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Video Games Discussion

What games have you been playing recently? - Page 2

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-07-09 14:13:35
Whatever I said about the Layton art style before, they definitely changed it for the better on the 3DS. Been playing Mystery Journey here and there.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Missing? NO!
Date: 2019-07-26 14:53:31
Gonna start on Wolfenstein: Youngblood later today. I played through Wolfenstein 2 last summer and really enjoyed it; love the alternate reality aspects and the world the game offers. We'll see how it goes!

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Raven Freak
Date: 2019-09-21 11:15:46
I've been switching between Sonic Lost World, Super Mario 3D World, Final Fantasy VI and VII, and Spyro Reignited Trilogy. I beat the first Spyro game in the remakes, I just need to get a few more trophies but I'm taking a break from Trophy hunting and I'm replaying the second game. (I have all the trophies already in this game, but my original PS4 died on me months ago and I lost all my saves since Sony makes you pay to back up your saves to the cloud… >_>)

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Missing? NO!
Date: 2019-09-22 00:42:35

Gonna start on Wolfenstein: Youngblood later today. I played through Wolfenstein 2 last summer and really enjoyed it; love the alternate reality aspects and the world the game offers. We'll see how it goes!


it sucked oh god

The reason why I enjoyed Wolfenstein 2 was because of its story elements and worldbuilding. The story in Youngblood and characters are really… bland… by comparison. The entire game is co-op and, while your partner AI is actually pretty good, the game has a leveling system where enemies have assigned levels rather than just being baseline stronger or weaker based on their enemy type. In theory, it's a good change, but any enemy that's a higher level than you ends up just becoming a massive bullet sponge, while any enemy at a lower level then you ends up just dying instantly. It makes the game feel really unbalanced and unrewarding of actual quality combat.

Meh.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-09-27 14:46:20
AI: The Somnium Files, baby!! Notwithstanding that anyone who played Zero Time Dilemma wanted a spiritual successor, this game has a very characteristic interface and style of its own, and the triple-A level production makes me really hopeful for Uchikoshi in the future. Also, every single line and mannerism so far from the main character (see avatar) reminds me of Kyle Hyde, so that's nice. I'll have to be careful about spoilers, but so far I've gone through the first Psync segment and am loving the way it's piling up mysteries. (Keisuke Ito of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2's soundtrack plays a big part in setting the scene too, along with the crazed-but-not-overused visual effects.)

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-09-27 17:03:09
Bravely Default (3DS): Hoo boy, where to begin?

The game in its entirety isn't great. Most of it is amazing, for example, the battle system is amazingly complex and works well (and uses some mechanics similar to those found in Star Ocean: TtEoT and FF7, two of my top 5 RPGs) and is probably the collest I've seen to date.

So what's wrong about it?

There's a time-stop mechanic for battles (those in the know already know where this is going) that uses SP to interrupt everything going on in battle, even an enemy's turn, to give you a new turn.

All well and good, except for the fact that you only get SP by either keeping the game on and the *DS closed for 8 HOURS (not continuous, but cumulative) or PAYING FOR 3 SP. Not with, like, in-game currency, no. Through the eShop. I haven't even added the fact that you can put your SP in the negative and have to wait upwards of 16-24 HOURS to be able to use the time-stop shit again. I have literally played the entire game without it because the tutorial for it ends with you at -2 SP, so either buy that point refill or close the *DS and wait 16 hours, idiot!

The rest of the game is good (exception: the story is pretty meh), but this mechanic thoroughly ruined my feelings for this game.

There's not even a cheat for infinite SP or free SP drinks built into Checkpoint (this is a whole other can of dogshit), so i can't even cheat the system.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Missing? NO!
Date: 2019-09-27 18:47:23
Honestly I kind of understand that mechanic if you're not playing in any one, long, continuous session. It's probably intended so that players can leave their system in sleep mode overnight and wake up to more SP. But having that method (or paying) be the only way a player can gain more SP is really poor game design imo.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-09-28 14:57:32

Honestly I kind of understand that mechanic if you're not playing in any one, long, continuous session. It's probably intended so that players can leave their system in sleep mode overnight and wake up to more SP. But having that method (or paying) be the only way a player can gain more SP is really poor game design imo.
even when you use SP in battle the characters are like "WHAAAAT, A WAY TO GET SP WITHOUT WAITING???"

also i've just hit the final boss

[spoiler]i can elaborate further despite the spoiler tag isn't implemented since i can make text super small[/spoiler]

but like

the chars are stupid shits

[spoiler][size=1pt]and the final boss tug-at-your-heart thing doesn't exactly work when it leverages the AI "friends" against you to be like "YOU'RE NOT ALONE" yeah i am that's why you gave me fake friends dammit[/size][/spoiler]

EDIT: finished it. Typical low-effort [spoiler][size=1pt]boss dead, thx, go home[/size][/spoiler] ending.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-06 19:23:50
Starting P:SMD. Explorers of * was good so this should be too, right?

…right?

EDIT: goddammit it's not

it could've been so good but no

I'm willing to overlook the graphics style change from sprites to 3D models, as that's something most seemed to want, plus with the more powerful hardware…

HOWEVER.

I cannot forgive the weird mechanics half-heartedly dropped in and the changes that just did not need to be made. We'll get to those, though.

First, gameplay:

Who the fuck thought it a good idea to be able to shove Pokemon by walking into them? This does nothing but eat away at your hunger and burn a turn in a fight, and if you're not holding B, you BY DEFAULT shove partners too, still burning a turn and draining your Belly.

Some of the moves feel… incorrect. These were mostly to balance things, so I get why, but it's a minor thing.

The default A button generic attack has been nerfed HARD.
Explorers of *:
Actual moves: 30-50
Generic attack: 20-40
SMD:
Actual moves: 30-50
Generic attack: MOTHERFUCKING 5
WHY
THIS DOES NOTHING BUT MAKE YOU ENTIRELY HELPLESS IF YOU RUN OUT OF PP
like, okay, they wanted to force you to use moves more often but for fucks sake this was too harsh a nerf it is now useless and you will die before killing one normal enemy even when you're overleveling the dungeon boss.

Items are also more heavily favored when determining what drops to spawn and how many, leading to less cash and more items. A full Bag is not worth it anymore. The wands are kinda neat, I guess, but gdi there's so many of them now. This also makes Belly less of a threat, which is impressive as in Eo* I ran out maybe once per like 6 dungeons. Even more impressive when you realize your Belly drops like a meteor dropping to Earth to compensate for the fuckton of Apples you find.

The story:

I'm gonna do the spoiler+size combo thing again for this. I'm literally 2.5 hours in and the story is already bad. I'm not even done with all the tutorials yet for fucks sake and I have been tearing through them!

[spoiler][size=1pt]aight so making your character remember he's human from the word Go breaks some immersion. In Eo* you find that shit out late-game, making the rest of the trek about finding out what the fuck happened to you. This was brilliant, it make sense with the memory loss arc and it added an extra "push" to the end of the game when players would lose interest. Here, it's like "hey i'm a pokemon now, cool, whatever" and what little immersion the beginning built up is gone. It's not even played up, your character literally says "Could it be… Well, whatever" like BITCH WHAT YOU ARE NOW A POKEMON, EMOTE A LITTLE. The "you get rescued from being washed up on the fucking shoreline passed out, and your new partner manages to wake you and help you out some" was changed to "you wake up in a forest and are immediately chased into a dungeon, followed by a tutorial that covers basic mechanics. Here's your partner, he's an over-the-top annoying shithead and not even his father likes him." Eo* made an emotional connection almost immediately by having your partner basically save your fucking life as you're washed up on the shoreline fading in and out of consciousness for DAYS. Then you gotta go deal with some shitheads who stole your partner's thing and fucked off into a dungeon. This creates emotional linkage as you see this kid wake you up, then some assholes steal his crap. You wanna catch the assholes and fuck 'em up to repay the dude. SMD just goes "lol why, when your character can be chased by things into a dungeon and get a tutorial from some fucking rando who you end up staying with?" Also the fucking tutorial it gives you is superceded by a multi-"chapter" (screens should read "Day" instead of "Chapter" as several are just "go to school, exposition, in-depth explanation of mechanic, moment of "haha your partner's a shithead", dungeon themed around day's mechanic, go home, fade into next chapter" back to fucking back) while you literally go to school IN A FUCKING POKEMON GAME. Eo* taught through "here's generally how shit works, we've given you enough to figure it out on your own" and sends you into an unrelated dungeon. The items and shit you were taught about may not even be in said dungeon! That's the kinda shit you had back when games actually wordlessly taught people, or taught how to equip an item and that's it, and respected your fucking intelligence. There was some hand-holding, yeah, it's a kids' game, but it wasn't so much so that it seems to be meant for teaching some 3-month-old to play the fucking game. Then we get to move onto the fact that the first 2 initial-tutorial dungeons were exactly the fucking same, then the super-tutorial has several dungeons that reuse THE SAME FUCKING TILESET. Eo* had this, but it was a technical limit and it was handled REALLY WELL as often times there were similar-but-not-quite tilesets for different dungeons, or even for later in the same dungeon! Plus you wouldn't get 4 fucking dungeons that used 1:1 the same set back-to-back, none of which are even the same damn dungeon. God this is a fucking mess and i'm literally 2.5 hours in.[/size][/spoiler]

Now that that's out of the way, the mechanics I mentioned earlier:

SO FAR, 2.5 hours in, there's been all of like 2 new mechanics: the pushing I mentioned earlier and the crystals thing. You get these circlets ("looplets" THEY'RE CIRCLETS MOTHERFUCKER) that each member holds (they take up Bag slots AND your only Held Item slot) and crystals spawn in the dungeons when at least 1 member is holding them. When first seen by the player in a room the crystals count from (random number, 1 to 9) to 0 and when they hit 0 they explode into dust, meaning you have to prioritize them over battles. When picked up in time, you can either Use them, granting some minor buff till the end of the dungeon, or Set them into an empty slot in the circlet. When Set, they provide some minor buff to stats, some status to an enemy you attack rarely (misses still roll same chance as far as I can tell) or do shit like "when you would be KO'd, survive with 1 HP and this breaks." These stack up to the number inserted, so I guess if you could find 4 of them they'd be handy? (Provided Circlets during tut hold 4 crystals but some orbs can etch a new slot into them until end of dungeon) If the crystal explodes before you get to it it'll do nithing but make powder appear on the floor, which when walked over increments an invisible counter and eventually with enough of them another one will suddenly appear in the Bag.

if i have any more gripes later i'll put them here so watch this space

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Bert
Date: 2019-10-07 00:33:25

Starting P:SMD.


I swear to god 75% of your attacks miss.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-07 03:07:43


Starting P:SMD.


I swear to god 75% of your attacks miss.
Yeh.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Netscape128
Date: 2019-10-07 10:13:56
Recently I've been playing Skyward Sword, having felt bad about seeing it languish on a friend's shelf.  He gave it to me and I've made it my mission to complete it.  Not done yet, but I'm still chugging along!

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Missing? NO!
Date: 2019-10-07 19:41:24
Honestly, even though Super Mystery Dungeon wasn't my favorite Mystery Dungeon game (Explorers of ____ was way better imo), it's still a solid game overall. Great replay value and there's tons to do even after you finish the core game. It's a shame I don't play my 3DS much anymore ever since the Switch game out, though. There's some great games (like Mystery Dungeon) that I'd like developers to bring over to the Switch.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2019-10-11 22:50:44
I finished AI a few days ago…oh boy, merely mentioning it again I still can't get over what a hell of a ride that was. I cannot imagine any game topping the final sequence where it all comes together, and yes, I discovered this one through Zero Escape. The resolution is hours of pure nonstop Uchikoshi mindbending with some clever use of gameplay at points too. And the visuals in the Psync segments don't ever hold back.

I do have to hold the long, long build to the end with a more critical eye, though. Some of it was necessary, but a lot simply wasn't, regardless of how entertaining or emotional it was while in the midst of it. While it absolutely deserved to be a 30 hour game with all the effort and detail put into the assets, I do have to admit it fell short of Zero Escape in that respect.

Anyway, I'm keeping my Kaname Date avatar up with good reason, and this total work of art is going to be on my mind for at least a solid few years after that.

Re: What games have you been playing recently?

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2019-10-11 23:32:59
JSRF is a game I never could beat at the age of like 7.

JSRF is a game I have to coax into working properly in Cxbx (yeah yeah "piracy reeeeee" i own the same disc i'm using digitally, i just can't dump it myself… yet.)


JSRF is a game I'm now at Chapter 4 in.


also Sega GT 2002 is amazing too but I can't get it running in Cxbx (get to title after 3 hours of work, virtual x86 triple-faults because the game's sound engine goes fucking ballistic, trashes all of RAM, then jumps to RAM.)

oh and Initial D Special Stage on the PS2 (although PCSX2 sucks and i can't figure out the game's physics engine yet)