What are you currently playing?

[Kae]

Lost Odyssey

Picked this up for a fiver at a garage sales this morning, pulled my 360 out of storage. I'm not far in of course, but it's pretty decent so far. Sorta PS2 era jrpg gameplay, but with a bit better graphics. Kind of slow paced perhaps, and lacking the quality of life stuff you often find in modern jrpgs. Best thing tho is ironically the least interactive thing about it, which are the dream you can find, these text short stories about the main character's past. They're well written and paint a pretty bleak picture of how much it would suck to be immortal.

Also there's an old Unskippable episode about it. The nostalgia.

I love Lost Odyssey, I hope you enjoy it too, it's a real tear-jerker but then again I cry very easily, since it was made by a lot of ex-Final Fantasy staff I kinda consider it an unofficial Final Fantasy game and it's definitely better than the actual numbered Final Fantasy of that era.

 

[meiam]

Tactics Ogre Reborn, it's not my fist time playing Let Us Cling Together but the first time had been on the PSP version and this has a LOT of mechanical changes in addition to voice acting, I will say I'm not a fan of the weird filter they used on the pixel-art which you can't turn off, but everything else is kinda good, like the main reason why I didn't finish the PSP version is because You have a lot of options for builds and at some point I started just grinding to experiment with builds instead of progressing the admittedly really interesting story, because I'm dumb and I love experimenting with builds, and in tactics games that let you get levels in different classes to unlock different abilities to basically make your own custom class I get distracted really easily.
So anyway the mechanical changes they made that make it easier to advance in this version aren't necessarily better, because technically you have less options in this than the PSP version (Which I don't even know if it was the OG version, I think maybe the OG version was on PS1), but the game is still fun and very tactical but also has some measures to make sure you don't ruin the story by grinding, which is kinda good, a lot of these Tactics RPGs can be trivialized by grinding and this kinda can't, because you have basically 2 relevant levels, your units individual level and your faction level, and basically no unit can exceed your faction level, so no matter how much you grind you'll never be over levelled for the story, there's also the thing that units at max EXP don't get any at the end of battle but still earn EXP that goes to the rest of the party, so it's easy to level up under levelled units, but yeah, this means that the story can remain challenging even if you take your time to grind, but even if you don't, you know all fights are winnable as long as you are around 3 or 4 levels below the Faction level, they're just harder.

Point is that while I can see people not liking the changes, there's no doubt that they make the game easier to get a grasp on and since there are less systems to invest time on and only a limitted window in which you can improve it, they make it so that even if you are investing as much time as possible into those systems you end up advancing the story quite fast compared to the old one where you could just grind forever, this also at least not where I am in the story, has no way of grinding for money (Unless you can sell EXP, which I haven't tried, but you do get EXP on your inventory) which you could in the old version, anyways, I'd say this is easily better for getting into Tactics Ogre than the PSP version and I'm already further along in the story than in my PSP file, it's also more comfortable to play on a computer than in a tiny PSP screen though, since I play for long stretches of time.

The system was indeed changed from the original PS1 game to the PSP. Honestly, I think the PSP game has by far the worst class system of any tactic and I abandoned the game pretty quick because of it, being force to constantly grind from level 1 every time you want to use a new class is just not fun, especially when you get unique character and they start at 1 when you're 30, and any change is greatly appreciated.

 

[Kae]

The system was indeed changed from the original PS1 game to the PSP. Honestly, I think the PSP game has by far the worst class system of any tactic and I abandoned the game pretty quick because of it, being force to constantly grind from level 1 every time you want to use a new class is just not fun, especially when you get unique character and they start at 1 when you're 30, and any change is greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I remember that being an issue on the PSP game, like I said I remember dropping it because of grinding, like the one I did to make whatever build I wanted plus whatever new character I acquired, plus, you had that weird thing where you had like a global class level for each individual class that was shared for all your party members of the same class that just unnerved me and made me want to keep all classes at roughly the same level, but then I would over-level some units when doing that and a lot of stuff, it was most definitely a mess, Reborn is certainly more streamlined for the better, plus the voice acting they added is legitimately good and while the PSP soundtrack was pretty great, the Orchestral version of the soundtrack in Reborn is really great, overall I'm glad for Reborn, really the only downside (Unless you really liked grinding and messing with the PSP systems) is the weird filter over the pixel art, and I can get over that, it's not that big a deal, just wish you could turn it off.

Also Yasumi Matsuno is probably one of the best game writers out there, so anything that makes his stories more accesible is great, I also have Vagrant Story and that's another game that's extremely difficult to get into, the combat system on that is way too complex so I haven't beaten it, wish they give the Reborn treatment to that teams other stuff, would love a Final Fantasy Tactics with this treatment, which is another Matsuno game I love with some problems with the mechanics that could use some work, though in that case the PSP version didn't make things that much worse other than it ran like crap on PSP, but some Shakespearean style voice acting would fit that games amazing story perfectly and I'd definitely would like to see that.

 

[Bedinsis]

After a very long break I got into Danganronpa 2 again. The first murder has occurred.

Finished the first murder case. Got a B ranking.

The trials are similar enough to the previous title that I'd like to call them "basically the same". They once again have a section finishing the trial that entails no longer doing a logic puzzle but doing a rhythm based minigame that is meant to represent... yeah, the best interpretation I can offer is that you're basically shouting "You did it! You 100 % it! Admit that you did it!" until the other party is beaten into submission. Which remains a weak way to finish off a case, in particular since I had to fail some times to figure out how the minigame even worked.

I think I've figured out why I dislike the minigames aside from them adding action based gameplay into a genre that I think is better served by letting the player sit back, relaxed and consider all the pieces of information: their tutorials are poorly implemented. Visual novels is a genre that has part of their DNA in conveying the story via text on screen, but when it comes to the minigames I think they could do a lot to improve the game as a whole if they actually had a playable tutorial. As is, you get a series of text saying "do this, when this happens, using this button, and when the finishing move comes, do this; press [Esc] to review the rules again", a series of rules I forget some detail in even though it is meant to be a simple minigame. Had they made the tutorial playable I suspect it would feel more intuitive.

Regarding the story... I was at first going to say that it felt like a major improvement over last game, but then a character detail popped up that made me remember to lower my expectations, even though I remain hopeful that the character detail won't play out poorly.

Spoiler: Danganronpa 1 & 2

So the good parts first: Byakuya. In the first game, he basically treated everyone like crap, including the girl smitten by him, and at one point he interfered in a murder in order to make the mystery more exciting, if I'm not misremembering. All of these are things I consider negatives, and it wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't treat him as anything like an exemplar of the human species. I therefore greatly appreciated that in this game he did not treat people as crap, he just was emotionally uninvolved in his fellow students. While still showing leadership capabilities, drive and intelligence. And, as I found out after the trial, concern for his fellow students.

The bad: Nagito. I was at first gonna say that I liked him, since he was in essence your investigative partner, like Kyoko in last game, so you got to see that aspect of him a lot. And he was clever enough that I didn't dislike him. Then the trial proceeded and it turned out at first he had interfered in the murder in a way I first thought would mean that he had only done so to make the mystery more intriguing. Then in the aftermath it turned out the true killer had gone for him, but slipped up, and Nagito had intended to perform a murder which the killer intended to stop. On the one hand having a character I had started to like turn out to be a would-be murderer is a genuine twist, on the other hand, his motivation for doing so was due to him subscribing to the stupid Despair/Hope dichotomy central to Danganronpa lore. Which I thought was stupid. If he honestly think that he is worthless compared to the other students present, it doesn't really come across in his characterization so far.

 

[Worgen]

Iron Harvest. Its pretty cool, plays just like a kinda janky Company of Heroes, but with a more interesting story since its not more ww2 stuff. Instead its alternate world post ww1 stuff with cool junky mechs. Voice acting is... interesting, sounds like they have a lot of polish people doing voices, which is fine, pretty sure its a polish production, but you can also set it so everyone talks in their native language which is cool.

Fashion Police Squad. Really fun fps that doesn't take itself seriously at all and is just awesome. Plus, its got some fantastic boss fights, which fps games tend to struggle with. You have a number of fashionable weapons to deal with the numerous fashion crimes, each weapon works against a couple of fashion criminals but so far I haven't found a single use weapon, but I like the switching. Story is also a lot of fun and just as dramatic as you would want.

Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Age. Story is... special. Like, I know what the overall plot is at this point, but its so weird to follow what the characters are saying and what their motivations/leaps of logic are about. Battle system is real time, but feels a bit like an mmo, where you swing, then wait and swing again with normal attacks, so far not many. But, there is something interesting about it, most of the characters feel like they are trying to do Shakespeare through a Japanese lens. But then there is Vaan, Balthier and Fran. Vaan feels like he was inserted into the game without really belonging as the point of view character, which he might not have been if what I read is to be believed. Balthier feels like hes just above all of this and wants to just get paid and stay out of this nonsense. Fran... I haven't really gotten a handle on her personality, aside from she hangs out with Balthier, but her accent is really interesting and shes got these weird body proportions that make her interesting. (weirdly long limbs, short torso) So she's partially interesting because I just don't know much about her.

 

[Absent]

Creeper World 4 is surprisingly easy so far (and so far is far). It's odd. I was intimidated because I remember the series as quite ruthless at times, with failure to optimise your first moves leading to unavoidable defeat. Not here. Mistakes at the beginning (unavoidable given how new enemy devices are revealed) are forgiving, allowing for strong early setbacks to be overcome with time.

Also intimidated because each new game introduces new types of enemies, and we're far from the early simple turret-versus-liquid. That and the new 3D waves physics made me expect to be overwhelmed by this new iteration. But nope. Feels like the easiest of the series. Maybe because you own devices also got expanded, and may be a tad overpowered this time.

Still, as addictive as ever. And psychologically tetris-like, as every time I play a Creeper World game, I end up seeing its gameplay as a symbol of everything in life.

 

[meiam]

Yeah, I remember that being an issue on the PSP game, like I said I remember dropping it because of grinding, like the one I did to make whatever build I wanted plus whatever new character I acquired, plus, you had that weird thing where you had like a global class level for each individual class that was shared for all your party members of the same class that just unnerved me and made me want to keep all classes at roughly the same level, but then I would over-level some units when doing that and a lot of stuff, it was most definitely a mess, Reborn is certainly more streamlined for the better, plus the voice acting they added is legitimately good and while the PSP soundtrack was pretty great, the Orchestral version of the soundtrack in Reborn is really great, overall I'm glad for Reborn, really the only downside (Unless you really liked grinding and messing with the PSP systems) is the weird filter over the pixel art, and I can get over that, it's not that big a deal, just wish you could turn it off.

Also Yasumi Matsuno is probably one of the best game writers out there, so anything that makes his stories more accesible is great, I also have Vagrant Story and that's another game that's extremely difficult to get into, the combat system on that is way too complex so I haven't beaten it, wish they give the Reborn treatment to that teams other stuff, would love a Final Fantasy Tactics with this treatment, which is another Matsuno game I love with some problems with the mechanics that could use some work, though in that case the PSP version didn't make things that much worse other than it ran like crap on PSP, but some Shakespearean style voice acting would fit that games amazing story perfectly and I'd definitely would like to see that.

Vagrant story is hard to learn but easy to master, if you can get the timming of the special attack, it kinda become a breeze. There's some complicated system for weapon crafting, but it just boil down to your weapon getting better at killing stuff you hit often.

Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Age. Story is... special. Like, I know what the overall plot is at this point, but its so weird to follow what the characters are saying and what their motivations/leaps of logic are about. Battle system is real time, but feels a bit like an mmo, where you swing, then wait and swing again with normal attacks, so far not many. But, there is something interesting about it, most of the characters feel like they are trying to do Shakespeare through a Japanese lens. But then there is Vaan, Balthier and Fran. Vaan feels like he was inserted into the game without really belonging as the point of view character, which he might not have been if what I read is to be believed. Balthier feels like hes just above all of this and wants to just get paid and stay out of this nonsense. Fran... I haven't really gotten a handle on her personality, aside from she hangs out with Balthier, but her accent is really interesting and shes got these weird body proportions that make her interesting. (weirdly long limbs, short torso) So she's partially interesting because I just don't know much about her.

You might have heard about it before, but Vaan was literally inserted into a game he didn't belong in. The game went trough development hell and people had to be replaced and the game was soft rebooted mid development. You'll notice the game has essentially two story that are completely unrelated to each others, sadly the main character are part of the very boring one.

 

[Worgen]

You might have heard about it before, but Vaan was literally inserted into a game he didn't belong in. The game went trough development hell and people had to be replaced and the game was soft rebooted mid development. You'll notice the game has essentially two story that are completely unrelated to each others, sadly the main character are part of the very boring one.

Yeah, I did hear that and its true. He has absolutely no reason to be involved. Him as a character isn't the worst, but hes just so pointless when everyone else seems to have a point.

 

[Kae]

Vagrant story is hard to learn but easy to master, if you can get the timming of the special attack, it kinda become a breeze. There's some complicated system for weapon crafting, but it just boil down to your weapon getting better at killing stuff you hit often.

Oh man, I'm so bad at using crafting systems, I always avoid them like the plague if it's at all possible.
IDK why, I can engage with complicated skill trees and weird level up systems but crafting I just can't, it's somehow always too much.
But I have hope that I'll get the hang of Vagrant Story eventually.

Yeah, I did hear that and its true. He has absolutely no reason to be involved. Him as a character isn't the worst, but hes just so pointless when everyone else seems to have a point.

Not my boy Matsuno's fault, he may have directed the game and been the lead writer but corporate is going to corporate and screw everything up last minute, pretty sure a lot of stuff also had to be dropped because of this change too, which is unfortunate because a lot of characters will not get the character development they kinda needed by the end of the story, it's definitely one of Matsuno's weakest works, fucking square ruining shit.

 

[Worgen]

Not my boy Matsuno's fault, he may have directed the game and been the lead writer but corporate is going to corporate and screw everything up last minute, pretty sure a lot of stuff also had to be dropped because of this change too, which is unfortunate because a lot of characters will not get the character development they kinda needed by the end of the story, it's definitely one of Matsuno's weakest works, fucking square ruining shit.

That's not uncommon for Final Fantasy games. If your fav isn't one of the main playable party members, I mean MAIN ones, then chances are they won't have as much story as you want.

 

[Bartholen]

Got to a second ending in Fear & Hunger, which is to my understanding the "standard" ending: You discover the ruins of an ancient civilization, defeat an ascended human there, and become god. Considering you can reach this ending within like 30 minutes of reaching your initial goal, it felt a bit underwhelming. But here's where I think the game truly begins: exploring all the areas that are left, and finding the hidden paths and endings. So definitely going to keep playing.

Also, I got to see a player death that was so graphic it was censored on Youtube: The player character literaly getting raped to death. What you see is just a few pixels moving on screen, but the implication and context is so vile and disgusting I can understand why it was covered with a black box.

 

[Kae]

That's not uncommon for Final Fantasy games. If your fav isn't one of the main playable party members, I mean MAIN ones, then chances are they won't have as much story as you want.

Just comparing to other Matsuno works, like in Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling together, even some generic characters that don't even have a unique portrait have character development and interactions with other characters, which is wildly different to XII, Final Fantasy Tactics also had that, and Vagrant Story too, though Vagrant Story has a really small cast of characters in comparison, but they all get detailed stories.

But yeah, probably a problem with mainline FF games in general.

 

[Worgen]

But yeah, probably a problem with mainline FF games in general.

The FF7 remake probably did it best, probably because they are splitting 1 game into 3 and Square has been paranoid about doing a remake of 7 so they put a lot of thought and effort into it. Plus, the smaller main cast helped.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Return of the Obra Dinn

Ghost ship Cluedo. You walk around a corpse-filled merchant vessel in 1807, reliving all 60 corpses' final moments (magic) and putting together who's who, how it happened and who did it via cross-referencing information and process of elimination.

I like it because the detective gameplay is fairly elegant. Most games illustrate deduction in a fairly obvious way, hints are heavily telegraphed, and won't even allow you to be wrong. Here you're given a crew manifesto, a couple of crude sketches and a blueprint of the ship. That's about it. You replay each person's final moments but they're not immediately staged in such a way as to be helpful to your investigation ("Hello Paul, it is your brother, Steve - put the candlestick down and go back to the orlop deck"). Ultimately you're trying to piece together a timeline of events on top of figuring out every single death onboard, and it's nice that the game has you working backwards from the very last death to figure out what the hell happened in the first place.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Got to a second ending in Fear & Hunger, which is to my understanding the "standard" ending: You discover the ruins of an ancient civilization, defeat an ascended human there, and become god. Considering you can reach this ending within like 30 minutes of reaching your initial goal, it felt a bit underwhelming. But here's where I think the game truly begins: exploring all the areas that are left, and finding the hidden paths and endings. So definitely going to keep playing.

Also, I got to see a player death that was so graphic it was censored on Youtube: The player character literaly getting raped to death. What you see is just a few pixels moving on screen, but the implication and context is so vile and disgusting I can understand why it was covered with a black box.

Ok, wait, what is this game? I don't have a steam account and steam won't show me the store page without logging in.

 

[meiam]

Ok, wait, what is this game? I don't have a steam account and steam won't show me the store page without logging in.

It's a weird JRPG ish game with really fucked up stuff but some interesting if uncompromising gameplay. Think silent hill meet final fantasy.

Somone posted this some time gao which gives a good idea of the game

 

[BrawlMan]

I decided to trade in my RAY double pack collection for Pocky & Rocky Reshrined. A sequel to a long running arcade franchise. I rarely ever played the past games, but I am what genre it is. A top down run and gun. This title, and the one on the SNES is once again developed by Natsume, and published by Taito. Natsume are the same people who did both of the Ninja Warriors Remakes and both versions of Wild Guns. So I know I am in for a good time. I'd say the trade was worth it. Plus, I needed somethin different this time. Right now I am going through single player on normal.

​

 

[Drathnoxis]

It's a weird JRPG ish game with really fucked up stuff but some interesting if uncompromising gameplay. Think silent hill meet final fantasy.

Somone posted this some time gao which gives a good idea of the game

I find that person's style of delivery too grating to watch for more than a minute. Couple questions, are there any roguelike elements in the game? And would you (and Bartholen) say that the game is worth playing?

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished the second trial from Danganronpa 2. Once I found out the killer's motivation at first I found it ridiculous, since it felt taken from a shonen manga more than anything else. Then they proceeded to earnestly go on with that premise, as taken from fiction primarily as it felt like, and delivered an actually earnest expression of that backstory in a way that actually made me care about the character in question.

 

[meiam]

I find that person's style of delivery too grating to watch for more than a minute. Couple questions, are there any roguelike elements in the game? And would you (and Bartholen) say that the game is worth playing?

1- Not really, but RNG can screw your playtrough so kinda? And its 100% meant to be played by constantly dying and trying again.
2- It's an interesting game if you know what you're getting into, but I bounced off pretty quick because it often fall into trial and error.