What are you currently playing?

[Old_Hunter_77]

I bit into the Dredge hype because I was in the mood for something indy and quirky. So far, it's fine, you know, I'm not feeling the hype but I am enjoying it well enough. Sometimes I do wish the damn boat can go faster- there are long periods of just sailing around doing nothing. Or maybe I'm playing it wrong I dunno.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

What I really hated was the mercs spawn the moment you raise an alarm and they almost instantly know where you are at all times. Like I was once sneaking around a fort and suddenly a Merc shows up and starts patrolling nearby despite the fact I haven't raised the alarm in this fort yet. It's like I have a hidden tracker hidden up my ass all the mercs have access to.

This might make sense in MGSV but in ancient greece of all places?

The nice thing is it didn’t even happen much in MGSV, at least that I can recall. Because the levels allow easy escape tactics it never seemed like you were cornered by AI alerts. Like at the airport or the oil refinery, I remember hiding in the back of trucks or open crates and it usually seemed to work. Plus even when it didn’t there were so many tools to use for distraction. I think a couple times I was out of ammo or smoke grenades and had to just make a run for it, but it never felt like game over.

 

[Absent]

Agree, the merc system in that game is bad. At least in Origins if I messed up a stealth, sometimes I could recover by killing a couple dudes. In Odyssey, the mercs appear and ruin everything, and killing one brings in more, and the combat is already so spongy that it's no fun. The result is that the most efficient way to infiltrate a fort is to just run in, take what you need, and get out. This works for stealing things or assassinating someone, but does not for rescuing someone. In that case you have to murder like 50 dudes in a fort and it takes forever, and mercenaries show up and you gotta spend an hour killing everything or starting over.

By mercs, you mean the bounty hunters who occasionally hunt you down?

Maybe I'm simply not sufficiently advanced in the game for them to become a nuisance, but they haven't bothered me much. They tend to home in on your general location when you're making a fuss (so far completely realistic in my eyes - news travel fast in Greece, it takes on average 0,8 seconds for the latest gossip to cross the country through the cousin repeating what the neighbour told her nephew about the godfather of her sister's stepbrother, so I knew what to expect). But on location, I don't have much trouble avoiding them, losing them, staying hidden, or even backstabbing them and losing them again. It's a somewhat fun cat and mouse.

The latest one annoyed me during the fight itself because it started hurling fireballs with his flaming sword or laser bow or something like that, and this was a bit too d&d-ish for the setting (plus: hot). So maybe it's a sign that I'm progressing towards more annoying encounters ? Do they get better at tracking you with time ? Or are we talking about different kinds of mercs ?

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

By mercs, you mean the bounty hunters who occasionally hunt you down?

Maybe I'm simply not sufficiently advanced in the game for them to become a nuisance, but they haven't bothered me much. They tend to home in on your general location when you're making a fuss (so far completely realistic in my eyes - news travel fast in Greece, it takes on average 0,8 seconds for the latest gossip to cross the country through the cousin repeating what the neighbour told her nephew about the godfather of her sister's stepbrother, so I knew what to expect). But on location, I don't have much trouble avoiding them, losing them, staying hidden, or even backstabbing them and losing them again. It's a somewhat fun cat and mouse.

The latest one annoyed me during the fight itself because it started hurling fireballs with his flaming sword or laser bow or something like that, and this was a bit too d&d-ish for the setting (plus: hot). So maybe it's a sign that I'm progressing towards more annoying encounters ? Do they get better at tracking you with time ? Or are we talking about different kinds of mercs ?

We're talking about the same thing. Mercenaries.
The idea is fine it's all a matter of how it intersects with the rest of the game, especially if you're in a city and then random old ladies start hitting you with brooms that are as powerful as the mercenaries' spears or whatever.

 

[Dalisclock]

We're talking about the same thing. Mercenaries.
The idea is fine it's all a matter of how it intersects with the rest of the game, especially if you're in a city and then random old ladies start hitting you with brooms that are as powerful as the mercenaries' spears or whatever.

Oh, I forgot about Odyessy's annoying level scaling, where everything scales along with you , and by that I means EVERYTHING. It's possible to fight a level 30 chicken because you pissed it off.

I kinda get what it's there but it also feels obnoxious how you are gated from exploring by the region levels but the enemies also scale with you as you pass them, so you never feel really powerful. Last I checked, the best you could do was have the enemies lag about 4 levels behind you.

Also, it used to be once you hit level 50 the levels stopped mattering much because there were no enemies higher then level 50 and the enemies scaled with you BUT then they decided the level caps needed to be higher.

It all contributes to a sense, IMHO, that odyssey is a 30 hour game that is padded out to a 90 hour game because of things like this and one of the reasons I have no urge to ever play it again now that I've beaten all of it(including the DLCs).

 

[Hawki]

FIRE EMBLEM HEROES

Spoiler

So, I'm nearing the end of Book II, and I'll give the game this, Book II is much bettter than Book I, at least from a storytelling standpoint.

That's not to say that the story is really anything special. Really, it can be summed up as "evil kingdom invades good kingdom, good kingdom goes on quest to retrieve mcGuffin to defeat evil kingdom," and in terms of plot, there's not much I've left out. That said, the character interactions are a lot better - some moral shades of grey, backstabbing, setbacks...none of this is great, or even "good" writing per se, but it's much better than the storytelling of Book I. While enemy heroes taken from across the IP still feature, they're thankfully not the purpose, and the actual cast for both Askr and Muspell are mostly unique to the Heroes setting. Also helps

So, yeah. Without a doubt, this game is easily the weakest FE game I've played, but it's at least improved a bit from its early stages.

FIRE EMBLEM: PATH OF RADIANCE

Spoiler

I'm still on the fence about how I feel about this. There's a chance that by the end of the year my feelings might have changed, but for now, basically, this is easily either the best or second best FE game I've played, and I'm torn between those two spots. Because without doubt, POR is a good game, I just have to decide whether it's a great game.

I won't comment too much on the last mission - it's reasonably difficult, but apart from the laguz dragons, the enemies are easy to deal with. Ashnard, though, really irks me - you can only harm him with Ike and your laguz ally (in my case, Tibarn), but even at absolute max level, it's impossible to win without a healer, yet no other unit can damage him. So the game locks you into 1-2 units attacking the boss while most of your army sits around doing nothing (regardless as to how powerful they are), while this great epic struggle is neutered by Ike and Tibarn getting spam healed by Mist and Elincia. Yay...

-There's also the fact (okay, opinion) that at the end of the day, Ashnard just isn't that interesting a villain. In fact, out of all the FE games I've played sans Heroes, he might well be the worst big bad I've come across in terms of character. This is offset by POR having the best worldbuilding in any FE game I've played, and one of the best plots (if not THE) best, but as a character? Yeah. Ashnard, in terms of personality, has little more besides his social Darwinist approach to the world and his mass manipulation ability. Everything for the last 20 years in-universe is attributable to this monster, but there's little sense of gravitas in finally putting him down. Also isn't helped by the "dark god" not being released despite numerous hints, and yes, I know what happens in Radiant Dawn, but in the context of POR, I knew the story ahead of time, and I still feel jipped.

-What DOES work, on the other hand, is the farewells sequence, where literally every surviving member of your army gets to converse with Ike now that the war's over, either staying in the Greil Mercenaries, or moving on with their lives, or somewhere in-between. FE8 did something a bit similar in its farewells sequence, but that was only for specific characters that may have survived (e.g. Innes and Joshua). Here, it's literally every single member. I knew this was coming, I've watched it on YouTube, but yes, it did get me in the feels, both for the surviving members, and for members of my army who didn't make it (RIP Kieran, Zihark, Rhys, Soothe...think that's it). Even characters I've barely used in the game for awhile (e.g. Brom) are nice to see off since in the wider context, we know they've been fighting as well, if not on-screen, so to speak.

-What doesn't work as well is everything after, where for whatever reason, you can't speed up the text like in the rest of the game. I think FE games have done this before, but I'm always the type of person to make the text appear on-screen instantly rather than have it slowly come out of the characters' mouths. What should be interesting conversations here are slowed down terribly.

-So I finally got to the very end, where it lists your units' final game rankings. In case you're wondering, I recorded my top 5 units, which were:

5: Oscar (55 kills)
4: Soren (57 kills)
3: Ike (95 kills)
2: Boyd (97 kills)
1: Titania (104 kills)

Honestly, the system is rigged in favour of certain characters since they're around much longer to get kills (and by definition, a healer can never make it into the top 5), but anyway, yeah. It's actually quite gratifying to see Boyd up there. Ike's a given, Titania is a beast from the outset, but I raised by little (well, not so little) Boyd from an average axe-wielder to a death machine by the end, so that was neat. Also, while she didn't make it into the top 5, I want to give a shoutout to Astrid, who started from a level 1 bow knight that I poured bonus XP into, deployed in the field, and ended the game fully maxed out and one of my best units. You go, girl!

So, yeah. Game's completed, all's right in the world, my Gamecube held out long enough to not break down or anything, so back onto the shelf it goes. All in all, POR is a really solid game, both in gameplay and story. However, I mentioned earlier on that it's vying for the #1 position, up against The Blazing Blade (FE7). Trying to set all nostalgia for that game aside, is POR the better installment? I don't know - seriously, as I write this, I'm still not 100% sure. That being said...

RAMBLY STUFF THAT I'M NOT EVEN SURE ABOUT LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER

Spoiler

Story: Using the 5 Elements of Story method, comparing FE7 with FE9, here's the simple answers - FE9 easily has better worldbuilding and better themes, there's no competition in that area. FE7, however, has the better plot. I think I mentioned this before, but FE9 really drags in the Bengnion/Serenes sections, and the opening missions feel isolated from the story (bandit trouble and little else). FE7, on the other hand, can broadly be divided into three sections (Lyn's story, Eliwood's story up to losing his father, then the rest of the story up to the point where Eliwood and co. finally return to Valor. Also, FE9 plays most of its cards at the start, whereas FE7 starts off with a girl just trying to find her grandfather, and ends with a showdown centuries in the making against Nergal, who while not the deepest villain in the world, is still a more interesting one than Ashnard.

So that leaves characters. This is a weird one. FE7 has an extremely strong core trio (Eliwood, Lyn, Hector), plus a no. of close supporting characters (e.g. Ninian and Nils), and a massive gulf between them and every other member of your party bar a few exceptions (e.g. Nino and Jaffar). FE9, on the other hand, has a weaker core cast (Ike's good, so are the Greil Mercenaries, but not great, and Elincia's a doormat through most of the story), but on the other, almost every single playable character in the game has some level of memorability to them, helped in large part by base/info conversations, and how much easier supports are. At the end of the day, I'm going to call characters a tie - FE7 has a stronger core cast but weaker supporting cast, while FE9 is the opposite, with the line between 'core' and 'supporting' blurred.

So that leaves storytelling. Really, there's not much to contrast here - both games tell their stories using the same method FE always has, with static characters in place of backgrounds. FE9 has cinematics, but they're terrible, so there's not much to say there. FE7 has the benefit of gaiden chapters, while FE10 has the benefit of shifting backgrounds, adding more to a sense of place, not to mention the ease of support and info conversations. Overall, I'm going to give this to FE9 but really, the difference is so minor, it's barely worth counting up.

So, yeah. In terms of clear wins, FE10 has better themes and worldbuilding, FE7 has better plot, characters are a tie, FE9 has better storytelling, but it barely counts as a difference. So, FE9 should win, right? Well, maybe, but the difference is that not all elements of story are equal - something like plot is far more important than theme, for instance. I guess at the end of the day, I like the story of FE7 more, but on an objective level, I think FE9 is superior. Bear in mind that FE7 has the nostalgia factor, so if I'd played FE9 first, what then?

Overall, FE9 wins in story. So what about gameplay?

This is also hard to discuss, in part because I don't have a paradigm I can fall back on for gameplay. That, and it's easier for me to talk about story rather than gameplay anyway. But I'll try:

FE9 Pros: Great mechanics (e.g. cavalry, laguz units), decent addition of the bonus XP system, plus the talent system, plus the easier supports

FE9 Cons: Game is far too easy, has limited replay value

FE7 Pros: Gaiden chapters, greater replayability, the magic triangle (in addition to the weapons triangle), handles difficulty excellently

FE7 Cons: In light of POR, FE7's support system is terrible, cavalry is less interesting to use, etc.

I guess the difference is that in moment-to-moment mechanics, FE9 wins, while in replayability and overall feeling, FE7 wins. Really, I'm just going to call gameplay a tie. Each game does certain things better/worse than the other.

So, how do the games stack up? Well, to rank the FE games I've played to any meaningful extent:

6: Heroes
5: Shadow Dragon
4: The Binding Blade
3: The Sacred Stones
2: The Blazing Blade
1: Path of Radiance

Yes, as agaonizing as it is for me to say, I think PoR earns the top spot. Being as objective as possible, it just doesn't feel right to call FE7 the superior game, no matter how much attachment I have to it. As another litmus test, if someone was asking which of the above 6 FE games to start out with, regardless of any consideration of actually gaining access to them, FE9 would easily be the one I recommend.

So, yeah. That was fun.

 

[meiam]

FIRE EMBLEM HEROES

Spoiler

So, I'm nearing the end of Book II, and I'll give the game this, Book II is much bettter than Book I, at least from a storytelling standpoint.

That's not to say that the story is really anything special. Really, it can be summed up as "evil kingdom invades good kingdom, good kingdom goes on quest to retrieve mcGuffin to defeat evil kingdom," and in terms of plot, there's not much I've left out. That said, the character interactions are a lot better - some moral shades of grey, backstabbing, setbacks...none of this is great, or even "good" writing per se, but it's much better than the storytelling of Book I. While enemy heroes taken from across the IP still feature, they're thankfully not the purpose, and the actual cast for both Askr and Muspell are mostly unique to the Heroes setting. Also helps

So, yeah. Without a doubt, this game is easily the weakest FE game I've played, but it's at least improved a bit from its early stages.

FIRE EMBLEM: PATH OF RADIANCE

Spoiler

I'm still on the fence about how I feel about this. There's a chance that by the end of the year my feelings might have changed, but for now, basically, this is easily either the best or second best FE game I've played, and I'm torn between those two spots. Because without doubt, POR is a good game, I just have to decide whether it's a great game.

I won't comment too much on the last mission - it's reasonably difficult, but apart from the laguz dragons, the enemies are easy to deal with. Ashnard, though, really irks me - you can only harm him with Ike and your laguz ally (in my case, Tibarn), but even at absolute max level, it's impossible to win without a healer, yet no other unit can damage him. So the game locks you into 1-2 units attacking the boss while most of your army sits around doing nothing (regardless as to how powerful they are), while this great epic struggle is neutered by Ike and Tibarn getting spam healed by Mist and Elincia. Yay...

-There's also the fact (okay, opinion) that at the end of the day, Ashnard just isn't that interesting a villain. In fact, out of all the FE games I've played sans Heroes, he might well be the worst big bad I've come across in terms of character. This is offset by POR having the best worldbuilding in any FE game I've played, and one of the best plots (if not THE) best, but as a character? Yeah. Ashnard, in terms of personality, has little more besides his social Darwinist approach to the world and his mass manipulation ability. Everything for the last 20 years in-universe is attributable to this monster, but there's little sense of gravitas in finally putting him down. Also isn't helped by the "dark god" not being released despite numerous hints, and yes, I know what happens in Radiant Dawn, but in the context of POR, I knew the story ahead of time, and I still feel jipped.

-What DOES work, on the other hand, is the farewells sequence, where literally every surviving member of your army gets to converse with Ike now that the war's over, either staying in the Greil Mercenaries, or moving on with their lives, or somewhere in-between. FE8 did something a bit similar in its farewells sequence, but that was only for specific characters that may have survived (e.g. Innes and Joshua). Here, it's literally every single member. I knew this was coming, I've watched it on YouTube, but yes, it did get me in the feels, both for the surviving members, and for members of my army who didn't make it (RIP Kieran, Zihark, Rhys, Soothe...think that's it). Even characters I've barely used in the game for awhile (e.g. Brom) are nice to see off since in the wider context, we know they've been fighting as well, if not on-screen, so to speak.

-What doesn't work as well is everything after, where for whatever reason, you can't speed up the text like in the rest of the game. I think FE games have done this before, but I'm always the type of person to make the text appear on-screen instantly rather than have it slowly come out of the characters' mouths. What should be interesting conversations here are slowed down terribly.

-So I finally got to the very end, where it lists your units' final game rankings. In case you're wondering, I recorded my top 5 units, which were:

5: Oscar (55 kills)
4: Soren (57 kills)
3: Ike (95 kills)
2: Boyd (97 kills)
1: Titania (104 kills)

Honestly, the system is rigged in favour of certain characters since they're around much longer to get kills (and by definition, a healer can never make it into the top 5), but anyway, yeah. It's actually quite gratifying to see Boyd up there. Ike's a given, Titania is a beast from the outset, but I raised by little (well, not so little) Boyd from an average axe-wielder to a death machine by the end, so that was neat. Also, while she didn't make it into the top 5, I want to give a shoutout to Astrid, who started from a level 1 bow knight that I poured bonus XP into, deployed in the field, and ended the game fully maxed out and one of my best units. You go, girl!

So, yeah. Game's completed, all's right in the world, my Gamecube held out long enough to not break down or anything, so back onto the shelf it goes. All in all, POR is a really solid game, both in gameplay and story. However, I mentioned earlier on that it's vying for the #1 position, up against The Blazing Blade (FE7). Trying to set all nostalgia for that game aside, is POR the better installment? I don't know - seriously, as I write this, I'm still not 100% sure. That being said...

RAMBLY STUFF THAT I'M NOT EVEN SURE ABOUT LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER

Spoiler

Story: Using the 5 Elements of Story method, comparing FE7 with FE9, here's the simple answers - FE9 easily has better worldbuilding and better themes, there's no competition in that area. FE7, however, has the better plot. I think I mentioned this before, but FE9 really drags in the Bengnion/Serenes sections, and the opening missions feel isolated from the story (bandit trouble and little else). FE7, on the other hand, can broadly be divided into three sections (Lyn's story, Eliwood's story up to losing his father, then the rest of the story up to the point where Eliwood and co. finally return to Valor. Also, FE9 plays most of its cards at the start, whereas FE7 starts off with a girl just trying to find her grandfather, and ends with a showdown centuries in the making against Nergal, who while not the deepest villain in the world, is still a more interesting one than Ashnard.

So that leaves characters. This is a weird one. FE7 has an extremely strong core trio (Eliwood, Lyn, Hector), plus a no. of close supporting characters (e.g. Ninian and Nils), and a massive gulf between them and every other member of your party bar a few exceptions (e.g. Nino and Jaffar). FE9, on the other hand, has a weaker core cast (Ike's good, so are the Greil Mercenaries, but not great, and Elincia's a doormat through most of the story), but on the other, almost every single playable character in the game has some level of memorability to them, helped in large part by base/info conversations, and how much easier supports are. At the end of the day, I'm going to call characters a tie - FE7 has a stronger core cast but weaker supporting cast, while FE9 is the opposite, with the line between 'core' and 'supporting' blurred.

So that leaves storytelling. Really, there's not much to contrast here - both games tell their stories using the same method FE always has, with static characters in place of backgrounds. FE9 has cinematics, but they're terrible, so there's not much to say there. FE7 has the benefit of gaiden chapters, while FE10 has the benefit of shifting backgrounds, adding more to a sense of place, not to mention the ease of support and info conversations. Overall, I'm going to give this to FE9 but really, the difference is so minor, it's barely worth counting up.

So, yeah. In terms of clear wins, FE10 has better themes and worldbuilding, FE7 has better plot, characters are a tie, FE9 has better storytelling, but it barely counts as a difference. So, FE9 should win, right? Well, maybe, but the difference is that not all elements of story are equal - something like plot is far more important than theme, for instance. I guess at the end of the day, I like the story of FE7 more, but on an objective level, I think FE9 is superior. Bear in mind that FE7 has the nostalgia factor, so if I'd played FE9 first, what then?

Overall, FE9 wins in story. So what about gameplay?

This is also hard to discuss, in part because I don't have a paradigm I can fall back on for gameplay. That, and it's easier for me to talk about story rather than gameplay anyway. But I'll try:

FE9 Pros: Great mechanics (e.g. cavalry, laguz units), decent addition of the bonus XP system, plus the talent system, plus the easier supports

FE9 Cons: Game is far too easy, has limited replay value

FE7 Pros: Gaiden chapters, greater replayability, the magic triangle (in addition to the weapons triangle), handles difficulty excellently

FE7 Cons: In light of POR, FE7's support system is terrible, cavalry is less interesting to use, etc.

I guess the difference is that in moment-to-moment mechanics, FE9 wins, while in replayability and overall feeling, FE7 wins. Really, I'm just going to call gameplay a tie. Each game does certain things better/worse than the other.

So, how do the games stack up? Well, to rank the FE games I've played to any meaningful extent:

6: Heroes
5: Shadow Dragon
4: The Binding Blade
3: The Sacred Stones
2: The Blazing Blade
1: Path of Radiance

Yes, as agaonizing as it is for me to say, I think PoR earns the top spot. Being as objective as possible, it just doesn't feel right to call FE7 the superior game, no matter how much attachment I have to it. As another litmus test, if someone was asking which of the above 6 FE games to start out with, regardless of any consideration of actually gaining access to them, FE9 would easily be the one I recommend.

So, yeah. That was fun.

Honestly I can't really compare FE storywise because they're so bland and similar in my opinion, they're all like 6/10 with barely any change between them (except for awakening on where they're like 3/10). But they all follow the same formula so closely and barely bother diverting from it. It's an okay formula but there's nothing really interesting about it, bad empire is bad, attack good empire which is good, the rest write itself. Can't say I really remember most of the case beyond the core 3-4 character.

Gameplay wise there's a bit more variation, I'd say here blazing blade would come out on top (alongside thracia 776 probably if I finished it, but was playing broken fan translation). Sacred stone has the much more varied class system, but on the downside has repeatable fight, which fuck up the balance and EXP system and sink the whole thing. The GC duo is pretty good too, but it keeps showering you in super OP character the entire way, meaning you just bench all your long running character. I still remember at the end of randiant dawn thinking I could have just used the character I was given in the last couple of chapter and would have been just fine to win. Heck Titania can pretty much solo 90% of the game by herselves and you start with her.

 

[Hawki]

Honestly I can't really compare FE storywise because they're so bland and similar in my opinion, they're all like 6/10 with barely any change between them (except for awakening on where they're like 3/10). But they all follow the same formula so closely and barely bother diverting from it. It's an okay formula but there's nothing really interesting about it, bad empire is bad, attack good empire which is good, the rest write itself. Can't say I really remember most of the case beyond the core 3-4 character.

FE undoubtedly has a formula, there's no denying that, and the no. of times it's diverged from that formula can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand (FE7, incidentally, is one of those examples). Still, I'd say the formula has gotten more refined over time. For instance:

-FE1/11: Barely played Shadow Dragon (enough I feel okay ranking it though), but evil empire is evil.
-FE6: There's nothing evil about Bern, Zephiel is just a jackass. A jackass that we understand why and how he came to be that way, but a jackass (if it isn't clear, I think Zephiel is given way more credit as a character than he deserves)
-FE8: Lyon is basically a better version of Zephiel. It helps that FE8 is really a tragedy - it's a tragedy for Grado itself, it sets up Virigarde as the big bad, but nup, Lyon is
-FE9: While Daein arguably fills the definition of "evil empire" (more like an evil kingdom, but meh), the worldbuilding is well done enough that I don't mind too much. The geo-politics of Tellius are fleshed out well enough that it's clear as to why Daein is the way it is, why Bengion is festering behind its facade, and how even the laguz aren't above politics (Gallia's reluctance to aid Crimea, Kilvas playing both sides, etc.)

So, yeah, definitely formulaic, but the formula's had more sugar and spice added over time, IMO.

The GC duo is pretty good too, but it keeps showering you in super OP character the entire way, meaning you just bench all your long running character. I still remember at the end of randiant dawn thinking I could have just used the character I was given in the last couple of chapter and would have been just fine to win. Heck Titania can pretty much solo 90% of the game by herselves and you start with her.

...yeah, pretty much. 0_0

 

[Silvanus]

Completed Kena, Bridge of Spirits, & Salt and Sacrifice. Both were fun enough but not amazing.

Plenty of little frustrations in S+S.

 

[Absent]

old ladies start hitting you with brooms that are as powerful as the mercenaries' spears or whatever.

Also geographically correct. That's greek grandmas for you. I had one of these. Designers truly did their homework on that game.

 

[meiam]

Completed Kena, Bridge of Spirits, & Salt and Sacrifice. Both were fun enough but not amazing.

Plenty of little frustrations in S+S.

Was there much to Kena? On one hand It look like those mid tier game aimed at kid that never really evolve gameplay wise, on the other it look like a passion project of a tiny team.

SS was fine, its mostly remarkable for being one of the first 2D metroidvania soulslike, but now there's like half a million of them.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Was there much to Kena? On one hand It look like those mid tier game aimed at kid that never really evolve gameplay wise, on the other it look like a passion project of a tiny team.

SS was fine, its mostly remarkable for being one of the first 2D metroidvania soulslike, but now there's like half a million of them.

I for one really liked Kena.
It looks like it's aimed for kids because of the cute animation style but gameplay wise it's actually hard. Yeah it's your basic dark-souls-y 3rd person action so nothing revelatory but it's done well and actually challenging. But with difficulty levels too so you can actually finish the game or brutalize yourself or whatever you wanna do.

 

[Silvanus]

Was there much to Kena? On one hand It look like those mid tier game aimed at kid that never really evolve gameplay wise, on the other it look like a passion project of a tiny team.

It had a relatively fun combat gameplay loop (quick or strong attacks, a basic ranged attack unlocked shortly in, a serviceable dodge, but nothing much in the way of combos or complexity). Some of the bosses were highlights. In terms of design it's often a very pretty game.

But it's just not got much depth to it. Combat is simple, exploration is (usually) simple, enemy variety is low.

SS was fine, its mostly remarkable for being one of the first 2D metroidvania soulslike, but now there's like half a million of them.

Methinks you might be thinking of Salt and Sanctuary, which is the precursor. Salt and Sacrifice is the 2022 sequel which i was playing first for reasons that are unclear even to me.

 

[Dalisclock]

Decided to do the Varnholds Lot DLC in Pathfinder Kingmaker.

Took about 8-10 hours(It felt like a lot) and it's fine. It's legit fine and no more then that. The concept is you take control of one of the people working for Meager Varn, one of the other people who earned a Barony in the Stolen Lands and you, being one of this trusted fellows, are made his general while him and his partner Caphal run the Barony. That being said, there's no kingdom management in varnhold's lot, it's pretty much just dealing with situations as they come up, but since it's Maeger's Barony, he leads the adventuring party when you leave town. Which admittedly is interesting how you have no control over your movement on the world map and at least once you'll be on your way to deal with something and Maeger will get distracted and go somewhere else to poke around. So now i guess I know what the NPCs in my party feel like when I'm wandering around the map in the main game.

Beyond that, it's mostly just wandering around dealing with issues and killing things. Every so often an issue comes up and Maeger and Cephel will bicker like an old married couple about it and then ask for your to decide, so yeah. The dungeon at the end feels like a slog because you run into monsters every room or so and there's really no safe camping spots and I turned the difficulty down to "Story" because I just wanted to be done by that point. In general it doesn't feel like I would have missed much by not doing it, though maybe part of it ties in later? There's some reveal about Fey fuckery going on but by this point I already knew that haivng done Season of Bloom.

Anyway, that done, I finish the DLC, go back to the main game and after doing a 2 week skip for a rank up I get a message that some guy disappeared on it's way to Varnhold and I got the main quest "The Varnhold Vanishing". I thought I had more time till the next event, because I still have like 2 months still the next curse event but you know what, fine, let's do this.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I just finished RE4R on hardcore.

Overall, a really solid remake. Everything feels updated for modern controls and gameplay expectations. Tank controls are gone, QTEs and button mashings are nearly non-existent, Ashley's new voice is actually nice to hear, and guns were fun to play with. I do wish ammo were purchasable from the merchant and not strictly limit to drops, but I guess it was done for balancing purposes. Ammo scarcity (save for handgun ammos) made each encounter either terrifying or annoying because of it. Enemies being more reactionary to Leon pointing guns at them were nice. Some of the encounters just felt annoying in their numbers, and that significantly lowered the horror factor for me. I must say, the plaga designs were terrifying back then, and it's still terrifying, now in their updated visuals.

Now to decide if I want to go for 2nd playthrough on professional. And get a A-rank to unlock that tommy gun. Hmm.....

 

[CastletonSnob]

Beat Gloomtail on my first try, thanks to a Mushroom Bingo while I was at 3 HP. That’s called clutchness, baby.

 

[Chimpzy]

So the story in Trauma Center is starting to go places. You got your bits of regular hospital drama, but then suddenly bomb threats, bioterrorists and incurable superdiseases. It's also harder than I thought it would be. I tend to fail each new operation a few times before I figure out how to do it efficiently, tho it does feel like some of them are pretty significant difficulty spikes. But it is an Atlus game, so maybe not so unexpected in hindsight.

 

[Bartholen]

Got the last of the remaining achievements in Sekiro, with the only ones still missing being the all skills and all achievements ones. And I'm probably not going to finish them. Grinding for achievements' sake is something I just don't have the constitution for, because I can feel my finite, precious life just ebbing away during the mindless repetition. But it gets worse, because it's not even mindless repetition: the best farming spot in the game has a random element (enemy AI), meaning that your results and time won't even be consistent across attempts, and you have to keep a tight focus on the timing. There are so, so many more productive uses of my time than that.

 

[Absent]

Aaaaah AC AC AC AC. Why do you have to keep shitting on all these fine games and environments with your overly stupid, moronic, tiresome, embarrassing animus assassin templar scifi conspiracy trash ?

It is not very good. Ditch that.

 

[BrawlMan]

with your overly stupid, moronic, tiresome, embarrassing animus assassin templar scifi conspiracy trash ?

It is not very good. Ditch that.

Preaching to the choir there. People have been complaining about it since Brotherhood and III. Most people wanted gone by Black Flag.