What are you currently playing?

[Baffle]

Still X4. Bought a bigger ship that my little ship sleeps on. Fuck yeah space piracy! (I am actually very much a bent cop in this game. Space piracy cop! Yeeeeeeah!)

My autopilot is absolutely pissed though.

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished the third case of Danganronpa 2. I had to do the PTA battle at the end 6-7 times before manging to get it through. And I did not have fun while doing it. If you ever find your self playing this minigame and are having trouble, I recommend that you button mash the tab key whenever you run low on ammo; as far as I can tell there is no penalty for mistiming it.

So far I think there's been two (2) mechanics in Danganronpa that I've liked. The first one was a real hit, but the other one is used so seldom that it feels like they only added it because they had already implemented it in last game.

The good mechanic is that they have spiced up the Weak Statements that you can break by using evidence as counter arguments with having Weak Statements you can also bolster by using evidence. That feels like a natural extension from existing mechanics and it spices things up sufficiently.

The other mechanic is that you can absorb a Weak Statement and use that as a counter evidence against another Weak Statement. That feels like a mechanical implementation of pointing out hypocrisy ("You just said that the company is running low on cash yet you also claim that a hefty bonus to the board is warranted?") and it is a way to make sure the player can be presented with a challenge where they have no prior information, giving them that feeling of fighting back when all odds are against them. Too bad that the amount of times you are meant to use that mechanic are so far and in between that I forget that it exists. If I were to suggest an improvement to the game: in the sections where the player is meant to absorb an argument to use as a counterargument, let the player have absolutely no arguments present, so that they know that the challenge lies in absorption (have the protagonist say something like "Damn it! I didn't find out anything that would be useful when it comes to this subject!"). Have more Weak Statements present as well, to provide a challenge.

So far the overall mood is more upbeat than in Danganronpa 1 and I like it more.

 

[Worgen]

Still playing Iron Harvest. Its very good still, I love the clunky mech designs, they look nothing like the much sleeker Battletech or anime type mecha, they look like what a ww1 tank turned mech would look. All the 3 factions I've played are certainly different, infantry are somewhat similar, aside from the primary cheap infantry who all have comparable but different weapons, and ranges.

Beat Fashion Police Squad and it was just awesome, it takes a bit to get a challenge out of the game, but once it starts going its a nice one, even though its still not really hard. But the boss fights, holy shit they did a spectacular job with them, and the story is all the great drama and camp you would want out of a game called 'Fashion Police Squad'. Highly recommended if you like kinda old school fps games.

 

[Absent]

Finished Creeper World 4. The 20-missions campaign, that is (there's an infinity of custom or daily missions). The last two missions were almost challenging. But again, it's just a matter of managing the first minute. Once you stop the creeper in its tracks, time is usually on your side, and you can grind your way back to the whole map. Which is a satisfying feeling, but devoid of tension. Akin to popping wrap paper bubbles. And if you failed to stop the creeper at the beginning of the mission, then it's game over very fast anyway.

Anyway, it's still my favorite towerdefensoïd, if it even qualifies. Trying out Particle Fleet, but it's less convincing and it does feel like a draft version of Creeper World. Maybe it was.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Decided to get Street Fighter 6. It's been a long time since I've been motivated to pick up a new fighting game, since I'm never sure about the ones that just came out and the ones that have been out for a while are expensive because of all the DLC characters, but I've heard nothing but good things about SF6, here and elsewhere, and it looks fantastic. That, and I have prior experience with Street Fighter, having played a decent amount of 2, A3, 3rd Strike and 4 at various points in the past. Never much against other people online, but with 6's teaching tools it shouldn't be too hard to bridge that gap, hopefully.

I got it on PC; don't know if there's crossplay, but I probably wouldn't want to face BrawlMan in the ring on day one anyway. No offense, I'm just really rusty and never had much training to begin with.

 

[BrawlMan]

got it on PC; don't know if there's crossplay, but I probably wouldn't want to face BrawlMan in the ring on day one anyway. No offense, I'm just really rusty and never had much training to begin with.

No worries. I still haven't gone online yet. Right now I'm trying to save money, and I hope to get PS plus around the end of the month. The full year that is.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

No worries. I still haven't gone online yet. Right now I'm trying to save money, and I hope to get PS plus around the end of the month. The full year that is.

Gotta hand it to Capcom this time around. They actually cared about offline content!

 

[BrawlMan]

Gotta hand it to Capcom this time around. They actually cared about offline content!

Capcom has pretty much learned their lesson after Street Fighter 5. More fighting game companies need to look at what Capcom is doing and expand their fighting games. This is mainly a problem for a majority of Japanese fighting games. All you're getting is just an arcade game with sometimes training, survival, or both and that's it. You're really paying 60 to $70 for an arcade game without much bonus content. I give the Indie fighting games more leeway, as most of them are working with smaller resources and charge at a far cheaper price.

 

[Bartholen]

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?

The game has two major roguelike aspects: the dungeon map is randomized for each playthrough, but stays fixed during it. The loot you get off monsters and containers is randomized on each restart. Getting a valuable item instantly makes the game more intense until you find a save spot, because if you die and have to restart from that last save, you're not getting that item back.

Considering it's only like 7 bucks I'd say it's very much worth playing if you have a stomach for really uncompromising and fucked up games. The gameplay's not very deep or tactical, the game's strong points are its atmosphere, exploration intensity and lore. It captures that same feeling of delving deeper and deeper into dangerous places that Dark Souls has, but Fear & Hunger explains itself even less. Using a guide is almost necessary. For example, in certain situations, save spots included, the game asks you to pick heads or tails on a coin toss. Not getting the side you picked can mean a save failing or certain death. What the game doesn't tell you (without reading item descriptions) is you can hold down shift to flip 2 coins instead, and if either one is the side you picked, the toss is a success. The game is absolutely full of stuff like that.

It can be fairly repetitive, since you'll have to retrace your steps quite a lot upon death, but it wasn't a dealbreaker for me because the map's fairly condensed, and learning all the routes felt like its own reward. The last thing to mention is that the game is rated adults only, which you'll have go specifically turn in your steam settings to show, since most AO games are just porn games. IMO Fear & Hunger earns its rating though: it's not the most graphically explicit game by virtue of being made in RPG Maker, but there's tons of references to horrific subject matter and the text descriptions are very blunt and evocative.

 

[BrawlMan]

I did a few rounds of Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. I've noticed the problem with the optional bosses from OG/Black/Sigma 1 and II/Sigma 2, is that they were just dragged and dropped into the game so lazily. It's literally their character models from either respective game thrown some extra sheen on, and call it a day. They don't gel well with this game's mechanics. You can't steel-on-bone them nor counter grabs. Which is something that can be done to bosses made for this game. It boils down either baiting or waiting for them to do a specific attack and whiff punish with light attacks. Rinse and repeat. You do the same with the actual bosses from 3, but the human sized ones you can bait into SOB and move the fight much faster. This has always been a problem with the 3D NG games since the first, but it gets really tiring hear. Unlike DMC, you can't afford to be stylish against the bosses, even in the hands of expert player. Especially on the higher difficulties.

I've been playing as Kasumi with the ninja trials and she's my favorite of the characters selectable. I actually prefer playing Kasumi, and her sister Ayane, over Ryu in certain cases. Yes, Ryu gets all the weapons and has more health and durability, but he moves way too slow here compared to his past outings. I'll take characters with weak health, if it means I can out maneuver my opponents faster than the main hero.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The game has two major roguelike aspects: the dungeon map is randomized for each playthrough, but stays fixed during it. The loot you get off monsters and containers is randomized on each restart. Getting a valuable item instantly makes the game more intense until you find a save spot, because if you die and have to restart from that last save, you're not getting that item back.

Considering it's only like 7 bucks I'd say it's very much worth playing if you have a stomach for really uncompromising and fucked up games. The gameplay's not very deep or tactical, the game's strong points are its atmosphere, exploration intensity and lore. It captures that same feeling of delving deeper and deeper into dangerous places that Dark Souls has, but Fear & Hunger explains itself even less. Using a guide is almost necessary. For example, in certain situations, save spots included, the game asks you to pick heads or tails on a coin toss. Not getting the side you picked can mean a save failing or certain death. What the game doesn't tell you (without reading item descriptions) is you can hold down shift to flip 2 coins instead, and if either one is the side you picked, the toss is a success. The game is absolutely full of stuff like that.

It can be fairly repetitive, since you'll have to retrace your steps quite a lot upon death, but it wasn't a dealbreaker for me because the map's fairly condensed, and learning all the routes felt like its own reward. The last thing to mention is that the game is rated adults only, which you'll have go specifically turn in your steam settings to show, since most AO games are just porn games. IMO Fear & Hunger earns its rating though: it's not the most graphically explicit game by virtue of being made in RPG Maker, but there's tons of references to horrific subject matter and the text descriptions are very blunt and evocative.

Ok, cool, maybe I'll give it a shot.

 

[Chimpzy]

This Way Madness Lies

Think Shakespeare + Sailor Moon + Lovecraft, but also jrpg. Newest game by the folks who did Cosmic Star Heroine and Cthulhu Saves The World. It's pretty fun, a nice sort of casual game with a sense of humor, some nice pixel art and a short runtime for an rpg, since it's apparently about 5-8 hours long. But I don't mind that, I enjoy these more bite-sized jprgs. Worth picking up if you can get it for a fiver or something.

 

[Absent]

Crowd Simulator.

I have nothing to say.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Betrayer is currently free on GoG, and it's... something. The premise is interesting- you're shipwrecked on the shores of 17th-century Virginia, only to find that color (except for red) has literally been drained out of everything and the landscape is filled with red-eyed conquistadores (who sound like bears) and natives, all of whom are mindlessly hostile. But there's also a mysterious shadow world accessible by ringing a bell, where you can begin to find out what happened from those who didn't survive it. Unfortunately the game is marred by a clunky combat/stealth system, and the stark black-and-white contrast really starts to hurt my eyes after not too long.

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished the fourth case of Danganronpa 2. The last thing I had to prove there was something so ridiculous that if I were to write it down(which I've done within the spoiler) you would go "Oh, it's one of THOSE games"). I will also share my speculation on the overarching plot within the spoiler.

One thing I can say for sure now is that if you were to play Danganronpa 2 ahead of Danganronpa 1 then this was the chapter that would make that ill-advised, since in this chapter they revealed several details about the end of Danganronpa 1.

Spoiler: Danganronpa 2

So, the totally ridiculous thing I had to prove was that the killer used his trained hamsters to reach the murdered Robot's deactivation switch on the back of his head.

The speculation is in regards to who the traitor is. And I honestly don't think I have any solid clue about it. Danganronpa has the characteristic of having a very large cast so for the majority of the time most of them do not get to showcase their personality, meaning the murderer feels like they came out of the blue in most cases. For that reason I suspect basically everyone of being the traitor.

But for argument's sake, who would I put the blame on?
Hajime? He is the protagonist, so if he did it he must have not really acted as one once they lost their memories. The best I can offer is that Nagito once talked about a mystery novel he read where it turned out that surprise-surprise, the protagonist was the killer all along.
Nagito? Last I saw of him, he offered to work with Monokuma the teddy bear, provided he'd find out who the traitor is, so no, I don't think he's the one.
Chiaki? She's taken the role of Kyoko of last game, but slightly dimmer(the duty has honestly been split between her and Nagito), so I therefore like her, but I don't think I've seen any indication that she's a traitor.
Sonia? She claims to be a princess from a far off country, which makes me more suspicious of her, but again this is the series where a murderer uses his trained hamsters to help in murdering a robot, so fictional princesses is not weird. She mentioned India at one point but does not look Indian.
Fuyuhiko? The fact that he's with organized crime makes him highly suspicious, but I honestly think that given that we've been given his backstory as part of the main plot, and that he was portrayed with sympathy and humanity means that we've already been provided with all the backstory they intended.
Mechanic-guy? I've not been given any indication that he is the traitor, AND he already had a characterization as part of the main plot: he's the Casanova wannabe.
Gymnast-gal? She seems to not be bright enough to serve as the ultimate antagonist, and she reminds me a lot of Aoi from last game. If she were obfuscating stupidity I have not really been shown any spots of brilliance shining through.
Someone dead? Possible, but I already thought they cheated in last game when they tried to pull something like that in last game, and I suspect it would be boring if that's how it went.

When I write it out like this I become utterly convinced that Sonia is the traitor, but as I said, it could frankly be anyone.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Spoiler: Danganronpa 2

So, the totally ridiculous thing I had to prove was that the killer used his trained hamsters to reach the murdered Robot's deactivation switch on the back of his head.

This was foreshadowed by having the hamsters press the elevator button a couple of times during the chapter, so that you know that the hamsters are trained to remotely press buttons. Hajime is also told in confidence by the murdered robot that he has a button that will turn him off. The combination of those two details wasn't that hard to put together, IMO. Out of context it seems ludicrous, but in context it's properly set up.

I liked Chapter 4 in SDR2 a lot, but Chapter 5 is easily the best one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

[Bedinsis]

[The thing you had to prove] wasn't that hard to put together, IMO. Out of context it seems ludicrous, but in context it's properly set up.

No objections here. I had to get to the end of the Panic Talk Action, see the sentence I could form, and I immediately went "Oh, yeah, now that I see what sentence I can form, it is obvious.". It was the fact that it was ridiculous out of context I was talking about.

I liked Chapter 4 in SDR2 a lot, but Chapter 5 is easily the best one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Chapter 4 was probably the first time where it felt like I was ahead of the characters for the majority of the trial. At least the parts that involved figuring out something major about the case, namely the layout of the crime scene. I obviously also hope I will like the chapter, in particular now that you've acted as a teaser.

 

[sXeth]

Well off the PSN sales of the summer I've picked up both Miasma Chronciles (and after being alerted to its existence by worgen) Actraiser Renaissance.

The latter should make for amusing twitch streams as I contrast 6 year old me's skills with 34 lol

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished the fifth case of Danganronpa 2. I can see why someone would like this case. I was a bit annoyed at where it went.

Spoiler: Danganronpa 2 fifth case

So Nagito was the next person to die. If I had to pick someone to perish I'd pick him, since he talks about "If you don't have a talent you're nothing", he calls the protagonist a nobody for lacking a talent, he has attempted to murder in earlier cases, and he seems to go back and forth between doing his best to be helpful and being doing his best to sabotage, in a way that means I cannot get a grasp on him, all due to the crazy hope/despair belief running through the series. Once it started to unravel that the reason it was such an elaborate suicide mystery was because Nagito chose to make it hard to solve I was getting annoyed. That is a terrible motivation and it takes me out of the experience since murder mysteries is not really made to be "fun to solve" in real life. Once they got to the point where they revealed that he actually had a reason to do so, namely to ensure that they would not be able to identify who of them actually committed the accidental murder it made more sense. Even so, it still rests on his external, vaguely explained goal of becoming the ultimate hope and his power of super-luck in order to explain why he wanted to do it, so I was not that impressed. It did however lead to reveal of the traitor.

So anyway: Chiaki was the traitor and as per Nagito's luck the murderer, so she was punished in the trial. Along with Monomi. Shame. I liked Chiaki, and I liked that Monomi at long last stood up to the awful Monokuma.

Afterwards the game seems to be wrapping up, and I got some prologue with Nagito again (seriously, game, can't you dicth him already?) which did not allow me to quit so I continued playing a bit into chapter 6 until I reached the investigation phase. Which took far too long; I just wanted to quit already. Apparently the island is kind of glitching out and the students' dead classmates are returning to speaking roles, before heading to the ruins where we suddenly find ourselves in a glitched out version of Danganronpa 1. Please, don't tell me this entire game has been a simulation or something. I've noticed that this game has had several moments where it sounds like they are talking about themselves as if they're aware that it is a piece of fiction. Cute enough on its own, but undercutting the drama if it turns out to be true.

I don't know how things will shake out, but I currently speculate that Chiaki might be a robot. It looked like the fifth island had a facility where one could make human looking robots.

 

[Bedinsis]

Finished Danganronpa 2. There was a whole bunch of twists at the end that was not at all hinted at, that required a great degree of outdrawn explanation, that was incredibly sci-fi, that I suspect would lose a whole lot of players, that had a great degree of... integration with last game, that had a class trial that didn't feel like uncovering a mystery, it felt like an odd way to perform exposition...

...and it had a sequence that made me start crying since it managed to hit me in my insecurities.

I might get back to more of my thoughts, but I'll need some time to collect myself.