What are you currently playing?

Old_Hunter_77

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Coming back to the vidyer games after a rest and I beat each of the bosses I got stuck in at each of the two games- Bayle in Elden Ring and Elaine witch in Ender Lillies.

Video games are silly.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Started playing Persona 5 Royal. I was pretty unsure about this since the description said "Don the mask and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts as they stage grand heists, infiltrate the minds of the corrupt, and make them change their ways!" I was worried it would be just anime teens railing against "the man!" But it pretty much hooked me immediately with its style and its story. The story is a bit anime weird, but it works well enough so far that I want to see where it goes and I can see things kinda working with how they happen in game. Granted the dialog is a bit stilted, but thats kinda expected from a Japanese game, the voice acting just kinda makes it a bit more obvious, but it does the job.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Coming back to the vidyer games after a rest and I beat each of the bosses I got stuck in at each of the two games- Bayle in Elden Ring and Elaine witch in Ender Lillies.

Video games are silly.
You should stick to Ender Lilies! It's a pretty good game.
Eleine is a weirdly difficult boss for being relatively early game (as I recall).
There're definitely more complex bosses ahead though.
 

Dreiko

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Started playing Persona 5 Royal. I was pretty unsure about this since the description said "Don the mask and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts as they stage grand heists, infiltrate the minds of the corrupt, and make them change their ways!" I was worried it would be just anime teens railing against "the man!" But it pretty much hooked me immediately with its style and its story. The story is a bit anime weird, but it works well enough so far that I want to see where it goes and I can see things kinda working with how they happen in game. Granted the dialog is a bit stilted, but thats kinda expected from a Japanese game, the voice acting just kinda makes it a bit more obvious, but it does the job.
It does do that, but in a masterful way that personally involves you and isn't just some generic rage against a faceless machine thing. The Man always has a face this time, and it's extremely punchable! XD

Oh and are you playing it in English or something? Cause the JP voice acting is not stilted at all and they have an amazing cast of veterans voicing practically everyone. Your uncle is freaking Alucard from hellsing.


Anyways, enjoy what is probably the largest and one of the best Jrpgs ever made, you definitely are getting your money's worth here.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
It does do that, but in a masterful way that personally involves you and isn't just some generic rage against a faceless machine thing. The Man always has a face this time, and it's extremely punchable! XD

Oh and are you playing it in English or something? Cause the JP voice acting is not stilted at all and they have an amazing cast of veterans voicing practically everyone. Your uncle is freaking Alucard from hellsing.


Anyways, enjoy what is probably the largest and one of the best Jrpgs ever made, you definitely are getting your money's worth here.
Started it on english, if it bugs me I'll change it.

Especially since I got it for just 20 bucks.
 

meiam

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Started playing Persona 5 Royal. I was pretty unsure about this since the description said "Don the mask and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts as they stage grand heists, infiltrate the minds of the corrupt, and make them change their ways!" I was worried it would be just anime teens railing against "the man!" But it pretty much hooked me immediately with its style and its story. The story is a bit anime weird, but it works well enough so far that I want to see where it goes and I can see things kinda working with how they happen in game. Granted the dialog is a bit stilted, but thats kinda expected from a Japanese game, the voice acting just kinda makes it a bit more obvious, but it does the job.
It might work for you, but to me it was exactly teen railing against the man in an extremely clunky way and it never clicked, especially because I found most of the teen to be insufferable, some of them worse than some of the targets.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
It might work for you, but to me it was exactly teen railing against the man in an extremely clunky way and it never clicked, especially because I found most of the teen to be insufferable, some of them worse than some of the targets.
So far I like em and what they are doing would be awesome to be able to do. Imagine being able to destroy trumps ego and make him have to face all the shit hes done? He would never be able to sleep again. That is such good justice and revenge.
 
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Dreiko

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So far I like em and what they are doing would be awesome to be able to do. Imagine being able to destroy trumps ego and make him have to face all the shit hes done? He would never be able to sleep again. That is such good justice and revenge.
There's this one char I was calling Bernie back when playing the original p5 (sun arcana dude), which came out in autumn 2016 in Japan so it was around election time when I was playing it. Fun times lol. And the politician in p5 is actually based on a real figure from Jp politics too btw, so it hits harder if you have in mind who they're parodying.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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You should stick to Ender Lilies! It's a pretty good game.
Eleine is a weirdly difficult boss for being relatively early game (as I recall).
There're definitely more complex bosses ahead though.
Yeah I'll go back to it but I just had to go back to Elden Ring first....

Games like Lillies.. I usually get pretty far once they capture my interest but then give up towards the end when the bullshit difficulty piles on exponentially (i.e., Ori and the Blind Forest)
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Yeah I'll go back to it but I just had to go back to Elden Ring first....

Games like Lillies.. I usually get pretty far once they capture my interest but then give up towards the end when the bullshit difficulty piles on exponentially (i.e., Ori and the Blind Forest)
Well, there is one bullshit part of Ender Lilies. You'll know it when you hear this song:

 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
There's this one char I was calling Bernie back when playing the original p5 (sun arcana dude), which came out in autumn 2016 in Japan so it was around election time when I was playing it. Fun times lol. And the politician in p5 is actually based on a real figure from Jp politics too btw, so it hits harder if you have in mind who they're parodying.
Ahh, nice, I'm looking forward to getting there, still on the school.
 

laggyteabag

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I played through 2015's Mad Max game.

It does a decent job of portraying the Mad Max fantasy, but this is one of the most Ubisoft-y open-world games that I have ever played, which is quite impressive, seeing as this has nothing to do with Ubisoft.

The open world is just your usual 5 or 6 different activities, multiplied ad nauseam across miles and miles of desert. I really wish it was more ambitious, because as it stands, whilst they're fine distractions, there is very little of interest or note outside of the main missions.

The hand-to-hand combat is very Arkham, and it is very weighty, but you don't have the gadgets (or equivalent) or combos that Batman does, which gives it comparatively little agency, beyond your usual punching/dodging/countering. I also don't feel like the car combat ever really had its moment to shine.

The story isn't particularly noteworthy most of the time, but the final act was definitely the strongest, with some nice moments.

Overall, I think it is a pretty average game - there is nothing egregiously wrong here, and there are a few bright spots, but they're pretty few and far between. I'm happy to have ticked it off my backlog.

Now, I'm replaying God of War (2018), but this time on my PC. 60FPS is definitely nice, and the combat is a lot of fun, but I still can't shake that this game is massively overrated.
 

Drathnoxis

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I beat the first boss of Darkest Dungeon 2. That's probably as far as I'll go with it. My impressions are that it doesn't lean into the Roguelike aspects hard enough and has too much metaprogression. Trinkets still suck in general and mostly feel like they hurt as much as they help, like the first game, only it's worse now because if you do manage to find a good one it's gone for the next run. Really I think skills should have been unlocked as part of each run and the shrines should have unlocked the different roles for each class, because that's the biggest thing that makes the game hard to play is knowing it's X amount of runs until you have a working party with all the options. If skills were unlocked mid run you would have a bit of character growth during a run instead of all the growth exclusively taking place in the meta. I don't know, I feel like the developers don't really understand the Roguelike genre, which is a shame because I do think it could have worked well with some modifications.

Oh well, I'll be interested to hear more of @Dreiko's thoughts as he goes through the game, though.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
If skills were unlocked mid run you would have a bit of character growth during a run instead of all the growth exclusively taking place in the meta.
You do get skill upgrades during a run.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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Elden Ring and Ender Lillies uninstalled.
The former's last boss is a bunch of horrific insulting crap and the latter had me running around every room trying to figure out where to go but the rooms are full of enemies so it's super annoying. Life's too short.
 

BrawlMan

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Now, I'm replaying God of War (2018), but this time on my PC. 60FPS is definitely nice, and the combat is a lot of fun, but I still can't shake that this game is massively overrated.
In some ways, yes the game is a little overrated. It's more critics going overboard on the gushing of the story. I like the story, but there are some gameplay problems. Ragnarok attempts to fix most of these by expanding combat options and veritcality, but both of these games need a jump button. Whenever a third game (6th mainline game) comes out, give Atreus a jump button. Since he will more than likely be the leading character in the next title.

I played some DMC5:SE earlier this week. I did a no death Hard Arcade Run as Blaze on SOR4 (Steam) to get some achievements. I won't be gaming much this week, but I will play something to keep me busy.
 

NerfedFalcon

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real roguelike
Forgive the unsolicited recommendation, but if you're looking for a game that fits 'real roguelike' as I understand you mean it, have you tried 'TowerClimb' before? It's a lot like Spelunky except in reverse, including in how it basically has no meta-progression except your own understanding of the game. The most you can unlock other than side modes is a shortcut to the 20th floor of about 55.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Yeah, like 3. I'm talking actual character progression like a real roguelike. You should unlock a skill after every fight, and then reset it every run.
Binding of Issac doesn't do that.
 

Drathnoxis

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Binding of Issac doesn't do that.
Oh yeah, in BoI you only pick up items once a floor that power up your character and give you new abilities or alter your existing abilities, and when you start a new run you lose all of them and start from scratch allowing each run to feel significantly different depending on the combination of items you come across over a run. This is completely different from skills and is in no way a form of character progression because they are called items. I guess.

Every good roguelike has a form of mid run character progression that is influenced by RNG, it's a staple of the genre. Your character is going to be more powerful and play differently depending on what you find along your journey. This is true of Binding of Isaac, FTL, Slay the Spire, Hades, Nethack, Enter the Gungeon, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Into the Breach, Spelunky, etc, etc. It's not true of Darkest Dungeon 2 from what I've seen and what I've read. Your characters are pretty much the same at the final boss as they are when you pick them out at the Crossroads, apart from mastery points and those are the same every time. Yes you unlock a few skills every run, but those are meta-progression and don't add variety or complexity to a single run because they are permanent unlocks. It isn't going to radically change your playstyle from one run to another in the way that picking up The Knife in Binding of Isaac will. The skills help you make stronger parties, but it doesn't force any decisions during a run because you've probably already decided what moves you are going to use and upgrade as soon as you've picked your party.