What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age [Archive] - Page 4 (2024)

Zevox

2024-01-11, 06:59 PM

The technology that ties you to the core is enabled through Coral, which acts as a brain-machine interface. Coral Release is the realization that you could supercharge the Coral and merge consciousness into it, which is what ALLMIND wants to do to expand itself into a fully dominant hivemind. It identifies several candidates to be its instrument in enacting the plan and being the wetware that's going to run ALLMIND after it assimilates one of them. Iguazu, being a GEN4 augment like you, is whitelisted as one of those candidates since he's viable and also prone to manipulation. As for why you did it, that's more of a question to the player, but it's essentially what you did in the Liberation ending with a much more definitive payoff. Unlike the Liberation ending, Release actually has an answer for what to do with the Coral. You merge everyone on the planet into it and create a new lifeform in the process.

There's a whole lot of additional content in the log files and such that clarifies most of this. For instance, Coral Release was attempted before under Dolmayan, through a Coral Consciousness called Seria. They had a similar bond like you and Ayre until Dolmayan realized he was about to kick off the Human Instrumentality Project and backed out. There's some implication that ALLMIND is actually Seria continuing to pursue the plan, too. When you kill Dolmayan, its voice shifts to an uncharacteristically savage and merciless tone to insult him that it doesn't use anywhere else. He even calls out her name as he's dying.

Coincidentally, this is why I think the Liberation ending is actually the bad one. For one, it solves nothing about the Coral. We know the stuff is a living bomb, multiplying at an exponential rate, and very close to escaping the planet. The Liberation ending might save the current Rubicon, but it's about to unleash a self-replicating bioweapon that can obliterate whole solar systems. Further, you might beat Arquebus and Balam, but more corporations will come seeking Coral - it's going to be one planet versus the galaxy, a never-ending battle for Raven and Ayre. On top of all that, Ayre might talk a sweet tune, but the only other Coral being we know about was manipulative and vindictive, and there's some hints that Ayre was two-timing the player. Iguazu mentions hearing her voice before, for instance.

Fires is extreme, but it's sacrificing one planet to eliminate a horrible plague from escaping. It's nuking the facility to stop the zombie outbreak. The whole plan was setup by Walter and Carla to work, as they explain why it's different to the original Fires of Ibis: the Coral is concentrated at the Vascular plant so the chain reaction will be big enough to get all of it, unlike Ibis which set it off on a whim.

The whole game's narrative deals with the ideas of servitude and freeing yourself from the yoke. I think all the endings line up nicely with that theme. Fires says the answer is to carry out the terms of your service and be free after. Liberation opines that you should find a service you believe in to dedicate yourself to. Alea Iacta Est/Release pushes that the answer is to break everything and find freedom by building it out of the pieces.
Aside: you should probably fix the spoiler tag in the quote in this post.

So I was more spot-on with my "there's that Dark Souls writing" remark than I thought, if in order to kind of understand the ending you need to dig through a bunch of lore files (which I did read when I found them, and they were nowhere near clear about this sort of thing), and even then the explanation is peppered with phrases like "there's some implication that." At least they kept that to only the third ending and the rest is much clearer and more comprehensible, but still. I stand behind that the third ending comes from nowhere and doesn't fit - the story AC6 tells is about the struggle over the coral between the Corporations and how you and Walter (and later Ayre) fit into that. Allmind, who seemed to be an AI support system for mercs with no actual story presence, turning out to be... that nonsense, really comes from nowhere and isn't fitting for the story. In fact, it's eerily reminiscent of Mass Effect 3's Synthesis ending, the way you explain it there.

I also stand by Ayre's ending being the best, personally. No, it doesn't solve the "coral problem," but there isn't a good solution to that - especially since the coral itself is people, so destroying it is itself awful. And Walter's solution wipes out the people of Rubicon on top of that - and other planets in the system presumably, given what happened last time. Genocide's not preferable to needing to continuing fighting those who would abuse its power.

And if the game intends to be about servitude and freedom, it doesn't do that especially well. That element is there because of your own weird ambiguous stats as Walter's "hound" - though how thoroughly he controls you is quite vague - but nothing much more about the story feels pointed at that, and it's hard to make that the centerpiece of the story when the character subject to that servitude has no personality, thoughts, feelings, etc.

Tastes vary, but I think it's the best plot FromSoftware has written to date.
To be fair, I might be able to agree with you on that, but I think for different reasons. In my case it's because I don't hold a high opinion of FromSoft's stories, so its only competition in my mind is Sekiro, and that one's only okay. So getting the status of "FromSoft's best plot" from me is more a pat on the head than any kind of praise, if that makes sense.

Interesting. I actually found Allmind not terribly difficult as a final boss, to the point that I beat it on my first attempt. I wasn't even using a particularly nasty build on my third playthough; double linear rifles in my hands and either a pair of vertical-launch plasma missiles or 10-cell direct missiles on the shoulders (plasmas as a default, switching to the direct shots if the roof was too low for vertical-launch), with a fairly high-mobility medium-weight reverse joint build. I just focused everything I had on Allmind's main machine in each phase and got through it without too much trouble each time. Ayre gave me way, way more trouble than that - took me probably 20 attempts to beat her, and I had to switch builds several times when my initial setup proved to be just insufficient to kill her first phase in any meaningful time frame.

As for the story, I tend to call the third ending the 'being an idiot' ending. Because you'd have to be utterly stupid to ever go along with it. It requires you to actively sabotage Walter's plans on multiple occasions on the word of an entity which has given you absolutely no reason to trust it (and in fact which has actively attempted to murder you multiple times already), in pursuit of a goal which you know effectively nothing about and which the people in the know seem to think will probably be Really Bad News, in the vague hope that it will result in a good outcome somehow. And you need to keep doing it while Allmind blatantly lies to your face, despite the only justification for doing any of this being 'because Allmind asked me to'. And then you need to murder literally every named character in the game except Ayre, and probably cause the extinction of the human race, to do it. If Walter's ending is the 'pessimist' ending (humanity can't be trusted with the Coral) and Ayre's is the 'optimist' (our plan requires us to stand against everything the corporations can bring to bare for long enough to establish a functional society and convince the rest of humanity that our way of doing things is better than theirs), Allmind's ending is the 'I have severe brain damage' route.

Honestly, I can't imagine any logical reason anyone would choose this course of action. It's bat**** insane, and the only reason I did it was for the sake of experiencing the entire game. But I think it's probably the single most evil route in all of Armoured Core, and I'm counting the Old King ending of For Answer in which the player decides to kill 800 million people for fun.

I was using a modified version of my first run's build - while I enjoyed the lightweight tank build I settled on for chapters 3 and 4 of that last run, I decided to end things with my favorite, which was that lightweight reverse-jointed build. I did swap my weapons around to try and fare better at the fight, but I was stubbornly using the Coral Blade in my left hand, since that was the one Coral weapon that seemed worth using, and I had very little time with it. Right hand was a laser pistol for a lot of the attempts, later switched to a machine gun; left shoulder I think I kept the double-barrel grenade launcher on the whole time, while the right should swapped between various options (mostly different missile launchers), until the successful attempt where I was using the laser orbit there. I felt like ignoring Allmind's support units in phase 1 got me shot up by their missiles/cut up by their melee weapons too much, since if I was focusing on Allmind obviously I wasn't able to focus on dodging their attacks; the big ones in the second phase I did have to end up ignoring as I mentioned, but boy is that counter-intuitive given how hard they hit if they do hit you, and I definitely took some hits from them in some runs for the same reason. I did have to swap builds more significantly fighting Ayre, that's true, but I did start fighting her with a tetrapod build, and wound up feeling like that's just not suited to that fight, so bit of bad luck there.

And yeah, I kind of agree about Allmind's ending there. It really doesn't make any sense why you'd be doing it, even if it were comprehensible what you're doing in the first place, which it isn't.

Erloas

2024-01-11, 07:26 PM

As much as I love the early Fallout games, I don't agree about the cities being any more believable when you think about it. They basically have the same problem as the cities in New Vegas or Skyrim, where even the "major" cities are basically village-sized with a population to match.

It's been a while since I've played, but at least from my memory most cities seemed to have some farm type areas, small gardens at the very least, and plenty of houses, even if a lot of that was locked or outside of where a player could get to. But New Vegas had like 20 people standing around in the only 2 buildings in the area. Or just like 3 total people in a "town" and it's somehow important.

Bunny Commando

2024-01-11, 08:51 PM

Managed to finish Rogue Trader and I am somewhat disappointed with the game.

The Good

- Game nails the setting: the scale, the feudal social order, the widespread ignorance, the stagnant bureaucracy and the high cost of power. It makes me want to play just to discover a little more about the Koronus Expanse (never played the Rogue Trader TTRPG expect a really short game here on the boards that lasted for two pages) and I appreciated those short events you get when you scan certain planets.

- As someone who is not really interested in romantic subplots, I greatly appreciated that companions would not wake up my character in the middle of the night to ask for sex five minutes after I have recruited them unless I choose those romantic lines during dialogue. I know romantic subplots are popular with the gaming community but in Rogue Trader I get to choose if I want to engage with that content.

The Not-So-Good

- Any balancing mechanic has been subjected to Exterminatus. Certain classes (Officer, Soldier, Arch-Militant) are broken and so much better than others and the game seems designed around your cheerleaders feeding your main damage dealer extra turns. At Hard difficulty (I started at Normal, was too easy. Upgraded to Daring and still trounced everything. Hard is still easy but I don't have the energy to start another playthrough at Unfair) it was a rare occasion when a fight lasted more than two rounds - mostly because certain enemies were hard to reach.

- Combat seems to favour ranged over melee. Unless you feed your melee extra turns, they will be hard pressed to reach certain enemies quickly in some battlefields - but then again you could feed those extra turns to Argenta and have her murder everyone in sight with a bolter.

- Gamebreaking bugs are a thing.

- Game is not really responsive to the origins of your character. Played a Psyker and twice I got a line where some NPC acknowledged I was a filthy witch that the good people of the Imperium should rightly fear and despise; my character did not truly feel grounded in the setting, being a Psyker just a collection of powers.

- Can't respec companions from the ground unless Toybox.

- Why a Frigate and not a Cruiser, still don't understand. And I do not appreciate they put an alternative ship behind a paywall.

--------------

Rogue Trader is a decent game and I would rate it at 6 out of 10, don't believe I'll replay it in the near future though.

Errorname

2024-01-11, 10:33 PM

As much as I love the early Fallout games, I don't agree about the cities being any more believable when you think about it. They basically have the same problem as the cities in New Vegas or Skyrim, where even the "major" cities are basically village-sized with a population to match.

The older games sort of imply that there are places within the game region that aren't within the playable game world. They mainly use that for travel time, you can have the player walk through an empty desert for days because the player doesn't actually have to take every single step in first person, but I definitely recall getting a sense that Shady Sands was bigger than the area the game let me explore. I don't think they fully capitalize on this element, on their less realistic presentation allowing them to imply things without depicting them directly, but it's definitely a thing they could and did do.

AlanBruce

2024-01-12, 12:49 AM

Having seen a trailer for the game, I decided to gully immerse myself into A Plague Tale: Innocence and immediately after, its sequel A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Both games are visually stunning. The sequel even moreso. The story is good, well written. I liked Amicia and at first, thought it would be a “guard the fragile NPC” type mission. Thankfully I was mistaken in that regard and Hugo is more than capable on his own.

I didn’t mind the environmental puzzles. A few were a bit of a head scratcher, but for the most part quickly doable, since the game gives you enough supplies to deal with whatever the game throws at you.

Stealth is the preferred option to bypass enemies. But when stealth is not an option, you have to fight. I was not a big fan of the combat, since not only are you one shottable, but your choice of weapon rarely if ever changes. And enemies typically have ways to nullify your weapon. I suppose it’s a way to include a puzzle element to combat as well. But a boss in the first game throws you into this scenario with little warning.

Combat in specific instances being my main gripe, the game is a grim, dark and violent tale with a beautiful backdrop of 14th century Europe. I can imagine the studio may release a third part, but who knows given how Requiem ended.

Batcathat

2024-01-12, 02:01 AM

It's been a while since I've played, but at least from my memory most cities seemed to have some farm type areas, small gardens at the very least, and plenty of houses, even if a lot of that was locked or outside of where a player could get to. But New Vegas had like 20 people standing around in the only 2 buildings in the area. Or just like 3 total people in a "town" and it's somehow important.

The older games sort of imply that there are places within the game region that aren't within the playable game world. They mainly use that for travel time, you can have the player walk through an empty desert for days because the player doesn't actually have to take every single step in first person, but I definitely recall getting a sense that Shady Sands was bigger than the area the game let me explore. I don't think they fully capitalize on this element, on their less realistic presentation allowing them to imply things without depicting them directly, but it's definitely a thing they could and did do.

Sure, I get that was probably the intent, but I don't think it came across very well, whether visually or narratively (and just counting on the player to assume that things make sense "off screen" seems rather lazy, at best). Don't get me wrong, it's nothing my suspension of disbelief can't handle, especially with how good the games are in general, but that's true of the similar problems in New Vegas as well.

Rynjin

2024-01-12, 02:13 AM

Having seen a trailer for the game, I decided to gully immerse myself into A Plague Tale: Innocence and immediately after, its sequel A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Both games are visually stunning. The sequel even moreso. The story is good, well written. I liked Amicia and at first, thought it would be a “guard the fragile NPC” type mission. Thankfully I was mistaken in that regard and Hugo is more than capable on his own.

I didn’t mind the environmental puzzles. A few were a bit of a head scratcher, but for the most part quickly doable, since the game gives you enough supplies to deal with whatever the game throws at you.

Stealth is the preferred option to bypass enemies. But when stealth is not an option, you have to fight. I was not a big fan of the combat, since not only are you one shottable, but your choice of weapon rarely if ever changes. And enemies typically have ways to nullify your weapon. I suppose it’s a way to include a puzzle element to combat as well. But a boss in the first game throws you into this scenario with little warning.

Combat in specific instances being my main gripe, the game is a grim, dark and violent tale with a beautiful backdrop of 14th century Europe. I can imagine the studio may release a third part, but who knows given how Requiem ended.

Innocence I loved a lot more than I thought I would, given how weak its gameplay elements are. it's a subpar puzzle game, and an even worse stealth experience, but has a lot of charm and I enjoyed the story.

Requiem immediately got off the wrong foot with me by ditching the French accents for British ones, and lost me even more when it showed early on how combat focused it was going to be. It's an even worse combat game than anything else, and I lost interest partway through "the concussion saga" and haven't picked the game back up.

Anonymouswizard

2024-01-12, 03:31 PM

I'm away from my main PC for the moment, so I'm trying Kingmaker again. Which means hooray, twenty minutes messing with portraits and another twenty to make a level one character,yes that's the classic CRPG feel.

Human Magus, because that's kind of my default in D&D based games now, or Paladin if there's no spellsword class. If I don't go back to RT and do a full run of Kingmaker I'll likely return to my WotR Sword Saint run. I'll need to grab Kinzi quickly so I have someone to diplomance for me while I take on the Knowledge rolls.

AlanBruce

2024-01-12, 04:12 PM

Innocence I loved a lot more than I thought I would, given how weak its gameplay elements are. it's a subpar puzzle game, and an even worse stealth experience, but has a lot of charm and I enjoyed the story.

Requiem immediately got off the wrong foot with me by ditching the French accents for British ones, and lost me even more when it showed early on how combat focused it was going to be. It's an even worse combat game than anything else, and I lost interest partway through "the concussion saga" and haven't picked the game back up.

I believe both games sacrifice gameplay for a good story. I found no fault in the writing. I do wish they stuck to French accents in the sequel, since the games take place primarily in France. And yet, we get british voice lines from very clearly French characters.

Also, I believe they tried to make Amicia into Ellie in the sequel. I know she takes on a lot of people in the first game and she is driven by specific emotions to take down even more people in the sequel, but I wish they had kept her character traits unique.

And again, bad combat mechanics will lead to repeated frustrated retries when they throw an army against you.

Cygnia

2024-01-13, 12:23 PM

Combat in specific instances being my main gripe, the game is a grim, dark and violent tale with a beautiful backdrop of 14th century Europe. I can imagine the studio may release a third part, but who knows given how Requiem ended.
Requiem is still in my Steam backlog, though I still wanted a side-quel with Melie and how she'd recover (if at all) from her grief after Innocence ended...

Considering playing Blackguards 2 next though.

Sapphire Guard

2024-01-13, 08:24 PM

Project Zero/Fatal Frame 2. Great game, although I think I liked the first one more.

The ghosts are very crafty. I hate the doll spirit, she's a tough fight. And the real Azami ghost had to watch it all happen.

I was comforting myself with the story that at least Yae got out, but then I read up on it and discovered she is a bossfight in the first game. Good grief, she was born at one gate to hell, got out and then accidentally went to live at another gate to hell. Some people just have no luck at all. (see also: Itsuki, Crimson Kimono.)

These games are pretty unsettling. Really well done.

AlanBruce

2024-01-13, 08:57 PM

Began replaying Alan Wake 2: The Final Draft

Having played it fully back on release, I saw absolutely no difference in gameplay or story- this free addition to tje game is supposed to be NG+, with some extras added in for good measure. I was disappointed at first because I didn’t have all my guns. It wasn’t until I got to my first shoe box in game that I realized it all carried over (I believe the RE games do the same in NG+ and in regards to what carries over). In that regard, I’m glad, since you don’t fight anything threatening before getting your good guns.

Story wise, other than a major spoiler at the very beginning, the game seems identical. Then again, I just started the first of the Alan Wake sections, so it’s awhile before I see any significant changes to the narrative, if any.

Errorname

2024-01-14, 02:36 AM

Sure, I get that was probably the intent, but I don't think it came across very well, whether visually or narratively (and just counting on the player to assume that things make sense "off screen" seems rather lazy, at best). Don't get me wrong, it's nothing my suspension of disbelief can't handle, especially with how good the games are in general, but that's true of the similar problems in New Vegas as well.

The travel time stuff works pretty well, but I agree that the settlements don't feel bigger than the playable space, even if the way the maps are designed makes it clear that at least some of them are. It just seems like something they could have built on to create the illusion of scale and depth without having to actually model massive realistically sized communities.

Rynjin

2024-01-14, 04:38 AM

Began replaying Alan Wake 2: The Final Draft

Having played it fully back on release, I saw absolutely no difference in gameplay or story- this free addition to tje game is supposed to be NG+, with some extras added in for good measure. I was disappointed at first because I didn’t have all my guns. It wasn’t until I got to my first shoe box in game that I realized it all carried over (I believe the RE games do the same in NG+ and in regards to what carries over). In that regard, I’m glad, since you don’t fight anything threatening before getting your good guns.

Story wise, other than a major spoiler at the very beginning, the game seems identical. Then again, I just started the first of the Alan Wake sections, so it’s awhile before I see any significant changes to the narrative, if any.

I haven't started my Final Draft run just yet but from what I understand all the changes come in from the ending of NG+ and the Wake segments, yeah.

Jophiel

2024-01-14, 10:31 AM

Obsidian's never made a game world as pretty as what Bethesda are capable of, but New Vegas's worldmap having that soft-railroad is probably my favourite world design I've ever seen in an RPG.

I think I lasted an hour or two before I modded out all the invisible walls out of annoyance :smallbiggrin:

Zevox

2024-01-15, 01:58 AM

Just beat Mario RPG (Remake, though I'd not played the original). Pretty fun little game. Very goofy, almost excessively so at times - I mean, there was a character who didn't understand the idea of eating cake - but also something where you can easily see how it's the precursor to the first Paper Mario. Not just gameplay-wise, where the similarities are obvious enough, but in some story and setting elements too. You're collecting Star Pieces in this game, and Star Spirits in Paper Mario; the game's opening is pretty reminiscent of Paper Mario, just with Bowser's Castle instead of Peach's, and Smithy (or his giant sword) showing up and kicking everyone out instead of Bowser; and Nimbus Land reminded me of Paper Mario's sixth area, Flower Fields, specifically how you end up ascending a beanstalk there to fight a cloud boss in the clouds.

If I had any complaints, it would mostly be that the game was extremely easy. Although the fact that I somehow wound up over-leveled likely contributed to that. Not sure how that happened, I didn't do any deliberate grinding, I just didn't avoid enemies that the game tossed in my path. Well, also, many of the special moves were rather imbalanced, albeit in different ways - Peach's healing is crazy cheap for how much it recovers, but her one attack special does not do enough for how much FP it costs, for instance. And despite the game being short, the final area did overstay its welcome - I was rather exasperated at how many mini-bosses it wanted me to pound my way through to finally get to Smithy. Though I guess maybe that would've been better if I wasn't over-leveled and they felt like less of a speed bump and more of an actual challenge. Hard to say I suppose.

In any event, good game. I don't think I like it as much as the Paper Mario games it so obviously inspired, but it's solid nonetheless.

Resileaf

2024-01-15, 04:11 PM

Zombimode

2024-01-16, 02:02 PM

I have not even finished all 8 vignettes but I already get pretty disillusioned with Octopath Traveler. I genuinely do not understand the very positive reception of this game. It is deeply flawed, has baffling design decisions and feels soulless. To me it seems the only people involved in making this game that actually cared where the artists.

Anyone here who has enjoyed Octopath Traveler? If so what was it that you liked about the game?

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-01-16, 02:50 PM

I have not even finished all 8 vignettes but I already get pretty disillusioned with Octopath Traveler. I genuinely do not understand the very positive reception of this game. It is deeply flawed, has baffling design decisions and feels soulless. To me it seems the only people involved in making this game that actually cared where the artists.

Anyone here who has enjoyed Octopath Traveler? If so what was it that you liked about the game?

I liked the second one well enough, though it has many of the problems the first did. It's still a bit disjointed, with the quality of the writing going up and down depending on what character you're currently following. It also suffers a bit from having easy combat and a shallow back-half unless you go to great lengths to swap characters around and avoid getting overleveled or overgeared. That said, it has some great art and I'm a sucker for a job-system RPG which lets you build combat to your own tastes. It also has an actual climax where all the character stories dovetail together into a final chapter. I'd probably give the second one my usual "strong 7" recommendation, meaning it's not a particularly trend-breaking or outstanding entry in its genre, but it's good enough at being what it is that if you're a fan of JRPGs, it's a nice comfortable play.

The actual outstanding entry in the JRPG genre is Crystal Project, an oddly unknown indie JRPG that mixes a sequence-breakable open world with a revisionist take on old school mechanics. Think if FF1 and FF5 got a true successor with modern sensibilities like previewing enemy actions, threat mechanics letting you control where damage hits, no missable items or content, and the ability to respec your stats if you want to build characters in a different way. That it also has some Metroid-like platforming elements and the ability to wildly divert off the intended path (and if you're into replays, it has a wealth of built-in randomizer options to keep repeats fresh) is an amazing bonus. It also keeps opening up. Every time I thought I was close to wrapping up, new areas and mechanics appeared.

Downside is, like FF1, its story is effervescent and told mostly through observations or background characters. I happen to hold the opinion that stories in video game and p*rn are the same, though. Welcome if it exists and adds context, but never great and not really why you're there.

Cespenar

2024-01-16, 04:17 PM

Zevox

2024-01-16, 08:46 PM

I started played Super Mario Wonder today. I know at least one person who called it "Super Mario Acid Trip" after it was revealed, and frankly, he wasn't wrong. The game even starts with something that feels like it was written by someone indulging in hallucinogenics, with Bowser becoming a castle. No, not taking over one, he literally turns into a castle. With Bowser's face on it, laughing about how powerful he is now. It's weird, and the weirdness continues every time you find a Wonder Flower in the stages. I mean, the second stage is called "Piranha Plants on Parade," and yes I strongly suspect that the Disney reference there is deliberate, on the localization team's part if not the original developers'.

Still, seems fun. There's a lot of playable character options, though sadly they all seem to work the same. Well, aside form the Yoshis and this weird Nabbit guy being immortal for some reason, but that's not what I'm looking for in differences between them. Still, the badges you can acquire expand your gameplay options - a couple of early ones include letting you slow-fall using a hat as a parachute and letting you do a shallow, Mega Man X style wall-jump so you can ascend the wall on your first jump. Not far into it yet, but I think I'll enjoy it.

Also, on Granblue Rising, I'm doing something unusual and actually decided to try every character in the base roster on ranked for a little bit. Get a little firsthand knowledge of them to help me fight them, as well as see if anyone I didn't expect to like surprises me. Playing them to either S5 rank or level 100, whichever comes first. Thus far, aside from those I've played before because I was interested in them, I've done:

Gran: The game's main character and one of the three "shoto" style characters in it, along with Djeeta and Katalina. Being the main character, you'd think he'd be the Ryu-equivalent, but no, he's more the Ken, the most aggressive version of the archetype in the game (Katalina's the Ryu). While he can play the all-around game that shotos are known for, he'd prefer to be in close if possible. For me, he's fine, which is about what I expected. Don't anticipate returning to him, but I can play him just fine.

Djeeta: Gran's female counterpart and another shoto, sharing some but far from all of his moves. She's kind of in between Katalina and Gran in overall play style, with no clear Street Fighter shoto parallel (I was thinking maybe Sakura because she has a chargeable fireball, but Sakura uses her charge fireball for very different purposes than Djeeta). Of the three I think I liked her the best, if mostly for the amount of corner carry her heavy/ex rekka special gives, which lets her start full corner combos from a longer distance than most of the cast. Still not someone I'm likely to come back to though.

Lowain: The answer to a question no one asked: "what would it be like if a random trio of frat boys were a fighting game character?" Lowain summons his "bros" to run across the screen and jump/slide at his opponent, drops a random robot tank version of Katalina to shoot projectiles, and generally acts like a total goofball. Having played him, I almost hate him more than I used to, because it really becomes apparent that, while there's some charm to him, be basically has to play as a total gimmick, troll character. He doesn't have a great toolset for any traditional gameplay style. What he does have is the ability to heal himself by pulling food from nowhere, and some annoying supers that put him into special states where he either has full armor on everything (his regular super) or isn't even on-screen and can't be hit at all (his 30% health or less super), while giving him overpowered but gimmicky moves while they last, which serve more as knowledge checks than anything else. He's always been low-tier as a result, yet highly annoying to fight. And yeah, playing him for a while basically just made it clearer to me that anyone who is playing him is signing up for playing like a troll, depending on his healing and supers to compete with the rest of the cast.

Beelzebub: The boss of the original game, he's close to a character I'd like to play. I did try a little bit when the original game first came out, but wound up dropping him, and for the same reasons I still don't quite gel with him. He has some powerful tools - including his very unique black hole move that sucks enemies in - and cool combos, but he's quite slow (aside from when he's using his teleport, but getting predictable about that will get you punished), and when to actually use some of those tools can be awkward. Maybe one I'd try again, but only maybe.

Anila: Aka Sheep Lady Terry Bogard. No, that's not a joke, her moves are actually based on Terry Bogard's, even though they involve things like sending sheep at people as projectiles, or riding sheep at them like May on her dolphins in Guilty Gear. She even does his Buster Wolf pose when doing her desperation super - which, instead of a big energy wave, tramples the enemy under a massive stampede of sheep. So yeah, she's adorable, and actually kind of fun, if only because of just how silly she is. She's the one I will probably play again of this batch, even if she's no new favorite.

Ferry: Another character I briefly tried in the original game, but dropped; in this case because, despite having a few things I like, she's mainly a Dhalsim-style zoner, with big whip attacks as her main calling card. So far she's the only one this list I've not gotten to rank S5, and I suspect I won't before hitting the level cap I set for myself. I can see some value to playing her, it forces me to think about the game differently and play in ways I normally would not (and I exposes some major weaknesses of hers to me, like the fact that her main anti-air move is air blockable for some reason), but she's definitely not one I'd generally want to play were I not trying everyone like this.

tonberrian

2024-01-17, 11:51 PM

Cespenar

2024-01-18, 10:56 AM

Cygnia

2024-01-18, 11:50 AM

Just finished up Blackguards 2 (set in the Dark Eye universe). A bit disjointed in terms of storytelling, not as intuitive as the first game. Still dealing with broken achievements.

Looking to start Cult of Lamb up again now that the new update dropped.

Beelzebub1111

2024-01-18, 01:27 PM

Zevox

2024-01-18, 08:36 PM

Mario Wonder continues to be a trip, in both senses of the word. I like the new transformations - the drill hat in particular is creative and fun - and some of the stages get surprisingly creative. The sort of creative that continues to make me think the devs were on something while making the game, but still. I mean, there's a snow stage where getting the wonder flower turns the stage beneath you into a giant rolling snowball that swallows up the parts of the stage ahead of you as it goes; or a water stage where finding the flower causes the water to become air and the air to become water. Ran into a couple of fun stages where I had to rush through the stage where platforms were appearing and vanishing in time to music, which was gradually speeding up as the stage went on, too, that was a nice challenge.

On Granblue, I finished up Ferry, got her to 100; final rank still stuck at A5, don't think I made it beyond A4. Definitely one where there's some value to me as a player trying her, but she won't be one I want to return to.

Moved from her to Charlotta, a character who is more my style in most ways. She's basically E. Honda from Street Fighter if he were a Halfling Paladin, but also with Akuma's Demon Flip, and trading butt stomp for a flash kick. Very blunt, brute force character who gets in and pummels you to death. Got her to S rank, but I did struggle more to do so than I expected to. Turns out she has a bit harder execution on some things than I expected, and her stubby normals (because you know, Halfling) can give her problems against people who play more defensively. Still, she's fun. I wrote her off when the original game came out because she's a charge character and I hadn't yet learned to play those, and just sort of glossed over her with the new release because I skipped her in the first game, but I should probably play her from time to time I think.

And after her, I went to Anre, one of the weirdest members of the cast, and almost certainly the least popular, as I almost never see him as an opponent. Even the other characters I can think of who are rare sights feel more common. Which, right out of the gate, made playing him a good experience because now I'll actually know what the hell he's doing on those rare occasions when he does show up. Anyway, he's a more defensive character, with a parry mechanic, counter, a weird spear-blast pseudo-projectile that nullifies enemy projectiles, and slow but big moves. And honestly, I like him more than I was expecting to. Being able to just auto-win projectile wars and force people to come to you is kind of nice, and he's not as bad up close as someone like Ferry, so I don't feel like all he can do is sit back and poke with his big buttons. I actually got him to S rank pretty fast. Might just need to add him to my play list, much to my surprise. (It also helps that I realized he looks like the Pringles Man. Because that's silly.)

Playing Dragon Quest 11 Definitive. I bought this on switch when it first came out, and haven't played it until now. I played a bunch of the original DQ11 though. God I forgot how much i love this game.
I should really get that sometime. It's just been hard to convince myself to buy it a second time for so little additional content, and I rarely think to check for it being sale. They really should've just released the additional stuff as a DLC add-on to the original title in this day and age...

tonberrian

2024-01-18, 11:20 PM

I should really get that sometime. It's just been hard to convince myself to buy it a second time for so little additional content, and I rarely think to check for it being sale. They really should've just released the additional stuff as a DLC add-on to the original title in this day and age...

But think of all the things the Definitive version left out! The... Crossbow shooting minigame! Really you should go back and play the original version instead.

My brother bought the original version when it came out, I played a lot of that but i knew i wanted a copy to myself someday. So i bought the definitive version on switch. My brother did eventually buy the definitive version on pc as well, but i agree it should have been available as dlc not an entire new game. I think that a lot when i see these remasters happening only two or three years after the original.

Wookieetank

2024-01-19, 11:42 AM

My brother did eventually buy the definitive version on pc as well, but i agree it should have been available as dlc not an entire new game. I think that a lot when i see these remasters happening only two or three years after the original.

*cough Atlus cough*

As for games I'm playing, bouncing around between a few right now.

Morbid: The seven acolytes - a delightfully retro aesthetic souls like, with allllll the gorey pixels.

Death's Door - Souls-lite with a charming hand drawn visuals, and quirky characters. Despite playing as a grim reaper crow, game is rather light hearted

Dwarf Fortress - currently running a steam version and ascii version fort, cause why not

Factorio - been playing on a death world megabase server.

Seems I'm in the mood for a challenge recently now that I've typed this out.

Ionathus

2024-01-19, 12:03 PM

Stardew Valley. Never played it before, but I'd enjoyed the two Harvest Moon games I picked up as a kid. Got into this while I'm saving up for a PC that can play BG3 and need a cozy/de-stress game.

Extremely satisfying. The gameplay and the aesthetics of the world are extremely fun. A lot more depth to the game world than I had expected (little secrets, things still being unlocked, new updates are still in the works from the creator).

I'd rate it a B for writing and character work, though. It's above-average, it's fun, and everything that I do get is well-written. It's just a quantity issue. I'm spoiled by other games with an immense number of dialogue lines (Hades, for instance) and having only ~3 scenes with each character leaves me really growing attached to them but wanting to explore their barely-revealed stories so much more. My spouse says one of four dialogue options every morning and I find myself feeling like the entire story/character aspect of the game is pretty half-baked.

Yeah, I know, it's a farming sim. I wouldn't mind if the characters weren't so charming in the interactions that you do get! It whetted my appetite and I'm sad there's no more to be found!

warty goblin

2024-01-19, 01:02 PM

Poking at a few things, now the Christmas Warships grind is complete.

Still playing Miasma Chronicles. Turns out the plot is Star Wars. I confess to being slightly disappointed.

Watched Terminator the other night, which reminded me of the surprisingly decent Terminator Resistance, which is sort of budget Far Cry with robots. But you know, it really works pretty well. It's one of those sorta budget games where you can see the seams and somehow that makes it more charming. It's100% happy being the sort of game it is, a 7/10 in the best way.

Felt like a trip into the ancient and weird, so broke out Dungeon Lords, the Steam version. It's shonky as all getout, sorta surreal, and also a surprising amount of fun. Expect zero polish, one of those combat systems so basic it punches right through tedious into unexpectedly engaging, decent but oh so ancient graphics, and a nonstop conveyer belt of hot fantasy nonsense. I really love weird, slightly over ambitious misfires like this.

Cygnia

2024-01-19, 01:07 PM

Death's Door - Souls-lite with a charming hand drawn visuals, and quirky characters. Despite playing as a grim reaper crow, game is rather light hearted

I want to play this -- but I keep getting destroyed by the very first boss. And it doesn't matter if I'm using my keyboard or controller... :smallfrown:

Wookieetank

2024-01-19, 03:01 PM

I want to play this -- but I keep getting destroyed by the very first boss. And it doesn't matter if I'm using my keyboard or controller... :smallfrown:

I ended up getting past it by only getting in 2 hits and then dodging well away. Going for the full 3 ends up being a trap. This game leans a bit hard into "Don't get greedy" with your attacks. At the 2nd boss now myself, and its even more of a dodgefest. Still working on convincing myself that not taking damage is more important than dishing it out ><

Form

2024-01-19, 03:37 PM

I've finished the grappling goodness that is Sanabi. Most of my grappling hook usage could be more accurately described as desperate flailing rather than graceful swinging, but sometimes a sequence of moves comes together nicely and it's really nice when things go smoothly. Final boss gave me a run for my money too. It would have been better if they'd spread the story out a bit more, though. I don't mind getting the story spelled out to me, but using a number of somewhat lengthy cutscenes near the end to do that felt a bit like they were dragging things out.

Currently playing Warhammer 40.000: Boltgun. It's decent, but it doesn't feel particularly noteworthy? Or maybe I just need to take a long break from retro shooters after this one.

Death's Door - Souls-lite with a charming hand drawn visuals, and quirky characters. Despite playing as a grim reaper crow, game is rather light hearted

I vaguely remember that when you meet your boss for the first time he rewards you by..... giving you applause and praise and I was like 'yes, actually, this is exactly what I wanted. It is nice to be appreciated.' rather than disappointed. It was one of those funny moments that stuck with me.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-01-19, 06:16 PM

Finished up the new Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. It's an enjoyable Metroidvania with a few pacing issues, but overall worth playing. Maybe not for the full $50 price tag, but you can sub to Ubi+ for one month for $18 and definitely finish it in time. I'd probably have liked the game better if I didn't start it on Immortal difficulty. A lot of enemies and traps will one shot you for the first half of the game and, unlike most metroidvanias, there's almost no way to heal outside of your limited estus flask thing. The Souls influence is probably the worst thing about the game, and I say this as a huge fan of Souls games. The game has enough platforming and combat challenges without also piling on the stress of "I have no heals and if I miss this jump, I'm going all the way back to the checkpoint."

Overall, though, the platforming is excellent and really makes use of the various abilities in combination with one another in a way that few Metroidvania games do. The boss fights are a lot of fun and pretty spectacular. I had a lot of fun bating out the boss special attacks that trigger the cinematic parries if you pull it off just to see how crazy they got. Story isn't winning any awards and there's at least one major "Wait, what?" that reeks of cuts, but it's enough to keep you entertained as you move from area to area.

The protagonist, Sargon, is a member of the Persian Immortals, imagined here as a gang of supersoldiers working under Queen Thomyris. Late in the game, he rattles off how many of their number have died over the course of the game and mentions one person who simply disappears from the plot without a fight or having been shown dead.

One big blemish on the game is that it's fairly buggy in the scripting sense. The main objectives never bugged out, but I had three of the side objectives lock up. Restarting the game fixed one of them, but the other two were broken up until I finished.

It's not my favorite Metroidvania, but if you're looking for a solid 15-20 hour game, you could do worse.

tonberrian

2024-01-19, 08:45 PM

Zevox

2024-01-20, 01:48 AM

Completed Super Mario Bros. Wonder tonight. I didn't 100% it, but I did beat the final boss, and completed every stage at least once, including those in the Special World, so that's good enough for me. Definitely quite fun, and you can't knock them for lacking creativity, even if it's the sort of creativity that makes the game feel like it's on drugs. I really liked the Bowser stages too, and that it turns out that Bowser's big evil Wonder was
to hold a Metal concert (or as close to one as you'll get in a Nintendo game) with the whole world as his captive audience. Yes, seriously - the final level is called "Bowser's Rage Stage," it's great.
It's mostly pretty easy, but there were definitely a few stages that could get quite challenging, particularly in the Special World (though strangely, the final special stage was not that hard, only took me a small handful of attempts), which was nice.

Definitely going to be the most memorable Mario game in quite some time I'd say.

Finished up the new Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. It's an enjoyable Metroidvania with a few pacing issues, but overall worth playing. Maybe not for the full $50 price tag, but you can sub to Ubi+ for one month for $18 and definitely finish it in time. I'd probably have liked the game better if I didn't start it on Immortal difficulty. A lot of enemies and traps will one shot you for the first half of the game and, unlike most metroidvanias, there's almost no way to heal outside of your limited estus flask thing. The Souls influence is probably the worst thing about the game, and I say this as a huge fan of Souls games. The game has enough platforming and combat challenges without also piling on the stress of "I have no heals and if I miss this jump, I'm going all the way back to the checkpoint."

Overall, though, the platforming is excellent and really makes use of the various abilities in combination with one another in a way that few Metroidvania games do. The boss fights are a lot of fun and pretty spectacular. I had a lot of fun bating out the boss special attacks that trigger the cinematic parries if you pull it off just to see how crazy they got. Story isn't winning any awards and there's at least one major "Wait, what?" that reeks of cuts, but it's enough to keep you entertained as you move from area to area.

One big blemish on the game is that it's fairly buggy in the scripting sense. The main objectives never bugged out, but I had three of the side objectives lock up. Restarting the game fixed one of them, but the other two were broken up until I finished.

It's not my favorite Metroidvania, but if you're looking for a solid 15-20 hour game, you could do worse.
Good to hear. I'm thinking about grabbing it myself, it looked good in the previews I saw, I've still got a couple of weeks until Persona 3 Reload to burn, and I'm almost out of Christmas gift games.

My new headcanon: Veronica, the mage deaged into a child in DQ11, is fond of drink. The fact that she looks so much younger now prevents her from getting any, though, and it frustrates her to no end.
I could see that.

Sapphire Guard

2024-01-20, 05:48 PM

Swallowed my pride and switched to easy mode for the rest of Baldur's Gate 2.

Thanks to my newly lowered difficulty, I was able to steal Yaga- Shura's heart and bravely run away, then when Nyalee attacked me bravely ran away again, because I already had what I needed.

Mellisan is extraordinarily suspicious (By a happy coincidence, I am the sole survivor of this wrecked city), I'm pretty sure she is a priestess of Bhaal. Given the reveal that the Bhaalspawn were originally intended to all be sacrificed, maybe it's not such a good idea to kill them all? This is totally part of the revival ritual, isn't it?

Please note: Do not answer these questions.

tonberrian

2024-01-20, 08:41 PM

Cygnia

2024-01-21, 11:09 AM

Zevox

2024-01-21, 11:41 AM

So I started up Sonic Mania Plus, my last Christmas gift game, this morning. So far my thought process has gone:

Okay, nostalgia-bait game, my favorite character back in the 90s was Knuckles, I'm totally playing him.

Ah, Green Hill Zone, the classic, and they've got the classic music too. Can't fault them for opening with this. Um, okay, wait, this opening is a bit too familiar, is this just the original stage? Wait, no, now I'm hitting stuff that feels different. Actually, feels like it was designed with Knuckles in mind too, there's points where his climbing is notably very useful, that's cool.

Okay, this "chase the UFO" bonus stage is weird and kind of awkward to control, not sure I like it. But eh, I guess this first one's easy enough. Oh, they've got the old bonus blue sphere stages too, that's cool. Though actually, aren't these just the old stages 1:1? Yeah, the more of them I play, the more obvious that gets, I remember all of these. Eh...

Wow, the Robotnik fight for the end Green Hill Zone is actually pretty unique, I don't recall anything like this from the old games. Good on them.

Wait, Zone 2 is Chemical Plant Zone? And the opening is pretty much 1:1 again. Do they have new Zones in this game?

You know, maybe it's because I'm coming off Mario Wonder here, but I kind of wish there was more I could do than in the old games. Or that the controls felt smoother than in the old games.

Wait, what're these needles in Chemical Plant Zone Act 2? They change the water's color? Wait, that's not water, it's like some kind of gel, and it's bouncing me now? Okay, so they're coming up with some very new stuff for this despite using the old Zone design, that's pretty cool. Wait, I stick to these wall panels with purple goop on them and they rise like elevators? Is what a Knuckles-specific thing? Because if so that's awesome.

*spit take* So the final boss of Chemical Plant Zone is just me playing Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine against him?! Okay, that's kind of inspired, I love it.

So the third Zone is... Studiopolis? Okay, so they do have totally new Zone designs! Great, glad to see it's not all reused/remixed.
So yeah, I wouldn't say I have no complaints, but I'm definitely enjoying it so far.

Batcathat

2024-01-21, 12:29 PM

Zevox

2024-01-21, 11:45 PM

Playing more Granblue Versus Rising characters I ordinarily wouldn't:

Lancelot: After Anre it was back to a character that's more my usual style, the speedy rushdown trickster type. In any other fighting game this kind of character would probably be a ninja, but here he's a knight who just happens to be a speedster. He's kind of reminiscent of Charlotta to me in a way, where his weakness is lack of range on his normals, but he's good once he's in close, fast, and has advancing specials to help get in. Unlike her he also gets some very unique movement options, inlcuding a fast fall and a wall jump... which I made very little use of because I've never really played a character with those before. Still, he's easy enough to play that I didn't have much trouble getting him to S rank. Not sure I'm likely to play him again though. I certainly could, and I like his combo game, but there's so many other characters in this game that I like more, and for the rushdown style, I'd say Yuel and Charlotta are more to my personal liking.

Vaseraga: Shifting to someone I'd definitely never have touched if I hadn't decided to do everyone, the game's resident big, slow brute, a massive armored man with a big scythe. He's got slow moves, super armor, a command grab, and high damage output when he does get a hit. I was honestly worried he'd be another one like Ferry that I just couldn't get out of A rank, but fortunately, between his high damage and having enough tools to give him some good options once he's in close, I was able to manage getting him to S. He definitely forces me to play differently than I normally do, like Ferry, however - and honestly, between the value of that and him being more fun and less frustrating than someone as completely out of my comfort zone as Ferry, I am considering playing him more later just to make myself learn different things, even though I'm still not a big fan of the big slow bruiser play style. That's only a maybe, but that's more than I expected out of him.

Narmaya: Possibly the game's biggest waifu-bait character, she's also widely considered its hardest to play, as she's a stance character whose moveset completely changes between her "Dawnfly" (sword sheathed) and "Freeflutter" (sword drawn) stances. Fortunately, unlike a lot of stance characters where you need to memorize where you can change stances fluidly to play them, she can pretty much just do it whenever with her U button (the character-specific unique move). It's super fast if done on its own, and can be done during any move besides her supers, so she'll be in the other stance after the move's animation finishes. So the main thing is understanding which stance you want to be in when, and from there she's just a character with twice as many moves as the others. Thankfully online resources make the former easy: turns out you want the stance she starts in, Dawnfly, for neutral/defense, and her alternate stance, Freeflutter, for pressure/offense. And learning twice as many moves honestly I didn't find that hard, although she does have executionally difficult combos, in some cases even for fairly basic things. I was able to get enough down to play her reasonable well, and did ultimately get her to S rank. Not sure if I like her enough to go back to her though - it's probably more likely than with Lancelot, if only because the element of challenge in getting better with her is a bit appealing, but like Lancelot she does have the problem of there being a lot of other characters I like more who have similar-ish playstyles overall.

Only six left to go at this point: Eustace (a gunman who's a weird hybrid zoner/pressure character), Sigfried (another big bruiser, though a less extreme version than Vaseraga), Metera (an archer who's a dedicated zoner), Soriz (fisticuffs rushdown character), Ladiva (grappler), and Nier (persona-style character who is currently widely considered the most powerful character in the game). Yeah, with the possible exceptions of Soriz and Nier (the latter of whom I'm doing last because she's so overpowered currently that I'm half hoping they'll nerf her before I get to her), I've pretty much saved most of the ones I expect to like least for last. I did try to space them out, which is why I did Ferry, Anre, and Vaseraga already, but I was always going to get to the bottom of the barrel at some point after I decided to do this. And hey, Anre surprised me, maybe somebody else I'm not expecting to like will too.

Edit: Uh, wow. So, I was glancing at the stats the game tracks of my matches, and found out it actually keeps meticulous track of how many matches I've fought against every individual character. And well, you know when I said Anre was probably the least popular character? Boy was I right. Out of 1,806 matches I've played since the game came out, I've only fought 10 of him. I've actually seen people using the game's random select option slightly more (13 times). Not counting that, the next least-popular character, Percival, is at 25, so he at least manages to be more than 1% of my matches. Damn, I knew Anre was unpopular, but seeing those numbers really made the extent of it hit.

halfeye

2024-01-22, 11:56 AM

Just retried Sins of a Solar empire, and if stank.

It wasn't clear at first that you needed research ships, but when you got them, you could never do the research because you were short of cash.

There were always things to do, but you could never do them because you were always short of something.

Not fun.

CarpeGuitarrem

2024-01-22, 03:11 PM

Beat Dragon Age 2 yesterday, turns out that a rogue crossing left and right is a pretty good way to chew through boss health bars. Overall, pretty enjoyable, I liked the way it uses quests to carry you back and forth through the same location, it really makes the story feel connected even with small quests, and it gives Kirkwall a better sense of character than the areas in the first game imo. Though, Act 3 felt very thin to me, I expected a lot more before the final confrontation. (The final boss....pushed a bit past the "goofy teenage edge" that endears me to the series and into outright silliness, imo. So it suffered from that.)

Putting my choices into the Keep for an Inquisition import also rocked me, there's so many outcomes that I didn't realize were available! I may have to replay the game sometime just to try and find them.

I played what feels like the prologue sequence of Inquisition, and I only have three main thoughts so far:

A: you can play a qunari!! (I did)

B: they changed the combat controls and I don't like it, give me back my combat wheel and let me have snap-to-enemy targeting

C: I can jump!

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-01-22, 08:08 PM

Just retried Sins of a Solar empire, and if stank.

It wasn't clear at first that you needed research ships, but when you got them, you could never do the research because you were short of cash.

There were always things to do, but you could never do them because you were always short of something.

Not fun.

That's part of the design of Sins. It looks like an RTS, but it's a 4x game. To prevent the game from overwhelming players with APM-intensive tasks, the economy is tuned so you don't have to (and can't) flip between a dozen different things all competing for attention. I understand how that can be unappealing, since there are stretches of time where you're not doing much but watching your empire work, but it makes it the only 4x game that can be played multiplayer without taking a whole weekend. Also avoids the issue where one player won't end their turn because they have decisions to make, combat to manage, or they just started looking at their phone.

SerTabris

2024-01-22, 08:26 PM

Since I liked Tell Me Why, I decided to try out Life is Strange, which I've heard about but never gotten around to playing. So far it's pretty good. The time-rewind mechanic is interesting, kind of like in-universe save-scumming.

I hope you enjoy it! I think that's probably a pretty uncommon order to play those two in, but I definitely enjoyed the original Life is Strange.

AlanBruce

2024-01-23, 04:06 AM

Since I liked Tell Me Why, I decided to try out Life is Strange, which I've heard about but never gotten around to playing. So far it's pretty good. The time-rewind mechanic is interesting, kind of like in-universe save-scumming.

I went to Life is Strange completely blind last year (I just had a vague reference of a blue haired girl to go on.)

It is perhaps one of my favorite franchises to date. I really like the Twin Peaks feel of Arcadia Bay and the characters are certainly memorable and well written.

If you like the first game once you complete it, Before the Storm DLC wraps up Arcadia Bay’s story nicely.

Anonymouswizard

2024-01-23, 08:00 AM

I played what feels like the prologue sequence of Inquisition, and I only have three main thoughts so far:

A: you can play a qunari!! (I did)

B: they changed the combat controls and I don't like it, give me back my combat wheel and let me have snap-to-enemy targeting

C: I can jump!

If you've unlocked Val Reouax you're past the prologue. On your points:

A) Vasoth herald is best herald

B) Inquisition combat controls are fine once you get used to them, the bigger issue is that it has the skills of action combat (including very little crowd control) but the systems of RTWP combat.

C) prepare for the implementation of jumping to disappoint, unlike ME:A platforming is a very minor element.

...I should replay Dragon Age

Cespenar

2024-01-23, 11:06 AM

I've finished the grappling goodness that is Sanabi.

Currently playing Warhammer 40.000: Boltgun.

Tried both of these in the last few months too, and kinda similar conclusions here. Boltgun was especially confusing -- N levels of easy mode, then one errant extreme peak, then again baby mode for a couple of levels, etc.

Sanabi suffered a bit from translationitis, but the ninja rope fun was more than enough to compensate.

Beelzebub1111

2024-01-23, 01:20 PM

I hope you enjoy it! I think that's probably a pretty uncommon order to play those two in, but I definitely enjoyed the original Life is Strange.

I have problems with life is strange but my biggest complaint is a huge spoiler.

The game made like my choices matter at the beginning, but then it didn't let me make a choice I tried to make at the beginning of the game and then made me make a choice between the choice I tried to make or letting everyone die to satisfy the main character's selfishness. Needless to say: I was not emotionally invested and kind of salty about the whole thing.

CarpeGuitarrem

2024-01-23, 02:00 PM

If you've unlocked Val Reouax you're past the prologue. On your points:

A) Vasoth herald is best herald

B) Inquisition combat controls are fine once you get used to them, the bigger issue is that it has the skills of action combat (including very little crowd control) but the systems of RTWP combat.

C) prepare for the implementation of jumping to disappoint, unlike ME:A platforming is a very minor element.

...I should replay Dragon Age
Oh I am very okay with no platforming haha, I just like being able to finally jump over debris and (more importantly) jump down from a path that runs alongside lower terrain. Where in the previous games, I would have to backtrack along a path like that, here I can just hop down. It's nice!

Batcathat

2024-01-23, 04:14 PM

I went to Life is Strange completely blind last year (I just had a vague reference of a blue haired girl to go on.)

It is perhaps one of my favorite franchises to date. I really like the Twin Peaks feel of Arcadia Bay and the characters are certainly memorable and well written.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I was too (and mostly still is, I mainly play during the weekends so I'm only a couple of hours in). Aside from having heard good things in general about it, I pretty much knew "girl can rewind time and tries to solve some mystery".

I mostly agree about the writing, though I do think some lines of dialogue are a little clunky, but not enough to really bother me.

Anonymouswizard

2024-01-24, 06:52 AM

Oh I am very okay with no platforming haha, I just like being able to finally jump over debris and (more importantly) jump down from a path that runs alongside lower terrain. Where in the previous games, I would have to backtrack along a path like that, here I can just hop down. It's nice!

It's less no platforming and more 'there's very little platforming, which is good because the platforming kind of sucks'. The jump really needed more focus, or possibly to have been a targeted combat move like in BG3. Although Inquisition should also probably have been full on action combat closer to the Tales series or Star Ocean, which the jump would fit into better (e.g. giving each skill an alternate air version).

Started Inquisition again as a Vashoth Rogue (dual daggers at first, but it felt off so I restarted as an archer), with a much less 'nice' world state than normal. I like the idea of the Herald having basically been a low ranking scout for her mercenary company, even if Miss Stealth is an eight foot tall musclebound beauty in somewhat gaudy makeup.

Also restarted Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, taking Terriermon as my starter. Hopefully this time I won't drop it got a year halfway through an investigation. But I mostly booted it up because I've got the dub theme stuck in my head

CarpeGuitarrem

2024-01-24, 08:55 AM

I went to Life is Strange completely blind last year (I just had a vague reference of a blue haired girl to go on.)

It is perhaps one of my favorite franchises to date. I really like the Twin Peaks feel of Arcadia Bay and the characters are certainly memorable and well written.

If you like the first game once you complete it, Before the Storm DLC wraps up Arcadia Bay’s story nicely.
I have a ton of affection for the series. I need to finish Before the Storm but I loved the character work in it; I played True Colors last year and it really hit just right for me. I need to finish 2, I got distracted away from the game while waiting for the next episode.

Zevox

2024-01-24, 04:54 PM

Finished Sonic Mania. Very good, I can see why it gets as much praise as it does. Level design was great, there was a good mix of new and old zones, with the old nonetheless getting plenty of new design ideas. Boss fights were very creative and fun, with only a couple of exceptions. About my only major criticisms are of the last zone, which kind of drug on I felt, and the "chase the UFO" special stages, which I feel control rather poorly. Which makes this very likely the best Sonic game since at least Adventure 2, if not Sonic & Knuckles itself.

Also, half the remaining Grablue characters done:

Eustace: This guy was a surprise to me. He's an odd duck, a zoner/pressure character hybrid, sort of a special agent type with a high-tech gun and gadgets. I didn't expect to like him much, and he definitely started out feeling very awkward and not fun. But as I played him more and got a better sense for him, I started actually enjoying him. Eapecially with the unique tricks he can pull off by setting his ex bomb on an opponent and detonating it later, which lets him be the only character in the game who can combo off his throw, in addition to fun crouch confirm combos. I actually wound up rather liking him. Toss him in the surprise category of characters I'll probably play again alongside Anre.

Sigfried: According to my matchup numbers, this guy is the most popular character in the game, and after playing him, I can kind of see why. He's super easy to play and just feels powerful. He has a ridiculous projectile that can either fill the screen to the point of being very hard to jump over or be quite fast, and is difficult to roll past either way; he does a lot of damage off easy things; he has a natural mixup off a blocked special move; and the downside you'd expect a big bruiser to have, being slow, he largely doesn't. Some of his normals are a bit slower than average, but his movement is way better than fellow bruiser Vaseraga. I actually had such an easy time getting him to S rank that he's my lowest level played character by a significant margin, exactly level 40 (my next lowest is 52).

All that said, do I like him? Not especially, no. Anything fun about him I can get from other characters I like more, and weirdly I'd rather play Vaseraga if I were going with this archetype, since he forces me more out of my comfort zone.

Metera: I think I said Narmaya was the game's biggest waifu-bait character? That's because I forgot Metera, whose character design is "sexy woman" and personality is "sassy flirt." But she's easy to forget because she's way less popular than Narmaya, because as an archer she became the game's dedicated projectile zoner. And she is neither very good nor very fun to play for most people as a result. Her arrow special moves, the cornerstone of her zoning, are basically Sagat's high and low fireballs from Street Fighter, except much easier to evade because the game has a forward roll and high jump. She felt notably worse as a zoner to me than Eustace, especially the one time I fought a Eustace player as her, and he's better at close combat than her. Still, her aerial mobility tricks and not being as bad in close as Ferry were enough for me to get her to S rank. Heaven knows I'm not playing her again though.

Down to the last three. Soriz, who should be easy; Nier, who I'm saving for last because she's OP... and Ladiva, the Zangief-style grappler. I'm expecting her to be up there with Ferry and Metera as one of the hardest for me.

Blue Dragon

2024-01-24, 06:01 PM

Lord Raziere

2024-01-24, 06:02 PM

Been trying out Guilty Gear Strive, mostly getting a feel for the characters.

the faster ones seem to be more comfortable and useable to me. My main that seems to be shaking out is Bridget, but I'm also liking Chipp and Millia if not as much. I at first was aiming for Baiken but she I'm just not getting her rhythm. trying to understand these characters from online guides is bewildering, they are so full of jargon that any instructions are basically incomprehensible even if they're explained, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to consciously execute any combos at all when they're so complex and don't really translate to unconscious finger movements, though me using a keyboard probably doesn't help since the combo instructions are in keyboard. I can kinda get a rough understanding of what buttons lead to certain moves if I focus on them and I figured out that certain come from pressing some at the same time, but any actual fight I just get defeated by someone who knows how to block when I can't even get past the block tutorial.

anyone who says Dark Souls are hard haven't tried fighting games, because I can win at Dark Souls, fighting games you execute complex super fast things on the fly by somehow training your fingers to consistently pull off something that I can only see as a miracle.

Zevox

2024-01-24, 07:05 PM

Been trying out Guilty Gear Strive, mostly getting a feel for the characters.

the faster ones seem to be more comfortable and useable to me. My main that seems to be shaking out is Bridget, but I'm also liking Chipp and Millia if not as much. I at first was aiming for Baiken but she I'm just not getting her rhythm. trying to understand these characters from online guides is bewildering, they are so full of jargon that any instructions are basically incomprehensible even if they're explained, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to consciously execute any combos at all when they're so complex and don't really translate to unconscious finger movements, though me using a keyboard probably doesn't help since the combo instructions are in keyboard. I can kinda get a rough understanding of what buttons lead to certain moves if I focus on them and I figured out that certain come from pressing some at the same time, but any actual fight I just get defeated by someone who knows how to block when I can't even get past the block tutorial.

anyone who says Dark Souls are hard haven't tried fighting games, because I can win at Dark Souls, fighting games you execute complex super fast things on the fly by somehow training your fingers to consistently pull off something that I can only see as a miracle.
Ah, nice, Bridget's one of my favorites in Strive too (alongside May). Love her goofy yo-yo moves and energetic nature. Also a fan of Millia, though I think she's harder to play than Bridget personally. Not least of which because she's one of the squishiest characters in the game, having functionally the second lowest health (Chipp being the one below her, ironically).

I'd be more than happy to help with understanding anything you want to ask about. Honestly most of the jargon for fighting games is a lot more intuitive than it looks after a bit of explanation. Admittedly I'm saying that as someone who's been playing them for *checks date* wow, fourteen years now; but still, learning the ideas I never found hard, it's the implementation that takes time and practice.

For blocking, it's quite simple: hold the button you'd use to move backwards relative to your opponent, and as long as you're not attacking, you'll block. So if the opponent is on the right side of the screen, hold left; if the opponent is on the left side, hold right. Hold down + the backward direction for crouch blocking, which should generally be your default since attacks that hit low (need to be blocked crouching) are a lot faster than ones that hit overhead (need to be blocked standing; most of these are jumping attacks).

Yanagi

2024-01-24, 11:50 PM

The Ahamkara"

Okay, naught but a stray exclamation...but that's Sanskrit not a constructed language. It literally translates as "I (as in first person singular pronoin) - making" and it's a philosophical concept that relates to subjective experience of being a discreet self.

Really really weird to run into that term, thirty years after going through an esoteric phase, in the context of video games.

Cazero

2024-01-25, 02:03 AM

Yanagi

2024-01-25, 02:38 AM

Not that weird. Video games take inspiration from sacred texts and mystical stuff all the time.

Yeah but I'm talking about the subjective personal experience of not encountering something for three decades, yet still recognize the thing when it turns up in the context of the video game Destiny.

Zevox

2024-01-26, 07:10 PM

With Sonic Mania finished, decided to play some shorter things until Persona 3 Reload's release next week. For the moment, that's Fire Emblem Warriors. Still have History Mode maps I can do, and special weapons to unlock the true power of. Not much to say about it though really, it's a Warriors game, just good, mindless fun.

In Granblue, "all characters to S rank or level 100" personal goal completed. Not counting the one DLC character they've released who I'm undecided on whether I'll pick up, anyway.

Soriz: As expected, he was pretty easy. He's the fisticuffs rushdown character of the game, a blunt force if ever there was one. Get close, use plus on block moves to pressure, make people hurt when you hit them. He does have some neat things about him, with his low-health super that rips off his clothes and puts him a special powered-up state (at no meter cost, apparently, which surprised the heck out of me, though the change is vulnerable enough you can't just do it whenever), but overall, he's in the "character I could play, but don't especially want to" category. Partially because I like others with a similar playstyle more, and partially because of how he's portrayed personality-wise - he's the dirty old man of the game, so that's always awkward.

Ladiva: The Zangief of the game. To be fair to her, there's things I like about her. Her character design is great - big beefy wrestler who looks extremely masculine (including a full beard), but is nonetheless a woman (I think trans, though the game is unclear on that point) who will strike very stereotypically feminine poses while fighting, including strutting like a runway model for her forward walk; and she's a pro wrestler who fights in the name of love in the cheesiest way possible, saying things like "Welcome to the love show!" while grabbing you for her super move where she hugs you and pins you to the mat for a dramatic three-count. Very fun. And to my surprise, she's actually quite good at combos - above-average among the cast, I'd say, as she gets notably better midscreen and anti-air combos than most, on top of being just as capable of corner combos as everyone else. Normally for a Zangief type I expect their combos to be short, simple, and not that damaging, because all of their strength is in their throws.

Those positives out of the way though, I don't like her, which is no surprise given the archetype. Playing her did help crystalize why for me though. While playing B-rank players with her, I was actually having a fine time - people at that rank didn't know what to do about her, so I could get in a do her stuff no problem, and once she's there she's similar to other characters I like playing, just with much scarier throws. The trouble is when you run into people who know that how you fight her is to keep her away from you. Once people start playing defensively, her bad speed and lacking normals compared to much of the cast, plus lack of any special move that really helps her get in, mean that she has to play defensively too, advancing slowly and blocking her foe's attacks. Since Granblue has a forward roll you can look for opportunities to use that to get in, so she's not as bad off as Zangief is in Street Fighter, but still, you end up with a situation where both players have to play cautiously and defensively, and that just feels awful to me, on either side of the equation. I did get her to S rank despite that, but I credit that to her high damage and most A rank players not being great at keeping her out yet.

Nier: The game's strongest character, though to be fair, not quite as easy to play as I expected. I did actually take a little longer to reach S rank with her than I did with Sigfried; but she's still the one I got there second quickest, and still pretty easy to pick up on the whole. She's an emo/goth kid who literally has Death as her companion - she looks like a puppeteer character on the surface as a result of using Death in combat, but she isn't. Death never truly acts independently of her, it's more like a Persona in Persona 4 Arena, where it's another entity that does her special moves for her, but Nier herself still has startup on all of Death's moves, which makes her a lot easier to play than a puppeteer since you're not learning to control two characters at once. What makes her ridiculously good is that she has some very powerful mechanics that no one else in the game gets: special-into-special cancels, and no cooldowns on her heavy special moves (which are, as usual for this game, just better than her light and medium ones, and quite potent in general). This is limited by a unique resource she has, heart points, which count down from 13 every time she does a special-into-special cancel or uses a heavy special move, and she loses access to Death for a while if it reaches 0; however, it rarely reaches 0 before a match is over. Thanks to these unique mechanics, she basically gets corner combos even when not in the corner, and has a safe-on-block, combo-on-hit meterless reversal, which are pretty overwhelming advantages.

All that said, I do kind of like her and would like to play more of her, I'm just inclined to wait until she gets nerfed, as she obviously will. There's plenty of other characters for me to play until then anyway.

So, at the end of all of this, where did I end up? The biggest surprises were Anre and Eustace, both of whom I'd written off at a glance, but who proved much more fun than I expected, and I will certainly play more of. Besides them, I'd say I intend to play more of Anila and Charlotta, and I've got a few additional maybes. And Nier once she's nerfed, but that was kind of my plan before anyway for her. Not surprising was that I did particularly poorly with Ferry and Metera, and really don't like the zoning playstyle they represent, and just reaffirmed that I don't like grapplers like Ladiva. Beyond that, mostly I found a bunch of characters I'm lukewarm on - could play them, they're fine, I just don't have as much fun as with others. Importantly though, I've learned things about every character I can use while fighting them, even if I never touch them again.

Dawsnow

2024-01-27, 03:23 AM

Grim Portent

2024-01-27, 09:11 AM

Bought a new laptop so I'm able to play my graphically demanding games again, which means finally trying out Darktide (my brother and I bought it for each other's Christmas presents this year, sadly his laptop is having trouble with it so we haven't been able to play together yet.)

Been running around as an ogryn, nearly hit level 30. It's fun, lot of things that I feel are nice improvements on the mechanics from Vermintide 2, gun play is fun, aesthetics and music are fantastic. Love the fact it let's you try to reconnect to a mission immediately if you lag out of it. Had more than a few sessions of online games that were wasted due to disconnecting, but the reconnect mechanic has stopped that from happening with Darktide so far.

Beelzebub1111

2024-01-29, 01:02 PM

Rynjin

2024-01-29, 01:55 PM

T.G. Oskar

2024-01-29, 07:36 PM

Recently got a bunch of premium/collector's editions through mail (from Limited Run Games, in case you're wondering - I like having physical copies, mostly), and one of those was the collector's edition of Shadowrun Trilogy. I spent hours playing the game in PC (and even trying the Editor for UGC), so seeing it coming in the Switch was a godsend. Already did the first two campaigns (Dead Man's Switch, AKA the original campaign, and Dragonfall) and I'm about to finish the third (Hong Kong), meaning I'll be able to *finally* finish the expansion (Shadows of Hong Kong).

For one, it plays almost exactly like the original, though all games use the Hong Kong UI. It's buggy, I'll admit (there's one bug in DMS that might prevent you from progressing further), but for a cart that has all three games loaded in, it plays pretty well. The one thing that drives me nuts is that my only working Joy-Con has a pretty brutal drift that makes controlling an issue: stuff like trying to use Overwatch appropriately, aiming grenades on the right spot and, worst of all, the Matrix portions of Hong Kong (which rely on Watcher ICs that detect you if you step on their "watch" area and make the run more difficult) being a struggle because you're fighting with the character moving on its own.

Before that, though, I was trying Final Fantasy Renaissance, an indie project that remakes the entirety of Final Fantasy 1 on the PC (using the Unity Engine) and adds a TON of new content, specifically new classes. The old classes get new stuff (the Fighter, now the Warrior, has a buff to all allies' damage; the Thief now Mugs, dealing damage and stealing GP, and can search for hidden items; the Monk gets the ability to self-heal and spread out attacks by using Chi; White Mages heal better, Black Mages deal better damage and Red Mages are better at status effect spells), there's new weapons and armor (for both the old and new classes), a couple of brand-new enemies, class quests for most old and new classes, and a New Game+ that makes enemies more difficult but lets you start with the promoted classes from the get-go. It is a love letter to the original, keeping the sprites and some unexpected features (like the Peninsula of Power and the Hall of Giants) but rooting some of the original bugs (such as Intelligence being useless, Monk's Magic Defense dropping once you become a Master, the Critical Hit chance being based on the weapon's position on the list). It's not a ROM hack, but a game you can download and play on the PC natively. (And it's been a blast!)

Cygnia

2024-01-29, 08:14 PM

Cespenar

2024-01-30, 11:36 AM

Trying out a doomlike by the name Turbo Overkill. Looks pretty fast-paced and fun so far. You have a leg-chainsaw that allows you to mow down mooks by sliding through them, so that's a big plus. Also apparently you can slide-jump and headshot-melee-cleave through people for even more damage (and fun), if that made any sense.

Binged through a run of En Garde! this past weekend, which scratched my swashbuckling 7th Sea itch.

Yeah, En Garde! was an enjoyable little action package, halfway between Batman and Souls. It also got a further plus in my book by being rather compact (~6 hours?). I guess it's comparable to Sifu, but Sifu's combat didn't click with me for some reason.

Anonymouswizard

2024-01-30, 08:00 PM

Got a desire to play some Dragon's Dogma and restarted the game, planning to go Fighter->Warrior before maybe sidestepping to Mystic Knight. It's also how I found out about the upcoming sequel, but I'll need to build a whole new system for that.

I'd forgotten that not only does the game not level scale the world (not a bad thing, but annoying when quests give little indication of a suitable level), but that past the tutorial the game loves throwing packs of 10+ wolves at you while you're travelling, or groups of bandits, and forgetting to keep on top of weapon upgrades can really hamper your damage output.

But at the same time the combat is just fun, and the character customisation is deep enough that I really wish they made the infinite appearance editing easier to access. Also actual difficulty settings, even if normal is actually pretty fine, which is always better than none even in the darkest of fantasies.

Rynjin

2024-01-30, 08:08 PM

I'd forgotten that not only does the game not level scale the world (not a bad thing, but annoying when quests give little indication of a suitable level), but that past the tutorial the game loves throwing packs of 10+ wolves at you while you're travelling, or groups of bandits, and forgetting to keep on top of weapon upgrades can really hamper your damage output.

Being honest, I'm kind of astounded you managed to forget that WOLVES HUNT IN PACKS, ARISEN!

Anonymouswizard

2024-01-31, 07:30 AM

Being honest, I'm kind of astounded you managed to forget that WOLVES HUNT IN PACKS, ARISEN!

Oh I remember the packs, I just swear they were smaller. That line is stuck in my head forever. After all, they hold the advantage.

Also just how often the packs spawn, I've lost one fight due to forgetting to equip my new sword and another from a bandit fight managing to skirmish into the aggro range of a wolf pack.

Anyway, hit level 10 so I should probably actually go to Gran Soren.

warty goblin

2024-01-31, 11:32 AM

Been lightly prodding at Achilles: Legends Untold, an indie combining Dark Souls stuff with Diablo stuff.

The upside is immediately obvious, most Diablo alikes have, how to put this, really boring combat. You click on the dudes, every once and a while you fire off an ability. If its a fancy modern one you occasionally need to not stand on the red spots. Adding dodging and blocking and light/heavy attacks is a definite improvement.

Unfortunately the downsides are also obvious. Soulslikes have, how to put this, really boring leveling. You don't get new moves or abilities or anything, you just put points in your chosen attribute and your weapon damage or HP or stamina or magic juice goes up.... very, very slightly. This is frankly tedious in an action game, it's absolutely crushing when mixed with an ARPG, where the entire thing is supposed to be about doing crazy things with bonkers abilities. Here you get two actual abilities to start off with, throwing your shield and kicking a dude. Maybe they can be upgraded or modified or swapped out later, but no sign of that yet.

The story is, as befits a fusion of these two genres, bad and nearly non existent. Which is fine, the plot of Sacred, a game I love unconditionally, is kill the big demon, I'm not asking for great literature here. But it also provides zero incentive to figure out what's going on. Everything is wrecked, oh no, this place I've never seen before and have no investment in is bad now, I guess.

So you end up with an ARPG with satisfying-ish combat, but very little reason to keep playing it. I'm not getting cool new abilities, I'm not finding awesome loot, the story is paper thin and devoid of any character, I'm just fast/heavy attacking dudes. Woo.

Rynjin

2024-01-31, 04:06 PM

Unfortunately the downsides are also obvious. Soulslikes have, how to put this, really boring leveling. You don't get new moves or abilities or anything, you just put points in your chosen attribute and your weapon damage or HP or stamina or magic juice goes up.... very, very slightly. This is frankly tedious in an action game, it's absolutely crushing when mixed with an ARPG, where the entire thing is supposed to be about doing crazy things with bonkers abilities. Here you get two actual abilities to start off with, throwing your shield and kicking a dude. Maybe they can be upgraded or modified or swapped out later, but no sign of that yet.

Yeah, it's weird how a lot of Souls-likes kind of just ignore that any games after Dark Souls came out ever existed and don't learn any of the lessons the later games learned. On...anything, really, but this subject in particular.

That was kind of the entire point between expanding the magic system in Dark Souls 2, and adding Weapon Arts in Dark Souls 3 (later renamed Ashes of War in Elden Ring). You don't gain anything specific on level up, but it gives you more options for things you can equip, rewarding your exploration but gating it with levels. It works well, and hopefully they further refine it later (now that Ashes of War are a thing there's pretty much no reason to have 5 different weapons of each weapon class with different scaling; you could just have one eg. Katana weapon and then add Ashes and Infusions to get it to scale how you like).

And then the imitators usually take the DS1 route of just...having a bunch of same-y weapons and levelups only make you marginally stronger.

Zevox

2024-01-31, 07:20 PM

Got bored of grinding FE Warriors, so I brought out Advance Wars 1+2 and have been doing War Room maps and the occasional Predeployed versus mode map. Much as I enjoy the game, I have to admit, the larger War Room maps are really a drag a lot of the time. They just end up taking so danged long to play, and the AI is usually handed such a big advantage in economy and position at the start that it becomes incredibly obvious you can only win because they're making stupid decisions. Which I mean, yeah, with the AI in these games being what it is compensating for it to make it a challenge is a good idea, it's just that after a certain point they've thrown so much to them that it becomes too obvious you'd be screwed if they didn't suck at the game and detracts from the experience, you know? Still, at least there's plenty that aren't like that, but boy does it make me not want to do the ones that are.

And in Granblue, having finished trying everyone I finally just settled into playing my main, Belial, for a while, and today managed to get him up to S+ rank! Was quite the challenge and I wound up learning a lot of little details with him I wouldn't have expected to in order to pull it off, so feels good. Rather than just trying to keep going higher and higher with him though, I'm thinking I'll move over to other characters I like and try to take them to S+ next. Not sure who first - maybe Grimnir since he's my second favorite, maybe Zeta since it's been the longest since I played her, maybe someone else (I am tempted to go right to Cagliostro, Anre, or Eustace, since they're more off the beaten path for me).

tonberrian

2024-02-02, 01:37 AM

Rynjin

2024-02-02, 02:27 AM

Fane is the obvious pick for "who should I be?" if this is your second run and you didn't play Fane the first time. And I think you can fit every Origin in your party if you want, right?

Lohse is a good second pick for PC. I played a Fane/Lohse Lone Wolf party once that was very fun.

Edit: Doublechecked, apparently D:OS2 is 4 characters without mods, not 6. I'm partial to Ifan as the 3rd slot myself, with the 4th slot being a tossup between Sybille and The Red Prince. I always found Beast kinda boring TBH.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-02, 09:28 AM

It's time, time to once again burn my bread. That's right, Persona 3 Reload is out!

...aw no FeMC, guess I need a new main character name. Okay, guess I'm going with... and the game froze on the name entry screen. Fine, restarting and I guess I'll go with the canon name for this run.

Rodin

2024-02-03, 11:56 AM

Fane is the obvious pick for "who should I be?" if this is your second run and you didn't play Fane the first time. And I think you can fit every Origin in your party if you want, right?

Lohse is a good second pick for PC. I played a Fane/Lohse Lone Wolf party once that was very fun.

Edit: Doublechecked, apparently D:OS2 is 4 characters without mods, not 6. I'm partial to Ifan as the 3rd slot myself, with the 4th slot being a tossup between Sybille and The Red Prince. I always found Beast kinda boring TBH.

For DOS2 I usually recommend an OC for the first run along with Fane, Sebille, and Lohse, since those three have the most interesting storylines and suffer the most from the player taking them over. Then on a second playthrough you grab either Fane or Lohse and take Red Prince, Ifan, and Beast.

The two best things BG3 did were to provide you with a character designed to be a PC with the Dark Urge, and to allow you to take the full roster along with you so you can swap out the characters as needed and bring them along on quests which impact their personal story.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-03, 07:10 PM

So switching between Persona 3 Reload and Dragon's Dogma as the mood takes me, although I really need a new controller as the wire's come loose on mine. I'll probably get the same controller but with Bluetooth.

Reload might just be my favourite Persona game, Persona 3 was already probably the best, but reload is essentially P3 but better.

Meanwhile Dragon's Dogma is interesting. Fi ally getting the hand of notice board quests and switched to the Mystic Knight class, I'm honestly really enjoying it's more defensive play style.

warty goblin

2024-02-04, 07:31 AM

Moving from one Souls influenced lower budget game to... another Souls influenced lower budget game, this week I'm messing with Scars Above.

Now Scars Above is definitely not a shameless copy of the Souls formula for two very distinct reasons. Number 1, you mostly use guns, and number 2, you don't gain XP by killing stuff. See, you play a lady scientist who gets sucked through some space weirdness to an alien planet, and as a scientist you don't gain Self Actualization Juice by murdering things and slurping up their life essence/currency in what can only be described as Vampire Capitalism, but by studying them. So you get XP for exploring and scanning new species, but this only seems to occur once per species. There's also alien brainwave cubes scattered around that give you XP, but these are a finite resource. This means that grinding is impossible, and the only way to progress is to keep pushing forwards, which gives it some real momentum.

But the real draw of the game is exploring the messed up alien world. There's a low key Alien/Prometheus sort of vibe, but in the unusual sense of being focused on a rapidly mutating alien ecology rather than just ripping off the Aliens aesthetic for the 800th time. And while a lot of the stuff is videogame nonsense - you 3D print an extender for your arc welder to let it shoot cryogenic grub ooze - there's a lot of really clever, more involving touches. For instance most of the predators in the first area are semi-aquatic ambushers, so you learn to minimize contact with water - no XP for fights means combat is best avoided whenever possible. In a genuinely delightful touch, there's a sort of miniboss enemy, a giant gorilla with stone armor type creature that's only really vulnerable to headshots and fire damage in its glowing weak spot on its chest. At first, they simply charge at you, but after taking some damage they learn to protect their heads with their impervious forearms whenever you raise your gun. That's just excellent, I can't really think of another game that has a detail like an enemy learning something while you fight it. I'm sure it's just a flag in the AI script and it isn't "really" learning, but it's an impressive commitment to the bit.

MCerberus

2024-02-04, 09:26 AM

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-04, 10:30 AM

Both Palworld and P3 are on game pass, so I'll be busy for a bit I think. Just getting around to both so the only thing I really know is that Persona city themes drill straight into the happy centers of my brain.

The Persona games just kid of get the music right. Probably the best is the third term town music in P4G, but they're all fitting and generally catchy.

Even if the English is sometimes a bit rocky, I swear one of the Persona 4 songs includes 'I'm fishing'.

The best bit about Persona 3, and one I'm glad they didn't change, is that the prologue is short. I think it's 30-60 minutes, with Reload's being slightly longer due to a couple more roaming sections. The tutorial is also a lot more bearable, because it's all there at once and lets you figure most of it out before it comes up.

I'm also very glad that not only are the evokers still there, but that they still pull the old bait and switch with them.

But be warned: you will grow to hate Tartarus. It's like 240 floors of samey dungeon crawling with some very annoying bosses, and is pretty much mandatory to visit throughout the story.

Zevox

2024-02-04, 12:23 PM

I've also been playing Persona 3 Reload - in fact, I've got the next week off work specifically to play it. Happens when you remake one of my favorite games of all time.

So far, it's very much in the "very faithful remake" category - almost too much so to an extent. I'm slightly disappointed by Tartatrus appearing to still be the same fully procedurally-generated dungeon it was, since that was one of the biggest things they improved about the series in P5, giving the Palaces unique dungeon designs instead of leaning on that. But hey, the game was already great despite that, and there's been a number of other modernizations that are good:

- The visuals, obviously. The game just looks great now, no question about it.
- Fully selectable inherited Persona skills, which I don't believe even P3P had implemented.
- The "Baton Pass" system from Persona 5, now just called "Shift," allowing you to pass a character's bonus turn to another party member.
- The Kouha (and presumably Eiha, though I haven't seen that one yet) skills from P5 have been brought in, so Light/Dark are no longer just restricted to Hama/Mudo instant kill spells.
- In a change relative to P3P that I appreciate, the three different physical damage types are back! Although for some reason the MC is locked to one-handed swords now, so he'll have to rely on party members or personas for bashing and piercing damage.
- In a first for the series, when registering Personas and selecting "register all," Elizabeth offers to just register Personas that are higher-level than your already-registered versions. No more needing to register everything individually to avoid overwriting a Persona you picked up a base version of from Shuffle Time!
- Rather than choosing between three sports clubs that all lead to the same social links, you now just join the track team to get the Chariot and Strength links going. I'm presuming the same will hold true for the culture clubs and Temperance.

One that I'm hoping is in but can't confirm yet is platonic social link routes for all of the potential romances. Seems like it should be a given, since they started doing that in P4 and had it for the female protagonist route in P3P, but still, I'm too early in the game, don't know yet.

Music is mostly remixes of the old it seems, but they're mostly as good as the originals or better. Though sadly one exception is Mass Destruction, the main fight theme, which I think got worse - and was already probably my least favorite Persona fight theme, so, yeah. On the upside there's also a new fight theme, It's Going Down Now, which is better, so it's nice when I get that instead. Not sure what triggers that or if it's just random. Also pre-ordering got me a download option to use P4G music instead, which I'm resisting because I want to stick to actual P3 music, but boy I can't say it isn't tempting to turn on Reach Out to the Truth.

One odd thing is that social links seem to be referred to themselves by their last names now? It's weird seeing Kenji referred to as "Tomochika" or Kaz calling himself "Miyamoto." Not sure why they did that. Are Yukari and Fuuka going to be calling themselves "Takeba" and "Yamagishi" in texts to you despite being close friends once you get those links going? That'd be extra weird. (I could see Mitsuru calling herself "Kiriijo," to be fair.) Still, it is a minor thing.

All in all, unless they screw something up later on, this game pretty much seems like it obsoletes FES*. I just hope they're smart enough to add the female protagonist route as DLC down the line so it can truly be a definitive version of the game at long last.

*Unless you really like The Answer, I guess. Personally I'd just recommend watching the cutscenes from that on Youtube rather playing through it though, it's way too grindy and tedious. Even as much as I love Persona, I have never been able to finish The Answer.

Bohandas

2024-02-04, 12:31 PM

Recently beat both Ittle Dew games (although I still haven't beat the secret boss from Ittle Dew 2)

I'm also playing Zortch

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-04, 01:26 PM

- In a change relative to P3P that I appreciate, the three different physical damage types are back! Although for some reason the MC is locked to one-handed swords now, so he'll have to rely on party members or personas for bashing and piercing damage.

That's how portable worked, all three physical elements but limiting the protagonist to swords/naginatas. I too was disappointed they didn't bring back the multiple weapons for Minato, but that's mainly because SEES doesn't do much in the way of Bash for regular attacks (IIRC it's just Akihiko and Shinjiro).

Platonic routes for the romance links have apparently also been confirmed, so hooray.

I'm hoping they changed the party member's Personas up a bit, especially Junpei who takes FOREVER to get a hit-all attack, and Shinjiro who should probably begin with an extra skill or two. Notably both are the 'all three physical elements' party members, which probably explains why the sequels crunched Phys down itno one/two. Junpei is by far the worst though, as he also has those nigh on useless fire and buff skills.

Cygnia

2024-02-04, 02:01 PM

Zevox

2024-02-04, 02:10 PM

That's how portable worked, all three physical elements but limiting the protagonist to swords/naginatas. I too was disappointed they didn't bring back the multiple weapons for Minato, but that's mainly because SEES doesn't do much in the way of Bash for regular attacks (IIRC it's just Akihiko and Shinjiro).
Really? I remember the protagonist being limited to the naginata (never played the male protag in Portable, didn't know whether they'd done the same to him), but I would've sworn that P3P reduced the physical damage types all down to just one, bringing it in line with how they've handled it from P4 onward. I remember being disappointed by that.

Platonic routes for the romance links have apparently also been confirmed, so hooray.
Hooray if so! No need to leave most of them at rank 5 anymore to avoid feeling bad about cheating on them.

I'm hoping they changed the party member's Personas up a bit, especially Junpei who takes FOREVER to get a hit-all attack, and Shinjiro who should probably begin with an extra skill or two. Notably both are the 'all three physical elements' party members, which probably explains why the sequels crunched Phys down itno one/two. Junpei is by far the worst though, as he also has those nigh on useless fire and buff skills.
Junpei's fire spells are still quite handy, hitting enemy weak points is more important than anything else. Against ordinary enemy groups anyway, obviously you stick to his physical skills against bosses.

As for Shinji, well, for obvious reasons I'm disinclined to use him in combat anyway.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-04, 02:50 PM

Really? I remember the protagonist being limited to the naginata (never played the male protag in Portable, didn't know whether they'd done the same to him), but I would've sworn that P3P reduced the physical damage types all down to just one, bringing it in line with how they've handled it from P4 onward. I remember being disappointed by that.

Nah, dropping the number kind of messes with Junpei and Shinjiro's skillets, as they're built around dishing out all three physical elements. But the lack of fists and spears/bows on the protagonist was annoying and made Akihiko an even better pick than he already was as the debuff master.

Hooray if so! No need to leave most of them at rank 5 anymore to avoid feeling bad about cheating on them.

Yeah, hoping I can stick to just one, P3P is really quite scummy in the other releases.

Junpei's fire spells are still quite handy, hitting enemy weak points is more important than anything else. Against ordinary enemy groups anyway, obviously you stick to his physical skills against bosses.

As for Shinji, well, for obvious reasons I'm disinclined to use him in combat anyway.

Junpei would be really good at plowing through mooks if he could use attack all Phys skills much earlier, especially on groups with a physical weakness in the mix. He doesn't even get the maragi line, meaning it'll sap his MP fast.

Shinji is stupidly good due to his resistances all being normal. But as you say there's little reason to see that.

Sapphire Guard

2024-02-04, 03:31 PM

Zevox

2024-02-04, 03:44 PM

I now have a PS5. Not sure what to do with it, as there doesn't seem to be that many good games, but oh well. Is that because of the semiconductor shortage? Seems like very few games were released as PS5 exclusive.
Eh, there's a combination of reasons for that. The big two being the semiconductor shortage making the new generation of consoles scarce for the first couple of years (that's better now) combined with the PS4 just being so popular that they're still making games for it now (generally cross-gen with both PS4 and PS5 versions, but still). Sort of a PS2/Wii situation, exacerbated by the new console being scarce for so long.

Plus of course there's just the fact that most games that aren't first-party have become multiplatform for a while now. Even many Japanese games are at least Playstation/PC these days, and some are getting X-Box versions now too. Aside from Square-Enix doing timed exclusivity deals with Sony, it's pretty rare to see true console exclusive third-party games anymore.

Edit: @ Anonymouswizard - If you haven't hit it yet, Junpei now gains Vacuum Slash, an AoE slash skill, at level 13.

Also, I'm into the second block of Tartarus, and uh, wow. They at least really wanted to make sure each of these had their own feel, I'll give them that. I doubt each block is going to feel so much like the same half-dozen tiles reskinned anymore after seeing this.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-05, 01:54 AM

Discovered that the first Tartarus block is higher (more floors? 'Hooray') and beat Priestess. They seem to have shaken up the Full Moon battles a bit, with the changes to Priestess making it a lot more intense, and I'm very much down for that. Honestly some of them were a bit overly easy in the previous versions.

I'm also getting a reminder that the Social Links and Personas don't match up as neatly as they do in later games, even without the female route shuffling everything about. It's not actually bad, I just wish there were a few more coming from Shuffle Time.

tyckspoon

2024-02-05, 03:53 PM

Edit: @ Anonymouswizard - If you haven't hit it yet, Junpei now gains Vacuum Slash, an AoE slash skill, at level 13.

Also, I'm into the second block of Tartarus, and uh, wow. They at least really wanted to make sure each of these had their own feel, I'll give them that. I doubt each block is going to feel so much like the same half-dozen tiles reskinned anymore after seeing this.

Also gets Maragi, although i don't recall which level exactly - I'm in early 20s working through the second half of block 2 (post Fuuka joining events, Mitsuru now part of combat team) and everybody has the basic-tier Ma spell for their element at least.

Zevox

2024-02-05, 04:25 PM

Also gets Maragi, although i don't recall which level exactly - I'm in early 20s working through the second half of block 2 (post Fuuka joining events, Mitsuru now part of combat team) and everybody has the basic-tier Ma spell for their element at least.
Level 22 - I just got him high enough for that to be his next skill to learn.

Just did the second Full Moon event myself, and dang, Fuuka has SP now?! And can spend it to instantly scan an opponent? Hallelujah! I just hope she gets more than just that. I've been saying for a long time they should do something with the Navigators like they did in Persona Q and let them more actively participate in battles, so they don't feel as tacked-on to the team. If they're finally doing that, I will be quite happy.

Errorname

2024-02-05, 06:50 PM

Replaying the first Dishonoured and it's DLC. Still very good, some of my favourite designed maps in a video game.

Also really appreciating the Chaos system this run. I like that the thing the game uses to gauge moral choices is not "did you spare the evil villain after massacring all their men" but "how many men did you massacre on your way to deal with the evil villain", and I also like that when the game has characters talk about how bad of a person your character is for murdering a bunch of people, that was actually a choice the game gives you and not "do this evil thing so that we can call you a bad person for doing the evil thing".

It's also one of the few games where I actually find the evil option extremely tempting, because they make it extremely fun. Maybe too fun, considering how common "game acts like the main character is a bad person for murdering everyone in their path" was as a criticism.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-05, 07:28 PM

Errorname

2024-02-05, 09:36 PM

Still finding fun elements I didn't know about in Dishonored after a dozen playthroughs.

So one of your assassination targets (sometimes) spawns in a Steam Room, and one of the ways to kill him is to exploit a fault in the pipes to flood the room with steam and boil him alive. Unfortunately, not only is there a servant in the room with him, the room is also laid out in such a way that you only have two ways in (front door / possess a fish and go through the pipes). Normally this isn't a problem, the non-lethal takedown works in a way where you don't need to directly take him out at all, but if you're doing a no powers, no killing and no detections run it makes things difficult if you want to get the target's money, cause he's got like 200 pieces on him.

Or so I thought. It turns out you can just unlock and open the door and then trigger the steam explosion, and if the door's open they just exit the room.

Beelzebub1111

2024-02-06, 06:39 AM

I now have a PS5. Not sure what to do with it, as there doesn't seem to be that many good games, but oh well. Is that because of the semiconductor shortage? Seems like very few games were released as PS5 exclusive.

God of War Ragnarok is really good. as is the Free DLC.

warty goblin

2024-02-06, 10:24 AM

Got further in Scars Above. I turned the difficulty down to easy for the first boss, which made it in fact very easy, then went right back to normal. I like the feel of normal, because it makes the standard enemies threatening and encourages engaging with the elemental weapon combo system and precise aiming, I don't want to spent 30 minutes memorizing a boss's moveset, so thank you change on the fly difficulty.

Overall I really like the atmosphere. It isn't a technically astonishing game, but it drips this feeling of wrongness and alien unease. This is clearly a landscape where something very bad is happening, like the biosphere is being digested and rebuilt for some other purpose.

I like that the game approaches things in a fair simulacrum of a scientific, rather than militaristic, mindset. As I already said, you don't get XP for killing things, but instead for exploring and discovering. It's an action game so you do kill a lot of things - the wildlife is explicitly insanely aggressive - but it recasts combat as a thing you do when necessary, rather than the entire purpose of the game. It isn't a power fantasy, it's a discovery and understanding fantasy, and I find that immensely appealing. Even your gun functions substantially as an exploration tool, as the firing modes all double as ways to remove or traverse emvirontal obstacles
There's a fair number of object manipulation puzzles for instance, or parts where you need to gather evidence to deduce the correct conclusion. Its all pretty simple, but it gives the world a lot more depth.

It's like somebody made a videogame out of a sci-fi novel. But, like, one of the vaguely cerebral ones, not Space Marines Kill Thinfs Book 7: Space Boot Kick Ass.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-06, 10:37 AM

Cespenar

2024-02-06, 11:17 AM

I did quit P3 near the end due to the endless slog that is Tartarus, so I'm a bit iffy about this whole Reload business.

I'm probably gonna start The Sexy Brutale this week....

That was pretty neat as I recall. Similar to Elsinore, and maybe a handful of other adventurelooplikes.

Cygnia

2024-02-06, 11:21 AM

Ooooh, Elsinore's on my Steam queue too.

For a silly take on "Hamlet", I really enjoyed To Be or Not To Be (https://store.steampowered.com/app/324710/To_Be_or_Not_To_Be/)

warty goblin

2024-02-06, 11:48 AM

As a person who considers ME1 the best of the series because it feels more like Star Trek than Space Boot Shooty Man (albeit a Star Trek movie instead of the more demure TV show), you just elevated Scars Above to genuine interest. I originally wrote it off as "We have Returnal at home," but your writeup sounds much better than my initial impression, warty.

I'd say Scars Above is similar to Mass Effect in that it isn't a space marine shoot everything you are awesome piece of sci-fi and that's about it. ME is very much a game about space cities and space people, Scars Above is about very alien pseudo-wilderness spaces. Don't expect to get into arguments with the space UN, do expect to be ambushed by some very cranky mutated wildlife. Think more like the opening of 2012 Tomb Raider and you're on the right track. Except instead of deranged pirates vs supernatural samurai horror it's sort of Annihilation by way of Prometheus but with the meat ooze of Doom.

Eldan

2024-02-06, 01:13 PM

I'd say Scars Above is similar to Mass Effect in that it isn't a space marine shoot everything you are awesome piece of sci-fi and that's about it. ME is very much a game about space cities and space people, Scars Above is about very alien pseudo-wilderness spaces. Don't expect to get into arguments with the space UN, do expect to be ambushed by some very cranky mutated wildlife. Think more like the opening of 2012 Tomb Raider and you're on the right track. Except instead of deranged pirates vs supernatural samurai horror it's sort of Annihilation by way of Prometheus but with the meat ooze of Doom.

Please stop. I can only take so many buzzwords aimed at my entire personality.

DeTess

2024-02-06, 04:33 PM

Okay, so, I just had a moment in a game that caught me so of guard (in a good way) that I need to gush about it for a moment.

So, I've been playing final fantasy 14 again for the last few days. I'd been doing the usual, fighting bosses for specific loot because it looks awesome, did daily quests to level some classes, fought and beat a bunch of gods (it is a japanese rpg after all), the usual fare you'd expect from a big mmorpg.

Anyway, I needed to clean out my inventory a little and had some duplicate cards from a card minigame taking up space. I could just toss them, but remembered I could exchange them for a bit of currency in the minigame zone, the golden saucer. I hadn't really been there much as I wasn't really interested in (what I thought were) the simple mini-games when there was a big mega-MMO to play. But it was at the end of my planned play session, so I decided 'hey, why not walk around a little, see the sights'.

So my wandering eventually took me to a little nook in which a couple of square, tables with green felt covering where set up. The game helpfully informed me these where 'Mahjong tables'. Now, I know just about enough riichi Mahjong to play it with a computer doing all the setup and rules-tracking, and to recognize there was simply no way someone would program actual Mahjong in a fantasy mmorpg. So I skipped the tutorial guy and sat down at one of the tables to see what kind of simple match-2 minigame or whatever was in store for me.

At which point the game sat down 3 NPC's in the other seats around the table, dealt everyone their 13 starting tiles, indicated that the NPC to the left from me would be starting in the East position, and wished me good luck with the game. Contrary to all my expectations, they had actually programmed proper riichi Mahjong in my fantasy mmorpg, including bots and I presume a way to play against other players ( I only had time to play one round... for now), and then just put it in a nook of the mini-game zone for people to find.

And it worked. It was a fun round. The 'Novice' level NPC's where about as good as I was. I'm most definitely going to waste a lot of time with this mini-game. But wat shook me the most was how unreal it felt to discover that someone had put this game in an entirely different game, where it had no business being, and then did very little to draw attention to it. It's not featured in the main quest or side quests at all. It's just there, in the golden saucer, for people to discover if they feel like it. And I haven't really seen anything like that in a game for a long while, especially not in an mmorpg.

Anyway, thankyou for coming to my TED-talk XD

warty goblin

2024-02-06, 05:47 PM

Please stop. I can only take so many buzzwords aimed at my entire personality.

So to be clear, it's still very much a videogamesque videogame. You shoot enemies in their glowing color coded weak spots with the corresponding colored bullets. In that context it's remarkably thoughtful about things like wildlife behavior, and it's clearly pulling from some very slightly more outre (for videogames) elements of pretty mainsteam sci-fi. I'm really liking it, but I'm not gonna pretend its an unheralded masterpiece. There's a lot of nice attention to detail and environmental storytelling that's actually about the environment*, and some fun environmental and enemy interaction that I quite dig, but it's still an action game. What it's doing so far is executing a sci-fi story that's above average for a videogame with I'd say above average competence for a videogame. Yes, videogame is very much a load bearing caveat in that sentence.

But yeah, the Annihilation/Prometheus vibes get really strong about the second boss fight. Genuinely actually a bit creepy (not Annihilation screaming bear creepy because nothing is that creepy) and sets up some intriguing mystery going forwards. Also turning the boss fights down to easy after a try or two is so the way to go. Means you only have to pull off their pattern once or twice.

*Instead of the bog standard environmental storytelling where you find a dead body with a tape recorder saying "Martha, I'm dying, I left the money in the safe, the code is 123 Uuurggghhhh."

MCerberus

2024-02-06, 11:07 PM

Zevox

2024-02-07, 01:00 AM

Still loving Persona 3 Reload. I'm now starting July and nearing the third Full Moon event. I have to say I really like the new Theurgy mechanic. Individualized super moves for everybody, and their best way to charge their super meters are all character-specific and reflect their personalities - Yukari charges fastest by healing party members, Akihiko by using buffs, Mitsuru by inflicting debuffs/status effects, etc. Though Junpei kind of gets screwed with a dicey condition to meet, doing crits. I really love the animation on Mitsuru's (first?) theurgy move in particular as well, it's awesome. And Fuuka gets one too! And sometimes hers restores your SP, which is amazing when it happens.

Speaking of, Fuuka does get abilities that use her SP outside of scanning, but all that I'm seeing so far are out-of-combat ones. Still, being able to make yourself undetectable to Shadows until you enter a fight or move up a floor is a nice one, and setting up her buff one before a boss fight is a no-brainer, so even though they're not the in-combat ones I was hoping to see, I am liking them a lot better than the pure RNG support skills that Futaba got in P5.

I have to say though, I'd forgotten just how easy time management is in P3. Because with only two night time social links, and knowing how heavily the day time social links skew towards school ones that'll become unavailable when summer vacation hits, it's pretty clear you focus on social links during the day every day (with an emphasis on school ones whenever possible), while nights are mostly spent building your social stats, and you don't need to worry too much about how fast you level up the two night links because you'll have plenty of time. I do appreciate them putting in some more night time activities with the other party members asking you to do stuff with them now though - I actually just got my first reward for that, Yukari's "Healing Master" personality trait unlocking after I finished watching a series of movies with her. Cool to see those leading to mechanical benefits besides just the slight social stats you gain from them - especially since we don't have actual social links with the males of the group in this one.

God of War Ragnarok is really good. as is the Free DLC.
True, they're excellent; but they're also cross-gen, available on PS4 as well. So if he had a PS4 already, may already have played them.

Off the top of my head, the list of true PS5 exclusives is basically:
- Demon's Souls Remake
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Forspoken
- Final Fantasy 16
- Spider-Man 2
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (Upcoming)
- Stellar Blade (Upcoming)

And FF 16 is just about guaranteed to get released on PC (and possibly X-Box) later, while we already know FF7 Rebirth's exclusivity window is only a few months. And while Spider-Man 2's great and Ratchet & Clank is quite good, Demon's Souls is a remake and a game you probably only care about if you're already a huge Dark Souls fan, and Forspoken is hard to recommend. Stellar Blade looks good, but remains to be seen how good it'll be.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-07, 07:53 AM

Fuuka gets an ability that makes hunting golden shadows less of a pain? Finally! I mean it was already better due to them no longer moving faster than you, but that's great.

The thing that surprised me the most is that there's one part time job that I actually want to do in P3R, whereas in every previous version (and in P4 and P5) I only did ones required for social links or quests. Well until the very end of P4 where it was that or fishing for nighttime activities. But yeah, part time jobs now give you a point in two social stats as well as the barely useful amount of yen, and the cafe does both Charm and Courage (the two I grind whenever Academics isn't at 'ace the exam').

Also Akihiko gets buffs now? He's always been debuff monkey while Aigis got the buffs, so that would be a radical change to his skillset, although just as fitting to his character.

Zevox

2024-02-07, 09:29 AM

Fuuka gets an ability that makes hunting golden shadows less of a pain? Finally! I mean it was already better due to them no longer moving faster than you, but that's great.
Oh, if you're inclined to do that, it'll be super easy in this game. Between the fortune teller's ability to boost their appearance rate and the fact that they're clearly marked on the mini-map from the moment you enter a floor they're already easier to find than ever, and yeah, Fuuka's Jamming ability would make them even easier to catch. Though you can't necessarily spam it, at least at first, all of Fuuka's abilities cost her a hefty chunk of SP (Jamming is 20).

The thing that surprised me the most is that there's one part time job that I actually want to do in P3R, whereas in every previous version (and in P4 and P5) I only did ones required for social links or quests. Well until the very end of P4 where it was that or fishing for nighttime activities. But yeah, part time jobs now give you a point in two social stats as well as the barely useful amount of yen, and the cafe does both Charm and Courage (the two I grind whenever Academics isn't at 'ace the exam').
I do appreciate them trying to make the part-time jobs more appealing that way, yeah. I used that one a couple of times early on, when the money was not yet insignificant. But now that it is I'm personally more inclined to use the options that focus on boosting a single stat at a time, the arcade games and the restaurants.

Also Akihiko gets buffs now? He's always been debuff monkey while Aigis got the buffs, so that would be a radical change to his skillset, although just as fitting to his character.
It's just Sukukaja so far, but yes. They seem to have made some changes to everyone's skill set. For instance, Mitsuru doesn't seem like she's getting healing anymore, focusing more on debuffs and status effects (alongside her traditional ice magic of course). Akihiko still seems to get single-target healing, so I'm guessing they decided to narrow the non-Yukari healers down to him and Ken. And of course as we've mentioned before Junpei gets Maragi now, plus an early physical AoE in Vacuum Slash.

Also, it looks like they've split up who gets the debuffs, rather than giving them all to Akihiko. All he's got for me at this point is Tarunda; meanwhile, Mitsuru has Rakunda, and Yukari has Sukunda. For buffs, as mentioned Aki has Sukukaja, Junpei has Rakukaja, and I don't have anyone with Tarukaja yet (I'm guessing that one may be reserved for Aigis).

tyckspoon

2024-02-07, 02:37 PM

Still loving Persona 3 Reload. I'm now starting July and nearing the third Full Moon event. I have to say I really like the new Theurgy mechanic. Individualized super moves for everybody, and their best way to charge their super meters are all character-specific and reflect their personalities - Yukari charges fastest by healing party members, Akihiko by using buffs, Mitsuru by inflicting debuffs/status effects, etc. Though Junpei kind of gets screwed with a dicey condition to meet, doing crits. I really love the animation on Mitsuru's (first?) theurgy move in particular as well, it's awesome. And Fuuka gets one too! And sometimes hers restores your SP, which is amazing when it happens.

I do wonder if Fuuka's Theurgy is random or depends on who is calling for it/what battle conditions are like when you use it. Most of the time when I've triggered it it's been the first action in battle, and it does the Luster Candy effect (all stat-ups to all party, which is admittedly probably the most powerful effect) consistently there. Had it do heal once during a floor guardian fight that lasted long enough to refresh her meter for a second usage (and was kind of hoping it'd do the statup again.) Haven't seen SP restore yet.

Junpei's extra theurgy condition does at least align with what you're going to want him doing in most battles most turns - whacking somebody with a physical move. I find he pretty consistently gets there sooner than some of the other members because things like 'debuff an enemy' or 'cast a buff on yourself' aren't things you will want to be doing in every round of a battle, but 'do damage' and 'heal' are involved in basically every fight so Junpei, Yukari, and Aigis can cycle their Theurgy pretty quickly.

Zevox

2024-02-07, 03:35 PM

I do wonder if Fuuka's Theurgy is random or depends on who is calling for it/what battle conditions are like when you use it. Most of the time when I've triggered it it's been the first action in battle, and it does the Luster Candy effect (all stat-ups to all party, which is admittedly probably the most powerful effect) consistently there. Had it do heal once during a floor guardian fight that lasted long enough to refresh her meter for a second usage (and was kind of hoping it'd do the statup again.) Haven't seen SP restore yet.
Maybe - I actually haven't seen healing yet, but have gotten SP restore several times. Ever since finding out she could do that I've basically used her Theurgy as soon as it becomes available. I do feel like it's happened when at least a couple of my characters were especially low on SP each time. And I tend to keep my party pretty well healed with Yukari; although there was one instance during the third Full Moon event today where I could've used a healing effect out of Fuuka when I used it, but got the buff effect anyway. So, unsure.

Junpei's extra theurgy condition does at least align with what you're going to want him doing in most battles most turns - whacking somebody with a physical move. I find he pretty consistently gets there sooner than some of the other members because things like 'debuff an enemy' or 'cast a buff on yourself' aren't things you will want to be doing in every round of a battle, but 'do damage' and 'heal' are involved in basically every fight so Junpei, Yukari, and Aigis can cycle their Theurgy pretty quickly.
Eh, in my experience what Junpei is doing in most battles is either hitting enemy fire weaknesses after I Shift to him, or nothing because he's last in the turn order and I knock everything down before getting to him. Boss fights excepted of course (and to be fair, those are mostly where you want to use Theurgy, since most typical battles don't warrant such trump card abilities), but even in those I haven't really been getting crits out of him. Would be nice if you could use skill cards on your teammates, I have a couple for that passive Crit-up ability, but alas, your Personas only.

Just got Aigis though, and yeah, her Theurgy condition being "do physical attacks" is pretty crazy easy, especially since that's basically all of her options besides buff-related spells. I'm surprised they didn't save that one for Shinji, since obviously you can't really abuse it on him as much.

warty goblin

2024-02-07, 05:15 PM

Got further in Scars Above. Chapter 2 was pretty easy gameplay wise, but introduced a new predator I found substantially alarming in appearance. Basically a wolf body with an obscenely huge and toothy maw, and a disquieting, circling hunting behavior. The whole thing made me want to kill it with fire immediately, and thanks to some handy throwable flammable liquid, I did just that. Also showed what appears to be the stage 2 mutation of a stage 3 mutation I fought earlier on, which was a cool touch.

The story continues to move along briskly, and does a good job of pacing its reveals and further mysteries. Really the whole package is just extremely solid, well paced, plays smoothly, keeps its scope in hand, and just works. There's something really pleasant about a game that doesn't do too much, and is in fact happy to be a well told linear story. No open world nonsense, no side quests, no resource grinding - no grinding at all - just keep moving forward and doing stuff.

MinimanMidget

2024-02-07, 05:26 PM

Started, played, and beat the new Momodora (Moonlit Farewell). It was, predictably, fantastic. It's a much more typical metroidvania than previous entries, although unless I missed something I think it's actually linear in terms of ability progression.

It's sad to think it's going to be the last one, hopefully they change their mind and make more. I think it's objectively the best game in the series, but I'm not sure it replaces Reverie as my personal favourite.

Now I want to go back and play 2, 3, and Reverie again. But not 1. Never 1.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-07, 07:37 PM

Just got Aigis though, and yeah, her Theurgy condition being "do physical attacks" is pretty crazy easy, especially since that's basically all of her options besides buff-related spells. I'm surprised they didn't save that one for Shinji, since obviously you can't really abuse it on him as much.

My guess? She shares a weakness with Yukari, meaning if you double them up.

I'm also far more annoyed than I should be about the rejigged skillsets. Yes, let's just copy what Persona 4 did, I'm half expecting to find Akihiko turned into another bruiser instead of his support role from the first game. Honestly I'd have been fine with him and Aigis swapping roles, but yet again we go to 'round one every party member uses their buff/debuff'. I'm guessing it's to stop Akihiko+Aigis+Ken from being the ultimate team, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

Not that I've unlocked Theurgy yet. Big game, little time.

Zevox

2024-02-07, 11:14 PM

I'm into the third block of Tartarus now, and uh, wow, I do not remember one of the blocks looking at all like this before. Gotta give them credit, they're definitely doing their best to make Tartarus less monotonous. Including still adding more stuff to it with these Monad doors and Great Clock doors, which are a decent bonus. Wasn't expecting them to still be introducing new additions in July, but here we are.

Also, because I have to:

Aigis: "I am Aigis, the last Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon."

My Brain: No. There is another (https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Labrys).

(You have no idea how happy I would be if they actually reference her at some point in this.)

yet again we go to 'round one every party member uses their buff/debuff'. I'm guessing it's to stop Akihiko+Aigis+Ken from being the ultimate team, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
:smallconfused: Buffs and debuffs are not that important though? Tarukaja and Rakunda are kind of nice in that they speed things up since you just do more damage while they're up, but you can do without easily; Tarunda I'll use against bosses early game sometimes, but rarely bother with after; and Rakukaja is just never worth the sp and turn spent on it IMO, since it's either too pricey (the Ma- version) or only affects one party member. And while Sukunda + Masukukaja can be a potent defensive combo that makes you hard to hit, it can also do nothing, since even with it you're at the mercy of RNG, plus recasting Masukukaja every three turns gets very costly in a long boss fight. And otherwise you'd only have reason to bother with those against enemies that especially evasive, like the golden hands.

Honestly, I've never used Akihiko for his debuffs before. Especially since prior to this version you couldn't stop him from replacing the single-target versions with the AoE ones, which against the things you'd want to use debuffs on, bosses, are usually just several times the SP cost for no additional benefit.

Errorname

2024-02-07, 11:43 PM

Okay, I do have a Dishonored criticism, which is that it doesn't end strong. The last two levels are extremely short and simple and I want to know what the thought process was behind ending a game about assassinating targets with two final levels which don't have targets to assassinate.

Like I can see the narrative reasoning behind "the conspiracy self-destructs out of fear of you before you can actually act directly" but mechanically it feels so bad, especially on Low Chaos. At least in High Chaos you get to see the infighting, in Low Chaos it's all over by the time you get there. They had a clever narrative idea and accidentally fumbled it so that their game didn't have a goddamn final boss.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-08, 07:42 AM

:smallconfused: Buffs and debuffs are not that important though? Tarukaja and Rakunda are kind of nice in that they speed things up since you just do more damage while they're up, but you can do without easily; Tarunda I'll use against bosses early game sometimes, but rarely bother with after; and Rakukaja is just never worth the sp and turn spent on it IMO, since it's either too pricey (the Ma- version) or only affects one party member. And while Sukunda + Masukukaja can be a potent defensive combo that makes you hard to hit, it can also do nothing, since even with it you're at the mercy of RNG, plus recasting Masukukaja every three turns gets very costly in a long boss fight. And otherwise you'd only have reason to bother with those against enemies that especially evasive, like the golden hands.

Honestly, I've never used Akihiko for his debuffs before. Especially since prior to this version you couldn't stop him from replacing the single-target versions with the AoE ones, which against the things you'd want to use debuffs on, bosses, are usually just several times the SP cost for no additional benefit.

Yeah, I meant primarily in boss fights. Buffs and debuffs have always been important, if rarely vital, it's why I found Shadow Kanji such a breeze and Shadow Rise comparatively difficult (as in she wiped me ~6 times on my first P4 run). In P3 I've always had at least one of Akihiko or Aigis, saving up my SP items because they're so darned expensive.

...and I only just realised that you now have a reason to make Mitsuru spam Marin Karin...

ETA: finally got Fuuka! And wow, her voice acting is so much better than in the original! I'm also re-noticing how all the Persona 4 conventions hadn't been established yet. Including that almost every character who joins has a reason for why they're roughly at your level of power, except for Fuuka and arguably Koromaru.

Zevox

2024-02-08, 05:32 PM

So, because it's free on PSN this month and the initial trailer did at least catch my eye on style alone, I tried out Foamstars today. It's... meh. Honestly, my reaction was roughly what I expected. It's a team-based live services multiplayer shooter game at its core, and boy is that not for me. Playing an actual match just felt like a chaotic cluster-****. It has a few single-player missions, but they're boring, copy & paste defend the tower core from generic, silly, easy enemies missions that basically feel like their only reason to exist is to give you a way to try characters without going into actual multiplayer matches. (They also take way too long for how little there is to them, doing them all with the game's six characters was a couple of hours of play time.) I still like the game's overall style and, for lack of a better word, vibe, but it being what it is, is very much not for me. Also, wow, most of the voice actors in the game are phoning it in so much for the (not remotely interesting) story they slip into those single-player missions. Only one or two actually sound like they're trying.

Also, got Koromaru in P3R. Unsurprisingly, with the Eiha line of spells added, he seems more focused on darkness magic and less on fire this time (although he still starts with Maragion). His Theurgy faster charge condition is simply to hit enemy weak points, so yeah, going to be great at normal enemy fights and less suited to boss fights, which fits. Although he does have two Theurgy moves, the second of which is a full-party Charge buff, so that's admittedly something that would be quite good for boss fights. (The other is just a big-damage single-target darkness attack; cool looking, but nothing special.)

Yeah, I meant primarily in boss fights. Buffs and debuffs have always been important, if rarely vital, it's why I found Shadow Kanji such a breeze and Shadow Rise comparatively difficult (as in she wiped me ~6 times on my first P4 run). In P3 I've always had at least one of Akihiko or Aigis, saving up my SP items because they're so darned expensive.
Right, but that's what I mean. They're not just not vital, they're not even really important, just handy sometimes. I'll use Rakunda if I have it, sometimes Tarukaja on my heaviest hitter, and occasionally I'll go for the Sukunda + Masukukaja combo if it's convenient, but otherwise, I generally don't bother. I certainly would never use the Ma-debuffs, they're way too expensive for they do, and rarely even consider Matarujaka. The idea that Akihiko + Aigis is somehow the best team if they have all of the buffs/debuffs concentrated on them like they used to is a strange one to me that I don't agree with, basically. I'd favor something more like Yukari, Junpei, and either Aigis or Mitsuru if I were trying to pick a best team for boss fights in pre-Reload versions of the game. Best healer, best physical attacker, secondary physical attacker or secondary healer.

...and I only just realised that you now have a reason to make Mitsuru spam Marin Karin...
Eh, kind of. She has better debuffs/status effects to use though - Rakunda against bosses, Eerie Sound and Tentarafoo against random enemies. Wouldn't surprise me if her AI infamously overusing that spell is why they made her fast Theurgy charge condition what it is though.

zlefin

2024-02-09, 07:42 PM

Since steam is having a demos week, I tried out the demo for the paradox title Millenia, which is a civ-esque game, (it seems to be made by one of their side studios rather than their main ones). The demo is reasonably fun, but it also shows some significant issues in gameplay, balance, graphics, and UI, and one wonders how thoroughly those will be fixed sufficiently before release, and for some of them why they weren' tfixed long before now as some of them are quite obvious. It runs quite high on the complexity side, and shows some real promise, but it doesn't work so well with how poor the tooltips are and failing to explain things. It also just feels rather bland at times. My recommendation for those who like things of that genre is to wait for the release and reviews before deciding.

If anyone else has been doing steam demo week stuff, are any other demos of interest and what genres are they?

Zevox

2024-02-10, 12:22 AM

I'm into September in P3R now. So I've got Ken and Shinji. Ken, like Koromaru, is now more about Light thanks to the addition of the Kouha spell line, but retains at least one lightning spell, Zionga. Shinji now has a unique version of Charge, "Bloody Charge," which costs health instead of SP (a lot of health: 40% of his max) but ups his crit rate as well as power for the next attack. And their Theurgy charging conditions are mirrors of each other: Ken gains a boost to his when his SP drops below half, while Shinji does when his HP drops below half. Obviously Shinji got the better deal there, as it's far easier to trigger his repeatedly. Both just have standard big-damage single-target Theurgy attacks, with Ken's being Light and Shinji's being Strike.

Also, they seem to have added multiple scenes centered in Strega (Takaya, mostly) that I don't think were in the game before? It's been a while since I last replayed it, but I definitely don't recall
an incident where Minato encounters Takaya fighting an Abbadon on the bridge, or where Takaya shows up while you're walking Koromaru one night and gets into a discussion with you about why you want to end the Dark Hour,
to name two. Good either way, nice to see Strega get fleshed out a bit more.

Oh, and being after summer break now, Reload's version of Changing Seasons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeTrtuyj9cI) has kicked in, and suddenly I have a new favorite P3 town theme. (Well, school theme since it cuts out when you leave school, but you know what I mean.)

Beelzebub1111

2024-02-10, 10:09 AM

Ii just finished the Palace of Ice DLC in Solasta and it's kind of interesting how:
The better ending is you sacrificing the soul of the speaker to get back with all your party. Not many games reward self-preservation like that and I appreciate it. At the very least it's not a bad outcome.

I appreciate a lot of the world-building in the game and presents a lot of cool ideas. Humans not being a native species to the world instead of being seen as the "default" race, I like the tiefling lore of them being decendants of a human king who traded his soul to a devil to protect them from Sor Akkath. The Sorraks as a threat chasing down humanity. The idea that even the gods aren't native to the world is interesting, but I wish they did more with it.

I am going to take a break before I go for the ironman mode achievements, but I really recommend this game. reminds me of the 2003 Temple of Elemental Evil game in a really good way.

Glimbur

2024-02-10, 10:25 PM

Dominions 6 has been out for a couple weeks now. It's a war game where you script your battles ahead of time and then your mages do their best to frustrate you instead of winning the fight. You can cover a giant in magic items so he can kill a whole army, send a firestorm to destroy enemies several provinces away, or cast a spell to make forests whisper hymns to your pretender. See, the big boss left and now everyone nation wants to gather worship, claims sites of power, and ascend to become Pantokrator. So your pretender can be a wizard, a huge snake, Zeus, a fountain of blood, etc.

There are hundreds of spells, thousands of units, the asynchronous multi-player makes it easy to play with a weird or limited schedule, and you can have Odin fight Zeus.

The UI is not great, the graphics are 2 sprites per unit, and figuring out what to do or what works well can be tough. But if you liked other games in the series, or like a deep game that is sometimes obtuse, you should give it a shot.

Zevox

2024-02-11, 01:10 AM

I reached October 4th in Persona 3 Reload.

They did that scene better than ever before. And it can still move me to tears.

NeoVid

2024-02-11, 04:45 AM

Thane of Fife

2024-02-11, 08:40 AM

Dominions 6 has been out for a couple weeks now.

I, too, am playing Dominions 6. Still in my first game (single player as MA Man - traditionally one of the more boring factions). I'm currently trying to work out how to get underwater to finish off Ys - I don't have enough in the way of Water or Air paths (Man has some small water paths in the witches, and I have a rainbow pretender, but not much else) to build the magic items I need for my air greatness to go underwater. So I've been trying to find the magic items that will let me bootstrap those paths up.

Otherwise, I might push up Conjuration to summon one of the Faerie Queens - I think I remember them having Air or Water paths in Dom3?

Alternatively, I have three of the four Thrones, and the fourth isn't that far from my borders. I might just try to punch through the other two AIs (Atlantis and Shinuuyama) and grab it.

Mx.Silver

2024-02-11, 08:54 AM

Dominions 6 has been out for a couple weeks now. It's a war game where you script your battles ahead of time and then your mages do their best to frustrate you instead of winning the fight. You can cover a giant in magic items so he can kill a whole army, send a firestorm to destroy enemies several provinces away, or cast a spell to make forests whisper hymns to your pretender. See, the big boss left and now everyone nation wants to gather worship, claims sites of power, and ascend to become Pantokrator. So your pretender can be a wizard, a huge snake, Zeus, a fountain of blood, etc.

There are hundreds of spells, thousands of units, the asynchronous multi-player makes it easy to play with a weird or limited schedule, and you can have Odin fight Zeus.

The UI is not great, the graphics are 2 sprites per unit, and figuring out what to do or what works well can be tough. But if you liked other games in the series, or like a deep game that is sometimes obtuse, you should give it a shot.

Yeah, I've also been spending some time with it. I hadn't actually played the series since Dom 3, so I've been having to (re-)learn a lot, but it's been fun. Y'know, if you're the sort of person who finds 'agressively indie, ridiculously involved games with wonky UI' fun. Which it turns out I am.

Form

2024-02-11, 02:15 PM

I've started on Slay the Princess. Part of the reason I picked it up is the guy that voices The Narrator also narrates large chunks of The Magnus Archives. I'm not very far in, but it does feel fresh and interesting and likely confusing. It's says it's a love story, so perhaps it's about abusive relationships considering the controlling demeanor of The Narrator? Or relationships and relationships problem in general considering the strange interaction between us, The Princess and various aspects of ourselves? Anyway, I'm not very far in yet and it feels like there's more to it than just that.

... I feel bad about mindlessly slaying the princess the first time around. Well, I'm gonna just have to live with that. There are no perfect routes. Only choices and consequences. Down the rabbit hole I go.

So I've met the entity between worlds now. Twice. The first time it tried to fill me (I didn't let it) and the second time it took the Princess as its vessel. It pretty much spelled out what it wants me to do: collect various voices/aspects of a person and bring them to it so that it can complete itself/the Princess. So, I'm thinking there are 2 goals here: To complete the Princess and then myself by collecting various voices and then bringing the Princess and them myself to it. Each iteration seems to consist of 2 loops: the first loop is there to retrieve a voice (I've discovered Smitten and Cold so far, in both cases the Princess also took on their aspects) and the second is there to bring the Princess (save her) or myself (slay her). In doing so I complete both the Princess and myself as a person.

Blue Dragon

2024-02-11, 06:41 PM

zlefin

2024-02-11, 10:07 PM

Dominions 6 has been out for a couple weeks now. It's a war game where you script your battles ahead of time and then your mages do their best to frustrate you instead of winning the fight. You can cover a giant in magic items so he can kill a whole army, send a firestorm to destroy enemies several provinces away, or cast a spell to make forests whisper hymns to your pretender. See, the big boss left and now everyone nation wants to gather worship, claims sites of power, and ascend to become Pantokrator. So your pretender can be a wizard, a huge snake, Zeus, a fountain of blood, etc.

There are hundreds of spells, thousands of units, the asynchronous multi-player makes it easy to play with a weird or limited schedule, and you can have Odin fight Zeus.

The UI is not great, the graphics are 2 sprites per unit, and figuring out what to do or what works well can be tough. But if you liked other games in the series, or like a deep game that is sometimes obtuse, you should give it a shot.

how much did it change from dom 5?

I never did get dom 5, because I mostly played in the dom 3 era, and while I got dom 4, I didn't play it nearly as much, because the dom games all build off each other so they aren't quite as distinct as some other series. I know dom 5 made significant change to the combat engine being less turn-based and more simultaneous sand movementy. So I'm mostly interested in hearing what changed from 5->6 in terms of the new features n such.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-11, 11:35 PM

Baldur's Gate 3 gave me a 2000s CRPG itch that never quite went away, and I lost about six Tartarus floors to Sexy Dance charming my entire party, so I went back to Knights of the Old Republic.

Honestly it might be better than BG3. It's got a lot more loading and the world is a lot less interactable, but that lends it simplicity and focus. The way classes are laid out also helps and I'm seriously considering restarting as a Scout instead of a Soldier to ensure I have some of their skills at all times.

Zevox

2024-02-12, 12:08 AM

halfeye

2024-02-12, 01:51 AM

Baldur's Gate 3 gave me a 2000s CRPG itch that never quite went away, and I lost about six Tartarus floors to Sexy Dance charming my entire party, so I went back to Knights of the Old Republic.

Honestly it might be better than BG3. It's got a lot more loading and the world is a lot less interactable, but that lends it simplicity and focus. The way classes are laid out also helps and I'm seriously considering restarting as a Scout instead of a Soldier to ensure I have some of their skills at all times.
I'm playing that, but my savegames don't work, except the autosaves, and I've just got to the bit with the Sith fighters attacking the Ebon Hawk, which is abominable and difficult, then you go back to the intro to Davik Kang, Grrr.

Errorname

2024-02-12, 03:41 AM

Zombimode

2024-02-12, 07:22 AM

oxybe

2024-02-12, 08:00 AM

I've been playing a ton of Palworld of late. I know the meme is "pokemon with guns" but it's really more of a weird hybrid mish-mash of games:

ARK's base-building, tech progression and leveling up
Breath of the Wild's overworld traversal
Rimworld-esque production via specialized pawns
Pokemon Arceus-esque monster catching
Gun because gun.

It's fun with a good gameplay loop:
-You build your base and put a Pal to work doing simple labour.
-To put more Pals to work you need to level up your base by having certain machines/facilities built.
-You need to level up to learn that tech.
-Best way to level up is to catch a ton of Pals. more pals means a bigger pool of specialized labour force.
-Now that you have a bigger pool of Pals to work with, you want to expand what you can do in your base...

For an early access game that's like 40$Can, there is a ton of content. Endgame is struggling a bit: once you have beaten the tower bosses, completed the Paldeck and captured the legendaries, there's not much else but making a more efficient base or just breeding the better Foxspark.

Haven't had this much fun exploring though. There's always an overworld boss or an instanced one or a dungeon somewhere at every bend to beat or conquor. At night if you fly high you can see the green glow of the many, many Fast Travel points or the Lifmunk statues (these are traded in to upgrade your base catch rate) dotted everywhere pointing to an area of potential interest or to go to.

I've spent more on worse, and if PocketPair makes good on their plan to expand the game's content, I'm sold.

Glimbur

2024-02-12, 09:09 AM

how much did it change from dom 5?

I never did get dom 5, because I mostly played in the dom 3 era, and while I got dom 4, I didn't play it nearly as much, because the dom games all build off each other so they aren't quite as distinct as some other series. I know dom 5 made significant change to the combat engine being less turn-based and more simultaneous sand movementy. So I'm mostly interested in hearing what changed from 5->6 in terms of the new features n such.

Blesses are very different, they added a new school of magic (glamor), and evocations are... maybe better? Hard to say, meta on that is still developing. Also construction items all moved up one research level, there is an option to make level 9 spells research individually, UI changes.

Bless points all go in the same pool, you get X-1 bless points for having a path at X. And you unlock blesses with a specific path, like Righteous Wrath is Fire 4 (new bless that buffs sacreds when a sacred dies). So you could take a F4W4S4 arch mage, get 9 bless points, and take Righteous Wrath (4) and +1 att twice (2 each) and finish with snow move (1). We are still figuring out the meta but the Glamor 1 bless that gives +50% XP and can be stacked seems good on good sacreds. Any stackable bless can be taken up to five times.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-12, 12:12 PM

:smallconfused: In Reload? How'd you do that? The one time that I died in Reload, it gave me the option to continue playing from the start of the fight again. And it wasn't a major boss fight either, just one of the Monad door shadows that got some crits on my MC, so I've been assuming that was just a standard option now.

Yep, only options were to restart from my last save (and lose everything since before the last guardian) or the entrance (and lose potentially thirty floors). I'd have accepted restarting the floor.

I'm playing that, but my savegames don't work, except the autosaves, and I've just got to the bit with the Sith fighters attacking the Ebon Hawk, which is abominable and difficult, then you go back to the intro to Davik Kang, Grrr.

Ouch, yeah. Thankfully manual saves are working for me, I'll only lose time if I decide to switch class. I think I've also put in a mod that removes every other instance of that damn minigame.

KotoR 1 is NWN 1 in space, regarding gameplay and controlls. Once I understood that I was fine with it.
In addition KotoR 1 feels like a weird proto-Mass Effect. The games are distinct enough, but the KotoR DNA is quite strong in Mass Effect, beyond the usual Bioware RPG DNA.

It definitely convinced me to redownload Mass Legendary Edition, getting all my mods set up us going to be a right pain. But it makes a lot of sense, IIRC Mass Effect came about when they decided not to do KotOR2.

Honestly I think ME1 is essentially what we'd have got if Bioware was asked to make a Star Wars game without any Jedi. It even has Carth Onasi returning to the party!

Zevox

2024-02-12, 12:34 PM

GloatingSwine

2024-02-12, 01:35 PM

I've been meaning to finally sit down and power through KOTOR, but I've honestly had a difficult time with it. Combat is functional but unengaging and actually moving through the world can get pretty tedious. I burned out after Dantooine the first time.

KotOR has not aged gracefully. It has too many tutorial locations (Endar Spire then Taris then Dantooine are all basically introductory zones) and the last planet drags on far too long.

Plus the Aurora engine isn't particularly smooth and has lots of shuffling about when characters try to interact with props and each other.

Mx.Silver

2024-02-12, 02:07 PM

Blesses are very different, they added a new school of magic (glamor), and evocations are... maybe better? Hard to say, meta on that is still developing. Also construction items all moved up one research level, there is an option to make level 9 spells research individually, UI changes.

Bless points all go in the same pool, you get X-1 bless points for having a path at X. And you unlock blesses with a specific path, like Righteous Wrath is Fire 4 (new bless that buffs sacreds when a sacred dies). So you could take a F4W4S4 arch mage, get 9 bless points, and take Righteous Wrath (4) and +1 att twice (2 each) and finish with snow move (1). We are still figuring out the meta but the Glamor 1 bless that gives +50% XP and can be stacked seems good on good sacreds. Any stackable bless can be taken up to five times.

Full stacked glamour seems like it's potentially kind of silly for Ind, given that they can spend 1 turn at the onyx court and come-out with 18 xp on everything in their army. Although to be fair 'getting kind of silly with blesses' is sort of Ind's thing and I don't know if that particular one is better than just giving your entire army unbearable splendour out the gate or something.

Zevox

2024-02-12, 03:07 PM

KotOR has not aged gracefully. It has too many tutorial locations (Endar Spire then Taris then Dantooine are all basically introductory zones) and the last planet drags on far too long.

Plus the Aurora engine isn't particularly smooth and has lots of shuffling about when characters try to interact with props and each other.
Personally, I'd say KotOR's biggest issue is being real-time-with-pause. On my more recent attempts to replay it I've always wound up dropping it after Dantooine or the first planet I do after it, and I think generally getting bored with the combat because of that is to blame. I liked it back in the day, but boy is it hard to go back to now.

Errorname

2024-02-12, 06:00 PM

Personally, I'd say KotOR's biggest issue is being real-time-with-pause. On my more recent attempts to replay it I've always wound up dropping it after Dantooine or the first planet I do after it, and I think generally getting bored with the combat because of that is to blame. I liked it back in the day, but boy is it hard to go back to now.

I have so little tolerance for real-time with pause. I get why it happened, but if you give me a choice between it and proper turn-based combat I'm picking turn based every time.

Batcathat

2024-02-12, 06:07 PM

I have so little tolerance for real-time with pause. I get why it happened, but if you give me a choice between it and proper turn-based combat I'm picking turn based every time.

I always kinda liked real-time with pause (it certainly doesn't fit every game, but neither does the alternatives). I like having a choice of pace, in some battles I'll probably pause often enough that it's basically turn-based, in some I'll probably not pause at all and in most it'll be somewhere in between. Though I've never actually played KotOR so I'll make no judgement on how it's implemented there.

In other news, I finally finished Life is Strange (it's not actually that long of a game, but I mostly just play a few hours on the weekends) and while there are occasional things that bug me (including occasional bugs) overall I must say I found it pretty damn good. The ending was quite the kick in the feels.

tyckspoon

2024-02-12, 06:24 PM

I always kinda liked real-time with pause (it certainly doesn't fit every game, but neither does the alternatives). I like having a choice of pace, in some battles I'll probably pause often enough that it's basically turn-based, in some I'll probably not pause at all and in most it'll be somewhere in between. Though I've never actually played KotOR so I'll make no judgement on how it's implemented there.

Clunkily, at best, although a bit less awkward than implementation in Neverwinter Nights was because they didn't try to also try to force real-time simultaneous action processing it into the assumptions of a dungeon-based tactical map with abilities that assumed time halted for an individual actors turn.. and also friendly fire is off by default so you don't stress about frying your own party when they run in front of your Evil Psychic Lightning. It mostly feels like turn based to me, just with.. like, auto-combat turned on so you don't have to re-enter the basic Attack command every turn - the 'turns' process slowly enough and with big enough halts before processing the next 'turn' action that it's not really pressured to pause things, you can just click in the next action or five while the current one is animating and only really need to pause if you also want to try to give specific orders to the rest of your party (which you usually don't because they're basically ok just autoattacking/using whatever special attack tree you specialized them into.)

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-12, 06:40 PM

Well I would be playing some ME1, but due to accidentally hitting play instead of install mod and cancelling the launch it decided to verify files.

...that's an hour of verifying at minimum, followed by another hour of reinstalling mods, before I can even get close to playing the game. Really useful when I only have a maximum of 1.5 hours of vision left :smallmad:

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-13, 11:04 AM

I always kinda liked real-time with pause (it certainly doesn't fit every game, but neither does the alternatives). I like having a choice of pace, in some battles I'll probably pause often enough that it's basically turn-based, in some I'll probably not pause at all and in most it'll be somewhere in between. Though I've never actually played KotOR so I'll make no judgement on how it's implemented there.

The big thing KOTOR did that a lot of other RTWP games didn't is action queuing. You could queue up several actions in a row and have them play out without needing to interrupt. It made the combat feel a lot smoother since you'd script three or four turns out across your party and then let it play, only pausing to change commands if something drastic happened.

LibraryOgre

2024-02-13, 02:14 PM

Baldur's Gate 3 gave me a 2000s CRPG itch that never quite went away, and I lost about six Tartarus floors to Sexy Dance charming my entire party, so I went back to Knights of the Old Republic.

Honestly it might be better than BG3. It's got a lot more loading and the world is a lot less interactable, but that lends it simplicity and focus. The way classes are laid out also helps and I'm seriously considering restarting as a Scout instead of a Soldier to ensure I have some of their skills at all times.

I pretty much always play a scout; I am an utter slave to having the right skill, at the right time, and a high-int scout is a big part of that.

GloatingSwine

2024-02-13, 04:38 PM

I pretty much always play a scout; I am an utter slave to having the right skill, at the right time, and a high-int scout is a big part of that.

I don't rate skills on the protagonist for KotOR, because you're going to switch to a Jedi class and they *all* suck at skills, even the Sentinel who is supposed to be the skills one (2+half Int bonus/level is still rubbish). And Persuasion is the only skill that only the protag can use and because of the way it works you're basically required to upgrade it every level if you want it to work ever (because it's based on the relative level not fixed DCs), so that's just a skills tax on the protag.

Mission and T3-M4 are there to be your skillmonkeys. Just kill everything then come back with them to slice all the computers, pick all the locks, and repair all the repairables for sweet extra XP at max efficiency.

Scout is a good starting class, but you only take it to 4 then hold the rest of your levels. That gives you 3 extra feats over an equivalent Soldier (because they will have to spend some on Implant because implants are so good and you get it for free) and you have Uncanny Dodge 1, 2 extra strong saves, and all you spend for it is 8HP and 1AB. And endgame AB is like +50 anyway.

(Scout isn't even the skills class either, Scoundrel is. And Scoundrel is the one you don't hold levels on as much because of Sneak Attack carrying over value)

Rynjin

2024-02-13, 04:46 PM

GloatingSwine

2024-02-13, 05:22 PM

KotOR 1 thinks blasters are dumb and for losers. Even before you become a Jedi you do way better with swords. (SWD20 blasters do 3D8 damage, in KotOR that's 1D8)

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-13, 07:37 PM

I pretty much always play a scout; I am an utter slave to having the right skill, at the right time, and a high-int scout is a big part of that.

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed. Plus Soundrel gets more skill points anyway, going Scout is pretty good but it's not the skilliest.

Honestly the reason I'll probably restart and do Scout->Sentinel is the same reason my ME characters tend to focus on Tech powers: I like being the girl up to her elbows in machine parts.

Being forced to swap to a Jedi class is what made me drop KotOR. I just...don't care, man. I wanted to shoot my blasters. Being abruptly forced to swap to something you did not have in mind at the start of the game and which may not fit your stats or previous Feat choices is dumb.

I mean, it is called Knights of the Old Republic, and the protagonist is implied to be Force Sensitive pretty early. The bait and switch is annoying, I think KotOR2 did better by just starting you as a Jedi*, which also avoided the other trick up the game's sleeve (aligning the skilliest normal class with a less skilly Jedi one).

Although I will admit the first handful of levels as a Jedi suck, especially if you're not going Guardian (I always miss Force Jump when I don't have it).

* and not giving you amnesia, it's actually more interesting.

KotOR 1 thinks blasters are dumb and for losers. Even before you become a Jedi you do way better with swords. (SWD20 blasters do 3D8 damage, in KotOR that's 1D8)

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.

I remember speccing Carth into dual blasters and doing okay, but it probably helped that it was a soldier->guardian run with a saber staff so he could have been throwing water balloons and everything would have died.

But blasters hold their own in the early game, simply because they fire off multiple shots for basic attacks. Their main issue is so few being upgradeable, and those that can only having one option per slot.

LibraryOgre

2024-02-13, 08:55 PM

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed. Plus Soundrel gets more skill points anyway, going Scout is pretty good but it's not the skilliest.

Honestly the reason I'll probably restart and do Scout->Sentinel is the same reason my ME characters tend to focus on Tech powers: I like being the girl up to her elbows in machine parts.

Ah, Scoundrel! That's what I meant.

A good option was actually Scout->Guardian... the Guardian Leap would combine with Sneak Attack for some massive first hits.

Aeson

2024-02-13, 11:24 PM

Being forced to swap to a Jedi class is what made me drop KotOR. I just...don't care, man. I wanted to shoot my blasters. Being abruptly forced to swap to something you did not have in mind at the start of the game and which may not fit your stats or previous Feat choices is dumb.
To be fair, there's nothing that actually requires you to trade your blaster(s) for a lightsaber. You kept all the feats you had prior to class change, I don't recall there being any real reason to max out all three of the attack feats, and even if you did want to max them all out I'm pretty sure you could continue taking blaster feats as a Jedi if that's the way you wanted to develop your character (or was that only KotOR2? It's been a while...); about the only thing you'd actually miss out on would be the higher-level versions of the starting class's special bonus.

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed.
I don't entirely agree; there's a couple of segments in both games where you don't have access to your party members, can't (easily) change your active party to for example pull T3-M4 off the bench for a repair/computer check, or simply haven't yet acquired one of the party members who start with a decent score in whatever skill you want, and KotOR2 even penalizes you (slightly) for breaking containers open rather than picking the locks beyond just the missed XP. The main character is the one character that you (almost) always have in the active party, which is already enough to justify making them the skill monkey if you want to ensure that you always access to the 'right' skill, and they're the character that you control by default, which makes them a more convenient choice for a skill-monkey than anyone you'd otherwise be switching over to any time you want to pick a lock or recover a mine or whatever.

There's also the "I don't want to feel compelled to keep [party member] in the active group just to have access to [skill]" angle. Sometimes you just want to run with HK-47 and Canderous (or whatever other party you want to use as an example) because you like the characters, simply want to see just how good Canderous/Zaalbar/Hanharr can get with the best swords and +Strength gear money can buy and all the buffs a pair of Jedi can keep on them, or are just relishing the opportunity to give all the Sith and Dark Jedi a taste of all the save-or-suck medicine a full party of Jedi can serve up after that last go around where everyone in the group apparently decided to repeatedly fail their Will saves in unison, or whatever. Lack of access to the full range of skills unless you take them on your main character doesn't exactly prevent this, but it does discourage it, especially in bits of the game that you can only visit once per playthrough, and it doesn't help that it very often feels like skills that aren't at the maximum possible rank for your current level aren't useful, especially since most party members barely have the skill points to keep the skills that they started with current, let alone branch out into anything else.

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.
I still don't think I'd call blasters good in KotOR2. Putting the lightsaber or the (vibro)sword or the quarterstaff down means giving up a lot of defense due to the loss of parries and blaster-bolt deflection while combat ranges in the game are short enough that ranged characters often only get a round or two of attacks before melee characters are on top of them (especially when your gun-armed characters, with visibly-clear lines of fire to the targets, decide to go over and say hello before they start shooting), so crowd control abilities are at least very useful if not essential to have, but grenades and weapons that inflict status effects are mostly kind of useless later in the game while a lot of the better Force powers can't be used if you're wearing armor.

Also, regardless of whether we're talking KotOR or KotOR2, it doesn't really matter what weapon you use when you're locking enemies down with Force Stasis or Insanity or the like, and Sneak Attack triggers on incapacitated enemies if you're close enough to them so stunlocking things can also help overcome the blaster damage shortfall.

warty goblin

2024-02-14, 08:13 AM

Wrapped up Scars Above. Overall I liked it quite a lot, though I think it did drag a bit at the end. There's a part where you have to go get three plot coupons, which require going through some new areas in existing biomes, fighting the same monsters as the first time you were there. These aren't bad by any means, the elemental combo based weakspot sniping combat is a lot of fun and your expanding arsenal does a good job of opening up new tactics, but it kinda kills the forward momentum and sense of discovery that made the strongest parts of the game.

Everything else however worked for me. The story turned out to be pretty tightly written, without much in the way of loose ends or obvious holes, and even some of the more gamish game mechanics are reasonably well integrated. It also goes some weird places, and is a pretty interesting riff on some decently large sci-fi kinda ideas. The main character works quite well I thought, and while there's acres of technobabble (of greater or lesser accuracy) she does approach things analytically and scientifically, which is pleasant. Also pleasant is that the game really likes that approach, and while there's cautionary elements to the narrative, they are just that, cautionary. The supporting human cast is a bit (or a lot) underbaked, but for a game that cribs so much structurally from 2012 Tomb Raider that's very nearly a requirement, and ultimately it doesn't really harm the overall experience that much. You may not really care about them, but it's reasonable that Kate, the protagonist, does, so her motivations remain consistent.

It took me about 10 hours in total. This is about perfect. There's plenty of chances to mess around with the surprisingly deep combat mechanics, without the story ever feeling padded or getting stale (excepting that very little bit at the end.) There's no open world bits or side activities or anything, there's just the story, and poking around for XP and the occasional upgrade, which keeps things very focused. It was actually really pleasant to play something that had a beginning, middle and end that flowed naturally into each other and wasn't bogged down with "I'll progress the main story but first I need to go get Villager Jane a date and also buy that +3 Thingy from the shop and..." This was pretty much a movie or book as a game, so while it had a lot more combat than most exemplars of the previous media, it had the same structure and focus, and honestly would make a good sci-fi novella. I'd say a very strong 8/10, for a team that seems to have previously only made hidden object games this is shockingly good. I definitely look forwards to whatever they make next.

GloatingSwine

2024-02-14, 09:18 AM

But blasters hold their own in the early game, simply because they fire off multiple shots for basic attacks. Their main issue is so few being upgradeable, and those that can only having one option per slot.

They actually don’t. The game animates multiple shots per round but only one is a real attack. Same with the melee weapons.

The only way to get more than 1APR is to dual wield or use Flurry.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-14, 11:42 AM

They actually don’t. The game animates multiple shots per round but only one is a real attack. Same with the melee weapons.

The only way to get more than 1APR is to dual wield or use Flurry.

Huh, I swear I saw multiple damage numbers from a blaster rifle basic attack before, maybe I just didn't notice a special one.

Although tbf everything on KotOR pales in comparison with the double bladed lightsaber. +1 attack per round without dual wielding penalties? Yes it's a bug, but not even Malak can stand up to a saberstaff+master flurry+Master Speed.

Form

2024-02-14, 12:31 PM

I've finished Slay the Princess. There's a lot of different possible routes, but I'm content with the wholesome experience I got out of it, so I'm probably not going to replay it just to see the other paths. I'm not the type to go achievement hunting.

So, it is not about abusive relationships like I initially hypothesized. It's a straight up love story, like the game tells you. You do hurt each other, whether you want to or not, but you grow together and grow closer as a result. I joined Her at the end instead of slaying Her. I suppose I could say it's because growth and transformation are important and death needs to be a part of the world and all that, but honestly, I just wanted these 2 characters to have their love story with a happy ending and the world be damned!

... and I'm a little bit miffed I didn't get that 1 route where you kiss her. Maaaaaaybe I'll replay it one more time after all just to get that one.

Zevox

2024-02-15, 01:35 AM

Progress in Persona 3 Reload has slowed a bit since my vacation ended, but still chugging along. I'm in December now.

On non-spoilery thoughts, they've definitely made it easier to max out all of the social links compared to the original game. Granted, I'm making sure I gain as many points as possible at each level-up (because even in later games you kind of have to if you want to max them all in one run), but with 16 social links all on day time, most of them school links that have significant chunks of time where they're unavailable (summer break, holidays, the entire week before each exam week), P3's always been by far the hardest, and I have no doubt I'll get there at this point despite not really planning things out. At December 10th, not counting the automatic links, all I have left to do is four links that are already at rank 9 and one (Mitsuru) at rank 7. Plus the Aeon link of course, but that's not until January. I think they significantly increased Mitsuru's availability once her link opens up because of how little time you have for it, she seems to be available every school day now, and is even still available to hang out with during the week before the December exams (which is really good because I'd have nothing to do those days if she weren't, since I already maxed all my out of school links).

I also greatly appreciate the extra night time options they give you with the party, as I'd have long since run out of things to do at night without them. Although some of the power-ups they unlock for the party members are a bit nuts - I now have Yukari casting all of her healing spells at 1/4 SP cost and Aigis with a free Phys Amp in a game where that skill doesn't even otherwise exist, to name the two craziest I've acquired thus far. Also, some of those URLs you can buy in Club Escapade have some surprisingly useful stuff behind them: a whole game mechanic that lets you get ambush attacks on Shadows from a run in Tartarus, and a number of upgrades to it. I kind of wish I'd used those sooner. Definitely would've prioritized them over the two night social links if I'd known.

On spoilery thoughts, well,
I remembered how well the game sells the sheer weight and despair of the situation after Ryouji tells you about Nyx, but it's one thing to remember it, and another thing to see it again. I mean, Junpei's explosion of frustration on the group meeting the week after just really hits hard, especially after a whole game of him being the goofball of the group. Or Fuuka talking about how she called Natsuki due to wanting to hear her voice again because to what's going on but, when Natsuki immediately realized something was wrong, found herself unwilling to say anything to her about it, because how could she tell her friend that the end of the world is coming soon? Or even Mitsuru, the level-headed leader of the group, having already resolved to move on despite her father's death, being brought just as low emotionally as everyone else, and talking about how she's never really contemplated her own death before and seeming paralyzed in making a decision by that. Even knowing that Nyx can be stopped because I've beaten the game before, the weight of what everyone's going through here can just be felt so clearly.

And of course it helps that this is coming off other major story moments that are thoroughly dark in the past couple of months - Shinjiro's death in October, and Chidori's in November. No matter how many times I've played this game, those scenes hit hard, and they did them damn well in this remake. P3's emotional lows just hit hard in general, I suppose.

Also, it turns out the method to save Chidori, to the extent that you can, has changed, and I missed the new one. Oh well, nothing for it now, I'll just keep it in mind for the next time I revisit this game. Chidori's death being truly final certainly remains an appropriate outcome, given everything else.

Edit: Oh, I should probably mention, platonic social links with the romance options is definitely confirmed. Everyone seems to get a moment at rank 9 where you can either enter a relationship or choose to remain just friends, and it's clearly telegraphed, as it has been since P4. Although you can really tell that some of the scenes earlier in the links were written with the assumption that the relationship would become romantic. Yuko and Fuuka aren't as blatant about it - in fact, I didn't even get an option to tell Fuuka I loved her in the scene where it seemed like that was coming, so I think at least some of these might have certain answers you need to pick earlier on to flag the romance as a possibility, like Naoto in P4 - but it's pretty obvious with Yukari and Chihiro.

Errorname

2024-02-15, 12:50 PM

tyckspoon

2024-02-15, 02:36 PM

Edit: Oh, I should probably mention, platonic social links with the romance options is definitely confirmed. Everyone seems to get a moment at rank 9 where you can either enter a relationship or choose to remain just friends, and it's clearly telegraphed, as it has been since P4. Although you can really tell that some of the scenes earlier in the links were written with the assumption that the relationship would become romantic. Yuko and Fuuka aren't as blatant about it - in fact, I didn't even get an option to tell Fuuka I loved her in the scene where it seemed like that was coming, so I think at least some of these might have certain answers you need to pick earlier on to flag the romance as a possibility, like Naoto in P4 - but it's pretty obvious with Yukari and Chihiro.

For Yuko I think you have to choose the 'haha but what if not joking?' options during the "I'm sorry the kids keep calling you my boyfriend" segments, although the actual hard commit to dating doesn't happen until rank 9.

On non-spoilery thoughts, they've definitely made it easier to max out all of the social links compared to the original game. Granted, I'm making sure I gain as many points as possible at each level-up (because even in later games you kind of have to if you want to max them all in one run), but with 16 social links all on day time, most of them school links that have significant chunks of time where they're unavailable (summer break, holidays, the entire week before each exam week), P3's always been by far the hardest, and I have no doubt I'll get there at this point despite not really planning things out. At December 10th, not counting the automatic links, all I have left to do is four links that are already at rank 9 and one (Mitsuru) at rank 7. Plus the Aeon link of course, but that's not until January. I think they significantly increased Mitsuru's availability once her link opens up because of how little time you have for it, she seems to be available every school day now, and is even still available to hang out with during the week before the December exams (which is really good because I'd have nothing to do those days if she weren't, since I already maxed all my out of school links).

Glad to hear this - I've got several school links I have hardly done anything with at all as of mid October and was feeling like it'd be a time crunch to do them (Emperor, Lovers, Temperance, Fortune all at start or low levels and haven't even made it to opening Mitsuru or Aeon yet) and that's even with knowing ahead of time that non-school links weren't a priority and could be done during things like summer break or exam prep periods (one of the errors I made the first time I played this game was doing the Heirophant link too early and losing days that should have been school mates.)

Zevox

2024-02-15, 04:00 PM

For Yuko I think you have to choose the 'haha but what if not joking?' options during the "I'm sorry the kids keep calling you my boyfriend" segments, although the actual hard commit to dating doesn't happen until rank 9.
No, I don't believe I picked those options, but I still had the opportunity to tell her I loved her at rank 9. Fuuka's the only one I didn't. Though of course that doesn't mean there aren't flags on others that I just hit incidentally.

Add Mitsuru to the "obviously intended to be romantic" list btw, given her rank 8 event, now that I've seen that. Though they do a great job with her reaction if you turn her down at rank 9.

Glad to hear this - I've got several school links I have hardly done anything with at all as of mid October and was feeling like it'd be a time crunch to do them (Emperor, Lovers, Temperance, Fortune all at start or low levels and haven't even made it to opening Mitsuru or Aeon yet) and that's even with knowing ahead of time that non-school links weren't a priority and could be done during things like summer break or exam prep periods (one of the errors I made the first time I played this game was doing the Heirophant link too early and losing days that should have been school mates.)
Depending on where you're at with the rest it might still be a bit of a time crunch, but yeah, that doesn't sound impossible at least.

Oh, something that comes up later: the guy who sells URLs in Club Escapade will sell you vouchers for a dating site late in the game (starts late November or early December I think), which for some reason you can use to boost your points with any social link as a night event. And you buy multiple copies, unlike other URLs he sells. So you can avoid wasting days on just gaining points with that when time starts to get down to the wire.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-16, 05:02 AM

I'm only in June and all my first act school links are at 4 or better (with Yuko at 7). To be fair I'd be further but I took a break after an annoying wipe. The exception being Fuuka, I have not ground Courage to anywhere near the required level.

It definitely seems easier to me, but on my first playthrough I was so bad that I blitzed Kenji's link in the first term, I think without a Magician Persona, and only completed two links total by the end.

LibraryOgre

2024-02-16, 03:08 PM

Sapphire Guard

2024-02-16, 07:11 PM

The EULA for the PS5 has some interesting parts.

"If you are in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia, Oceania, India, the Russian Federation or Ukraine, all games and other software made available for use with your PS5 system are licensed to you, not sold"

"To the fullest extent permitted by law, residents of the United States, countries in North, Central, or South America, Japan or country/area located in East Asia or Southeast Asia, you hereby waive any rights or expectation of privacy, confidentiality, or publicity for any information in your gameplay or communications via your PS5 system, except as described in the PS5 User's Guide and Privacy Policy for your region."

Zevox

2024-02-18, 03:30 AM

I finished Persona 3 Reload tonight.

It's a truly wonderful remake. Very faithful to the original (to a fault at times, though they were clearly taking steps to address the original's flaws as well), but adding quite a bit as well. Theurgies, new night time activities, numerous new mechanics for Tartarus, pseudo-social links for the male party members (plus Ryoji), obvious modernizations of the series' mechanics, tons of less obvious quality-of-life changes, plenty of characters getting voice acting that didn't before, and other miscellaneous small changes. It definitely obsoletes FES (unless you like The Answer, and even then you can just fire up FES solely for that, since it's a separate mode anyway), and is definitely the best way to play the game now unless you specifically want to play the female protagonist route from Portable. Persona 3 was already tied with its sequel for my favorite game of all time, and much like when I replayed Persona 4 after Golden was put on Steam, this has only reminded me of why; so basically, barring the unlikely event of something new taking title this year, this is going to be my favorite game of the year, all but guaranteed.

I should probably elaborate about those psuedo-social links for the male party members, since they're not obvious at first glance. Basically, when you see one of those characters with a pair of blue exclamation points over their heads (or marked with explanation points on the map), that's one of those events. There's four or five for each, culminating in a last event in January (aside from Shinji and Ryoji, for obvious reasons), and each one does actually lead to you getting an item that unlocks a persona for fusion, like an actual social link. (Actually, Ken and Koromaru's unlock personas who are ingredients in special fusions, so technically they unlock two personas each.) I actually managed to complete all except Junpei's despite not knowing this until quite late in the game: Akihiko and Ken's are night time events, so I did those just because you have plenty of time at night; I prioritized Shinji and Ryoji's because I wanted to see any new stuff they'd added for them given their roles in the story; and Koromaru's it turns out you can do entirely in the month of January even though it first pops up far earlier. Junpei's though I missed, since I didn't feel it was as important to pursue new events for him, and they were early enough that I was still in the mindset that I might have a hard time completing all of the social links by the end if I stopped to do something like those. As a result, I couldn't fuse Surt.
Also, this is why I missed reviving Chidori, one of his events is needed for that now.
I'm very happy they added these honestly. They're not all top-notch, but Shinji's is a great addition, and I liked Ken and Akihiko's a fair bit as well. Plus it's just good to have these since they hadn't yet established that party members should all get social links when P3 was first made.

Oh, and I should perhaps also add a small warning: if you go to kill the Reaper near the end of the game, expect the final boss fight to be trivialized. Not because the Reaper's a harder fight (though he probably is), but because he's worth an absolute unholy ton of experience. I kid you not when I say that beating him catapulted the party members that were with me from being around level 76-78 straight to the low 90s. They actually wound up higher level than my main character (who got jumped from the low 80s to 89), and I didn't even think that was possible. I remembered that if you can beat the Reaper you won't have issues with the final boss, but I do not think he used to just power-level you that much in one go.

Also, for anyone curious, the Theurgy moves I found for the main character over the course of the game:
Cadenza (Your starter one.)
Jack Brothers (Jack Frost + Pyro Jack, medium almighty AoE, high chance to knock down. Great early-game Theurgy.)
The King and I (King Frost + Black Frost, heavy ice AoE, medium freeze chance. Good mid-game Theurgy.)
Best Friends (Decarbia + ?, give one ally Charge/Concentrate. Never used it.)
Scarlet Havoc (Mithras + Sigfried, severe slash AoE. Arguably the best Theurgy for the MC in the game, make sure you fuse those two just for this. I never used the earlier ones after getting it.)
Trickster (Loki + Susano-o, massive almighty damage AoE, high chance of a status effect. Since it's harder to pump almighty damage than slash and the status effect doesn't work on bosses, I didn't use this much.)
Armageddon (Satan + Helel, reduces your HP and SP to 1, but deals 9999 almighty damage. Obviously insane, it one-shots the Reaper, and I wouldn't be surprised if it one-shots Nyx's last phase, but the cost means you're not using it casually.)
I didn't 100% the compendium (think I was at like 80% by the end), so there could be more, but those are what I got.

warty goblin

2024-02-18, 02:56 PM

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.

The game's plot is that you play as Mordred, who's been resurrected by the Lady of the Lake after the battle of Camlann, because Arthur has turned into some sort of absolute nightmare creature after arriving at Avalon. You need to rebuild Camelot, recruit knights, and retake the land, which is in a very cursed state. So that setup sounds like bad fanfiction, but in practice it works pretty well. Because you are literally reborn, you explicitly get to redefine Mordred, I prefer a take where in this sort of mirror Britannia you are actually a good dude. Also being a good dude lets you recruit Lancelot (eventually) so that's a clear argument in favor for me.

The tactical battles are pretty nifty as well. It's kinda standard 4 dudes AP on a grid stuff, but developer Neocore really leans into the whole knight thing. That is, your heavily armored knights are absolute unstoppable death-tanks. You have a boatload of armor, and, in an unusual twist for a tactics game, the dude with the giant axe just absolutely crushes things. You aren't really blocking for the spellcaster or archer, you're just smashing faces as fast as you can get to them. The archers and spellcasters and rogue-type guys are useful support as well, they just aren't the combat monsters than the frontliners are. There's a class system, but because all the knights are named characters from Arthuriana, they all have unique appearances and abilities; even two two-handed guys in practice play quite differently. This handily sidesteps the XCOM problem where sure you have three different Heavies, but because there's a totally obvious optimum build for all them, you really have one Heavy with 3 HP pools so you can hot-swap them between missions.

The knights as characters bit also plays into the choice system. The game uses the same alignment chart that all Neocore's Arthuriana games do, Righteous - Tyrant on the vertical axis, and Old Faith - Christian on the horizontal. Various knights have their own alignments, and making choices in accordance with that alignment boosts their allegiance, which translates to a nice damage boost if you keep it high. There's also little questlets that pop up for specific knights, which can boost their allegiance further.

Overall I think this is definitely worth a play, if your feeling like moving dudes around a map. Yes you could play Baldur's Gate 3, but the combat in this feels a lot more...mmm... grounded and properly heavy. Less superheroes jumping around like bouncy balls, more iron-plated titanically strong champions hammering each other into the mud. And frankly I like Arthuriana better than the Forgotten Realms.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-18, 06:39 PM

So part of P3R I've noticed is some changes to the party's characterisation, most notably Akihiko's. And while for the most part it doesn't matter I really like that Akihiko has a LOT more focus on his intelligence than later installments give him. Notably not only is it basically back to protein powder being barely mentioned but a lot of focus on the actual nutritional value of his meals (even if they can be ridiculously basic).

Also I'm liking how the hangout events in the dorm give bonuses after a few times. It's made me de focus on grinding social stats, but the only one that might be too low is Courage and I'll have a lot more free time in the summer holidays. Really looking forward to seeing Shinjiro's.

I'm also amused that Junpei's resent comes up right when I benched him because so few fire weak enemies were coming up. Although he'll be back in if Akihiko still only has his physical skills allotment as Sonic Fist and Fist Master.

Lord Raziere

2024-02-18, 09:28 PM

Been playing Pokemon Unbound, a pokemon romhack thing:

Its the only pokemon fan game where you can join a biker gang, get into a gang war and no one sees this as morally bad. its also the only pokemon game where your starter is like either larvitar, beldum or deino. y'know, pseudo-legendaries? its also the only pokemon game at all where you start in an ice area and like get ice pokemon as your low-level pokemon while bug pokemon are like saved for later areas. furthermore, your pokemon start at level 10 rather than five and it has this weird effect where all the levels are higher for the game so my pokemon are like level 60 at the seventh and eight gyms where normally they are 40 or 50.

furthermore it does interesting things with Gyms where each one has weird rules and things to adapt to rather than just different typings. like for example, the fighting type gym just outright bans some moves are strong against fighting types based on a system of how much moves of that type you have compared to other strong moves, and before you can face the gym leader you have to face three pokemon in a row with only one. so you have to rely on strategies that don't involve/rely on typing to succeed. though my strategy is often "use a strong pokemon with neutral moves, maybe a defensive typing" and it works.

the Borrius region is big, has a lot of towns and a very particular pokemon selection that almost forces one to go with a different team than usual. my starter is now a tyranitar, a pokemon I rarely if ever use, then starting out I caught pokemon like Bewear, Walrein, Crobat which I've used a couple times before, Pyroar, and....well the sixth slots ever changing and often these days I feel get things done with like five out of six pokemon anyways, the sixth pokemon often feeling like a leftover or extra party member that maybe gets called in as a reserve or when the rare opportunity for them to help comes up, or gets beaten because I misjudged the situation, while other pokemon get a lot of screen time to shine because the game rewards using them more.

my team is different from that earlier one, because for some reason the game gives you starters from Sinnoh, Unova and Alola regions at certain houses you find when you agree to look after said pokemon in some other persons stead, so now I have an Infernape and Primarina on my team. also it gave me a cosmog for free which I raised into a Lunala to face this games rocket boss and now I have the games actual legendary: Hoopa, which has been using portals to summon uncatchable legendaries throughout the game to fight me, so I feel having a legendary of my own to beat them is just fair play and I still had to raise cosmog up from like level 15 anyways so its not as if was completely free.

thing is, the fact that it provides you so many options for power speaks confidence that they can still make it challenging or memorable because they constantly throw weird rules changes at you here and there to keep you on your toes and not just in the gyms- some of the most memorable fights I've had so far are where I wasn't in full control of the pokemon available to me or what they can do, often having to make do within the limitations imposed on me.

and the eighth gym, which I haven't beaten yet? outright says to me that pokemon don't gain experience in it and that when defeated they revert to an earlier form, as it has this weird backwards de-aging theme based on something called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (they call it benjamin Butterfree) and I'm not facing it yet because I'm not sure how to approach it yet. like the reversions are probably all temporary and such, but the very weird ruleset for once gives me pause.

really good pokemon fangame though, I recommend it for anyone who is into pokemon and especially into romhacks/fan games.

Taevyr

2024-02-18, 10:01 PM

Zevox

2024-02-19, 12:20 AM

With under two weeks until Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth releases I found myself in a bit of an awkward spot for picking a new game after finishing Persona 3 Reload. I could maybe squeeze in a replay of FF7 Remake, which I had intended to do before I learned P3R would release within a month of Rebirth, but I'm not sure I'd make it, so I've decided against that. So looking for something to play in the meantime, I saw that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was on sale for $10 on PSN, and picked that up.

Liking it so far. It caught my attention a while back for being based on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and uh, yeah, it very clearly is. Plenty of similarities here to Castlevania in general, and SoN in particular. Hell, the villain even stole most of his look from Dracula, with that big black cape wrapped around him. I'm playing as Miriam, since she was the first character on the select list and seems to be the game's intended protagonist, in case that matters (I don't know what differences there are between the playable characters, the select screen was just a list of names and told me nothing else). I'm not far in, only gone a little further than the supply post. I'm so far favoring the two-handed weapons due to the big swing arc, which seems very useful against the early game enemies, though I do notice the slow speed makes the weapon type terrible at protecting me from bats. I do think it's cool that they've got fighting game style special moves you can unlock like SoN did though, if those didn't burn SP so fast I might be using the martial arts boots instead right now just for that.

I've also still been playing some Granblue Rising alongside my single-player games, albeit less of it since Reload came out. After playing Zeta for a while and not really moving my rank with her much I switched over to Anre, the game's least-played character and one of the characters I was surprised I liked when I tried everyone earlier. And to my surprise again, I was able to make him my second character to reach S+ rank. For a supposedly defensive character he has some surprisingly solid offensive tools too, including a fantastic throw bait air special, a special that can be canceled into a command dash for pressure resets, and a couple of different safe (if low reward) frame trap options with his special moves to discourage foes from mashing on defense. So yeah, I'm definitely liking him a lot more than I ever expected to. Glad I went and tried everyone like that.

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.
Huh, sounds neat. And I see it's actually getting a console release in a couple of days. I'll have to keep that one in mind for the future.

So part of P3R I've noticed is some changes to the party's characterisation, most notably Akihiko's. And while for the most part it doesn't matter I really like that Akihiko has a LOT more focus on his intelligence than later installments give him. Notably not only is it basically back to protein powder being barely mentioned but a lot of focus on the actual nutritional value of his meals (even if they can be ridiculously basic).
I don't think that's a change in how P3 characterizes him, it's more that his characterization changed in the spin-offs. Mostly I think because they gave him more of a comic relief role there than he has in P3, probably due to the large cast of characters the spin-offs tend to have, since most of them cross over the casts of multiple Persona games, and he generally wasn't chosen to get that much focus.

Also I'm liking how the hangout events in the dorm give bonuses after a few times. It's made me de focus on grinding social stats, but the only one that might be too low is Courage and I'll have a lot more free time in the summer holidays. Really looking forward to seeing Shinjiro's.
I'd still focus on maxing Courage and Charm early, to unlock Yukari and Fuuka's social links (plus the others that require rank 4 instead of max of course), personally. Less of a rush for Academics for sure though, since Mitsuru's won't unlock until late November at the earliest anyway (and also the last rank of Academics takes a ton of points to get). Though the Watch TV and Read Books hangouts do give you social stat points, so may as well take advantage of that while you can.

The bonuses you unlock from the night hangouts get really good. Yukari, Aigis, and Junpei's especially. Ken's is a big help to him for Tartarus exploration purposes too.

I'm also amused that Junpei's resent comes up right when I benched him because so few fire weak enemies were coming up. Although he'll be back in if Akihiko still only has his physical skills allotment as Sonic Fist and Fist Master.
Akihiko's physical skills are Sonic Punch, Gigantic Fist, and God's Hand. He does not get Strike Boost/Amp, if that's what you meant by "Fist Master," though you can get those for him through certain equipment.

Batcathat

2024-02-19, 06:33 AM

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-19, 08:32 AM

I don't think that's a change in how P3 characterizes him, it's more that his characterization changed in the spin-offs. Mostly I think because they gave him more of a comic relief role there than he has in P3, probably due to the large cast of characters the spin-offs tend to have, since most of them cross over the casts of multiple Persona games, and he generally wasn't chosen to get that much focus.

Maybe, it's been a long time since I played vanilla P3. I remember his original characterisation revolved around his relationships with Shinjiro and Miki.

I'd still focus on maxing Courage and Charm early, to unlock Yukari and Fuuka's social links (plus the others that require rank 4 instead of max of course), personally. Less of a rush for Academics for sure though, since Mitsuru's won't unlock until late November at the earliest anyway (and also the last rank of Academics takes a ton of points to get). Though the Watch TV and Read Books hangouts do give you social stat points, so may as well take advantage of that while you can.

I tend to boost Academics/Knowledge to 'ace the exam' levels first before focusing on the other two. Of course I'd forgotten that both Fuuka and Yukari have ridiculous prerequisites for the male protagonist, I mean it's not like Fuuka's cooking routinely sets the kitchen on fire.

I'm currently at 4/4/3 at the beginning of exam prep week, and planning to use the days to focus on Charm and Courage.

The bonuses you unlock from the night hangouts get really good. Yukari, Aigis, and Junpei's especially. Ken's is a big help to him for Tartarus exploration purposes too.

Yeah, I've only got them for Mitsuru and Akihiko right now but they seem great.

Akihiko's physical skills are Sonic Punch, Gigantic Fist, and God's Hand. He does not get Strike Boost/Amp, if that's what you meant by "Fist Master," though you can get those for him through certain equipment.

Fist Master is a skill he got in the old versions which improved his basic attacks. This was the first Phys skill he learnt after Sonic Fist, which meant his high Strength stat was actually worth something again, although it's still not great.

(I'm not too bothered about him only getting Strike skills, he has multiple worthwhile uses for his SP including the Zio line.)

Zombimode

2024-02-19, 08:40 AM

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.

King Arthur: Knights Tale is an absolute treat!
The combat is for me without a doubt the most fun of this kind in recent years. You're spot on in that it feels heavy. There a amazing combos and alpha strikes you can pull of.

Personally I love the bulking knight archetype and as you might imagine King Arthur delivers on that front. I also really enjoy the portrayal of Mordred in this game.

On sunday I finished Lunacid. In short: it's very good!
Lunacid is a first person exploration/dungeon crawling game in an early 3D look (think Thief 1&2). It has fantastic and varied level design, with lots of verticality, many secrets and great use of sound and lighting. The atmosphere is thick and dark.

A quick rundown: in the distant past a creature awoke in the world (which is either the real Earth, or a world very similar to the modern real world) and ushered in an age of darkness and magic. The world reverted back to an archaic state. Many eons pass while the world is on a downward spiral. In essence this is a world destroyed by the use of magic. It brought Vampires, Undead and reality-altering curses. One event caused the moon to melt and pour down on the earth.... yes, it is that kind of setting.
In time a pit evolved that is used to ger rid of people deemed undesireable. The player character is one of those who gets thrown into the pit. The range of characters to pick ranges from the mundane to the excentric.
While the whole game is confined the pit so we never see how things are on the survace it is implied that any kind of orderd society has ceased to exist.

The gameplay consists of navigating the various areas of the underground, while dealing with hosts of enemies. There is a strong focus on finding secrets and hidden areas. Some secrets are pretty much impossible to find without a guide but most of them will reveal themselves to the astute player. As a hint: the actual moonphase has an impact on the game (though you can manipulate this by setting the date in your system...).

As a word of warning: players who have trouble with orientation will likely find Lunacid prohibitively difficult as the game has no map of any sort nor provides any guidance ("quest compass" etc.) whatsoever.

Errorname

2024-02-19, 01:45 PM

Sapphire Guard

2024-02-19, 03:16 PM

Started Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

This premise seems vaguely interest- oh, it's fromsoft style. Dangnabbit.

theangelJean

2024-02-19, 03:32 PM

Anyone else playing Islands of Insight?

I swore off MMOs a few years back, and actively decided not to install Steam on my last computer and this one, to the point where I had to reactivate my account after not having used it for over ten years ... But ... Puzzles!

And so far it's not actually a MMO, yet. There's no co-op experience or player interaction, you can just see other players characters moving past and their activity shows up in a feed. And the puzzles are many and varied :)

Rynjin

2024-02-19, 04:24 PM

Started Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

This premise seems vaguely interest- oh, it's fromsoft style. Dangnabbit.

No, it's Team Ninja style. The Ninja Gaiden series was doing the "Soulslike" action combat gameplay but with even more brutal checkpointing long before Fromsoft decided to take King's Field in that direction with Demon's Souls. The Nioh games, while taking From's more forgiving checkpoints and resource systems, retain their own identity with superior and more complex combat. Wo Long should be similar to Nioh by my understanding.

Also is Wo Long on gamepass or something? Not sure why you started a game from a genre you don't like otherwise.

Zevox

2024-02-19, 06:37 PM

Maybe, it's been a long time since I played vanilla P3. I remember his original characterisation revolved around his relationships with Shinjiro and Miki.
That's certainly at the core of his character and development in P3, yes. What I mean is more that he never came across as the sort of single-minded meathead he sometimes can in the spin-offs. He was always about as serious about his studies as and about as intelligent as Mitsuru. I remember noticing this about the spin-off portrayal of him, and other characters, before. Basically I think the Persona writers don't bring their A game to the spin-offs, except sometimes for the new characters in them, and especially characters who wind up with little focus in them tend have certain traits of theirs over-emphasized for comedic effect instead of doing anything serious with them. For another example, compare how much Chie's love of meat is brought up in the spin-offs to how much it comes up in Persona 4 itself.

I tend to boost Academics/Knowledge to 'ace the exam' levels first before focusing on the other two.
Oh sure, but you only need it at 3 for that early game, and getting all of the stats to 3 early is pretty easy. It's after that where you really need to pick and choose.

warty goblin

2024-02-19, 07:23 PM

King Arthur: Knights Tale is an absolute treat!
The combat is for me without a doubt the most fun of this kind in recent years. You're spot on in that it feels heavy. There a amazing combos and alpha strikes you can pull of.

Personally I love the bulking knight archetype and as you might imagine King Arthur delivers on that front. I also really enjoy the portrayal of Mordred in this game.

Yeah, I love just forming up my heavies into this line of steel and inexorably grinding through a wave of undead or whatever. It actually makes being tanky fun, which isn't generally an archetype I find particularly enjoyable. Probably it works here because the tankiest dudes (well, second tankiest behind the shield guys) also hit like wrecking balls, so you don't have to deal with silly things like aggro or taunting guys or whatever. You just march forwards and smash things in the face until such time as further face-smashing is unnecessary. It's a weird glimpse into some alternative universe where fantasy games are tailored around the knight fantasy instead of the wizard fantasy.

Also agree on Mordred. It sounds like such a dumb idea, but the full inversion of the traditional Arthurian saga ends up paying off in surprising ways. The fact that all the stories you know already happened saves you from repeating stuff you, well, already know, but still includes the familiar stories and characters, which is entirely the point. It works out to be a sorta ingenious way to refresh the traditional narrative without undoing it. I wish the knights had a bit more characterization, personal missions, and so on, but what they have is really good, and despite the kinda gonzo high fantasy makeover everything's gotten, it still feels appropriately Arthurian. Not traditionally Arthurian, this definitely isn't Mort de Artur or even Idyls of the King, but it's solidly taking part in the tradition. One of the fun things about Arthuriana to me is that there's isn't really a canon, there's just characters and common plot elements, and every author more or less does with them as they will.

Thane of Fife

2024-02-19, 08:50 PM

Also agree on Mordred. It sounds like such a dumb idea, but the full inversion of the traditional Arthurian saga ends up paying off in surprising ways.

I've read in a few places discussion of the similarities between the Arthur/Mordred and Vortigern/Vortimer stories, with theorizing that they may be based in the same beginnings, but divided based on who was the good guy - the king (Arthur) or the son (Vortimer). So the idea of a full inversion may not be as weird as it first sounds.

Errorname

2024-02-20, 12:02 AM

It really is impressive how bad the Starchild sequence in Mass Effect is. I have a low opinion of a lot of the Mass Effect 3 stuff, but even from that standard it's such a steep drop. It's like a ten minute sequence and it ruins the franchise forever. It's also really funny because it's completely unforced. If you cut it and just had the crucible fire and destroy the reapers after confronting the Illusive Man, that's a much better ending. Still underwhelming, but a survivable wound, not something that mangles a franchise so badly that you have to go to a whole new galaxy to escape the consequences of it.

Oh well, at least Citadel makes for a decent send off on it's own.

Lord Raziere

2024-02-20, 03:30 AM

It really is impressive how bad the Starchild sequence in Mass Effect is. I have a low opinion of a lot of the Mass Effect 3 stuff, but even from that standard it's such a steep drop. It's like a ten minute sequence and it ruins the franchise forever. It's also really funny because it's completely unforced. . Still underwhelming, but a survivable wound, not something that mangles a franchise so badly that you have to go to a whole new galaxy to escape the consequences of it.

Oh well, at least Citadel makes for a decent send off on it's own.

If you cut it and just had the crucible fire and destroy the reapers after confronting the Illusive Man, that's a much better ending

Well Yeah, why else do you think I got a mod to do EXACTLY THAT for my own playthrough of the whole trilogy? much more satisfying ending.

anyways, beat Pokemon Unbound

The eighth Gym leader was....not as bad as I expected. basically the younger forms simply became the enemies form of sending out more pokemon, so they were constantly getting weaker.

on victory road I ended up getting my crobat into a war of attrition with an ace trainer's Hippowdon set up to tank and just use toxic/earthquake so with my flying poison type, I was just immune to all its methods of dealing damage to me and I just gradually grinded it down until it ran out of healing moves and protects.

after that there was a memorable sequence where I had to get past a sliding ice puzzle and apparently they thought it so torturous they put a guy for you to pay like 45,000 pokedollars to get across without dealing with it, but I went and slid across the ice legit. I'd say it was a little harder than most ice puzzles but not a "torture chamber" or anything as they called it. dev really didn't have faith someone would have the patience to solve it.

the Elite four of Borrius had a few rules changes of their own, but I determined that the pokemon I've already got and had been playing with for the game were sufficient for the task. the ground one, the first was oddly the hardest I faced and the rest just got....not easier, but I knew what to expect and how to deal with the level of difficulty I was faced with. between Ground, Ghost, Dragon and Fairy elite fours, I defeated them all like any other elite four even though I did have to revive and heal up between each battle.

However you must know: the game had been saying that the previous champion had retired and none were currently holding the title. that I could simply take my place as Champion and whatnot. I however was distrustful and healed up all my pokemon regardless because pokemon games ALWAYS have a champion fight. ALWAYS. and my suspicions were confirmed as Jax, one of the games rivals came in and talked about how he was raised to be the next champion because he and the protagonists fathers had a rivalry to. it was a double battle where Jax' braviary had this weird strategy of constantly using U-turn to switch itself out, but in my experience those just lead to me killing more of their team faster, and this was no exception.

My champion team for Borrisu was:
Kagrona the Mega-Tyranitar and Starter
Zisha the Unbound Hoopa and this games Cover Legendary
Astra the Lunala, the Free Cosmog
Sonarica, the Black Sludge Crobat that low key carried throughout the entire game
Ringara the Infernape
Meri the Primarina who came in late but whose Water and Fairy typing proved useful for the Ground and Dragon Elite Four members

Honorable mentions go to Bewear, Pyroar and Excadrill who were earlier game strong contenders but got replaced as time went on.

Overall, I'd say Unbound is good pokemon fangame with much to like. but the most memorable part of it to me, was a moment where Primal Groudon was awakened and due to a mishap, all my pokemon were in the hands of an ally, thus making it so that I couldn't select the moves of the pokemon- in the battle I could select which pokemon were sent out and such, but the moves would not be determined by me, so it was a fight where I had to have faith in my pokemon that they come through for me despite being commanded by another trainer. I won first try, but it was something where strategy of knowing your pokemon mattered more than the specific move selected and just trust that it would have a good result and that made me feel a bit more like a pokemon trainer than most things I've ever played, specifically the raising and trusting your pokemon part. I doubt most other people would like it, I'm not sure I liked it in that moment retrospect but its certainly something to remember looking back on it as this one unique fight in a game that is full of weird rule switchups to keep you on your toes.

now to try to finish up either Pokemon Insurgence, Pokemon Reborn or Pokemon Mega Adventure, all of which I've neglected partway through and don't remember what I was doing last.

Rynjin

2024-02-20, 03:40 AM

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-20, 04:23 AM

It really is impressive how bad the Starchild sequence in Mass Effect is. I have a low opinion of a lot of the Mass Effect 3 stuff, but even from that standard it's such a steep drop. It's like a ten minute sequence and it ruins the franchise forever. It's also really funny because it's completely unforced. If you cut it and just had the crucible fire and destroy the reapers after confronting the Illusive Man, that's a much better ending. Still underwhelming, but a survivable wound, not something that mangles a franchise so badly that you have to go to a whole new galaxy to escape the consequences of it.

Oh well, at least Citadel makes for a decent send off on it's own.

The more I've thought about it the more I've become convinced that the game shouldn't directly show if the Crucible works or not. Just cut to credits as Anderson and Shepard sit down to watch the battle with the implication that they both die.

Then you use the Stargazer to imply success or failure.

I think the issue is that they wanted multiple endings where your War Assets mattered, but the solution was to make Priority: Earth more variable.

ETA: I'll repeat my belief: a happy ending is worse than a satisfying ending. Thankfully there seems to be a mod that agrees with me, including keeping whether Shepard lives or dies tied to EMS.

I might actually drop my current Paragon run to actually do an NG+ of ME1 with the Renegade leaning Engineer I played...

Errorname

2024-02-20, 11:23 AM

The more I've thought about it the more I've become convinced that the game shouldn't directly show if the Crucible works or not. Just cut to credits as Anderson and Shepard sit down to watch the battle with the implication that they both die.

Then you use the Stargazer to imply success or failure.

I think the issue is that they wanted multiple endings where your War Assets mattered, but the solution was to make Priority: Earth more variable.

ETA: I'll repeat my belief: a happy ending is worse than a satisfying ending. Thankfully there seems to be a mod that agrees with me, including keeping whether Shepard lives or dies tied to EMS.

I might actually drop my current Paragon run to actually do an NG+ of ME1 with the Renegade leaning Engineer I played...

I'm also thinking about sequels. Mass Effect is a popular franchise, people want more and Bioware/EA wants to make more, but the Mass Effect 3 ending makes that insanely difficult. The apocalyptic events are already a lot to come back from, but throw in three different but completely incompatible endings and you've basically made the game unfollow-upable.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-20, 11:41 AM

I'm also thinking about sequels. Mass Effect is a popular franchise, people want more and Bioware/EA wants to make more, but the Mass Effect 3 ending makes that insanely difficult. The apocalyptic events are already a lot to come back from, but throw in three different but completely incompatible endings and you've basically made the game unfollow-upable.

Wouldn't be the first game series to have multiple endings where the sequel just picks a defined canon ending and ignores the others. Baldur's Gate 3 does the same thing and nobody batted an eye at it.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-20, 11:57 AM

I'm also thinking about sequels. Mass Effect is a popular franchise, people want more and Bioware/EA wants to make more, but the Mass Effect 3 ending makes that insanely difficult. The apocalyptic events are already a lot to come back from, but throw in three different but completely incompatible endings and you've basically made the game unfollow-upable.

To be fair my idea still gives an 'this is obviously canon' version where more games can be set, it just lets you keep the details vague until Mass Effect 4: Okay Fine You Can **** The Krogan. Hell in the vanilla version it's obvious that Destroy is the only ending that has a chance of being canonized.

Honestly my main issue is Shepard surviving.

Wookieetank

2024-02-20, 12:04 PM

Wouldn't be the first game series to have multiple endings where the sequel just picks a defined canon ending and ignores the others. Baldur's Gate 3 does the same thing and nobody batted an eye at it.

Or they go the other way where all endings are canon and occurred, ala Daggerfall and subsequent Elderscrolls games.

Rodin

2024-02-20, 12:09 PM

To be fair my idea still gives an 'this is obviously canon' version where more games can be set, it just lets you keep the details vague until Mass Effect 4: Okay Fine You Can **** The Krogan. Hell in the vanilla version it's obvious that Destroy is the only ending that has a chance of being canonized.

Honestly my main issue is Shepard surviving.

Mass Effect 4 Balls?

I'm the weirdo that likes the Star Child ending, because it appeals to the Babylon 5 fan in me. The Crucible is the stupidest thing in the entire franchise and shouldn't exist, and the Star Child represents talking to the Reapers which is the only way you could realistically have the younger races survive. Yeah, it could have been done a lot better, but the alternative is three games of running around the galaxy doing literally nothing only to have a Deus Ex Machina handed to you by blueprints found on MARS. It's head-explodingly dumb. With Star Child at least you can pretend you're negotiating with the Reapers to either get them to go away (Destroy), get them to become mentors (Control), or fuse with the younger races to ascend to a new form of existence (Synthesis).

There's a lot of problems with the ending, but almost all of them are rooted far earlier in the franchise. ME3 has a bad ending because they never set the groundwork to make a good ending possible.

warty goblin

2024-02-20, 01:19 PM

After the embarrassed of its own genre jankfest of Inquisition, the C-tier Ubigame that is Andromeda, and the utter flaming catastrophe that is Anthem, Bioware is not a developer that's worth my money. Bioware is not good at making games at this point, they've been profoundly badly managedsince at least Inquisition by all accounts, abusive to their employees, and have made nothing but failures for a decade. They are seriel failures coasting on strong IP and fond memories from over a decade ago.

But I'm done with that. I'm just going to let the ghost of ME go, it's dead, I don't care what they do with it, time to move on.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-20, 01:41 PM

ME3 has a bad ending because they never set the groundwork to make a good ending possible.

I don't think this is much of a spoiler by itself, so I'm unspoilering it to make it less of a pain to read.

I find that pattern - not doing the groundwork to make a good ending possible - happens often in pop culture and it always ends with the fans placing blame on the last entry instead of recognizing the problem earlier. Mass Effect is a particularly egregious example because the problem really lies in Mass Effect 2, which many consider the best game in the series despite it doing nothing to further the plot from the first game. There's a whole essay (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=52293) from Shamus Young about why ME2's writing is bad for the series and how it setup ME3 for failure.

I also have a bit of a chip against ME2 because it tossed the interesting premise of humans being infants on the galactic stage and decidedly not the most important or even a particularly major player in the setting in favor of making the humans the only race that does anything meaningful without being dragged into it by Shepard.

Errorname

2024-02-20, 02:13 PM

Or they go the other way where all endings are canon and occurred, ala Daggerfall and subsequent Elderscrolls games.

Deus Ex: Invisible War also did this.

I'm the weirdo that likes the Star Child ending, because it appeals to the Babylon 5 fan in me. The Crucible is the stupidest thing in the entire franchise and shouldn't exist, and the Star Child represents talking to the Reapers which is the only way you could realistically have the younger races survive. Yeah, it could have been done a lot better, but the alternative is three games of running around the galaxy doing literally nothing only to have a Deus Ex Machina handed to you by blueprints found on MARS.

Gonna be honest, I'd have rather just had the Deus Ex Machina. It wouldn't have been good, but they could have coasted on the emotional beats of saying goodbye to characters you've spent three games with and gotten at least some satisfaction from it.

Bioware is not good at making games at this point, they've been profoundly badly managedsince at least Inquisition by all accounts, abusive to their employees, and have made nothing but failures for a decade. They are seriel failures coasting on strong IP and fond memories from over a decade ago.

Baldur's Gate 3 coming out to overwhelming acclaim and proving there was still massive demand for the classic Bioware format happening at the same time Bioware laid off a bunch of the people who made the original Baldur's Gate games really kind of says it all about where the company is at.

I find that pattern - not doing the groundwork to make a good ending possible - happens often in pop culture and it always ends with the fans placing blame on the last entry instead of recognizing the problem earlier. Mass Effect is a particularly egregious example because the problem really lies in Mass Effect 2, which many consider the best game in the series despite it doing nothing to further the plot from the first game. There's a whole essay (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=52293) from Shamus Young about why ME2's writing is bad for the series and how it setup ME3 for failure

I think that series makes some compelling points and I don't disagree that Mass Effect 2 really left 3 in a difficult position where the plot hadn't really advanced much but the next game had to be the finale, but I still think that the Mass Effect 3 ending is a massive drop in quality that dives the game off a cliff

They had a bad but functional ending lined up, and then at the last minute they suckerpunch you with the cosmic child.

I also have a bit of a chip against ME2 because it tossed the interesting premise of humans being infants on the galactic stage and decidedly not the most important or even a particularly major player in the setting in favor of making the humans the only race that does anything meaningful without being dragged into it by Shepard.

Cerberus is the worst part of the series and the main thing that keeps ME2 from being hands down the best game in the series is how central they are to it.

Wookieetank

2024-02-20, 02:32 PM

Cerberus is the worst part of the series and the main thing that keeps ME2 from being hands down the best game in the series is how central they are to it.

Not to mention the whole opening ME2 with straight up killing Shepard, and then resurrecting him 5 mins later as a reason for why he's now beholden to Cerberus.
Change the opening to pretty much anything else, and Cerberus can be in the background/less of a focus. The opening also killed the stakes on the expected one way mission for me as well. When your game opens with resurrecting your MC, a suicide mission climax is rather meaningless when its already shown MC can be brought back from the dead.

Gameplay wise ME2 was lots of fun, story wise needed to be less Rogue One and more Empire Strikes Back.

LibraryOgre

2024-02-20, 02:59 PM

I maintain that Mass Effect works a whole heck of a lot better if you go with ME2, ME1, and ME3. For clarity, I'm going to call the originals ME1, ME2 and ME3; the reordered versions are MEC (Cerberus), MES (Specter), and MER (Reaper)

MEC: You start on an Alliance ship which explodes. You have no idea who the crew are, but your character clearly knows them. Cerberus brings you back from the dead, not because you are Commander Shepard, but because they want to see if it will work. They have intelligence about human colonies disappearing, and throughout, you get hints and statements that Cerberus is probably not someone you should be working for, but things on the Normandy don't really show that, and you've got Jacob there saying "They're not all that bad", and they don't seem to have a problem with you recruiting a bunch of non-humans so... hey, who knows. This leads to the human Reaper through the Omega Gate, and a big WTF is going on.

Then MES happens, with much of the plot of ME1. Since you were dead, the Alliance has to officially bring you back to life. Your heroism in MEC gets you tested to be a Spectre. You get sent to Eden Prime, find the Beacon, go on adventures to understand and stop Sovereign, who attacks the Citadel. You now see Cerberus as a threat... you don't see the prettied up ones from your first adventure, but the experimental weirdos from the original ME1.

This brings us to ME3/MER, where you've got people alerted to the problem, but still self-interested. Shepard, hero of the Citadel, rallies people to the cause, opposing the Collectors (who are back), Cerberus, and the appearance of the Reapers. MER can be much the same, though we either get rid of the Star Child or do a bit more to make him into something.

Some details have to be moved around; I think I'd keep Wrex in MEC, with Grunt's story happening in the new MES, but I think you can keep Tali in MEC more or less the same. Introducing Legion in MEC gives you background on the Geth. You might move Mordin to MES, so you can keep the Wrex/Grunt/Mordin story more or less together. But you have, IMO, a clearer narrative, no weird left turn for Cerberus, that then turns right back around for the next entry.

But I also hate Monday morning quarterbacking, he says after going over the offensive failures in detail.

GloatingSwine

2024-02-20, 03:08 PM

Deus Ex: Invisible War also did this..

Yeah, Invisible War's "it was all a bit confusing there" is probably a better model than "all nine of these mutually exclusive things somehow not only happened but happened retroactively such that they had always been true".

Errorname

2024-02-20, 03:29 PM

Not to mention the whole opening ME2 with straight up killing Shepard, and then resurrecting him 5 mins later as a reason for why he's now beholden to Cerberus.

Change the opening to pretty much anything else, and Cerberus can be in the background/less of a focus. The opening also killed the stakes on the expected one way mission for me as well. When your game opens with resurrecting your MC, a suicide mission climax is rather meaningless when its already shown MC can be brought back from the dead.

I actually kind of like the opening, it's pretty normalized for RPG sequels to start with big dramatic resets that explain why all your cool stuff from the first game is gone and why you have to start over from scratch. In that tradition I think the Normandy blowing up is one of my favourites, actually. It's a little bit nonsense but it's dramatic nonsense, and if Shepard was resurrected by a faction that was more compelling than Cerberus I'd probably have no issues with it.

I maintain that Mass Effect works a whole heck of a lot better if you go with ME2, ME1, and ME3. For clarity, I'm going to call the originals ME1, ME2 and ME3; the reordered versions are MEC (Cerberus), MES (Specter), and MER (Reaper)

Some details have to be moved around; I think I'd keep Wrex in MEC, with Grunt's story happening in the new MES, but I think you can keep Tali in MEC more or less the same. Introducing Legion in MEC gives you background on the Geth. You might move Mordin to MES, so you can keep the Wrex/Grunt/Mordin story more or less together. But you have, IMO, a clearer narrative, no weird left turn for Cerberus, that then turns right back around for the next entry.

I can see the logic, but I think you'd break a lot of character arcs just to have a cleaner progression for Cerberus, and the narrative bends itself into twists to accommodate those guys way too much as it is.

But I also hate Monday morning quarterbacking, he says after going over the offensive failures in detail.

Mass Effect gives you so many opportunities to Monday Morning Quarterback it. I think basically everyone who played MEA could write at least a few paragraphs about how they'd have improved the story.

Wookieetank

2024-02-20, 04:00 PM

I actually kind of like the opening, it's pretty normalized for RPG sequels to start with big dramatic resets that explain why all your cool stuff from the first game is gone and why you have to start over from scratch. In that tradition I think the Normandy blowing up is one of my favourites, actually. It's a little bit nonsense but it's dramatic nonsense, and if Shepard was resurrected by a faction that was more compelling than Cerberus I'd probably have no issues with it.

It was a rather epic way to start things off, and quite spectacular to watch. It just ruins the whole Will Shepard Survive the suicide run bit. Doesn't matter if he survives cause he can just get brought back to life again.

I think my other main letdown with ME2 was the lack of Reaper involvement.
ME1: Discover that the Reapers are coming and we need to convince people
ME2: The Reapers are still coming and people still aren't terrible convinced (but at least the collectors are stopped)
ME3: The Reapers are here, PANIC!
A bit simplified, but ME1 & ME2 have rather similar end states and very little progression in ME2 other than in individual character stories.

Errorname

2024-02-20, 04:18 PM

It was a rather epic way to start things off, and quite spectacular to watch. It just ruins the whole Will Shepard Survive the suicide run bit. Doesn't matter if he survives cause he can just get brought back to life again.

Eh, they establish that bringing someone back from the dead is possible, but they also make it clear that it was expensive, difficult and time-consuming

I think my other main letdown with ME2 was the lack of Reaper involvement.
ME1: Discover that the Reapers are coming and we need to convince people
ME2: The Reapers are still coming and people still aren't terrible convinced (but at least the collectors are stopped)
ME3: The Reapers are here, PANIC!
A bit simplified, but ME1 & ME2 have rather similar end states and very little progression in ME2 other than in individual character stories.

Yes, this is a big problem with ME2. While the character stuff is excellent, and generally represents a peak for the franchise, the actual main plot doesn't progress much and then the ending says "by the way, the next one's going to be the last one"

Zevox

2024-02-20, 05:23 PM

I think my other main letdown with ME2 was the lack of Reaper involvement.
Honestly, I feel like that's a big contributor to why it's so good. The Reapers were never an interesting main plotline. They're literally just giant killer space robots. Compared to basically everything else about the Mass Effect setting, they're boring, and there was never really a way to change that I think. ME2 sidelining them let it focus on the more interesting elements of the setting, and on more interesting characters - it's no coincidence that the best parts of ME3 are wrapping up plots that were mainly pushed forward by the loyalty missions of ME2.

They could've done the ending of ME3 much better, to be sure, but I don't think it was ever going to be great, because the Reapers themselves were never a good setup for it to be anything more than mediocre. The best parts of Mass Effect as-is are the parts that have nothing to do with them, and that's telling.

LibraryOgre

2024-02-20, 05:29 PM

I think my other main letdown with ME2 was the lack of Reaper involvement.
ME1: Discover that the Reapers are coming and we need to convince people
ME2: The Reapers are still coming and people still aren't terrible convinced (but at least the collectors are stopped)
ME3: The Reapers are here, PANIC!
A bit simplified, but ME1 & ME2 have rather similar end states and very little progression in ME2 other than in individual character stories.

Which is part of why I like the new order... in MEC, you're just some (guy), with some sketchy connections, who has a wild tale. In MES, you're a Spectre, and there is a literal attack on the Citadel by a giant space-ship that seems to be able to directly interface with the Citadel. Then with MER, you're building on that attack.

warty goblin

2024-02-20, 05:46 PM

Far be it from me to defend ME2, but I think the fundamental issues with the overall ME storyline are actually nearly intractable.

The major problem is this: the ME series is a very personal scale game. You talk to people and shoot dudes, that's it. You don't manage planets, or fleets, or civilizations. You don't even fly a spaceship. You walk around and shoot and talk to people, then a spaceship-shaped loading screen takes you to the next map where you shoot and talk to people. This, on its own, is perfectly fine. It facilitates bonding with your crew and exploring the galaxy directly and having interesting, personal-scale stories. You, Shephard, are special and awesome and all the cool people want to be your friend. Great structure for a game, 10/10, rock solid concept.

It becomes a problem when combined with two other things. Firstly, the Reapers are not a personal scale threat addressable by the personal-scale gameplay verbs and story themes. You can't shoot them with your space-pistol. Even if you could talk the entire galaxy into uniting against them it explicitly doesn't matter. In game and in the themes of the story nothing you can do addresses the threat. Everything the game is structured around is dealing with the people in front of you, but the Reapers are hilariously impersonal, they eat entire civilizations. Any universe that contains a Reaper is one where your tragic backstory suddenly matters a whole lot less, and your space-pistol matters not at all. It's like worrying about your dinner plans right after a facehugger shoves itself down your throat, except it isn't your personal biomass its but your entire civilization. You're now occupying a very different spot on the food chain, a perspective shift is in order. Conversely, any universe where your personal choices are super important is one where Reapers don't make any narrative sense at all, because they have nothing to do with that, and solving one has nothing to do with solving the other.

Secondly, it's sci-fi and not fantasy. Worse, the first game set up an expectation of at least sort of hard-ish sci-fi. Not really hard, more like jello-hard, but compared to the cream of nonsense soup that is most videogame sci-fi it feels like a goddamn razor blade. The fantasy solution to the impersonal kill-everything demon horde is obvious, you are that special, you get the special sword, and you personally kick their butts. Magic swords and prophecies just work like that, and nobody bats an eye. But you can't do that in even jello-hard sci-fi. Worse, demons don't require explanation. They want to kill everybody, they're demons, that's what the do. The explanation for a demon is the word "demon." But omnicidal robots, although nearly exchangeable with demons, are still machines. Somebody built them for some reason, and the player base is going to want to know why. So now you need a good explanation for the regularly scheduled galactic annihilation. You also need some sort of plot device off switch, preferably one that feels personal because the entire story is fundamentally personal, and also you can get to by shooting things and talking to something. But if its personal it also kinda runs the risk of making the Reapers feel kinda silly, like what, it just took this one person asking just right to stop the eternal rain of blood? Silly extinct civilizations, why didn't they think of that? Oh, and it needs to recognize how you played the series up to this point, but it cannot lock you out of an acceptable ending because of some seemingly unrelated choice you made three games ago, and you have to be able to get there by being a dirty space hippie who unites everybody or a total hardass who tells the rest of the galaxy to take a hike, and the companions have to matter but also they can't matter because any number of them could be dead.

I don't think this ending exists. There's too many constraints, and several of them are, if not actually contradictory, teetering right on the edge of it.

Errorname

2024-02-20, 05:46 PM

Which is part of why I like the new order... in MEC, you're just some (guy), with some sketchy connections, who has a wild tale. In MES, you're a Spectre, and there is a literal attack on the Citadel by a giant space-ship that seems to be able to directly interface with the Citadel. Then with MER, you're building on that attack.

The order does make the shrink from ME2's 12 member squad to the six members of the other games much worse. In the games as is you go from 6 to 12 than down to 6-7, whereas this would start you at a peak it never reaches again.

Rynjin

2024-02-20, 06:55 PM

I pretty much agree with Warty Goblin. The series' narrative issues start and end with EVER trying to make this a story of "all out war against the Reapers". The plot should ALWAYS have involved ensuring they never wake up in the first place, because that is a goal that a streamlined specops team can realistically achieve, as the "cultists" of the "ancient evil" are a much more human threat to take on.

ME2 is the only game in the series that really makes use of this concept. That is, in part, what makes it the best game in the series. ME1 has the crew chasing their tails for way too long, and ME3 throws out the entire concept of you being a small, competent, but inherently fragile group of people and turns you into the Lone Man Who Can Save the Galaxy which...sucks.

SerTabris

2024-02-20, 08:10 PM

I started playing Life is Strange: Before the storm over the weekend and so far my main takeaway is realizing how addicted I had gotten to the ability to rewind time. Though considering who the main character is, it might help with the role-playing since making an impulsive choice and then having to face the consequences seems very on brand for Chloe. :smallamused:

It really is, that's true. I think I occasionally had trouble with that, considering I tend to be, well... a much more Lawful-aligned sort of person than Chloe is. But I think it helped me get going with it when I realized that it's actually completely impossible to not skip school on the first day, because of course it is. I think they do a good job of giving you a range of choices while keeping them within the bounds of who Chloe is based on the first game.

Since we have those parts of the first game that happen several years ago, I kind of think of it as deciding where on her character arc from that past time period to where LiS occurs Chloe is right now.

Speaking of which... what ending did you choose for the original game? I'd imagine that would change the feeling of playing Before the Storm somewhat, even if it's a prequel...

The_Snark

2024-02-21, 12:55 AM

Oh, and it needs to recognize how you played the series up to this point, but it cannot lock you out of an acceptable ending because of some seemingly unrelated choice you made three games ago, and you have to be able to get there by being a dirty space hippie who unites everybody or a total hardass who tells the rest of the galaxy to take a hike, and the companions have to matter but also they can't matter because any number of them could be dead.

Agreed. Even leaving aside all the Reapers and Cerberus and all the other things people like to argue about, I think the basic conceit of "your choices matter" and "we want to make sequels" were at odds. I remember being disappointed when I played ME2 and discovered that it barely mattered whether I saved the Council in the first game, much less who I nominated for the job of Chief Human Guy; it just meant the people refusing to help me would have different names and maybe one or two different lines of dialogue. But... what were they supposed to do here? Make two different versions of the game with hugely different geopolitical landscapes? And that's just one choice from one game. Wrex's death? Sparing the Rachni queen? The suicide mission? It's just not feasible to explore the consequences of these in depth, at least in this medium. (Maybe in a less AAA game - but even as a text adventure I feel like this would be an awful lot of branching storylines.)

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-21, 05:03 AM

Mass Effect 4 Balls?

I'm the weirdo that likes the Star Child ending, because it appeals to the Babylon 5 fan in me. The Crucible is the stupidest thing in the entire franchise and shouldn't exist, and the Star Child represents talking to the Reapers which is the only way you could realistically have the younger races survive. Yeah, it could have been done a lot better, but the alternative is three games of running around the galaxy doing literally nothing only to have a Deus Ex Machina handed to you by blueprints found on MARS. It's head-explodingly dumb. With Star Child at least you can pretend you're negotiating with the Reapers to either get them to go away (Destroy), get them to become mentors (Control), or fuse with the younger races to ascend to a new form of existence (Synthesis).

There's a lot of problems with the ending, but almost all of them are rooted far earlier in the franchise. ME3 has a bad ending because they never set the groundwork to make a good ending possible.

Followed by Mass Effect Quint, a spinoff dating sim set on Tuchunka :smallwink:

Honestly replace Starchild with Harbinger and I'm down for any of the endings. Control's actually my personal favourite, willingly performing a destructive upload to give the Reapers new parameters.

Honestly, I feel like that's a big contributor to why it's so good. The Reapers were never an interesting main plotline.

ME2 just completely messed up when it came to the Reaper's. It should have shuffled them off screen, instead they spend half the game talking at you whenever you fight one enemy faction, with so few voice clips that they become boring. Oh, it tries to bait you into believing it's not a Reaper, but what's the first thing the characters say when you're given your overall mission? That the Inhibitors are behind it.

What the Reapers needed to be was the big looming threat behind the relatable villains, which the first game got. Saren was an amazing villain for the game, and TIM very nearly serves the same role in the third installment. Really only ME2 is missing a Reaper Herald, which could probably have been fixed by giving the Collectors more defined characters than 'the Reaper who controls them'.

Also I like about 90% of ME3's story, I think having to creep around the galaxy securing alliances works. Most of your commando squad missions aren't about directly fighting the Reapers but the result of negotiations for aid that the Alliances needs.

Eldan

2024-02-21, 06:06 AM

Still saying that ME2 should have been ME1 and vice versa.

The ME2 mission is just so much smaller. In ME2, you investigate a threat to some human colonies, in ME1 you're stopping the Geth and Sovereign from eating the entire galaxy.

So, start the game with Commander Shephard, not a Specter, using the new stealth ship Normandy on a trial run in Terminus space, where a space ship would actually be extremely useful so the Batarians don't notice the patrols. Find out Harbingers are abducting humans. Investigate. Find out more. Go to the Council, they say it's a human problem, humans should solve it. Decide to instead hire team of specialists. Find Derelict Reaper and explanation that this is what wiped out the Proteans. Go on suicide run through Omega Relay. Find out Collectors are building a Human Reaper. Try to stop human reaper. Have conversation with Sovereign awakening in galactic core, hinting at Reapers still existing and preparing another cycle. End game.

Game 2, be promoted to Specter, with mission to investigate what Sovereign is doing. Find out Harbinger has infiltrated specter organisation via Whatsname Turianface and is simultaneously also preparing Geth invasion. Geth Invasion begins. Do usual ME1 stuff. Find final planet of the Proteans. At that point, get Javik as companion instead of just infodump from AI, why not. Find out about Citadel being giant interdimensional mass relay. Stop Sovereign from activating it. Get vague psychic impression of more Reapers in dark space, who have felt that the Citadel plan has failed and are now coming the long way. Start plot of ME 3.

It's just a much nicer escalation of stakes.

Errorname

2024-02-21, 09:05 AM

Wrex's death? The suicide mission? It's just not feasible to explore the consequences of these in depth, at least in this medium.

I actually think the series did a really good job with the understudies, the ones for Wrex and Thane especially. They get to do similar enough things to keep the story on track, but they're different enough that you still feel the absence of the dead characters.

warty goblin

2024-02-21, 10:40 AM

I pretty much agree with Warty Goblin. The series' narrative issues start and end with EVER trying to make this a story of "all out war against the Reapers". The plot should ALWAYS have involved ensuring they never wake up in the first place, because that is a goal that a streamlined specops team can realistically achieve, as the "cultists" of the "ancient evil" are a much more human threat to take on.

ME2 is the only game in the series that really makes use of this concept. That is, in part, what makes it the best game in the series. ME1 has the crew chasing their tails for way too long, and ME3 throws out the entire concept of you being a small, competent, but inherently fragile group of people and turns you into the Lone Man Who Can Save the Galaxy which...sucks.

Honestly I was rather disappointed that ME2 was such a direct sequel to ME1. It seemed like the Reapers could have easily been treated as a solved problem, just stuck out there, drifting in the dark forever. I rather liked the idea of going for entirely new plotlines, possibly with a new protagonist and supporting cast. Really explore the universe, which to me was the most compelling part of the first game.

Agreed. Even leaving aside all the Reapers and Cerberus and all the other things people like to argue about, I think the basic conceit of "your choices matter" and "we want to make sequels" were at odds. I remember being disappointed when I played ME2 and discovered that it barely mattered whether I saved the Council in the first game, much less who I nominated for the job of Chief Human Guy; it just meant the people refusing to help me would have different names and maybe one or two different lines of dialogue. But... what were they supposed to do here? Make two different versions of the game with hugely different geopolitical landscapes? And that's just one choice from one game. Wrex's death? Sparing the Rachni queen? The suicide mission? It's just not feasible to explore the consequences of these in depth, at least in this medium. (Maybe in a less AAA game - but even as a text adventure I feel like this would be an awful lot of branching storylines.)

One of the things that I think keeps tripping up choice and consequence in games is the idea that your choices matter means they drastically impact the plot. I much prefer to see choices as revealing character, which can be done with much less plot impact, arguably almost none at all. You can have the protagonist saves the world plot and all the same setpieces, but if the protagonist is a bitter jerk it'll feel very different than if they're a nice person, and all you need to alter is dialog.

tyckspoon

2024-02-21, 11:01 AM

I'm currently at 4/4/3 at the beginning of exam prep week, and planning to use the days to focus on Charm and Courage.

Yeah, I've only got them for Mitsuru and Akihiko right now but they seem great.

Things the game won't tell you, even beyond the fact these upgrades exist at all: they can upgrade too! If you do the character's other line of hangouts (eg if you read books with Mitsuru also do her cooking hangouts) their trait will advance to its second level. Yukari's is 'discounted healing spells' - casting Mediarahan for 10 SP feels vaguely like cheating.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 11:06 AM

ME2 just completely messed up when it came to the Reaper's. It should have shuffled them off screen, instead they spend half the game talking at you whenever you fight one enemy faction, with so few voice clips that they become boring. Oh, it tries to bait you into believing it's not a Reaper, but what's the first thing the characters say when you're given your overall mission? That the Inhibitors are behind it.
:smallconfused: Uh, what? ME2 had more than one enemy faction - you spend most of it fighting mercs and other humanoid foes, with ocassional Geth fights. You can count the number of Collector encounters on one hand: Horizon, the Collector Ship raid, and the suicide mission. As for talking, I assume you're referring to Harbinger, but you don't have any reason to believe he's anything but a Collector leader, or the embodiment of a hive-mind perhaps, until the very end on a first run, and what little he says is just vague threats, much like what little you hear from Sovereign in the first game.

I'd also disagree about Saren. He was fine - certainly a better villain than the Reapers themselves - but never more than that.

Also I like about 90% of ME3's story, I think having to creep around the galaxy securing alliances works. Most of your commando squad missions aren't about directly fighting the Reapers but the result of negotiations for aid that the Alliances needs.
I generally agree with you there. ME3 is a fantastic game overall, with Tuchanka and Rannoch being two of the highest points for the series, and most of the rest of it works. But again, all of the good stuff is taking place around the Reapers more than anything - Tuchanka and Rannoch involve fighting Reapers, but are more about resolving the Genophage and Geth subplots (certainly those are what make those missions so good, not the fighting the Reapers part). The best side-quests just have Reaper forces as generic enemies while you pursue plotlines centered around companions from previous games, or don't involve the Reapers at all when Cerberus forces take the generic enemy role instead, as in Jack's mission. Once you actually get to the point where you just need to deal with the Reapers, you get the ending.

Errorname

2024-02-21, 11:56 AM

The best side-quests just have Reaper forces as generic enemies while you pursue plotlines centered around companions from previous games, or don't involve the Reapers at all when Cerberus forces take the generic enemy role instead, as in Jack's mission. Once you actually get to the point where you just need to deal with the Reapers, you get the ending.

The Reaper stuff that worked in ME3 was in the Leviathan DLC, which was like the only time the game remembered that these things were meant to be cosmic horror and framed the fight against them as a quest for knowledge.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-21, 12:00 PM

One of the things that I think keeps tripping up choice and consequence in games is the idea that your choices matter means they drastically impact the plot. I much prefer to see choices as revealing character, which can be done with much less plot impact, arguably almost none at all. You can have the protagonist saves the world plot and all the same setpieces, but if the protagonist is a bitter jerk it'll feel very different than if they're a nice person, and all you need to alter is dialog.

I agree with this. I read a few negative impressions of Rogue Trader, to name something recent, where people were annoyed that the only impact was a different dialog tree. But sometimes it's enough that my character responds to something with revulsion or admiration and gets a reaction from a party member because of it. Not everything needs to spiral off into its own quest.

That said, I also commend Wrath of the Righteous here for having some of the most believable evil paths in an RPG. The first 3 chapters or so of an Evil playthrough are almost identical to a Good one, aside from dialog and maybe the occasional brusque murder. It makes sense, though, since the goal of an Evil character should mostly align with Good here. Both Good and Evil want to lead the crusade for very different reasons, but your allies can't know your intentions. So the Evil protagonist looks identical if you squint, though some characters will point out that you're not exactly the stereotypical hero or question your motives at times.

Then in Act 4+5, you're let off the chain more and the Evil player finally gets to deliver their masterstroke. Coming back from Hell, completing the ritual to become a Lich, then waving your hand to turn the country into your undead kingdom while the people who could've stopped it are now powerless against your might is the type of villainous catharsis you can only dream of. And even then, the end goal is the same as a Good player, since defeating the villains who could challenge your power is still the most practical thing to do.

The Reaper stuff that worked in ME3 was in the Leviathan DLC, which was like the only time the game remembered that these things were meant to be cosmic horror and framed the fight against them as a quest for knowledge.

I still can't believe ME3 featured a boss fight where you fight a Reaper face-to-face on foot. Sure, you're orbital striking it, but seriously? The same type of creature that squared off against a combined military fleet in ME1 can't hit a single human? How'd these things ever cleanse the galaxy?

Wookieetank

2024-02-21, 01:08 PM

I still can't believe ME3 featured a boss fight where you fight a Reaper face-to-face on foot. Sure, you're orbital striking it, but seriously? The same type of creature that squared off against a combined military fleet in ME1 can't hit a single human? How'd these things ever cleanse the galaxy?

I kept hoping for a mission/boss fight where you infiltrated a Reaper and took it out from the inside. Would've been real easy to lean more into the horror side of things as well with it.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 01:37 PM

The Reaper stuff that worked in ME3 was in the Leviathan DLC, which was like the only time the game remembered that these things were meant to be cosmic horror and framed the fight against them as a quest for knowledge.
I don't agree in the slightest. Leviathan was the weakest ME3 DLC by far to me, and one of the weaker parts of the game on the whole when you count it. It felt like them trying retroactively to justify the ending, and was just kind of dull.

But I also always thought that portraying the Reapers as "cosmic horror" was laughable. I rolled my eyes the first time Sovereign tried to tell me he was beyond my comprehension, and outright thought to myself "you're a machine, not Cthulu." It was one of my criticisms of ME1 even before 2 had come out. That part of the Reapers' portrayal never worked for me at all.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-21, 02:03 PM

But I also always thought that portraying the Reapers as "cosmic horror" was laughable. I rolled my eyes the first time Sovereign tried to tell me he was beyond my comprehension, and outright thought to myself "you're a machine, not Cthulu." It was one of my criticisms of ME1 even before 2 had come out. That part of the Reapers' portrayal never worked for me at all.

I don't really see the disconnect there. If Cthulu is beyond comprehension, why not a machine? It's not like there's anything inherent to one or the other. Cthulu (or a Cthulu-like entity) could even make a machine and wouldn't it then inherit his unknowable trait? Since you can't understand his mind, you wouldn't be able to comprehend his motivation or the purpose of his machine.

Of course, Cthulu isn't actually beyond comprehension. He's a big tentacle-faced doodoo head that sleeps under the ocean and sometimes he wakes up cranky and hungry. Even in his most famous story, a sailor bonks a ship into him and he decides today isn't his day so he heads back to sleep - as if that ain't the most relatable thing. Lovecraft, despite inventing cosmic horror, wasn't all that great at writing it. Most of his work is spot on with Sovereign's dialogue, in that "I won't even bother explaining it. Trust me, it's way too deep for you to understand, bro." way. The only way to do cosmic horror properly, in my opinion, is to make the comparison between an ant and a human. To an ant, a human is a vast towering mystery beyond comprehension. The ant can never meaningfully interact with the human or even understand the vastness of it existing. The horror is that the ant has little understanding and absolutely no hope of ever opposing a human's efforts. The only thing it can do is try not to get stepped on. The horror in cosmic horror comes from humanity being utterly powerless in the face of it.

So in that sense, I agree that having Shepard talk directly to Sovereign was a mistake. It's impossible to do a creature "totally beyond comprehension" when you can chat with it. Heroes that can't understand, confront or do anything to stop the inevitable makes for a real downer of a story, though.

Errorname

2024-02-21, 02:14 PM

I don't agree in the slightest. Leviathan was the weakest ME3 DLC by far to me, and one of the weaker parts of the game on the whole when you count it. It felt like them trying retroactively to justify the ending, and was just kind of dull

Leviathan absolutely does have to try and justify the ending, and it does about as well as could be expected with that.

Citadel's definitely better, but Leviathan's still got it's high points. Some memorable missions and a strong finale, which is more than I'm willing to say for Omega, which all sort of blends together for me.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 02:26 PM

I don't really see the disconnect there. If Cthulu is beyond comprehension, why not a machine? It's not like there's anything inherent to one or the other. Cthulu (or a Cthulu-like entity) could even make a machine and wouldn't it then inherit his unknowable trait? Since you can't understand his mind, you wouldn't be able to comprehend his motivation or the purpose of his machine.
The thing that's supposed to be unknowable about cosmic horrors like Cthulu in the Lovecraftian sense isn't specifically their mind, it's the very nature of their existence. They're from outside ordinary reality as we know it, and the rules of the universe as we know it don't apply to them.

But the Reapers are machines. We know and understand what machines are, they're not outside our experience at all. Moreover, they're artificial - someone had to have created them, as warty pointed out in his criticism. That inherently makes casting them in that sort of "unknowable" role a poor idea, IMO.

Leviathan absolutely does have to try and justify the ending, and it does about as well as could be expected with that. Citadel's definitely better, Leviathan has some strong setpieces and memorable moments, which is more than I can say for Omega, which all sort of blends together for me. It also builds on the Indoctrination stuff well, which was always one of the more effective beats with the Reapers.
Omega was a fun adventure to me. Not up there with Shadowbroker and Citadel as one of the best ME DLCs, but not one of the weaker ones either (which I would put as Overlord and Leviathan).

warty goblin

2024-02-21, 02:39 PM

I don't really see the disconnect there. If Cthulu is beyond comprehension, why not a machine? It's not like there's anything inherent to one or the other. Cthulu (or a Cthulu-like entity) could even make a machine and wouldn't it then inherit his unknowable trait? Since you can't understand his mind, you wouldn't be able to comprehend his motivation or the purpose of his machine.

The distinction is that Cthulhu is an entity that just, like, is. You don't need to give it a background or a reason or anything. It exists, as I said before, the explanation for a demon is the word "demon." A machine is built for a purpose by something. You don't just amble across a fax machine or an omnicidal robot space squid, some entity designed them. The fax machine is there to send cover letters, but the audience is going to want to know why anybody built the omnicidal robot space squid, because it seems like killing everything isn't generally in the best interest of the people building it, as they count as part of 'everything.'

Of course, Cthulu isn't actually beyond comprehension. He's a big tentacle-faced doodoo head that sleeps under the ocean and sometimes he wakes up cranky and hungry. Even in his most famous story, a sailor bonks a ship into him and he decides today isn't his day so he heads back to sleep - as if that ain't the most relatable thing. Lovecraft, despite inventing cosmic horror, wasn't all that great at writing it. Most of his work is spot on with Sovereign's dialogue, in that "I won't even bother explaining it. Trust me, it's way too deep for you to understand, bro." way. The only way to do cosmic horror properly, in my opinion, is to make the comparison between an ant and a human. To an ant, a human is a vast towering mystery beyond comprehension. The ant can never meaningfully interact with the human or even understand the vastness of it existing. The horror is that the ant has little understanding and absolutely no hope of ever opposing a human's efforts. The only thing it can do is try not to get stepped on. The horror in cosmic horror comes from humanity being utterly powerless in the face of it.

Heroes that can't do anything to stop the inevitable makes for a real downer of a story, though.
There's two major aspects to the horror in Lovecraft. Well, three, but let's do our best to ignore the racism. The first is that the universe is large and indifferent and does not care, and you really only can exist as a functional human being in the little protective bubble of human culture and so on. Step outside of that, and your brain, built for the human world, kinda unhinges a bit. The actual nature of the universe is a limit experience.

The second is that insofar as the universe has any purpose, humans aren't it. We're just accidents, afterthoughts, things that exist in a moment because a quirk of fate has allowed it.

You can get both of these from the Reapers relatively easily. They operate over inhuman spans of time, they are profoundly indifferent to human desires. You can argue that in some odd way they're a final, hyper-efficient evolution of an entire species, condensed into a single entity that reproduces through bizarre processes that use entire species as engines and fuels of creation.

To me the Reapers are most interesting as a solution to the twin problems of stasis/ hom*ogeneity and preservation. Because sapient life develops space travel and colonizes places, any indigenous life will be crushed and lose any chance at itself becoming sapient. Humans, in the Mass Effect universe, only get to exist because some prior civilization didn't turn Earth into an interstellar gas station a hundred thousand years ago. If you value the diversity of biological life, this is a problem. But if you value the diversity of life, you also value its preservation in some form. So you need to compress a species into a very compact form, such that it does not inhibit the development of further species. In fact, if you use your compressed species vessel to make more of itself, to keep tilling the soil and clearing out established species, it can encourage the growth of further species, and over vast stretches of time maximize the diversity of species that exist and are preserved. The key here is that thing of value isn't an individual or a nation or a culture, it's the species. You create a beautiful and infinitely diverse garden that grows and weeds itself.

Where this gets interesting is that it's a consistent moral principle, and is both extremely alien to a human perspective, but also sort of a government-eye view of people taken to an absolute extremis. The tax agency doesn't care about you as an individual, you're just numbers in a file. We already compress ourselves, the Reapers just do it with vastly more efficiency. And it presents an ethical challenge to the human protagonist, if the Cycle stops, the current mix of species is very likely to be the only mix of species that ever develops. Why are humans so great that they should be the terminal form? Maybe the Protheans were, in fact, better? If it's good that humans exist, is it not also bad that humans existing will prevent other sapient species from doing so? Even if you value the individual, no individual human gets to exist unless humans exist, not only is Shepard the product and beneficiary of the Cycle, stopping the Cycle is basically pulling the ladder up behind you.

I'd have been quite interested in a Mass Effect that went with a genesis for the Reapers such as that. And you could do some cool things by leaning into it. Make the Reapers distinct from each other, like, wildly distinct. They're entire species after all. Maybe have the creation of a human Reaper succeed, now there's an entity that you can more sensibly communicate with. Give some idea of what being a Reaper, or an entity contained in a Reaper is like. Is destroying them itself another genocide?

But that's very much not a Captain Heropants saves the day story, and we were never going to get any sci-fi ideas that weird out of Bioware. Or really anybody, that's more the realm of novellas from, like, 1974.

Errorname

2024-02-21, 03:14 PM

Omega was a fun adventure to me. Not up there with Shadowbroker and Citadel as one of the best ME DLCs, but not one of the weaker ones either (which I would put as Overlord and Leviathan).

Eh. It's very Aria-centric, and she's not a character I find particularly compelling. I also think compared to Leviathan and Citadel it's setpieces were pretty weak. Returning to the bar from Mass Effect 2 to fight another Cerberus flunky just did not have the same impact for me as meeting an ancient Leviathan in the abyss or fighting through the Normandy to confront your own clone.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-21, 04:02 PM

The distinction is that Cthulhu is an entity that just, like, is. You don't need to give it a background or a reason or anything. It exists, as I said before, the explanation for a demon is the word "demon." A machine is built for a purpose by something. You don't just amble across a fax machine or an omnicidal robot space squid, some entity designed them. The fax machine is there to send cover letters, but the audience is going to want to know why anybody built the omnicidal robot space squid, because it seems like killing everything isn't generally in the best interest of the people building it, as they count as part of 'everything.'

That's not an answer to the correct question, though. The interesting question behind an incomprehensible entity isn't its origin, but its motivation. Demons, elementals, gods, or what have you aren't made interesting because of what they are, but what they do in the setting. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone was ever angry about Reapers being ancient machines that predate civilization. The anger set in when they explained their plan and people thought it was stupid.

(As an aside, it's a bit interesting that entities and machines have the assumptions about their origin and motivation flipped. You can have an entity that "just exists" but you need to explain its motivation. Inversely, a machine's motivation can simply be "it's what I do" but you need to explain its origin. I don't know if that's relevant to anything, but I like the mirroring.)

There's two major aspects to the horror in Lovecraft. Well, three, but let's do our best to ignore the racism. The first is that the universe is large and indifferent and does not care, and you really only can exist as a functional human being in the little protective bubble of human culture and so on. Step outside of that, and your brain, built for the human world, kinda unhinges a bit. The actual nature of the universe is a limit experience.

The second is that insofar as the universe has any purpose, humans aren't it. We're just accidents, afterthoughts, things that exist in a moment because a quirk of fate has allowed it.

Yeah, that's basically the jist of the ant vs. human analogy I was making. An individual ant is tiny and inconsequential in the universe. The idea of a human being also being as tiny and inconsequential freaks us out because we are all control freaks. Fear is, at its root, the dread of losing control. Cosmic horror laughs at us and says not only are we not in control, we're vastly overestimating the little control we think we have.

The idea of using the human reaper as the communication bridge to the rest of what they are is interesting, but I still think the communication is an error in the genre. If humans can communicate and understand the adversary, they get some level of control over it, and the cosmic horror fails. The only way it works is if the adversary is so vast and inscrutable that we can't affect it. In a weird way, cosmic horror is just avant garde disaster fiction. A story about surviving a hurricane isn't about defeating the hurricane; it's about why the characters survived and how the experience changed them.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 05:22 PM

Eh. It's very Aria-centric, and she's not a character I find particularly compelling. I also think compared to Leviathan and Citadel it's setpieces were pretty weak. Returning to the bar from Mass Effect 2 to fight another Cerberus flunky just did not have the same impact for me as meeting an ancient Leviathan in the abyss or fighting through the Normandy to confront your own clone.
Aria's not one of my favorite characters, but she's fine, so an adventure centering on her worked for me. Not as much as Citadel in many ways of course, but it worked.

Leviathan did not. Drawing more attention to the stupidity of the ending was a bad idea and only made me dislike it more. Meeting the Leviathan in particular should not have happened - having there be survivors from the Reapers' first genocide all these eons later just makes the whole thing even dumber than it already was. And the adventure leading up to it was unimpressive and did not make up for that.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone was ever angry about Reapers being ancient machines that predate civilization. The anger set in when they explained their plan and people thought it was stupid.
That's part of it, combined with the lack of a satisfying way to ultimately defeat them. But that doesn't stem from people expecting them to be unknowable cosmic horrors, just the opposite, it stems from people having expected there to be an actual explanation that would make sense. Because these are the main antagonists of the trilogy, so you'd assume the writers would've had that in mind from the start.

Rynjin

2024-02-21, 06:01 PM

It's pretty easy to explain why Cthulh is "incomprehensible" and the Reapers aren't, from a simple worldbuilding sense.

You just ask a simple question: "where does X come from?"

Cthulhu comes from...there's no explanation. He just IS. This is a biological creature whose origins are unknown, powers unfathomable, and answers to powers which are even more abstract and weird (this last bit is the most important part).

The Reapers come from...the people who built them. Even before the EXACT answer is revealed, the simple fact of their existence violates any cosmic horror inherent. They're robots. They were created. This is a simple alien robot invasion story with a couple extra steps. No horror, just action. The explanation of them being built by space whales makes them even less horrifying.

CarpeGuitarrem

2024-02-21, 06:08 PM

Been making good solid progress on Dragon Age: Inquisition, I'm solidly into character backstories and I am loving all of it. Feels on average like a much more textured take on the Dragon Age: Origins companion dynamics. (Although it's kinda goofy that as far as I can tell, you can't see how much a companion approves of you, so I just have to assume that once I've hit a couple of "Greatly Approves", we're probably close to being besties.)

But I came here to post because they absolutely FLOORED me with a targeted reference I was not ready for. (Vague spoilers for Jade Empire)

I walk up to Cole, and as is his habit, he opens the conversation with a random observation.

And he says, "He teaches them to fight with a secret flaw, part of a glorious strategy."

I may have freaked out a little. JADE EMPIRE ACKNOWLEDGED

Errorname

2024-02-21, 06:08 PM

Aria's not one of my favorite characters, but she's fine, so an adventure centering on her worked for me. Not as much as Citadel in many ways of course, but it worked.

Omega feels like a higher budget version of Bring Down The Sky. There's more plot happening I guess, but at the end of the day it's a simple adventure that doesn't have much going on and which is mainly notable for introducing a new alien character model.

Leviathan did not. Drawing more attention to the stupidity of the ending was a bad idea and only made me dislike it more. Meeting the Leviathan in particular should not have happened - having there be survivors from the Reapers' first genocide all these eons later just makes the whole thing even dumber than it already was. And the adventure leading up to it was unimpressive and did not make up for that.

I think it was an admirable attempt to patch up the flaws of the ending. It's not enough, but it's a good effort and it almost works taken in isolation. It's also the only point where Mass Effect 3 even comes close to recapturing the tone the Reapers had in ME1.

I also liked the missions. I did this DLC right after slogging through the backhalf of Omega and the Thessia and Sanctuary missions, and Leviathan was a pretty noticeable improvement

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-21, 06:22 PM

It's pretty easy to explain why Cthulh is "incomprehensible" and the Reapers aren't, from a simple worldbuilding sense.

You just ask a simple question: "where does X come from?"

Cthulhu comes from...there's no explanation. He just IS. This is a biological creature whose origins are unknown, powers unfathomable, and answers to powers which are even more abstract and weird (this last bit is the most important part).

The Reapers come from...the people who built them. Even before the EXACT answer is revealed, the simple fact of their existence violates any cosmic horror inherent. They're robots. They were created. This is a simple alien robot invasion story with a couple extra steps. No horror, just action. The explanation of them being built by space whales makes them even less horrifying.

If that's satisfying to you, I can't change your mind.

I don't see the distinction between the two. Obviously Cthulhu and the rest of the Old Ones come from somewhere. We're never going to know because it'd destroy genre conventions - as I said, Cosmic Horror is all about the unknown - but many of the Old Ones are explicitly corporeal beings. A character in The Dunwich Horror even discovered Cthulhu's origin, though he doesn't reveal it. And as you said, Cthulhu serves greater powers, which functionally makes his immediate motivations indistinct from a machines ("I do what I was told to do.")

Bioware could've just run with the Reapers initial statement that they always were and will forever be. They're billions of years old. At that point, origin is meaningless. Lost to time, like the origins of the Great Old Ones. Their mistake was telling too much. There was never going to be an acceptable explanation for a billion year old anything to cyclically exterminate the universe. It's more effective to dodge it by saying their designs are beyond knowing and leave it at that. Refer back to "Cosmic horror is just avant garde disaster fiction." Why are hurricanes and volcanoes a thing? We know how they happen, but a more philosophical "why do they exist?" doesn't have an answer. They're here and we need to deal with them. Maybe Earth has some hidden origin or creator that we can't comprehend that designed it this way.

Absent of revealing the origin, who's to say the Reapers even are machines in the traditional sense? Maybe they're silicon lifeforms. From a certain point of view, real life is all just carbon machines. Further still, if mysterious deities can exist since the dawn of creation, why can't they be made of metal? We think of them as robots, but a recurring statement in Lovecraft is that we can only partially perceive the horrors.

I guess I'm arguing both sides here. I just don't see it inherently acceptable that biologics can exist without explanation, but robotics had to have a creator.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 06:41 PM

Omega feels like a higher budget version of Bring Down The Sky. There's more plot happening I guess, but at the end of the day it's a simple adventure that doesn't have much going on and which is mainly notable for introducing a new alien character model.
I don't believe I've ever played Bring Down the Sky, so can't speak to the comparison there.

I think it was an admirable attempt to patch up the flaws of the ending. It's not enough, but it's a good effort and it almost works taken in isolation. It's also the only point where Mass Effect 3 even comes close to recapturing the tone the Reapers had in ME1.
I guess we just fundamentally disagree there. Hell, I disagree that any of that is even desirable. There was no fixing the ending without completely altering it in ways they were never going to do, so it was best left alone (after Extended Cut added the epilogue anyway, that was needed). And assuming the tone you mean is the cosmic horror thing, I think that was fundamentally a mistake from the start, as I've mentioned.

MinimanMidget

2024-02-21, 06:49 PM

I still can't believe ME3 featured a boss fight where you fight a Reaper face-to-face on foot. Sure, you're orbital striking it, but seriously? The same type of creature that squared off against a combined military fleet in ME1 can't hit a single human? How'd these things ever cleanse the galaxy?

I still can't believe that wasn't the final boss fight in a game that so desperately needed one. It's so clearly a natural final boss for the game and the series as a whole. It even gives them a way to have that military strength number they've been tracking directly affect gameplay. This one is so obvious that it almost seems like they must have planned it that way and then changed their minds for some reason.

Errorname

2024-02-21, 06:55 PM

I don't believe I've ever played Bring Down the Sky, so can't speak to the comparison there.

You're not missing much. It's main significance for the franchise was introducing the Batarians, just like how Omega's main contribution was the female Turian model.

I guess we just fundamentally disagree there. Hell, I disagree that any of that is even desirable. There was no fixing the ending without completely altering it in ways they were never going to do, so it was best left alone (after Extended Cut added the epilogue anyway, that was needed). And assuming the tone you mean is the cosmic horror thing, I think that was fundamentally a mistake from the start, as I've mentioned.

I'm more thinking of the tone you get from Feros and Noveria with the Thorian and the Rachni. I thought it worked well.

I still can't believe that wasn't the final boss fight in a game that so desperately needed one. It's so clearly a natural final boss for the game and the series as a whole. It even gives them a way to have that military strength number they've been tracking directly affect gameplay. This one is so obvious that it almost seems like they must have planned it that way and then changed their minds for some reason.

The funny thing is that it basically still is the final boss, just a way worse version of it. You still need to blow up Dwarf Reapers (which are just an awful concept to begin with), except instead of proper boss fights you respectively shoot one once with a nuke gun and then hold some missile batteries until they can blow it up for you.

Rodin

2024-02-21, 07:03 PM

If that's satisfying to you, I can't change your mind.

I don't see the distinction between the two. Obviously Cthulhu and the rest of the Old Ones come from somewhere. We're never going to know because it'd destroy genre conventions - as I said, Cosmic Horror is all about the unknown - but many of the Old Ones are explicitly corporeal beings. A character in The Dunwich Horror even discovered Cthulhu's origin, though he doesn't reveal it. And as you said, Cthulhu serves greater powers, which functionally makes his immediate motivations indistinct from a machines ("I do what I was told to do.")

Bioware could've just run with the Reapers initial statement that they always were and will forever be. They're billions of years old. At that point, origin is meaningless. Lost to time, like the origins of the Great Old Ones. Their mistake was telling too much. There was never going to be an acceptable explanation for a billion year old anything to cyclically exterminate the universe. It's more effective to dodge it by saying their designs are beyond knowing and leave it at that. Refer back to "Cosmic horror is just avant garde disaster fiction." Why are hurricanes and volcanoes a thing? We know how they happen, but a more philosophical "why do they exist?" doesn't have an answer. They're here and we need to deal with them. Maybe Earth has some hidden origin or creator that we can't comprehend that designed it this way.

Absent of revealing the origin, who's to say the Reapers even are machines in the traditional sense? Maybe they're silicon lifeforms. From a certain point of view, real life is all just carbon machines. Further still, if mysterious deities can exist since the dawn of creation, why can't they be made of metal? We think of them as robots, but a recurring statement in Lovecraft is that we can only partially perceive the horrors.

I guess I'm arguing both sides here. I just don't see it inherently acceptable that biologics can exist without explanation, but robotics had to have a creator.

Those genre conventions are why the Reapers were never going to be an unexplained cosmic horror. That works well for a horror novella or short story - you don't have to explain where the creature coms from, and the short form of the fiction encourages not explaining it. This can apply to films as well - the aliens in Bird Box work better if we never know exactly what they are or why they're attacking.

Mass Effect as a trilogy is a story encompassing 100+ hours (assuming you do at least a little bit of the side content, anyway). That's a long time to have an antagonist that you do not understand, never speak to, and never have anything about it explained. Imagine if the trilogy had said "The Reapers got bored and left, for some ineffable reason we puny humans don't comprehend". That works in a Lovecraft short story, but for your badass space marine who you've developed over three games that's pretty anti-climactic. The games had to have the premise of winning over the Reapers and definitively ensuring they never came back. Because that's how videogames work. A lot of the disgruntlement about the ending is the feeling that Star Child takes that agency away from the player. Marauder Shields is a meme for a reason.

For a long form epic like Mass Effect, you need a villain to talk to. Saren, Harbinger, The Illusive Man. You need to gradually learn more about the threat, or you wind up with a Dragon Age Origins situation where the Blight is this theoretical thing thats happening but nobody cares about because it's just an army of faceless goons with no motivation.

Other franchises do this too. In Resident Evil the main threat is supposedly the zombies, but who are the villains? Wesker, Krauser, Chief Irons, Sadler, the Umbrella Corporation. Humans who give a face and direction to the existential threat.

warty goblin

2024-02-21, 07:28 PM

Speaking of things horrible, the first King Arthur fight in Knight's Tale is, ah, something.

So King Arthur's dead husk is this giant headless zombie thing. Except where his neck should be, there's just a hole, full of skulls. One of his voice lines during the fight is "I am the Round Table."

He is literally the Round Table.

A surprisingly solid little piece of enemy design there. Creepy.

ArmyOfOptimists

2024-02-21, 07:34 PM

Mass Effect as a trilogy is a story encompassing 100+ hours (assuming you do at least a little bit of the side content, anyway). That's a long time to have an antagonist that you do not understand, never speak to, and never have anything about it explained. Imagine if the trilogy had said "The Reapers got bored and left, for some ineffable reason we puny humans don't comprehend". That works in a Lovecraft short story, but for your badass space marine who you've developed over three games that's pretty anti-climactic. The games had to have the premise of winning over the Reapers and definitively ensuring they never came back. Because that's how videogames work. A lot of the disgruntlement about the ending is the feeling that Star Child takes that agency away from the player. Marauder Shields is a meme for a reason.

For sure. That's usually why Lovecraftian games have a cult or organization working to summon or empower the horrors. You can't defeat the immortal god-creature, but you can stop the cult from ever bringing it forth.

Oddly, Mass Effect has this. Three times over, in fact. First the Geth, then the Collectors, and finally Cerberus. Then they throw in a full scale invasion that should be unwinnable, so they also have to come up with the Catalyst/Starchild nonsense so you can win.

Zevox

2024-02-21, 07:42 PM

Beelzebub1111

2024-02-22, 08:53 AM

I was playing Timberborn these past few days. I always have trouble deciding when my colony is done. I figure when I have a full warehouse of each foodstuff, Solved droughts (and now badtides) of at least a week, and built one of each monument I think I have solved that map. My average beaver happiness is over 50 so I'm pretty much set up for perpetual success. At that point I think I just say Map Done even if I haven't colonized the whole thing yet. If I was more inclined I would set up multiple communities and try to get everything green, but honestly that just seems like work.

I'm not sure how I feel about unlimited range for district centers, it has its good and bad points but basically I never know when to migrate in this version of the game. since my infrastructure is always localized but I used to try and set up a scrapyard district where needed and build communities around resources. now it just doesn't seem nessicary, yeah it's less efficient but there really isn't a noticable difference in the long run.

Zevox

2024-02-23, 12:52 AM

Finished up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night today. It's a pretty darn good game, but I do have to say, it definitely felt too derivative of Symphony of the Night at times. SotN is a great game and being inspired by that was a selling point to me, but when I'm recognizing numerous areas, enemies, items, and even a major plot point from the game you're inspired by, you might be going a bit too far with it. Not to say that there weren't plenty of unique elements, just that a bit too much of it was a bit too familiar for my preferences. The only thing that never felt like they were just taking something from SotN were the bosses, which were quite good - aside from the final boss, which was highly disorienting due to how it was designed, not a fan of that one.

I will say I definitely did like their twist on the upside-down castle element. Turning that into a power you can use at will to replace any sort of flight ability was kind of brilliant. Homages that element while avoiding bogging the game down with needing to re-explore the whole castle again in a second half like in SotN, and it's just a cool mechanic to play around with. Kudos to them there.

I wound up using the flying sword as my main weapon, because, well, once I saw how it worked, it was pretty obvious it had to be the best weapon in the game. Ranged, can hit twice per toss with good spacing, and most importantly it never puts you into an attack animation, you can just keep throwing it while moving? Oh yeah, that's busted. And the upgraded version is insanely more busted once you can craft it, not only significantly increasing the base damage to begin with, but also letting you throw two at once, more than doubling your damage output compared to the normal version. I thought up until I saw that that my big damage output would be from the True Arrow directional spell, which could hit the same target five times with a single cheap casting, but that sword wound up even better in the end.

Anyway though, it did turn out to be shorter than I expected, and I still have a week until FF7 Rebirth. Fortunately though, it kind of worked out, because Nintendo just shadow-dropped Penny's Big Breakaway, a 3D platformer made by the guys who created Sonic Mania, yesterday. So I'll be grabbing that tomorrow for sure.

Also, 2B released in Granblue Rising a few days ago, and I've been playing her a lot. She's fun, but weird - she can't use a number of the game's basic mechanics, and has several unique ones of her own instead. This makes her play more like she does in Nier Automata than she otherwise would, but does also handicap her a bit in some ways. And she's odd in other ways too: she has special moves you'd expect from a rushdown character, providing a lot of opportunities to pressure opponents, but normals you'd expecting from a zoner or bruiser, being slower but longer range than most. All of which means she takes some definite adjusting to compared to the rest of the cast. I'm doing fairly well with her though, I've gotten her to rank S2, which means I'm definitely climbing S rank decently, so I might very well be able to make her my third S+ rank character.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-24, 04:10 PM

Rynjin

2024-02-24, 06:59 PM

Finished up Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night today. It's a pretty darn good game, but I do have to say, it definitely felt too derivative of Symphony of the Night at times. SotN is a great game and being inspired by that was a selling point to me, but when I'm recognizing numerous areas, enemies, items, and even a major plot point from the game you're inspired by, you might be going a bit too far with it. Not to say that there weren't plenty of unique elements, just that a bit too much of it was a bit too familiar for my preferences. The only thing that never felt like they were just taking something from SotN were the bosses, which were quite good - aside from the final boss, which was highly disorienting due to how it was designed, not a fan of that one.

TBF I'm pretty sure Bloodstained was intended from the start to be a soft remake of SotN so they could get some semblance of the publishing/distribution rights to that game back from Konami.

Zevox

2024-02-25, 12:09 AM

So, playing Penny's Big Breakaway. It's a stage-based 3D platformer, more of the sort that I rented a lot of but rarely bought back when I was a kid and the N64 was my main console. The comparison it most brings to mind for me is a game called Chameleon Twist, though mostly due to aesthetics and one minor gameplay mechanic, not because there's major similarities between them. Never been my favorite type of the genre - definitely more fond of the Mario/Banjo style collect-a-thons - but it is good to see one of these again after all these years.

You can definitely see that it was made by Sonic fans too, it very much has that "gotta go fast" feel to it. Penny's mobility is definitely the star of the show when it comes to playing her, and quickly traversing the stages feels like most of the point. There's stuff to collect and challenges to be found too, but this feels like a game that speedrunners will love - although that's admittedly coming from someone who's not into speedrunning, so what do I know about what speedrunners like? It definitely captures the feel of the old platformers it's emulating though - a bit too well in some cases, as Penny's movement speed can make it hard to fully control where she lands when you're flinging yourself through the air at times, which you get a reminder of at the end of every level when you want to land on the small central part of a raised stage for maximum points, but I at least often over- or under-shoot it and land on the second tier floor instead. I also find myself wishing it let you control the camera sometimes, although they do pretty well with the fixed camera most of the time.

It's no masterpiece, but I'm having fun with it. And hey, I'm always happy to see a real 3D platformer not named Mario, given how few and far between they are.

Also, I indeed got to S+ rank with 2B in Granblue Rising. Pretty much win-streaked my way there yesterday easily, to my surprise. So, time to set her aside for a bit and work on getting other characters there. Thinking maybe Cagliostro next.

Operation: Babe Hunt, still as cringey as ever. Sadly the game won't let me put the Evoker to my head...
Yeah, no helping that. It makes sense given the characters are teenagers and Junpei is one of them, but it's definitely awkward to sit through as an adult. At least it ends with Aigis joining the party though.

TBF I'm pretty sure Bloodstained was intended from the start to be a soft remake of SotN so they could get some semblance of the publishing/distribution rights to that game back from Konami.
:smallconfused: How would that even work? I can't see Konami seeing them make a similar game and just deciding they could have rights to SotN because they did it well.

Rynjin

2024-02-25, 12:25 AM

:smallconfused: How would that even work? I can't see Konami seeing them make a similar game and just deciding they could have rights to SotN because they did it well.

Think you missed my meaning. Bloodstained was created by the same (core) team who originally made Symphony. They couldn't get the rights to Castlevania back, so they made their own version with blackjack and hookers. Now they have a "similar to but legally distinct from" version of Symphony of the Night, and can now make the sequels and whatnot they originally wanted to.

Zevox

2024-02-25, 01:27 AM

Think you missed my meaning. Bloodstained was created by the same (core) team who originally made Symphony. They couldn't get the rights to Castlevania back, so they made their own version with blackjack and hookers. Now they have a "similar to but legally distinct from" version of Symphony of the Night, and can now make the sequels and whatnot they originally wanted to.
Ah, so you just meant it's a spiritual successor. Gotcha.

Still too much that's too close to the original for my liking though. You can do a spiritual successor and still make it very unique - Bayonetta to Devil May Cry, for instance.

Form

2024-02-25, 01:59 PM

zlefin

2024-02-25, 03:39 PM

I'm trying out civ6 since it's on a steam free weekend thing. Those are a neat way to get to try out games; much like how demos used to exist in the ancient past. It comes with all the expansions stuff as well for this weekend.

Civ6 seems ok, and kinda fun, but unimpressive; I may just stick with my existing civ 5.
Civ6, even with all its addons, doesn't really seem like an improvement; though it is always interesting to explore a new game.

But it also has a number of little annoyances. The district and wonder placement makes me feel like I'm playing a puzzle game, which while those can be fun, isn't what I play the civ series for; it's also annoying how much depends on planning ahead for future techs/wonders you haven't seen yet, especially on first playthrough. Such a shortage of space for wonders and districts, especially for coastal cities its so easy to run short on space. Lots of times I didn't build a wonder because I couldn't fit it in without deleting something important; and I've had lots of difficulty fitting my districts in as well. And I was Cree, and those mekeweps are nice, but using them means even fewer spaces available for things. It's also just kinda weird that on the scale of a nation you run out of spaces for things that really aren't that big.
The game balance only seems ok; while some of the costs growing seems like it would cut down on the power of city spam, I've found I could expand very heavily nonetheless without it being too costly. I'm no tsure if it's optimal, but its certainly concerning how little the games anti-blobbing seems to do compared to several past civ entries. (playing on prince difficulty at least). While there's a decent supply of tooltips, they're not as good as I'd like, and lots of things just show some numbers without properly explainin them; and there's a number of minor tooltip issues that accumulate.

Many of the extra systems the dlc are supposed to add seem like hastily put together add-ons which only partially address the problems, but bring other issues of their own. The dark/golden ages seem too easy, and once I got going chaining golden ages seems to happen; it ends up being more of a win more/snowball mechanic, rather than everyone having high and low points. Loyalty doesn't seem to be a good system aside from making it hard to aggressively settle cities near others. The effect it has on conquest seems to be weird from what little I've seen of it; and overall it doesn't feel like its been tuned properly as compared to say a civ3/4 cultural pressure.
Governors have some useable benefits, but it's one more thing to micro. In general the game has a problem with lots of fiddliness and lots of little things to micro, such that it feels like I'm having to do a lot more micromanagement than I like. Civ 5 was much more elegant, it did much better at cutting down on the number of actions you did and focusing on important choices. Now it seems like I need to make 2-3 military units in the late game, and manually merge them into a bigger unit; which is just a tedious nuisance. The fact that you can change those civic card settings for free when you research a new one means rather than building a civilization along a certain path, you instead constantly dance between effects; like you setup to give settlers bonuses, then build your settlers, then switch to give bonuses to making districts and build lots of districts; though there's still mostly a set of overall best bonuses, it's a bit annoying to be all like 'temporarily get a huge boost to one thing until you've built it, then swap'.

The combat system seems perhaps a bit more balanced than civ 5, but the ai still doesn't know how to do it well; and it's hard to be actually sure since how the numbers work is rather screwy and I didn't do much war.

On the bright side I never run out of things to build, always plenty of choices (except when I lack the space, which is a big problem for small islands).

it's not like the gmae is bad, I just notice the flaws more, and I'm not seeing lots of changes that are great improvements from prior installments.

Rynjin

2024-02-25, 04:38 PM

Ah, so you just meant it's a spiritual successor. Gotcha.

Still too much that's too close to the original for my liking though. You can do a spiritual successor and still make it very unique - Bayonetta to Devil May Cry, for instance.

True, though I think part of their goal was specifically making some facsimile of SotN playable to a modern audience. It's fairly hard to get your hands on; I think the ONLY ways to get it besides emulation are on the PS4 and (ugh) mobile.

Mind you I completely get the complaint that, as someone who has already played SotN, it feels like a rehash but I also get where the devs were coming from.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-25, 05:21 PM

Because something gave me the itch to fight with sword and pistol and be a swashbuckling hero I booted up Freefall again.

First annoyance: the opening could have been done without giving indicators to de Sadet's gender but wasn't, giving me the impression the devs think I picked the 'wrong' one.

Second annoyance: I die to a random encounter in the prologue section because of how long it takes to drink potions.

Urgh I'm going to have to lower the difficulty. While magic might theoretically fit my play style better it's not a rapier and pistol, and so it's really not what I want. IIRC the game will get a lot easier once I can craft bullets, but of course I took Charisma before Science.

SerTabris

2024-02-26, 02:08 AM

Because something gave me the itch to fight with sword and pistol and be a swashbuckling hero I booted up Freefall again.

First annoyance: the opening could have been done without giving indicators to de Sadet's gender but wasn't, giving me the impression the devs think I picked the 'wrong' one.

Second annoyance: I die to a random encounter in the prologue section because of how long it takes to drink potions.

Urgh I'm going to have to lower the difficulty. While magic might theoretically fit my play style better it's not a rapier and pistol, and so it's really not what I want. IIRC the game will get a lot easier once I can craft bullets, but of course I took Charisma before Science.

Greedfall? I definitely remember that annoying me too, and I'm not sure if it's an intentional and separate problem, or just part of the ongoing problem they have throughout the game of occasionally using the wrong pronouns for a woman PC. I'm hoping the sequel will do better on that.

I did magic myself, and I feel like it's kind of... weird, in that it just ignores a significant part of the combat system by going right through a lot of defenses. Definitely makes it more effective a lot of the time though.

Anonymouswizard

2024-02-26, 03:59 PM

Greedfall?

Yes, autocorrect strikes again.

I definitely remember that annoying me too, and I'm not sure if it's an intentional and separate problem, or just part of the ongoing problem they have throughout the game of occasionally using the wrong pronouns for a woman PC. I'm hoping the sequel will do better on that.

What's going to be very amusing is when they eventually forget de Sadet has customisable looks and the story assumes you went with the default.

I did magic myself, and I feel like it's kind of... weird, in that it just ignores a significant part of the combat system by going right through a lot of defenses. Definitely makes it more effective a lot of the time though.

Guns are similar but take a lot longer to become truly bonkers, they eat through armour and health but bullets are scarce early on. As in I'm leaving the prologue with about twenty, and only because I scrounged every last one I could. They don't straight up ignore armour, but you're really only limited by the bullets and traps you bothered to craft.

But hit Science 2 and invest in source gathering and you'll find yourself easily carrying 100+ bullets. It gets even better when you unlock guns that hold multiple shots and the even higher damage of rifles.

earthseawizard

2024-02-26, 04:35 PM

Zevox

2024-02-26, 05:49 PM

Right now I'm waiting for Rise of the Ronin and Dragons Dogma 2 and can't believe they come out on the same day.
That's also the same day Princess Peach: Showtime comes out. It's kind of stacked for some reason.

Also, just three days before that Hi-Fi Rush is getting released on the PS5. That's the one of the four I'll be picking up day 1 personally.

Rynjin

2024-02-26, 06:45 PM