Well, you’re in luck because this games gives you a lot of ways to accomplish that.
What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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I finally managed to clear Ascension 18 in Slay the Spire. What's funny is that it took me literally months and probably hundreds of attempts, but it took me only 2 to clear Ascension 19 right after. Only ascension 20 left, and then I'll have that Steam achievement woo babyyy.
So I played MOAR Person 5 Royal. Just beaten Okumura's palace, and I think I still have like 2-3 palaces left? I
And I gotta say, I've come to invest in this game way more than I thought I was goning to. Capturing and fusing shadows for more powerful persona is such a fun way to experiment. Currently I'm looking for ways to get all four horsemen!
love the story so far, but I hate how during cutscenes I come back to present time and Sae keeps spoiling the next target and their evil deeds. I really wish it was written in a way so that she gives me (the player) a vague info on the targets, and once I beaten the palace she THEN gives me the full extent of their wrongdoings, even the stuff that happened off-sceen and not mentioned in the dialogs
While I love the idea behind confidants and how you can build relationships with NPCs to help you out in out o battle, I also think some confidants are more useful than others. I mean let's think about this;
Hanged Man (The gun shop guy) Confidant's ability to customize your gun and Devil (Ohya) Confidant's ability to lower security level,
OR
Star (Hifumi) Confidant's ability to swap party members during battle and Strength (The Twin Wardens) Confidant's ability to fuse personas higher level than you
I guess depending on your play style it may vary, but I can honestly say I'd pick the latter any day.
I heard this game has new game plus and the social stats carry over, and I'm glad that'll be the case. I mean it'll make some activities completely meaningless to do, but it makes time management better.
And I gotta say, I've come to invest in this game way more than I thought I was goning to. Capturing and fusing shadows for more powerful persona is such a fun way to experiment. Currently I'm looking for ways to get all four horsemen!
love the story so far, but I hate how during cutscenes I come back to present time and Sae keeps spoiling the next target and their evil deeds. I really wish it was written in a way so that she gives me (the player) a vague info on the targets, and once I beaten the palace she THEN gives me the full extent of their wrongdoings, even the stuff that happened off-sceen and not mentioned in the dialogs
While I love the idea behind confidants and how you can build relationships with NPCs to help you out in out o battle, I also think some confidants are more useful than others. I mean let's think about this;
Hanged Man (The gun shop guy) Confidant's ability to customize your gun and Devil (Ohya) Confidant's ability to lower security level,
OR
Star (Hifumi) Confidant's ability to swap party members during battle and Strength (The Twin Wardens) Confidant's ability to fuse personas higher level than you
I guess depending on your play style it may vary, but I can honestly say I'd pick the latter any day.
I heard this game has new game plus and the social stats carry over, and I'm glad that'll be the case. I mean it'll make some activities completely meaningless to do, but it makes time management better.
The covenant have widely different value, some are practically useless, others, if you get them early enough, trivialize entire aspect of the game. It wasn't this stark in P3/4, but in 5 they really crank up the usefulness of some of them. Problem is some are really well hidden if you don't know about them you can easily miss them the entire game.
So true. For example, around the third palace I was getting annoyed with constantly running back to the entrance to switch party members. Then it turns out Hifumi's confidant allows me to swap party members, and that I had completely forgotten/ignored meeting her. Or how about fact that I was getting really annoyed with level limits on persona fusion, only to find out I have to build relationship with the wardens?
I might just do that new game plus right away, so I'll have more time to max out every confidant. It's currently mid-october in-game and I don't think there's enough time. So far I only maxed two and reached rank 7 with another two. All others are sub-5
Dunno if you meet the maid/politician/fortune teller, but they're all incredibly useful. Politician is really random too. If you get the really important one early you can finish with tons of time to spare and everything maxed out.
I'm finally done with Darkest Dungeon. I beat the Darkest dungeon on week 79 (on Bloodmoon difficulty) and beat the Countess a couple weeks later. Yes I save scummed, but screw this game, losing just means you need to repeat hours upon hours of progress, and the game is long enough as it is. And sometimes I would forget to equip trinkets (equipping trinkets every single mission was one of the biggest annoyances in the game) or bring blood when I had infected, and reloading saved me a stupidly wasted week. I didn't beat all the champion level bosses, or any actually, except one on my radiant playthrough, or the fanatic, or the shambler, or the Crimson Court Guardian, but screw it. I'm so sick of the game and the credits have already rolled so I win! You can't take it away from me. I've already beaten those bosses like 4 times each at lower difficulties anyway. I could probably do it simply enough with the heroes I have leveled, but I just can't stand to play the game for the 5 or so hours it would take to run through the dungeons another 10 or so times.
The game is simply designed to waste your time, and there is no other way to describe it. I've already expounded at length on the game's failings, but I feel the need to stress this one more time. The slow walking pace and combat speed (I doubled these in the game files and that helped), the sheer length of time necessary to raise a hero from level 0 to 6 (7-9 missions at around 20-40 minutes each, you are looking at roughly 5 hours of investment) combined with the swiftness of death. It's not particularly unlikely that you will get a string of bad luck and have your characters miss a bunch of attacks, have the enemy land a couple crits, all target the same character putting them on death's door, and inflict bleed and/or blight on them so that they (have a chance to) die on their next turn before you can do anything about it. And then guess what, that's 5 hours down the drain, decided over the course of a minute due to events largely beyond your control. The enemies just do a ridiculous amount of damage and stress in general, it's not uncommon for one bad round to end with a character going from 0 stress to 60, and if you didn't bring along one of the very few characters capable of removing stress you are just going to have a bad time. Also when the enemies land a crit on you (which they will constantly) all your characters take 7-14 points of stress, but when you land a crit only one or two will heal 3 points. Obviously the game is winnable with certain strategies, but it just is annoying and you are always just on the edge of a bad run of luck completely screwing you over even from full health. When I lose in Darkest Dungeon most of the time I don't feel like it's my fault.
Add to that the game is completely backwards in character progression. Higher level characters are much bigger liabilities than lower level ones. They cost more to heal stress and remove bad quirks, but they make less money in dungeons. You have 16 inventory slots no matter what. This is the same for apprentice level dungeons as well as champion. Gold, gems, and heirlooms all stack the same everywhere as well. The only difference is that you are more likely to find more loot and higher level gems in a higher level dungeon. But in reality you have less room in a champion dungeon because provisions are much more important. When enemies are dealing 6 blight over 4 rounds you need to have plenty of antivenom to deal with it, and you can't afford to ditch it. Doing a medium length apprentice dungeon is just as likely to result in filling my pockets completely with heirlooms and gold as a champion, and at far less risk. It's so completely backwards. You still need high level heroes for high level bosses, but it's just bizarre design.
Edit: I forgot to mention something else that really annoyed me during the game. The game lists the moves that each enemy is capable of, but doesn't give any information about them beyond whether they inflict bleed or stress or whatever. This is really annoying, for a difficult game involving tactical turn based gameplay it would be really useful to be able to tell what ranks a move can hit, how many ranks it will hit, and what ranks it can be used from. The accuracy and crit chance of a move would be useful too. How are you supposed to know whether there is any point of using a skill to move an enemy from the back to the front if you don't know if they are getting access to a powerful move up front? Why even give me the list of moves when it's such a half-hearted description of an enemies ability? Also, I found it annoying that you couldn't manually scroll the map around, your only option was to center on party. That sucks.
Overall, I just hate this game. I don't recommend anybody play it unless they want to do the same dungeons and fight the same enemies over and over, and don't care how much of their time the game wastes. I really shouldn't have spent the last month playing a game I hate out of pure stubborn bloody mindedness, but, honestly, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody familiar with me. I just can't seem to give up on a challenge.
I notice that a sequel has been released. I wonder if it fixes any of my complaints about the original? Has anybody played it?
Edit: looks like Joseph Anderson did a pretty good analysis of the game that hits on a lot of what I don't like about it and explains it really well.
The game is simply designed to waste your time, and there is no other way to describe it. I've already expounded at length on the game's failings, but I feel the need to stress this one more time. The slow walking pace and combat speed (I doubled these in the game files and that helped), the sheer length of time necessary to raise a hero from level 0 to 6 (7-9 missions at around 20-40 minutes each, you are looking at roughly 5 hours of investment) combined with the swiftness of death. It's not particularly unlikely that you will get a string of bad luck and have your characters miss a bunch of attacks, have the enemy land a couple crits, all target the same character putting them on death's door, and inflict bleed and/or blight on them so that they (have a chance to) die on their next turn before you can do anything about it. And then guess what, that's 5 hours down the drain, decided over the course of a minute due to events largely beyond your control. The enemies just do a ridiculous amount of damage and stress in general, it's not uncommon for one bad round to end with a character going from 0 stress to 60, and if you didn't bring along one of the very few characters capable of removing stress you are just going to have a bad time. Also when the enemies land a crit on you (which they will constantly) all your characters take 7-14 points of stress, but when you land a crit only one or two will heal 3 points. Obviously the game is winnable with certain strategies, but it just is annoying and you are always just on the edge of a bad run of luck completely screwing you over even from full health. When I lose in Darkest Dungeon most of the time I don't feel like it's my fault.
Add to that the game is completely backwards in character progression. Higher level characters are much bigger liabilities than lower level ones. They cost more to heal stress and remove bad quirks, but they make less money in dungeons. You have 16 inventory slots no matter what. This is the same for apprentice level dungeons as well as champion. Gold, gems, and heirlooms all stack the same everywhere as well. The only difference is that you are more likely to find more loot and higher level gems in a higher level dungeon. But in reality you have less room in a champion dungeon because provisions are much more important. When enemies are dealing 6 blight over 4 rounds you need to have plenty of antivenom to deal with it, and you can't afford to ditch it. Doing a medium length apprentice dungeon is just as likely to result in filling my pockets completely with heirlooms and gold as a champion, and at far less risk. It's so completely backwards. You still need high level heroes for high level bosses, but it's just bizarre design.
Edit: I forgot to mention something else that really annoyed me during the game. The game lists the moves that each enemy is capable of, but doesn't give any information about them beyond whether they inflict bleed or stress or whatever. This is really annoying, for a difficult game involving tactical turn based gameplay it would be really useful to be able to tell what ranks a move can hit, how many ranks it will hit, and what ranks it can be used from. The accuracy and crit chance of a move would be useful too. How are you supposed to know whether there is any point of using a skill to move an enemy from the back to the front if you don't know if they are getting access to a powerful move up front? Why even give me the list of moves when it's such a half-hearted description of an enemies ability? Also, I found it annoying that you couldn't manually scroll the map around, your only option was to center on party. That sucks.
Overall, I just hate this game. I don't recommend anybody play it unless they want to do the same dungeons and fight the same enemies over and over, and don't care how much of their time the game wastes. I really shouldn't have spent the last month playing a game I hate out of pure stubborn bloody mindedness, but, honestly, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody familiar with me. I just can't seem to give up on a challenge.
I notice that a sequel has been released. I wonder if it fixes any of my complaints about the original? Has anybody played it?
Edit: looks like Joseph Anderson did a pretty good analysis of the game that hits on a lot of what I don't like about it and explains it really well.
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Congrats on finishing Darkest Dungeon, though you hated it, I guess?
I certainly tried it out and watched Escapist's documentary about it and both conveyed how much this is a game for people that are really really into this sort of game. Personally I liked it at first, the premise and core mechanics and art, but simply do not have the patience to commit to such an endeavor. Fortunately it was on GamePass.
I certainly tried it out and watched Escapist's documentary about it and both conveyed how much this is a game for people that are really really into this sort of game. Personally I liked it at first, the premise and core mechanics and art, but simply do not have the patience to commit to such an endeavor. Fortunately it was on GamePass.
I think this is the crux of the problem with the game, it punish success and reward failure. The optimal way to play the game is to do low level dungeon and to clear almost everything and they abandon the mission. You still keep everything you found on the mission, so its almost as rewarding, but crucially none of the hero level up, so you can keep doing low level dungeon. They also still gain trait so you can use this to lock in all the good trait and not so bad bad trait to make really strong hero. Once you're done leveling everything up and have tons of money and equipment, you just quickly blitz trough the rest of the game.
Sae only does the in-media-res thing up to a point, up to when you get to "current time", so your issue will be resolved I assure you.
P5 does the genius thing of showing you the types of persona you can fuse in the velvet room so you instinctively wanna fill up your compendium, it's really fun for sure. Also the mona-mobile is really hilarious as well.
Maid confidant is easily the best cause at max rank you get to not be tired after venturing into a dungeon so the sooner you max it out the sooner you get more actions per day which really impacts efficiency, there's a couple other ones too. But the idea with them is that you just hang out with the people you like the most. Like the sexy doctor lady for example, she gives you some awesome accessories that make your SP practically infinite which makes clearing dungeons in one run easy but just seeing her story is the real reward.
Trying to wrap up Flinthook... Very last bounty is made of 12 levels and 4 bosses that you have to go through in just one run. Got to to the very end before dying... Think I'm just gonna savescum the next run. What annoyed me the most was how hard the very last boss is to read, like the intention is to have so much going on screen that you have to burn through several runs just to get a fair idea of what you're up against and how you're supposed to deal with it. Wish there was a way of practicing for it. What a letdown.
Been playing Splatterhouse 2, Sonic CD, Space Harrier 2, Final Fight CD, and Silpheed through SG Mini 2. All fun games, and I am glad I can play their Japanese counterparts,
Got a threefer to drop indiscriminately.
Ghost Song
The thing about Hollow Knight (and by extension, Dark Souls) wannabes is they often miss nailing a key aspect, like, say platforming in Hollow Knight's case: for that game really did perfect how accurate it felt to control your lil' darling whatever-the-fuck as they hurled themselves through the air, to the extent that it shocked me how I got past the game's insane late game super death challenge rooms that would give Super Meat Boy a run for his fleshy juice money. Ghost Song does a wonderful job in every other direction, from the eye-catching art, music, combat, feedback, metroidvania (with a solid emphasis on the Metroid) item gathering and progression...but it falls sorely flat on the platforming - also the animation of the protag, tho that's easier to look past - so am seriously hoping it hasn't got any challenges squirrelled away for me in the later game. It's been minimal so far, but one area did test the patience a little too much recently, causing some concern for future experiences. Still, a hearty, playable attempt nonetheless!
The Entropy Centre
The thing about Portal wannabes (remember those?) is they often miss nailing one key aspect, like, say, the physics toys or indeed wit in literally all other cases. Here, we have so many direct parallels to Portal, even the field of view and motion blur I swear are mimicking the Orange box version I played on the Xbox that drunken night many years ago. However the very toys in which we are given to play with, like all Portal wannabes before it, just do not provide the liberating wonder of being able to fuck around with Portal physics, nor the room given to do so. Nope, here we have gun that make contextual object go back in time, annnnd that's basically it. Now, to be fair, it does this rather well enough. And the voice acting is alright with some charm in moments of attempted humour. But the core puzzling gameplay just cannot compete, nor can you discover quirky effects from experimenting with the mechanics. A valiant endeavour, but you cannot avoid your fate as a Portal wannabe, as all those who have fallen before you have found.
The Chant
The thing abou...nah, I ain't gonna do that shit, not for this one. It tricked me! Presenting itself as another sort of "interactive adventure" like Supermassive or Telltale Games, with a cover that gave off distinct Cult/Mandy/lovecraft-as-done-by-low-budget-Supermassive vibes. So it begins with a blunt intro of you as a pregnant woman realising halfway through a dodgy cult ritual that getting the fuck outta there is probably the wiser option, running away from angry cultists - oh and supernatural monsters drenched in pinky purples - only to leap off a cliff at the end. Not too out of the ordinary for horror to be fair, and certainly not out the ordinary for a Supermassive horror intro. Except...wait, was that a dodge button? What would I need th, oh...a shove button too? Huh. Maybe this game isn't as....oh shit, a goddamn weapon wheel??? A bestiary, 3 different bars of health, sanity and spirit, an upgrade tree, what even is this videogame even? Whatever it is, it still has my attention. Mayhaps this is another of those "AA" outliers we been asking more of? With a bit more progress, I can say the combat feels alright so far, melee-based, weakness-exploiting, sanity-balancing panicked clumsiness, and the takedowns have this weird Alan Wake style slo-mo to them. You have successfully pleasantly surprised me, The Chant. Good effort!
Ghost Song
The thing about Hollow Knight (and by extension, Dark Souls) wannabes is they often miss nailing a key aspect, like, say platforming in Hollow Knight's case: for that game really did perfect how accurate it felt to control your lil' darling whatever-the-fuck as they hurled themselves through the air, to the extent that it shocked me how I got past the game's insane late game super death challenge rooms that would give Super Meat Boy a run for his fleshy juice money. Ghost Song does a wonderful job in every other direction, from the eye-catching art, music, combat, feedback, metroidvania (with a solid emphasis on the Metroid) item gathering and progression...but it falls sorely flat on the platforming - also the animation of the protag, tho that's easier to look past - so am seriously hoping it hasn't got any challenges squirrelled away for me in the later game. It's been minimal so far, but one area did test the patience a little too much recently, causing some concern for future experiences. Still, a hearty, playable attempt nonetheless!
The Entropy Centre
The thing about Portal wannabes (remember those?) is they often miss nailing one key aspect, like, say, the physics toys or indeed wit in literally all other cases. Here, we have so many direct parallels to Portal, even the field of view and motion blur I swear are mimicking the Orange box version I played on the Xbox that drunken night many years ago. However the very toys in which we are given to play with, like all Portal wannabes before it, just do not provide the liberating wonder of being able to fuck around with Portal physics, nor the room given to do so. Nope, here we have gun that make contextual object go back in time, annnnd that's basically it. Now, to be fair, it does this rather well enough. And the voice acting is alright with some charm in moments of attempted humour. But the core puzzling gameplay just cannot compete, nor can you discover quirky effects from experimenting with the mechanics. A valiant endeavour, but you cannot avoid your fate as a Portal wannabe, as all those who have fallen before you have found.
The Chant
The thing abou...nah, I ain't gonna do that shit, not for this one. It tricked me! Presenting itself as another sort of "interactive adventure" like Supermassive or Telltale Games, with a cover that gave off distinct Cult/Mandy/lovecraft-as-done-by-low-budget-Supermassive vibes. So it begins with a blunt intro of you as a pregnant woman realising halfway through a dodgy cult ritual that getting the fuck outta there is probably the wiser option, running away from angry cultists - oh and supernatural monsters drenched in pinky purples - only to leap off a cliff at the end. Not too out of the ordinary for horror to be fair, and certainly not out the ordinary for a Supermassive horror intro. Except...wait, was that a dodge button? What would I need th, oh...a shove button too? Huh. Maybe this game isn't as....oh shit, a goddamn weapon wheel??? A bestiary, 3 different bars of health, sanity and spirit, an upgrade tree, what even is this videogame even? Whatever it is, it still has my attention. Mayhaps this is another of those "AA" outliers we been asking more of? With a bit more progress, I can say the combat feels alright so far, melee-based, weakness-exploiting, sanity-balancing panicked clumsiness, and the takedowns have this weird Alan Wake style slo-mo to them. You have successfully pleasantly surprised me, The Chant. Good effort!
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Decided to take another crack at Halo: Combat Evolved (PC MCC edition), and after accidentally starting the game over have gotten back up to where I was before, finishing 'Assault on the Control Room'. I'm still not actually sure whether I like the game or not; there's some good ideas to it, for sure, but it's also showing its age in a lot of ways, from a game design standpoint. I also grew up on GameFAQs back in the day, and nobody there liked Halo; as someone without an Xbox, that was all the impression I had of it for the longest time.
I've been told that 2 and 3 are a lot better, but also that I still should play through CE anyway, by a friend of mine. So I'll probably stick with it, at least a while longer. I know that 'The Library' is coming to ruin my day.
I've been told that 2 and 3 are a lot better, but also that I still should play through CE anyway, by a friend of mine. So I'll probably stick with it, at least a while longer. I know that 'The Library' is coming to ruin my day.
Opinions on GameFAQs are more useless than backstage passes to a one hit wonder boy band. These are some of the same users that hated on God of War for being a Devil May Cry clone, yet most of them didn't have problem with Ninja Gaiden copying the game. Now, I was never the biggest fan of Greek Era GOW, but I wasn't nowhere close to that snooty nor level of hatred they reeked of. There's a good reason why I left the site around 2008 or so. I can't even remember my old username and password for years. The site is still a shithole, the mods are lazy and enable bad behavior, and they've had the same shitty format for decades now.
As far as Halo 1 is concerned, it's not a bad game, but is another case of the first of its kind. I say this, I was never interested in Halo to begin with. Back then and now, I would sooner play Doom 3, Serious Sam, or Time Splitters than anything Halo related.
I swear I have PTSD from that level.
I'll take that over the entirety of The Ooze and Comix Zone. You want an entire game's worth of PTSD? Play either of those two Genesis games without any save states!
I've been "wrapping things up" (insofar as you can do so in an endless game like it) in No Man's Sky, and my final judgement of it is that it is basically a field of wide, shallow, nonconnected puddles that shimmer prettily but only let you splash around. You can do a whole lot of things in the game now- build bases (including underwater ones), explore wrecked freighters, and take control of a settlement and build it up- but all of these things are hollow, simplistic, and change nothing about any other part of the game.
Take for example the settlement mechanic. You'd think that having a whole town of people to direct and interact with would allow for some interesting gameplay, but the only ways you influence anything is by sanctioning new buildings (and bringing materials for them), using binary choices to solve disputes or welcome visitors, and (for a while) fighting off Sentinel incursions (because, of course, none of the citizens will do anything but run around like morons). And of course nothing has changed about the main quest of the game, since it directs you to go to the center of the galaxy, which simply sends you to a different galaxy to start completely over again.
Aside from that, I decided to dust off Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (seeing as how I bought it more than a year ago and never got around to starting it). I'm using a controller, as did my forefathers before me, and I honestly cannot understand how anyone can stand moving a third-person camera around with a thumbstick. It seems like by the time I've gotten the camera around to see the enemy that got behind me, it's already carved out my kidneys and dropped me in a bathtub with a message telling me to get to a doctor.
Take for example the settlement mechanic. You'd think that having a whole town of people to direct and interact with would allow for some interesting gameplay, but the only ways you influence anything is by sanctioning new buildings (and bringing materials for them), using binary choices to solve disputes or welcome visitors, and (for a while) fighting off Sentinel incursions (because, of course, none of the citizens will do anything but run around like morons). And of course nothing has changed about the main quest of the game, since it directs you to go to the center of the galaxy, which simply sends you to a different galaxy to start completely over again.
Aside from that, I decided to dust off Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (seeing as how I bought it more than a year ago and never got around to starting it). I'm using a controller, as did my forefathers before me, and I honestly cannot understand how anyone can stand moving a third-person camera around with a thumbstick. It seems like by the time I've gotten the camera around to see the enemy that got behind me, it's already carved out my kidneys and dropped me in a bathtub with a message telling me to get to a doctor.
I can understand it. I've done '343 Guilty Spark' and 'The Library' last night, and I definitely never want anything to do with the latter ever again. Even occasionally dropping into the Anniversary graphics to check where I was supposed to be going when I got lost, that doesn't fix the extremely copy-pasted environments, or the huge blobs of enemies with hitscan weapons in rooms without any cover. And since I'm pretty sure they spawn infinitely, if you stay in one place to clean up, you'll run out of ammo first, but if you try to just run past them, they'll gun you down - or just run you down, since the ones that attack in melee are faster than you. And Guilty Spark is a lot less than helpful; even when he does bring Sentinels, you only get them for like a minute or so before they don't follow you any further.
Into the home stretch of Combat Evolved now. At this point, I'm definitely sticking it out so that, as my friend told me, I can hopefully get the most out of 2.
I've been playing more Bayonetta 3 and experimenting with all the weapons and summons. The unlockable Witch Trials (Survival Mode) get hard quick once you start the second trial. It took me three attempts to beat Witch Trial 2. Verse 8 & 9 boss was giving me trouble, and the double fight against Bayo and Egyptian Jeanne I beat on the first attempt. The Demon Train summon is a game breaker when you know certain moves and have them unlocked. Abracadabra, the demonic cane has a useful limit break attack where you fire a purple laser beam you can aim that does so much damage. I did a little bit of Infinite Climax Mode, but I gotta get more practice with Viola.