What are you currently playing?

[NerfedFalcon]

Welp, I've gotten to a point in Final Fantasy 3 where I'm forced to use a specific job for the next dungeon, but I can't actually afford to equip even one party member in that job before going into it. So I guess I'm going to have to do some grinding until I can actually make a viable Dark Knight.

Again, an expected part of the package for an RPG of this era, but considering how well I was managing without going out of my way to grind so far, having to stop and do it now is a bit of a downer.

 

[Worgen]

Beat Monster Hunter Stories. Really liked it, there is a bunch of challenge stuff to do after you finish the story, but since Stories 3 comes out in a few weeks I'm probably not going to do it. It really is a fantastic turn based RPG. The monster are all really cool and animated very well and watching them is always entertaining. The way combat works is a rock paper scissors kinda thing and each one of those has a different attack animation, on top of special abilities and such. The music is also good, there are a number of different battle themes, depending on enemy and location of the fight. Its just a really good jrpg/pokemon style game.

I got Dead Island 2 during the holiday sale, probably going to use that to tide me over till Stories 3 comes out.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

By the way, do not go anywhere without a large stock of Phoenix Downs, because if you get back attacked, it is essentially guaranteed that one of your back-row party members will die, and you can do nothing about it. My WM was at full HP going into this encounter FTR.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Returning to Far Cry 3.

The game is still atmospheric, and gameplay is fun. The Rook Islands environment has aged gracefully, and I am still having fun exploring.

However, I think the game falls hard on two counts;

1. After Vaas death, you have to complete some missions to kill Hoyt. They are both POS, but Hoyt definitely isn't as memorable or likable as Vaas; IDK, kinda feel like we should've killed Hoyt first, witness the pirates become even more chaotic due to Vass continuing to descend into madness, and then kill him as the final boss.

2. After all of the enemy bases get cleared, there aren't that many threats; No more pirates patroling the roads, no more human enemies to test out the guns, and no more big objectives to clear out on the map.

I am doing this for the 100% achievement run; Thankfully I've seemed to have unlocked most of them years ago, but surprised to see some of them still locked, such as the story-based ones or the one where you have to freefall more than 100m and live; Maybe I unlocked them on different platform.

Thank god the multiplayer server and the acheivements are gone; I just remember being it terrible on the 360

Well, I played about 1 hour before uninstalling it. It kept crashing and because somehow the autosave doesn't work, I kept losing my progress.

Shame, I was really looking forward to getting back into it. Too bad it's terribly optimized at this point, on top of being forced to open ubisoft connect.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Finished the Nioh 3 demo.

Decided that my mindset for this game is "fuck it, I don't need to ki pulse if I perfect parry everything." Ended up beating the last demo boss with only 1 elixir used when I stopped trying to ki pulse and just focused on parrying every hit. I think ki pulse just adds too much to the mental stack in my small brain. Much easier to just unga bunga reflex my way through.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Final Fantasy 3: Well, despite all the frustration that's starting to build up in the back nine, I managed to find a Peninsula of Power-type area, grind out several levels, get through a few more dungeons and bosses, and activate the final Crystal. I'm close enough to the end now that I may as well do my best to power through it, though I'm not above considering using the Pixel Remaster boosters if it comes to that.

I do have a fair few thoughts about the game, but this close to the end I'll probably save it for when I've actually finished it.

 

[Agema]

Terra Invicta

Good stuff. Strategy for people who like their strategy slow and thoughful with loads of numbers. Quick summary, aliens have appeared, a range of human factions sprout in response, and you take one of the factions and try to defeat the others. Take over countries (in a power behind the throne way), colonise space and mine resources, research technology, dominate the solar system, fight space battles, hopefully win. In decreasing order of xenophobia, the factions are:
1) "Kill the aliens and everyone else who doesn't want to kill the aliens!"
2) "Kill the aliens!"
3) "Run away!"
4) "How much money can we make from aliens?"
5) "Please, aliens, we can be friends and equals!"
6) "Dear aliens, please accept the following conditions for our surrender..."
7) "Tell us what to do, oh glorious alien masters.

Menace (Early Access)

From the makers of much-loved Battle Brothers. SF squad-based tactics game - take a few squads, fight enemies, do some sort of diplomacy, gain experience and develop resources and stuff, etc. It's been released in a well-developed state, eta 1 year to full release. It's sort of good, however, I also think there's quite a few things about it I don't like, and I don't know they'll fix it before release as it may be too baked into the design. So it can be immensely frustrating.

 

[meiam]

Terra Invicta

Good stuff. Strategy for people who like their strategy slow and thoughful with loads of numbers. Quick summary, aliens have appeared, a range of human factions sprout in response, and you take one of the factions and try to defeat the others. Take over countries (in a power behind the throne way), colonise space and mine resources, research technology, dominate the solar system, fight space battles, hopefully win. In decreasing order of xenophobia, the factions are:
1) "Kill the aliens and everyone else who doesn't want to kill the aliens!"
2) "Kill the aliens!"
3) "Run away!"
4) "How much money can we make from aliens?"
5) "Please, aliens, we can be friends and equals!"
6) "Dear aliens, please accept the following conditions for our surrender..."
7) "Tell us what to do, oh glorious alien masters.

Menace (Early Access)

From the makers of much-loved Battle Brothers. SF squad-based tactics game - take a few squads, fight enemies, do some sort of diplomacy, gain experience and develop resources and stuff, etc. It's been released in a well-developed state, eta 1 year to full release. It's sort of good, however, I also think there's quite a few things about it I don't like, and I don't know they'll fix it before release as it may be too baked into the design. So it can be immensely frustrating.

Two game that I'm really looking forward to playing. Terra just came out of EA so I'll probably go soon (maybe wait too see if they start discount in next big sale), loved long war (don't think I can go back to play an xcom without a lot of the stuff they added) so I have good hope.

Menace, I figured I'd wait till its out of EA, I played battle brothers pretty early and there wasn't much content at the time, which kinda burned me on the game (should go back at some point thought).

 

[Worgen]

Beat Persona 3 Reloaded. That was really good. Its not quite up there with Persona 5, but its still really good. The characters are pretty fun, even though they mostly start off... odd, but by the time you max out social stats with them they are mostly cool. Tartarus gets a bit tedious but its broken up enough with the life parts that I didn't find it too bad. I can see why its called the dark Persona, it really does have a lot of themes related around death.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Finished Final Fantasy 3. It was rough for a while, but I powered through it.

Ultimately, it feels like a game of two halves. The first half is really breezy and creative, and trying out different jobs for different scenarios is a good time, but in the second half you fall into a rut with specific jobs that are just better than all the others and bosses and encounters that don't demand a lot of strategy, and do demand a lot of grinding - even compared to Final Fantasy 1, which is a pretty simple and grindy game for all its strong points that I've talked up in the past. Starting from around Ancient Cavern, bosses start to lose any kind of strategy, even in preparation for them; you just have to grind levels until you have enough HP to survive two hits from the boss's attacks, because there's no other consistent method for any of them, and the final boss doesn't even have any attacks besides its strongest one.

To everyone who ever wondered why video game bosses don't just only use their strongest attack: it's because it's boring, and if you need proof, watch someone fight Cloud of Darkness sometime.

Out of the NES/Famicom trilogy, the first is probably the only one still worth playing. 3 can be interesting if you want to see how the 'job system' got its start within the series, but other than that, I don't think I can recommend it. As for what's next, I'm not finished with Final Fantasy yet; I paid for the whole Pixel Remaster bundle, and other than 1 which I finished on the NES before and 2 which I already know I don't vibe with, I intend to get more out of it. The SNES/Super Famicom era is held up as the height of the series by some, and I intend to find out why, starting with the first RPG I ever played (but never finished): Final Fantasy 4.

 

[meiam]

Finished Final Fantasy 3. It was rough for a while, but I powered through it.

Ultimately, it feels like a game of two halves. The first half is really breezy and creative, and trying out different jobs for different scenarios is a good time, but in the second half you fall into a rut with specific jobs that are just better than all the others and bosses and encounters that don't demand a lot of strategy, and do demand a lot of grinding - even compared to Final Fantasy 1, which is a pretty simple and grindy game for all its strong points that I've talked up in the past. Starting from around Ancient Cavern, bosses start to lose any kind of strategy, even in preparation for them; you just have to grind levels until you have enough HP to survive two hits from the boss's attacks, because there's no other consistent method for any of them, and the final boss doesn't even have any attacks besides its strongest one.

To everyone who ever wondered why video game bosses don't just only use their strongest attack: it's because it's boring, and if you need proof, watch someone fight Cloud of Darkness sometime.

Out of the NES/Famicom trilogy, the first is probably the only one still worth playing. 3 can be interesting if you want to see how the 'job system' got its start within the series, but other than that, I don't think I can recommend it. As for what's next, I'm not finished with Final Fantasy yet; I paid for the whole Pixel Remaster bundle, and other than 1 which I finished on the NES before and 2 which I already know I don't vibe with, I intend to get more out of it. The SNES/Super Famicom era is held up as the height of the series by some, and I intend to find out why, starting with the first RPG I ever played (but never finished): Final Fantasy 4.

Problem with 3 is that it feel like a prototype for 5, and there's just no reason to play it now that 5 exist.

2 is semi interesting if you like the saga style game... but not many people do...

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Problem with 3 is that it feel like a prototype for 5, and there's just no reason to play it now that 5 exist.

I can think of two, but they aren't... well, I don't have a good way to put it*, but: completion (wanting to play every game in the series whether it's good or not), and as a historical milestone. It could be argued that Dragon Quest 3 is more important in that regard as it had a job change system first, but FF3's implementation of it, besides being the first in its own series, was both more flexible (you can do it at any time instead of just in one midgame town) and expansive (about 20 jobs compared to seven).

* These aren't reasons to recommend the game actively to someone else, rather they might passively lead someone towards it, is what I'm aiming for here. But I can't put that in a phrase.

2 is semi interesting if you like the saga style game... but not many people do...

I played 2 once and stopped as soon as the game informed me that because I had not done grinding correctly, my characters' stats were now going down.

 

[Agema]

Menace, I figured I'd wait till its out of EA, I played battle brothers pretty early and there wasn't much content at the time, which kinda burned me on the game (should go back at some point thought).

It's got typical early access fine-tuning problems. Like missions where you need to rescue civilians, but no matter how you deploy or move, they all get killed on Turn 1 before you can possibly intercede. I would assume these all get fixed. I have two issues.

Some of the movement feels a bit slow. Like, you want to shoot this vehicle but you need a rocket launcher and the rocket launcher needs you to deploy and the cost to deploy and fire the rocket launcher means you can move, er, one space. So if the vehicle is two spaces away, you can't shoot it and it's going to annihilate your squad with its machine gun. In a sense, this sort of thing can happen any game, but it feels like it happens a lot here. The ranges and movements mean sometimes a truck just drives up from out of sight and disgorges infantry right in front of you, and you can't help but think "shouldn't I have been allowed to shoot that truck whilst it was driving up"?

Secondly, I don't like the movement order system. You move one of your units, then "other" moves one unit, then the enemy, and it rotates around. Any faction that has extra units all move in a rush at the end. So what this means if that there are five enemies (E) and two of you (U), it goes U E U E E E E. There's no overwatch. This can end in some moments which are very frustrating. In short, I prefer an "initiative" system where I can judge the turn order.

 

[meiam]

It's got typical early access fine-tuning problems. Like missions where you need to rescue civilians, but no matter how you deploy or move, they all get killed on Turn 1 before you can possibly intercede. I would assume these all get fixed. I have two issues.

Some of the movement feels a bit slow. Like, you want to shoot this vehicle but you need a rocket launcher and the rocket launcher needs you to deploy and the cost to deploy and fire the rocket launcher means you can move, er, one space. So if the vehicle is two spaces away, you can't shoot it and it's going to annihilate your squad with its machine gun. In a sense, this sort of thing can happen any game, but it feels like it happens a lot here. The ranges and movements mean sometimes a truck just drives up from out of sight and disgorges infantry right in front of you, and you can't help but think "shouldn't I have been allowed to shoot that truck whilst it was driving up"?

Secondly, I don't like the movement order system. You move one of your units, then "other" moves one unit, then the enemy, and it rotates around. Any faction that has extra units all move in a rush at the end. So what this means if that there are five enemies (E) and two of you (U), it goes U E U E E E E. There's no overwatch. This can end in some moments which are very frustrating. In short, I prefer an "initiative" system where I can judge the turn order.

Oh that last point probably just killed the game for me, banner saga worked like that and I absolutely hated it.

 

[BrawlMan]

I am in the middle of Chapter 4 for now of Romeo Is A Dead Man. I will give the game this, it has way more combat options than No More Heroes III. Not that Travis in that specific game didn't have any, but his was much more limited compared to the previous games and Killer Is Dead. I got all the weapons early, but now I got level a few up. The melee weapons are fine, but I beef up the default swords to get big damage in, and fast swing. Enemy variety is getting much diverse as you progress. I love the Killer7 throwback with the zombie weak points.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Finished Astrobot and all of the platforming challenges.

It's a very cute and very fun game that I enjoyed a lot. It has a few problems that are shared by pretty much all 3D platformers, the biggest one being that it's often difficult to judge depth for some jumps, and there's definitely some camera control issues, but overall it's a really imaginative and well made game.

I'm not sure that it deserved game of the year for 2024, because I don't think it's that ambitious or complex, and I wouldn't put it up next to something like Baldur's Gate or Expedition 33 as the height of game design. Hell, I don't even think it's the height of the platformer genre, but it's definitely fun and worth playing.

Now on to something new. I'll probably grab Dispatch next and play what's been dubbed "Twilight for men."

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm not sure that it deserved game of the year for 2024, because I don't think it's that ambitious or complex, and I wouldn't put it up next to something like Baldur's Gate or Expedition 33 as the height of game design. Hell, I don't even think it's the height of the platformer genre, but it's definitely fun and worth playing.

I think the GOTY has in recent years been more about sending a message to industry exects than purely what the best game is. Astrobot might not have been the best game of that year, but it was a AAA 3D platformer from someone other than Nintendo - that I guess they wanted to highlight. Like 'Hey, it's okay to get more games like this please'. Same as to why Expedition 33 swept the last GOTY. I'm sorry, but there's no reason for it to beat everything unless they really wanted to lift up a AAA (ish) game for existing outside of the iron grip of publishers.

 

[Worgen]

Been playing a lot of Dead Island 2. Its much more fun then I expected, I somewhat enjoyed the first game but not enough to beat it. The sequel is much better. Gameplay feels better, the areas are much more fun, overall story is more interesting (although I expect it to fall on its face any moment), characters are better and you get some really fun powers and tools.

I think the biggest improvement for me is the new areas you explore, in the original game the place I enjoyed the most was the hotel, all the other zones were boring. Exploring LA is fun, I like going through peoples mansions and houses, the beach front is also really nice, even the movie studio is a cool area, so far the only kinda annoying one is the ever-present sewer level.

The new abilities are also pretty cool, you have a card system where you equip cards for stat boosts but also special attacks, the first one you get is the ground smash that the beefy zombies do, you also have useable items likes throwing stars, pipe bomb or a meat bait that you can use over and over, but its got a minute cooldown.

I would say the game is pretty easy, its one of those you can face roll if you really want to, death has no cost as far as I can tell and a tough enemy will still have damage you inflicted on it when you come back. I wish it had a survival mode where you can't fix weapons, I started playing where if something breaks then I just shred it to give some of that survival feel and so I used new weapons. You can equip a card called 'masochist' but it sounds like it just makes the zombies hit much harder and take a lot more damage. Could be fun but I'm not big on all the enemies being sponges and even now, the big enemies take a good amount of damage.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
Not sure what to do now.

 

[BrawlMan]

Finished Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
Not sure what to do now.

View attachment 14236

You can try out Romeo Is A Dead Man. I'm still currently going through, but i'm already halfway through the game now. There's only eight stages. Perfect length for me. RE9 comes out in a few weeks too.