What are you currently playing?

[laggyteabag]

In between a few games, at the moment.

I bought a few games on the Switch eShop sale, so I will rattle those off:

Moonlighter - a lot of fun, though I do wish the inventory size was bigger.

Wizards of Legend - you feel like you are playing as the Avatar, but the game just doesn't feel quite as responsive as I would like it to.

Slay the Spire - Got this one on PC already, and it plays really nicely on Switch.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime - Playing this one with my girlfriend. Its a fun time controlling a ship, though I do hope that different ship varieties will change the gameplay up enough, because i've only played a couple of levels, and I already feel like I have played the whole game.

Other than that, im still continuing to work on my game backlog, and im currently playing the first Watch Dogs game on my PC. The problem with this one, is that I spent a bunch of time playing GTA V this year, so Watch Dogs really feels like a bargain basement version.The hacking is great for flavour, but honestly, I could spend 20 minutes hacking and stealthing my way through each mission, or I could blast through it in 20 seconds with my Tommy Gun (that the game gives you for free). I do hope that it gets a little more exciting, but from what I have heard, im not holding my breath.

 

[Dalisclock]

Dark Souls 3: It's always sunny on Archdragon peak.

So managed to work my way to the top of the peak and boy, that was fun. Dragons, Lizards, roly poly stone lizard guys, big lizard guys, lizard guys who summon NPCs to kick your ass. Oh, and a familiar looking dude in stone armor. Not sure if he is Havel or is one of his fanboys, but he hits just as hard as Havel did. I went a few rounds with him, got my ass beat hard and decided it wasn't worth it. I managed to snag the goodie he was guarding so I'll call it even. Also managed to run the assfuck trail to the summit to grab the dragonstone thingy, which apparently allows you to turn into a dragon-man dude. I tried it but aside from scaly cosplaying I didn't see much advantage to it. I know the dragons covenant was in DS1 and possibly DS2 but it was harder to access(the DS1 was pretty much a PVP covenant).

Also, is there a point to the ADP elevator? You don't access it until you've been teleported to the bonfire next to it and, well, there's a bonfire right there.

Of course, the main attraction of the peak is the Nameless King fight and yeah, his reputation for being a total bastard is well deserved. I'll come back to him later but at least now I can try him whenever I want. So I've got him and Big Teapot boy to throw myself against. Fun times.

OTOH, I took down the Old Demon King and that was an interesting fight. Sometimes I'd get into a groove and do really well against him, and sometimes I'd get my ass beat in short order. The NPC summon is nearly useless, due to her bringing fire to a demon fight(Silly summon).

Mostly did a lot of cleanup before going into the DLCs and endgame. Maxed out my Estus and Ashen Bone shards, got two of the greatbows, found the damn grass crest shield(an old favorite from DS1). After that, it was time to try the painted world of frozen death and yeah, I knew I was gonna have a bad time when I got lost almost immediately before being beset by wolves. And I know about the murdernun who awaits me up ahead. The people of this frozen wonderland don't take too kindly to strangers, unlike what I've heard about Canad....checks the map, oh, there's no map....okay, it's probably not Canada (unless I run across a Tim Hortons, then it is). Okay, that joke is about run into the ground and then some.

 

[BrawlMan]

I decided to do Vergil's bloody palace mode. I'm nearly halfway through. I saved at floor 42. I'll try and see if I can complete it when I get home from work. I already know that you don't fight Dante on the last floor unlike Vergil's campaign. I know some people complain, but it's not a big deal and I already saw that coming. I don't know why certain fans were surprised, when they did the same thing before and DMC 3 & 4. I do think it's a waste of potential that you don't get to fight Nero in Bloody palace mode in either versions of the game. Wasted potential; especially when Bayonetta was able to pull off something like this in both 1 & 2 of its survival and challenge modes. Also, the boss version of bury the light is awesome.

​

 

[meiam]

Wizards of Legend - you feel like you are playing as the Avatar, but the game just doesn't feel quite as responsive as I would like it to.

Responsive? I though it was very smooth, maybe you don't have any spell you like yet?

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Kind of, in the sense that the gods are sadists who enjoy toying with mortals, and Greek heroes tend to not be very nice, because honor in ancient times was more about how good you were at brutally disemboweling anyone who dared look at you funny, rather than, you know, not murdering them.

I’m wondering how many modern Greeks still believe in the old gods. I guess that’s the Hellenic movement? Also curious what they think of games like this or God of War. Makes we kinda hope that in Ragnarok we could get a peek at Greece post-Kratos at this stage which is apparently 150yrs or so later.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I decided to do Vegil's bloody palace mode. I'm nearly halfway through. I saved at floor 42. I'll try and see if I can complete it when I get home from work. I already know that you don't fight Dante on the last floor unlike Vergil's campaign. I know some people complain, but it's not a big deal and I already saw that coming. I don't know why certain fans were surprised, when they did the same thing before and DMC 3 & 4. I do think it's a waste of potential that you don't get to fight Nero in Bloody palace mode in either versions of the game. Wasted potential, especially when Bayonetta was able to pull off something like this and both 1 & 2 of its survival and challenge modes. Also, the boss version of bury the light is awesome.

​

Never played any of the challenge modes in these games but they probably all have a predetermined difficulty, as in no difficulty select correct? That’s how the classic GoW ones are anyways.

 

[meiam]

I’m wondering how many modern Greeks still believe in the old gods. I guess that’s the Hellenic movement? Also curious what they think of games like this or God of War. Makes we kinda hope that we could get a peek at Greece post-Kratos at this stage which is apparently 150yrs or so later.

I think there's not much post-Kratos Greece to talk about...

 

[BrawlMan]

Never played any of the challenge modes in these games but they probably all have a predetermined difficulty, as in no difficulty select correct? That’s how the classic GoW ones are anyways.

How it works depends on the game. In DMC3, you're on normal mode up until you get about floor 3000. After that it goes to hard mode and when you get to about 5000 it's very hard mode. 7000 and more and everything is on Dante Must Die mode. In DMC 4, 5, and DmC (2013) when you're at floor 20, you immediately jump the Son of Sparda mode (hard mode). then you go up to Dante Must die mode once you reach floor 80. In 4, 5, & DmC, you only go up 101 floors.

I forgot how it works with Bayonetta's Angel Slayer mode, because I never actually unlocked it. I didn't even know about the mode until about almost a year after when seeing it on youtube. You have to go through a lot of tedious cryptic bullcrap to unlock it. But I think the game goes to infinite climax at the halfway point. Bayo2's witch trials worked a bit differently. There were five of them and each would instead of the increase in difficulty. Though trials four and five would go to infinite climax within a few stages.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've also started the Ni No Kuni remaster on PS4, but I'm not far enough into it to really have an opinion on it yet, apart from the visuals which obviously look splendid. I was also able to pick it up for just 10 bucks, so I thought 'why the hell not'.

Splendid visuals about sums it up. Also kinda charming, but uncannily distinct from Ghibli movies. They were clearly just involved for the visuals (andsome od the designs I guess). Doesn't really have that quiet Ghibli "downtime" I enjoy in their movies, nor does it feel very personal or intimate. Anything that isn't combat feels like connect-the-dots busywork. And I was never a big fan of the weirdo hybrid real-time-but-also-turn-based combat. It's cumbersome and annoying even if it the game isn't exactly harder for it. Like trying to roll a square wheel down a hill. You're gonna get there one way or the other, but smooth would be nice.

Not that I didn't enjoy the game but a lot of it came from the visuals and generally reminiscing of playing Dragon's Quest VIII, which is like my favorite RPG of all time. Oh and Joe Hisaishi's score.

 

[laggyteabag]

Responsive? I though it was very smooth, maybe you don't have any spell you like yet?

Possibly?

It seems like there are a few moments before a spell is cast, and a few moments after the spell is cast before I can do anything again, which results in sustaining hits that I feel like I should have been able to dodge.

I don't know. I came off of approximately 100 hours of playing Hades this year, so anything that isn't as polished as that game, comes off feeling a little strange.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think there's not much post-Kratos Greece to talk about...

Well if it’s been a century and a half it’s still be interesting to see how time has affected the area if nothing else. Doubt it would ever happen though. At most we might get more details on his journey north.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

How it works depends on the game. In DMC3, you're on normal mode up until you get about floor 3000. After that it goes to hard mode and when you get to about 5000 it's very hard mode. 7000 and more and everything is on Dante Must Die mode in DMC 4, 5, and DmC (2013) when you're at floor 20, you immediately jump the Son of Sparda mode (hard mode). then you go up to Dante Must die mode once you reach floor 80. In 4, 5, & DmC, you only go up 101 floors.

I forgot how it works with Bayonetta's Angel Slayer mode, because I never actually unlocked it. I didn't even know about the mode until about almost a year after when seeing it on youtube. You have to go through a lot of tedious cryptic bullcraft unlock it. But I think the game goes to infinite climax at the halfway point. Bayo2's which trials worked a bit differently. There were five of them and each would instead of the increase in difficulty. Though trials four and five would go to infinite climax within a few stages.

Bloody hell how long does each floor take? I’d think even 700 sounds like overkill but 7000...eyayeyeee.

 

[BrawlMan]

Bloody hell how long does each floor take? I’d think even 700 sounds like overkill but 7000...eyayeyeee.

In Devil May Cry 3, the max floor is 9,999. You will always face Vergil's third form on Dante Must Die difficulty. How long each floor takes depends on you and your skills. There are three portals after completing a floor the first portal which is wind like, teleports you to a single floor. The second portal which has lightning and clouds in it skips 10 floors. The fire portal skips 100 floors. DMC 3's bloody pals can take you anywhere between 2 to 4 hours to complete. I know my fastest time was 2 hours and 55 minutes as Dante. About 3 hours and 10 minutes as Vergil. With the new co-op mode in the Switch version of 3, it will take even less time, if you have two highly skilled players. Yeah, it can be a freaking nightmare. It's why I'm never doing bloody palace for DMC3 ever again.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

In Devil May Cry 3, the max floor is 9,999. You will always face Vergil's third form on Dante Must Die difficulty. How long each floor takes depends on you and your skills. There are three portals after completing a floor the first portal which is wind like, teleports you to a single floor. The second portal which has lightning and clouds in it skips 10 floors. The fire portal skips 100 floors. DMC 3's bloody pals can take you anywhere between 2 to 4 hours to complete. I know my fastest time was 2 hours and 55 minutes as Dante. About 3 hours and 10 minutes as Vergil. With the new co-op mode in the Switch version of 3, it will take even less time, if you have to highly skilled players. Yeah, it can be a freaking nightmare. It's why I'm never doing bloody palace for DMC3 ever again.

That actually sounds familiar. I must’ve tried it but got PTSD and repressed it lol.

 

[meiam]

Possibly?

It seems like there are a few moments before a spell is cast, and a few moments after the spell is cast before I can do anything again, which results in sustaining hits that I feel like I should have been able to dodge.

I don't know. I came off of approximately 100 hours of playing Hades this year, so anything that isn't as polished as that game, comes off feeling a little strange.

I also played it just after hades and it felt fine. I will say that something like 80% of spells are complete garbage and it takes a bit of time to get a baisc spell that feel good.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

You must be unlucky, I've only ever had two bugs: one where it wouldn't not let me out of one of the safe house (so I head to exit to title screen to reset) and some minor visual bug.

To add to the bugs list: using the smoke bolt upgrade that lets you sneak-kill zombies inside would usually fuck me up and warp Sebastian halfway across the room if I chained more than 2 kills at once. Coupled with the kill-screens and the dodgy clipping, I'd say it's a pretty buggy game. Not breakingly so, but port-bad.

Disagree and that's an awesome cover of Duran Duran.

Maybe if it played for more than 5 seconds. As used it comes out of nowhere and vanishes to comical effect. It was corny and unintentionally funny. Also not a fan of bossa or whatever it was that chick was trying to do.

So basically RE4 is what you're describing, minus the technobabble. RE4 suffers more from this than EW2 ever could.

I don't know how you get to Resident Evil 4, but here's the fundamental difference between the two: Resident Evil 4 doesn't take itself seriously for a second. It knows exactly what it's going for and how to get there. Evil Within 2 on the other hand has the pretense of being a serious and emotional story, for which the game has zero aptitude. If it's "basically RE4" because it's about a guy rescuing a girl, then it's also "basically Mario". Evil Within 2 simply is too exaggerated, too overdone, too gratuitous and too unsubtle to pull off the purported drama. And failing at drama will never not feel funny. It's perfectly possible to make an emotionally resonant Dad Game, but Evil Within 2 doesn't have the depth or the skill. Neither does Sebastian. His 2 defining traits are being angry and clueless, which paradoxically gives him less of a personality than GOW4 Kratos.

As for confusing motivations: it's one thing to state a character's endgame, it's another to trace the logic in the steps taken to that endgame.

 

[BrawlMan]

To add to the bugs list: using the smoke bolt upgrade that lets you sneak-kill zombies inside would usually fuck me up and warp Sebastian halfway across the room if I chained more than 2 kills at once. Coupled with the kill-screens and the dodgy clipping, I'd say it's a pretty buggy game. Not breakingly so, but port-bad.




Maybe if it played for more than 5 seconds. As used it comes out of nowhere and vanishes to comical effect. It was corny and unintentionally funny. Also not a fan of bossa or whatever it was that chick was trying to do.




I don't know how you get to Resident Evil 4, but here's the fundamental difference between the two: Resident Evil 4 doesn't take itself seriously for a second. It knows exactly what it's going for and how to get there. Evil Within 2 on the other hand has the pretense of being a serious and emotional story, for which the game has zero aptitude. If it's "basically RE4" because it's about a guy rescuing a girl, then it's also "basically Mario". Evil Within 2 simply is too exaggerated, too overdone, too gratuitous and too unsubtle to pull off the purported drama. And failing at drama will never not feel funny. It's perfectly possible to make an emotionally resonant Dad Game, but Evil Within 2 doesn't have the depth or the skill. Neither does Sebastian. His 2 defining traits are being angry and clueless, which paradoxically gives him less of a personality than GOW4 Kratos.

As for confusing motivations: it's one thing to state a character's endgame, it's another to trace the logic in the steps taken to that endgame.

just because a game doesn't take itself seriously doesn't make it good nor any better than the other. Sorry for has similar problems, well the motivations aren't exactly confusing: get president's daughter, ship back with a virus and try to take over the USA from the shadows. They seem to go way out of the way through ruin their own plan constantly trying to kill Leon, and more importantly, Ashley. For as much as they try to capture, they try to kill her just as much a more than half the time. Leon was just Dante really. Not a problem, but you didn't have that much depth either. And I am a Leon fanatic. Ironic, because Dante was based off of Leon.

While Evil Within 2does take itself a bit more seriously it does have its moments of subtle humor. It's not as exaggerated as say RE4's, but it's still there. The game does know how to make from itself time to time it's just not as obvious or on Deadpool levels. Sebastian's not the one with the most personality either, but he does have one.

As for confusing motivations: it's one thing to state a character's endgame, it's another to trace the logic in the steps taken to that endgame.

Speak for yourself. it's pretty easy to face the steps in logic, you just have to be paying attention. Besides, like I mentioned,vLos Illuminados wasn't the most exactly logical with their methods either to get to their end goals. They were nothing more than patsys to Wesker's in the end game. Even if they got what they wanted, Wesker would have just screwed them over anyway. So the efforts would have been all for not.

 

[Meshakhad]

Did you do Heydrich's path? It's amazing.

Haven't touched Germany yet. I have a disinclination to play as Nazis, and I prefer minor nations anyway. Currently exploring the many wonders of Komi, the Dumpster Fire Republic.

 

[Neuromancer]

Haven't touched Germany yet. I have a disinclination to play as Nazis, and I prefer minor nations anyway. Currently exploring the many wonders of Komi, the Dumpster Fire Republic.

I am inclined to agree. The only other German run I've done is Speer, for the express purpose of making him and his loyalists suffer. I will say, though, that Heydrich's game is special.

Komi is very interesting. I've done a couple of games there getting Stalina and Svetlana respectvely. Enjoyed them both. I eventually want to see Tabby's game, if only because I've seen everyone talk about it. I've also done Zhukov, the Siberian Free Territory (my first game of TNO, in fact), Sablin and Omsk. Zhukov's game is ok, as is the SFT's, but Sablin and Omsk are really good. Omsk especially is an examination of the destructiveness of hatred.

I've mostly been playing the US nowadays, though. Wanted to see the Harrington and Glen presidencies respectively.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Haven't touched Germany yet. I have a disinclination to play as Nazis, and I prefer minor nations anyway. Currently exploring the many wonders of Komi, the Dumpster Fire Republic.

I have the same thing.

Also, while TNO is really interesting (especially as a modder, its design and the way it uses the systems of HOI4 is really fascinating), but for some reason I don't find it terribly fun. I love that it's so narrative, but it also feels much less emergent as a result.