have never heard of ICBMs. This is a war game with RPG elements.
+The single player campaign is not just some random nonsense they threw in as a tutorial for online play. (I'd say something about accuracy with respect to the tabletop game, but I've never actually played that. All movement is in hex-grid, so take that as you will).
-Computer AI is not amazing, which is interesting since they should be able to write one well with a turn-based game. Long load times (but still playable).
+/- You've spent days building up your best merc's XP, he's sitting in your best mech, and gets killed through a freak headshot with an oversized autocannon. I think that's cool, but then again, I play actual roguelikes. I can see other people throwing their computer out the window over something like that.
Also, lots of meters to worry about (armor, internal structure, heat, $ (which goes to both repairs and salary)). So, great game if you like spending time trying to redesign large war machines for different tactics and planetary biomes, but not so great if you hate resource micromanagement.
Been a while. Some Slay the Spire certainly got some time, but lately I've been doing Octopath Traveler. Near end game right now. It's kind of a neat current gen Saga Frontier type. Character storylines are held by bullshit and threads together and it is long...but at least no start from scratch mechanics in its play. Very structured for all that it plays as a free roaming type affair.
Prospector Release 210 (http://www.prospector.at/forum/dm_eds/dmedsdl.php)
I think the programmer toned down the anesthetic exploit; I'm not making nearly as much money as I used to from capturing aliens.
Dragon Quest XI. Lots of nice usability changes. I think the silent hero worked against them, since there's very clearly an emotive arc the character is supposed to be going through and made some of the reaction scenes odd...
Don't murder a heroes' entire family and village if you're doing a not speaking hero. Yes, it can work, but you kind of have to have them react.
I'm in Act 3 now, and largely my feel is that I walked through a framework of a much better tale with similar beats. I think a much darker take on Act 2 would've still been a great story, and would've set up Act 3 much better. By having both be Cheery, it's all well End of games, they undercut the setup for act 3 a lot. Yes, a lot of named characters end up surviving down this route, but they kind of handwave away the damaged world rather than having it be a clear backdrop. The world was saved...but at such cost.
The Game Formerly Known As DoomRL (https://drl.chaosforge.org/downloads) (before the site was given a cease and desist).
Fun Roguelike.
Going through The World Ends With You on Switch. And Crosscode when I get back to finish it. Lot of games in back 10% of game at the moment.
Final Fantasy 1 Randomizer's a lot of fun. Been playing that in the various modes, it's great to play through and have fun. It's wonderful for old fans of Final Fantasy 1 to feel nostalgic over and really learn the tricks of the game.
Lethal Application (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSEvZX6mp0Y&list=PLF1FCF88EE07E57EB)
Note: Link to playlist of someone who is much better at this game than I.
I should say a little more than just give the link...remember how the machine gun in Doumono had momentum that let you fly around? Most movement in this game is built around a similar mechanic.
UFO Aftershock (https://www.gog.com/game/ufo_aftershock)
Disgaea 5 is addictive. That is all.
Lots of Touhou the Spire (https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/ ) with some Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Skies SC.
Played a lot of Anthem in the past few days. I expected a lot more depth, but the core gameplay is pretty fun. First "modern" game I played in a long time. haha
I've heard a lot of negative buzz about Anthem. Would you say it's shallow?
Anthem's Law:
Anything that involves a jetpack cannot be irredeemable.
Been playing Final Fantasy 4 The Darkness Within mod. Does some interesting things but overall neutral on it. Cecil, post paladin, has a really rough period. Generally turning down the battle speed is necessary as otherwise enemies end up getting too many attacks (Something isn't quite right in how player and enemy action speeds scale with that setting).
It definitely tries to do some interesting things with weaknesses to encourage not just strongest weapon/armor but largely that ends up being a bit of a pain since the game just doesn't have good shuffle gear mechanics.
It's most interesting bit is a rework of the order of events and corresponding plot drives. It cuts down the number of crystals and sets a lot of bonus encounters with former team-mates. That said it's whole death and recovery thing is kind of arbitrary and just shrugs off killing a few kids.
Yeah. As far as FF4 mods go, I think the randomizer is the best thing that's come out for it. I watched some of TDW's story and I wasn't terribly impressed.
http://ngplus.net/index.php?/forums/forum/13-super-mario-rpg-armageddon/ - I enjoyed this. It was an interesting remix with a lot of crossover bosses, custom events, and just mixing it up. Definitely has an xp curve problem in the middle though.
Beat Wonder Boy the dragon's Trap recently. It was a beautiful love letter to a game I'd never played. Every bit of it put to try and capture the charm behind an 8-bit dream. And for the most of it, it was fun.
Screw mouse-man's unknown level. Seriously. I finished every bit but that.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is very good. I'm playing through it, maybe halfway or so. At the moment, all I want to say is that the entire run around to get full access in water is the one glaring flaw in the game so far.
I'm near the end of Bloodstained. I'd call it a high, high, high 9/10 verging on 10/10, but not quite. The only game in this SOTN style that I'd put higher than it is....SOTN. Surprise.
I may do a big, long post about this ala Kaldrak once I finish, as I have a ton of thoughts about this game. Ideally I finish in a day or two, depending on how much time I have to sink into it.
Enjoying Bloodstained so far. kind of grinding it too hard. I'm no where near as far as Kotono. I feel excessively rewarded for going in and out of room slaughtering the same few demons a huge number of times. I think I'd rank a few of them above this (and SoTN) but it's a great take on the style so far.
Played Overload (https://www.gog.com/game/overload) w/friends in a private match.
It's like Descent with more modern graphics.
Lots of Earth Defense Force 5 lately.
Tried 20XX. It's like Necrodancer but with megaman. Cute. Unsure if I like megaman gameform quite enough to do it a while.
Replayed FF13-2. Still like certain parts of it, but man does the Puzzle Rush segment drag hard and Caius is just a really stupid concept. "Pardon me, my victory conditions are:
1) you beat me
2) I beat you
3) You do nothing
4) I do nothing"
Just in general it's an odd way of stacking the deck.
https://pawel-s1.itch.io/artifex-gladii
A short, fast-paced fencing roguelike.
So I got Dragon Quest 11. I'm barely into it, just into the first field section past the starting town (Cobblestone, I think). Comments thus far:
- I'm playing it on medium graphics because for some reason, my computer goes nuts running it on high. I have the specs to run it but for whatever reason it's having problems. It's still fine so whatever. It's not worth fighting with.
- The game goes all in with impressive vistas from the get go. Graphics continue to improve and it feels like love was put into the design of everything so far. At the same time, going for impressive natural vistas (especially mountains) always makes me think of Dark Souls. As someone who is not a fan of that series, this isn't a good thing. Still, I did like the caves for the introductory dungeon quite a lot.
- The field camera is terrible without inverting the vertical controls. Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine why it's programmed like that rather than having inverted be the default. Like if I were stuck with that, I'd have dropped the game already. It pissed me off that much.
- I'm not so big on all the enemies being visible now, nor on the pre-emptive attack mechanic. I suppose it's not bad, but I also feel it adds complexity for minimal payout. I'd rather have old school random encounters. Likewise, the horse seems designed for easy travel from the get go. This definitely feels like it falls in the category of making the game too easy for those who want to breeze through.
- The battles are piss easy so far, but it's early game so that's not unexpected. I did read up on the Draconian Quest conditions. I didn't choose any of them, but I did see a few comments related to them that the base game's pretty easy. I'd believe it, I feel like the design philosophy doesn't want to exclude people at all so far. This is usually a bad thing in game design in my opinion. Be what you are, not what will make everyone able to limp through. I'm not saying you have to go all Dark Souls (and see above for my low opinion of Dark Souls), but be proud to be what you are. Don't cater if some people can't handle that. As of now, this game feels extremely cater-y to me.
- Something about the typical DQ humor isn't doing it for me. I'm in the mood for something a little more serious.
That being said I'm still enjoying it quite a lot, this is mostly nitpicking.
Crosscode new game plus. Mute Lea is so sad.
Also so powerful.
Devil trigger.
I went on the Starcraft 2 ladder for the first time in a year and a half, and my first ranked opponent told me I'm very bad at the game. This gave me something to think about while my army continued rolling over him.
Replay is attached. Highlight at 1:25 - allcaps chat message demanding to know my race, while opponent's camera is on my Probe scouting his main.
Dragon Quest 11
I've made it to the end of the Manglegrove (at least the first trip, in case there's more trips later. I did notice some stronger enemies somewhere I couldn't get to yet). It's a good game and I'm enjoying it, yet at the same time it's been hard to play and get into. I don't know why. I feel like I want something more serious than Dragon Quest's particular style, something about the light heartedness and puns isn't doing it for me. I hope it's not a case of wrong game at the wrong time syndrome.
I feel like I need something with more narrative seriousness and meat to it. I'm not saying DQ11 doesn't have meat, but...meh. Maybe it's the silent protagonist, this one feels like he doesn't work as well as DQ8's.
Edit: Honestly, all I can think of to play is Tales of the Abyss. Something that's both serious and has a deft touch with some lighter hearted bits. It's also a well put together plot that has a lot of fun details you can appreciate on a replay. I dunno.
Nothing wrong with enjoying a replay.
I also feel that 11 has too many tugs on the protagonist that make the silence stand out more. There's more people directly calling him out for reaction and they try and tell too much with body language because of the silence choice. 8 worked better.
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Red_Baron_The_1986
One of the first computer games I ever remember playing. To a modern gamer, there's not much to recommend it except for nostalgia. If that doesn't dissuade you, here's some keys (I've found no instructions anywhere - its hard to find any website that even discusses the game.)
z x: throttle
, /: Pitch
.: Roll
b: Bomb
[space]: Gun
S: Sound
I vaguely remember that it was possible to land and rearm/refuel.
StarEGATrek
https://archive.org/details/msdos_EGATrek_1992
A visual adaptation to an older game that was designed to be played when computers used printers for output, EGATrek ask that you take the USS EnterpriseLexington, explore strange new world, seek out new life, and new civilizations. And kill them. You see, you're at war with the KlingonMongol Empire, and you've got to defend your space stations. So keep your eyes peeled, and your photonenergy torpedos well-stocked
This game is as hard as I remembered it (first 3 levels are easy, 4th is interesting, 5th is pretty challenging), as fun as I remembered it (surprisingly fun). And the fact that the game swaps the x axis and y axis is as annoying as I remembered it.
Wow, nostalgic.
Been flitting around, but played some Saga Frontier with Vysaika yesterday. Was fun.
Dragon Quest 11
I just recruited Sylvando. My opinion of the game has risen slightly, but at the same time, I'm finding it harder to play. I don't know why really, other than a sense this isn't the right game at the right time, or maybe it's a game that's well made but doesn't have 'it'.
Played me some Kathy Rain while I was sleep deprived on my flight. It's a pretty decent retro style point and click adventure game with good voice acting. No real difficult puzzles to speak of either, right until it hit me with a number type one my brain was incapable of handling. Doesn't seem like a long game, but I haven't gotten back to it yet. Will play more later.
Ah ha. Found the game I was looking for (which is why I was going though a bunch of old DOS games - I was trying to remember the name of this game)
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Buzzard_Bait_1983
Dragon Quest 11
I'm just about to head to Octagonia for the first time. I've finally found my groove, and while I have a lot of quibbles and critiques about the game, I'm having fun now. I feel like the game could have been so much more, but it's still a fine enough game so far.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 28, 2019, 10:12:32 PM
Dragon Quest 11
I just recruited Sylvando. My opinion of the game has risen slightly, but at the same time, I'm finding it harder to play. I don't know why really, other than a sense this isn't the right game at the right time, or maybe it's a game that's well made but doesn't have 'it'.
Happens sometimes. For me the hero just never really clicked.
Played some more Slay the Spire, Earth Defense Force 5, and even Sentinels lately. Mostly boardgaming...
Today I'm doing old Tales of Maj'eyal. Trying out their cthulhian horror addon.
Quote from: Dracos on November 12, 2019, 03:13:48 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on October 28, 2019, 10:12:32 PM
Dragon Quest 11
I just recruited Sylvando. My opinion of the game has risen slightly, but at the same time, I'm finding it harder to play. I don't know why really, other than a sense this isn't the right game at the right time, or maybe it's a game that's well made but doesn't have 'it'.
Happens sometimes. For me the hero just never really clicked.
That's a big part of it. This is not a game that works for a silent hero and not a game that supports one well, either.
Quote from: Anastasia on November 09, 2019, 11:00:34 PM
Dragon Quest 11
I'm just about to head to Octagonia for the first time. I've finally found my groove, and while I have a lot of quibbles and critiques about the game, I'm having fun now. I feel like the game could have been so much more, but it's still a fine enough game so far.
I thought Dragon Quest XI was a fine game, but it went one act too long. My favorite characters were Sylvando and Veronica as I found them the most entertaining. Jade was gorgeous, but too flat a character to be interesting beyond being a very pretty face.
On another note, I think the game would've been better served with a voiced protagonist. I feel like with the games of today with their much more immersive worlds, silent protagonists no longer work. Having the hero be silent is mostly a nod to nostalgia and to an audience (in Japan) that is extremely resistant to changes to the Dragon Quest formula.
Quote from: MonCapitan2002 on November 19, 2019, 04:11:15 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on November 09, 2019, 11:00:34 PM
Dragon Quest 11
I'm just about to head to Octagonia for the first time. I've finally found my groove, and while I have a lot of quibbles and critiques about the game, I'm having fun now. I feel like the game could have been so much more, but it's still a fine enough game so far.
I thought Dragon Quest XI was a fine game, but it went one act too long. My favorite characters were Sylvando and Veronica as I found them the most entertaining. Jade was gorgeous, but too flat a character to be interesting beyond being a very pretty face.
On another note, I think the game would've been better served with a voiced protagonist. I feel like with the games of today with their much more immersive worlds, silent protagonists no longer work. Having the hero be silent is mostly a nod to nostalgia and to an audience (in Japan) that is extremely resistant to changes to the Dragon Quest formula.
Yeah, I'd believe that. I'm normally one for long games, but I'm at 50 hours and I just got access to the outer sea.
I think some games can work with a silent protagonist can work, but not this one. Especially not this one, moreso because they show him talking in an early game flashback. That merely makes the entire premise more absurd and more irritating.
So yeah, pretty much agree with what you said. No comments on the characters yet, I'll give them more time.
Which version of the game are you playing? Switch?
PC.
Got it as a gift, wasn't planning on playing it for awhile (likely until it's cheap and preferably in the event they backport a few of the Switch version's improvements) but I'll play it for free.
I played the PS4 version. I managed to even get the platinum trophy for it.
Jupiter Hell
It's a roguelike with emphasis on face-pace games. It's like Rogue but with an emphasis on firearms and cover-mechanics, and without an identification mechanic or (alas!) ASCII.
Random (not by me) Youtube Video of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsoeF_LoniU&list=PLm2EwWJQPvCG-LQLcUL2TEitFGJ7tzx0C&index=40
Dragon Quest 11
I stalled out on this when I hit the Hawaii-alike island right after getting the boat. I'll come back to this game sometime, but it's not the right game for me right now.
Tales of Berseria
It's a Tales game and is a lot of fun. I haven't played one since Graces (and to be honest, it's closer to Abyss since Graces didn't make a big impact on me) and it's a mixed bag. I don't like the soul system in battle thus far, I think it's a big step back and the entire battle system suffers for it. On the other hand, the character work's good so far. We'll see how it shakes out. I've just visited Loegres, so I don't think I'm that far in yet.
Tales of Berseria
I dropped this shortly after the last post. Fundamentally the battle system soured me further and further, and it seemed like all it did was combine the worst aspects of various Tales of battle systems. It's definitely a big let down.
I found a private server for an old addiction of mine called Rusty Hearts.
Someone help....
It is nice when you find something like that - these days, it's all too easy for a game to fade into the ether.
I've been getting into Granblue Fantasy while practicing the ol' social distancing. Gameplay-wise it's not much, but it has nice art and the goofy JRPG story is fun as a way to pass the time.
Going through a replay of all of breath of fire (prolly not). Finished 1 and 5, in the middle of 3.
Hate the master system. Love the art, and some of the simple but with depth story telling. The wink to the player as the characters make in character mistakes. The art style that really didn't show up outside of BoF4 I think?
At the fishing city at the moment. Ways to go. Not gotten to the nightmare desert of fail yet.
I've beaten the Resident Evil 3 remake five times and have all achievements but two.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
I've given this a hard mode replay, I'm around halfway or so. There's no hurry to this, plenty of time to smell the roses. It's a leisurely play through where I'll stop to gather shards, items or altogether meander instead of going for the plot. I also included a few mods for the sake of convenience: A 10% or so boost to item drop rates, an uncapper that removes the limit of nine of an item in your inventory and a few miscellaneous mods (begone scarves!). The drop boost is pure ease of play on a replay and the second makes the game flat better.
Now maybe it's just me, but why do you make a game that's all about item collection and cap the inventory like that? I've easily gathered heaps and heaps of items that would've been wasted with the cap still in place. It does make it a easier to gather high value items and sell them, but it's also a gigantic quality of life improvement. It does let you cheese the game with piles of potions though, so if that matters to you I'd suggest observing that cap. Not that it matters since food items heal and you can stack up a bunch of those.
Anyway, hard mode is a mixed bag. I like that there's more monsters and at times earlier. With a few glaring exceptions these are improvements to the better. The increased monster spawns generally aren't a gigantic deal too, so it isn't worth getting too worried over. Flip side, I don't feel the added damage from hard mode adds much to the game. With the exception of the first area and a little bit beyond that, it's not meaningful. The game's not structured for that sort of difficulty, it's not going to be an old NES Castlevania for challenge unless you put in a 1 HP mode.
All of that aside it's still an excellent game. 9/10 for sure, great music, fun gameplay, tons to do and just a few odd wrinkles that hold it back.
Brigandine: Legend of Runeseria
A sequel I never expected. Brigandine (and Brigandine: Grand Edition) are PSX era RPGs that have had a cult following for a long time. Fun games and they finally made a sequel. I'm about halfway or so with Guimoule and it's still a ton of fun. It's essentially Brigandine with a new coat of paint and some tweaks. It's ultra faithful to the previous game. My only quibble is that a few of the changes (less hit all magic being easily available, rulers who feel weaker (Rudo aside)) are ones that I don't personally don't like.
It's still awesome that it finally got a sequel. Good enough for me.
Disgaea 4 Complete +
I just got and started this. No comments yet, it's Disgaea so I know what I'm getting into. I already miss a few upgrades from Disgaea 5 but the base game looks great.
Here's hoping Disgaea 6 turns out awesome.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Finished. Well, not quite, I have to finish the last bits of the Den of Behemoths and the last area, which I may or may not bother. They're the weakest parts of the game by a lot as far as I'm concerned. Game is still excellent, no big changes from what I wrote before.
Disgaea 6
So it turns out they're going from sprites to 3d models. I am not impressed and the early images of it live down to those expectations. They're faithful to the original art, it's just that they're highly unappealing compared to the beautiful, vivid sprites of Disgaea 5. What a shame.
My anticipation for this game has taken a sharp nose dive.
Quote from: KLSymph on March 17, 2020, 10:01:25 PM
I've been getting into Granblue Fantasy while practicing the ol' social distancing. Gameplay-wise it's not much, but it has nice art and the goofy JRPG story is fun as a way to pass the time.
Strike-through Granblue Fantasy, replace with "Genshin Impact", and pretty much same statement word for word.
Genshin is the first gacha/loot-box type free game I've played, and I can see why people would dump a lot of money in this sort of game. As a free game, it plays fine enough even without investing money though, which is nice right now when pockets have been getting tight.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Finished, including the bonus boss. The end game is indeed the weakest part of the game, but a good time was still had. Even on hard mode the difficulty completely collapses by this point, I cruised through with no challenge whatsoever.
Recompiled, and have been replaying Star Ruler 2.
Wow, talk about a game that got shafted by release dates. Broke the space-4x mold in many ways, but Stellaris released shortly afterwords.
Dragon Quest 11 S
I'll spoiler block this since this is mostly a spoiler filled commentary.
[spoiler]
I stalled out on the original DQ11 a bit before Sniflheim in Act 1, but I got the upgraded version and should finish it this time. I'm up through Octagonia in act 2, just got Jade back. I find myself comparing DQ11 to FF6. Both follow the same story arc, the heroes pursuing a noble goal but it all goes wrong and the world suffers a calamity because of it. They're very much twins of one another in this aspect so far, but I feel DQ11 is a much weaker game.
As I play Act 2, I compare it to FF6's WoR. The more I play it and I feel how things are still directed and set up, I come to a conclusion more and more. I don't think the game trusts the player. It never wants to let the player feel like the world's genuinely in danger. Sure, it puts up an act but it always leavens it. It won't stick to its own guns. Puns abound, lightness comes and the OST (a huge weak point as it is) so often acts like things are still cheery in the world.
It doesn't trust the player to take a serious situation seriously. It doesn't trust the player with a more powerful ambiance. It doesn't trust the player to explore the world - you're carefully nudged along a determined path in act 2, even if it gives an illusion of freedom at times. It doesn't trust the player with an item creation system that isn't carefully curated to be controlled by the game.
I concur, even though it's been a while.
Quote from: KLSymph on March 17, 2020, 10:01:25 PM
I've been getting into Granblue Fantasy while practicing the ol' social distancing. Gameplay-wise it's not much, but it has nice art and the goofy JRPG story is fun as a way to pass the time.
It has been one year since my post above, so here are my current thoughts on Granblue Fantasy.
In conclusion, it's fine. I enjoy it enough to continue playing it.
Granblue Fantasy is my first and only gacha game. It's a JRPG-style game where you collect characters, weapons, and summons. You can pay money to do that faster, but I've played this entire year completely free-to-play, and that's viable. You can join other players in cooperative play, both in public raid rooms and by creating private "crews", and I've been playing entirely in my solo crew, which is also viable.
The story is, broadly speaking, written well. There are monthly new side-story events which I enjoy reading, though the main story updates rarely (only once during my time). These stories have a good variety of drama and comedy.
The artwork is worthy eye-candy, with the caveat that it has improved over the years, which means the art from the earliest years is startlingly worse. The early character art is just real derpy. Unfortunately, this includes the first art you'll see when you start playing the game and it includes the main characters' art which doesn't get updated in new material for some reason.
The music is great. Here's the final battle track from the currently-running story event. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSlz3ba-PMI) It works better in story context and during the fight than on its own, of course, but it's a reasonable representation of quality.
The gameplay is extremely mediocre from the perspective of someone who hasn't played other gacha games. To oversimplify, you have a small team of characters and you fight enemies by attacking, using skills, and calling summons. Unfortunately, the decision-making involved in building teams, activating skills, or timing actions is very uninteresting for a very long time because the game does not seem to be balanced toward those things until you are a seasoned player with a large pool of characters.
The game requires grind. Improvements to a player's power (and therefore access to high-level content) is mostly derived from equipment, which both needs to be farmed and to be upgraded from farmed materials. This ultimately means you need to farm regularly, which does not work well with the mediocre gameplay. The only saving grace is that as you grind, your power will increase to the point that the grind becomes easier. At some point, you will have the right mix of characters and powerful enough equipment that you can take advantage of the full-auto system, which runs battles for you without your clicks, allowing you to do other things while it's going. There is not much margin between repetitive manual combat encounters and trivial full-auto encounters, where you can wedge some meaningful combat decision-making. I wouldn't play this game for the gameplay, is what I'm saying.
If you don't mind grinding and enjoy JRPG-esque story content, I can recommend trying this game. If you're looking for some kind of skill-based activity, no.
Quote from: Dracos on March 17, 2021, 06:14:27 PM
I concur, even though it's been a while.
It's a shame. DQ11 is one of the best bad games I've played in a long time. I want to like it so badly, but the game can't get out of its own way.
Quote from: KLSymph on March 18, 2021, 02:58:21 AM
Granblue Fantasy
Sounds interesting, if not my personal cup of tea. How are the characters?
Quote from: Anastasia on March 18, 2021, 11:02:47 AMSounds interesting, if not my personal cup of tea. How are the characters?
The characters in Granblue Fantasy are surprisingly good. The main downsides are 1) there are many of them which means there's often not a lot of content for a specific character unless they happen to feature in a story event, and 2) many characters are collectibles from gacha which means you get them randomly over time (unless you spend money) and you tend to collect characters out of order with your exposure to their story. But within those constraints, the character stories are worthwhile. The lucky ones that receive significant character development are well-written. The many generic characters based on anime/JRPG stereotypes tend to get fleshed out with details that make them interesting. Character art is good (minus the early derp art). Character voice acting is done by professionals, and some have their own in-character songs. Quality fanart is available for the popular characters if you want more waifu/husbando material.
Quote from: KLSymph on March 18, 2021, 12:23:28 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 18, 2021, 11:02:47 AMSounds interesting, if not my personal cup of tea. How are the characters?
The characters in Granblue Fantasy are surprisingly good. The main downsides are 1) there are many of them which means there's often not a lot of content for a specific character unless they happen to feature in a story event, and 2) many characters are collectibles from gacha which means you get them randomly over time (unless you spend money) and you tend to collect characters out of order with your exposure to their story. But within those constraints, the character stories are worthwhile. The lucky ones that receive significant character development are well-written. The many generic characters based on anime/JRPG stereotypes tend to get fleshed out with details that make them interesting. Character art is good (minus the early derp art). Character voice acting is done by professionals, and some have their own in-character songs. Quality fanart is available for the popular characters if you want more waifu/husbando material.
That doesn't sound too bad, at least. What's the overarching plot, anyway?
The basic premise is that you are the teenage captain of a skyfarer crew, which is essentially a team of mercenaries flying around in an airship, and you go around the world meeting people in trouble and solving problems. The main story plot at the beginning is that your missing father sent you a letter to meet him at a mythical location out in the world, so you put together this crew and fly around searching for how to get there. Along the way, you're hunted by an evil empire who wants to recapture the little girl with mysterious power traveling with you. Later on you're opposed by a more powerful evil monarch.
So it's a well-tread JRPG setup, though the execution of the details is at least reasonably good. There is a Granblue Fantasy anime with two seasons that follows the early story, more or less, but I feel it makes the story seem even more generic than it already is.
Doesn't matter, nobody expects the main plot to progress in a timely fashion so it's not a major component of day-to-day play. The immediately relevant story content is in the monthly side stories, which explore the meeting-people-solving-problems idea. There are various side-storylines running, and they're pretty varied in subject matter. For example, the current-running story event is about fighting invaders from the moon (this is a world where transportation tech is on the level of blimp-like airships) which is the continuation of one of the oldest storylines. In addition, collaboration events with other anime/game series, the most recent being Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer), occasionally come along with their own (presumably non-canon) storylines.
There is also a gag comic that updates a few times a week. It lags behind in translation by about six months or so.
Granblue Fantasy itself is officially English-translated (fairly good translation, some awkwardness here and there), but you'd need a bit of setup because registration is not in English and there's no official mobile app on English app stores. Playing by web-browser is recommended.
Relieving some octopath traveler. Capitalism Ho!
"What's a brothel?" - Tressa
Back on streets of rage 4. Survival mode completely revitalizes the game.
Tales of Arise
Is good. Feels better than Tales of Berseria in many ways. Not too far in but I'm enjoying it a lot more than Berseria. Chemistry between the two mains helps.
Tales of Arise is still good.
The only problems I see are two fold. 1. They way they curb experience is tiresome. You're clearly meant to be in a narrow level band and the game enforces this. It's not impossible to overcome, but it is highly tedious. 2. The game really wants you to buy DLC. Notably there's a bunch of level up DLC.
Tales of Arise is still good.
[spoiler]However, boy does the story get dumb the moment Almeidrea shows up. Okay sure, there's a point to be made that Rinwell shouldn't live for revenge. I get that. However, lemme get this straight. Law decides to shield the woman who just committed mass murder to the tune of 100+ innocents. I'm sorry, what? This is so intensely dumb that I suspect there's some sort of cultural disconnect here. It doesn't make any sense otherwise.
For that matter, after you beat her, the idea of Almeidrea facing justice from the Dahnans? Let's be honest, can you expect any other outcome than a quick and painful death? Let alone because she's a powerful spellcaster who may well be a serious problem to keep contained. There's a few good points here but most of the storyline here is pants on head stupid. Let alone the fact that oh, we're just gonna have a bad guy come kill Almeidrea two seconds later anyway.
That's such a cheap out to the problem that it lowered my opinion of the game. Go on, let Rinwell finish her and deal with it, or have the party at least grapple with the problem. It's a total cop out the issue. Weak storytelling, weak execution. The entire Mahag Saar arc felt weak. Dedyme might've been okay if he got more time on screen, but he was rather quickly disposed of. Too bad. I wasn't fond of him but he came off as one dimensional due to a lack of screen time. On the other hand, sometimes a jerk is just a jerk.
Vholran's coming off as a complete wanker while we're on the subject of jerks, FYI. Whatever, it looks like his arc is next so we'll see how that shakes out. I'm not impressed of what I've seen of him so far but it's too early to say for certain.
To close out the Mahag Saar arc, Almeidrea was okay for what she was. I felt she didn't get enough time on screen, she could've used a scene or two more. To be honest this arc only felt about her in the most tangential way. Sure, she mattered, but it was very much an arc about other people and she was merely the plot instrument for advancement.
Of course the game follows this up by Shionne leaving the party for awhile and Alphen's memories turning into a giant drama bomb. This isn't a game where I want my party to get split up to begin with, plus this means I need to use Dohalim in batter. Talk about a one-two punch. I quit there for the night (and probably a day or two to let all that process).
At least Kisara continues to show goodness. She politely told Alphen to sack up instead of moping and that was more than needed. She's my favorite character so far I think, at least when it's not about Migel every other scene. Shame she's somewhat attached to Dohalim - a good guy morally who I respect for what he did but as a character he leaves me cold - and I just don't feel any chemistry there. I suspect there's supposed to be some and nope, not feeling it.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 17, 2022, 04:40:14 PMAlso, what's Lost Ark? MMO?
Yes, Lost Ark is a free-to-play Korean MMORPG that was released for Western markets last month. Speaking as someone whose most recent experience was 90s-era text-based Multi-User Dungeons, it's a very visually appealing game. The core gameplay is vaguely like Diablo 2, but much more dependent on skill cooldowns instead of mana resource handling. The story that I've seen strikes me as very generic, and the visual aesthetic is predominantly medieval fantasy but not very consistent due to the users going around on hoverboards, the multi-colored pets, and the Fortnite-esque dance emotes. Most of the quests before endgame are extremely trivial and make-work, which I'm not a huge fan of. The game space is quite large to traverse but content-sparse. There are a lot of time-gated or energy-gated systems to keep you logging in, but the game client takes many minutes to start up and consumes a lot of system resources, so it's not as convenient as I like for that sort of thing. I'll probably see where the story goes before dropping it.
On the plus side, I can now see where a lot of the MMO-fantasy manhwas get their tropes from.
Still playing Granblue Fantasy. Haven't gotten tired of that yet.
The story NEVER goes out of the generic, but it does hit you with genre shifts as you start going to new continents/islands. I just did an island that was a goddamn survival horror game where you are attempting to get out of a haunted/demon-corrupted mansion, with lantern fuel management and running away from things. Horror isn't my jam though, and the designer for that island is goddamn fucked in the head. I honestly kinda hated it, though I can see the appeal to some people. Again... horror not my jam.
Immediately after that, I went to another island where I turned into a racoon monster thing and was helping another racoon monster thing with its confidence issues.
So yeah, definite tone shift between islands and continents.
The time gating isn't very noticeable at tier 1 because of the daily login bonuses you get and the vast amount of islands that can give you tier 1 materials, each with its unique storyline.
At tier 2 on the other hand, you VERY much start to feel the slog, as it can take 2 hours of work for 2 seconds of attempts at upgrading your gear, and it's work because it's content you've been doing DAILY, not new content from experiencing new islands. Whereas there are something like 50+ tier 1 islands, there is...5-10 tier 2 islands?
And on the upgrading attempts thing, I DO mean attempts, because upgrading (honing in the game) has decreasing probability as you upgrade. To get from tier 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3, you have to upgrade gear from level 0 to level 15. Levels 1-7 have 100% chance of upgrading if you provide the materials. After that, each level can decrease 10-20% chance in probability of succeeding.
At tier 1 it's not bad because you can get materials easily, and still be experiencing new content.
At tier 2, there's a definite lack of islands to explore and materials you can procure while experiencing new content, so you end up having to farm a lot or play the market (which I have zero interest in doing in MMOs). And materials you can get while farming content is limited to daily and weekly content, so there's only so much you can get per day, with a small boost on Thursdays when weekly content resets.
Once you get to tier 3, everything I see shows that content is more sparse and grindy, and may cause me quit there and then. To be fair, a lot of my complaints with tier 2 is that the ambience is in general very bleak for the main storyline and islands plots (see aformentioned horror island). Tier 3 on the other hand takes place in tropical beaches or something? So who knows if that might keep me more interested. But I do know that tier 2 has been a complete shit show of an experience.
I do constantly find something very fun to do in the game though, and I never actually finished the tier 1 islands, so going back and doing more of those islands is still a fun experience. Of the 300 hours I've put in, I can safely say I've enjoyed about 2/3 of my game time.
But I've hated the general ambience of the tier 2 storyline, and what few islands there have been in tier 2 have not been fun experiences. One of the tier 2 storylines involves delains (basically tieflings), of which my main character happens to be one. And it drives me nuts how often delains are in-game treated like shit, and then the same people turn to me and thank me and gush over me. What few bits of storyline changes for my specific character being a delain feels contradictory like the one time I was given the option to say I was a delain, I was just told I don't carry myself like one and that nobody remembers me or all who would know me died. And then later there is a quest with my character's name as a member of a mission talking to a survivor of that mission...AND THE SURVIVOR WAS THE PERSON WHO I SPOKE TO AND SAID I DIDN'T CARRY MYSELF LIKE ONE AND NOBODY IS ALIVE THAT WOULD KNOW ME.
Experiencing that storyline with a different character probably wouldn't have been as frustrating, but the writing very much was something I struggled with (and tier 1 admittedly has another delain subplot that fell very flat to me because of my character's status as one), and the voice acting is often very bad as well.
Gameplay is still very fun, and I enjoy how different various classes feel, but definitely most of the fun comes from experiencing new content not repeating old content, and I am absolutely stuck in the 'repeat daily content' phase of the game at the moment with my highest level character.
Finished Tales of Arise. Fun game.
Lenegis through Daeq Faezol or whatever they are suck. It's a talking and plot overload to the point of absurdity.
8/10 overall. A weak 8/10 but its strong points ensure it stays an 8/10.
Been enjoying a replay of Stardew. Restful. Even if I have played too much of it.
Tried some Bloons. Very eternal.
Dragon marked for death has been fun and is fun co-op, but also a bit of a mess. Its math is a joke.
Been playing the Trails series. Good stuff, got through Trails In the Sky 1-3 and then Trails to Zero. The first game's super slow and weak but it gets better from there.
Gave River City Girls a play. It's solid but not great. Like a 7 or 7.5/10? Enjoyable but short. Bullet points since I don't feel like synthesizing this into a full review.
- The art, the voice acting and the music's good. The art in particular is excellent and sells the mood.
- The game's short but not unacceptably so. There's a bit of NG+ content but not enough to make me want to replay right now. As for why I don't want to replay?
- I got bored of the combat about halfway through. I played as Kyoko and dominated, which wasn't the problem. What the problem was that it quickly felt played out. To be fair, switching to another character might've helped but I didn't want to go back to level 1.
- There's not enough. Not enough content, not enough depth to the combat system, not enough locations to explore, not enough gangs, not enough different names in the various gangs. There's not enough game here.
- Really, the game has good ingredients. It has a regrettable case of the whole being less than the sum of the parts. I have no idea why. There's some spark the game needs that it doesn't have. I want to like RCG more than I did.
- But I'd bet one of the big culprits is the gameplay. I could mess around for hours in RCR back on the NES. This game doesn't have that. For whatever reason it doesn't. Some vital ingredient or reaction's not there. I wish I knew what.
- Had some issues with the ending, but I looked up the NG+ bonus ending. It didn't entirely solve those issues, but it helped enough that I gave it a pass.
- At the end of the day there wasn't enough there to make me train up another character (and get more life from the game) nor experiment with NG+. Frustrating. This has the ingredients to be a 9/10 game.
- Oh, and the boss fights were too gimmicky for my tastes. I never felt like I applied what I learned playing the game in them, I instead learned what each gimmick needed to overcome instead.
- Still worth playing but a bit of a letdown. RCG2 might well fix all of this, I'll give it a shot once they iron out some framerate issues.
It has been a long since an RCR has happened that really connected.
RCR Underground did well, but had some serious issues too. Mainlines haven't come close save the RCR gba or ds port itself.
I have not played through all of RCG, but what I have didn't quite feel like it had the spark either. Nothing above surprises me or seems off from what I saw.
It's a shame. RCG should be better than it is, but it isn't for a reason I still can't pin down.
Playing River City Girls 2. It's a noted improvement so far, I'm halfway in and I've spent several more hours on it than I did the entirety of RCG1. More later but midway impressions are positive.
After a break I finished RCG2 (barring a possible NG+ run if some NG+ content gets implemented).
It's an 8/10? It fixes most but not all of the issues I had with RCG1. The only reason it's not higher is a pet peeve and what I thought was a move done in poor taste.
I don't care for fourth wall breaking. It happens for comedy at times and it doesn't sit right with me. This is a personal pet peeve so I won't take too much off.
On the other hand, what they did with Marian and the Lee Twins from Double Dragon wasn't cool. I'd suggest looking it up on youtube if you want details, but in short: They really trashed the Lee Twins to build up Marian. For a game that has nostalgia as a selling point, trashing one of those sources of nostalgia is a baffling, self destructive decision. It isn't funny at all.
Also, one side note. I do like how Kunio and Riki feel like they treat the game (from what limited screentime they get) as no big deal, just some thing their GFs dragged them into. They're around but it's not their story.
Played the Star Ocean 2 remake demo. It's really good and I'd preorder the game if I hadn't already*, it's an interesting 2.5 remake that's not short on the remake but feels like it hasn't lost the core of the game. There's a few parts that feel a little too gimmicky so far, the bonus meter is one, but the core game feels the same. My complaints are mostly minor quibbles and there's a ton to like.
Looking forward to early November.
* Star Ocean 2 is one of my top games all time and I've played it 6-12 times. This was a rare game I was going to pre order out of loyalty. So yeah, this take isn't unbiased.
The SO2 remake is insanely good. 21 hours and some change in two days and I want to play it more.
Wow.
Got lost playing Tohou Mystia's Izakaya. It has been nice.