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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
God bless your soul for having the patience to farm in this game.

With random battles giving so little experience and battle intro sequences being so lengthy, I just couldn't deal with farming in this game. I coasted by on Boss Exp for most of the game, ending up around level 35 at the end. I'm not even mentioning the tedium of always having to nail those Additions lest your damage tanks hard or your Additions don't level up, at all.

I happened to buy a Legend Casque in Lohan before going to the point of no return at the end of Mayfill, that helmet saved my skinny arse for many a magic attack near the end. Also happened to have five or so Healing Rain items ( the one that heals the entire party ) that helped a bit with the final bosses. That, and the PS4's rewind feature.

Boss do a heavy attack that hits all party members? Rewind back a turn or two and pick different attacks for my own characters, often times this would change the RNG for the bosses attack patterns.
I wish I had a rewind feature. I played it back on the psx in the 90s, still have my hard copy of the game. For some reason I want to say I got to level 55 and couldn't beat the last boss, but I might be thinking of any number of jrpgs since I have a weakness for them and not finishing them.
 

bluegate

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At the time the random battle where pretty fun with the attack being more involved than just picking attack from a menu which helped make it stand out. It also had limited inventory and healing in dungeon which made things a lot more interesting. As far as difficulty, if you were able to beat the divine dragon you were good for the rest of the game. imo because weakness wa slack of good endgame content.
I get the developer's intentions for the Addition system, and I liked the system at the start of the game, but after a while it overstayed its welcome in my eyes.
Having to do it for every stinking attack just got tedious, random battles got on my nerve so much that I just started using the Repeat Run Away item. There are times where I actually prefer just having to press Attack in a menu and not having to jump through 6 quick time event hoops, which can alter their timing somewhat when an enemy decides to counter.

Limited healing places in dungeons was also quite tedious, it didn't make things interesting, it either made you use up gold to buy healing items which would cramp up your limited inventory of 32 slots, which in turn would make opening chests in dungeons a pain, or waste your time by going into battles and only defending for a few minutes ( for readers who aren't familiar; defending in this game recovers 10% of a character's maximum hp ). And the battle system itself isn't really built for speed either, there'd often be inexplicable pauses between character / enemy turns.
 

Specter Von Baren

Annoying Green Gadfly
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I get the developer's intentions for the Addition system, and I liked the system at the start of the game, but after a while it overstayed its welcome in my eyes.
Having to do it for every stinking attack just got tedious, random battles got on my nerve so much that I just started using the Repeat Run Away item. There are times where I actually prefer just having to press Attack in a menu and not having to jump through 6 quick time event hoops, which can alter their timing somewhat when an enemy decides to counter.

Limited healing places in dungeons was also quite tedious, it didn't make things interesting, it either made you use up gold to buy healing items which would cramp up your limited inventory of 32 slots, which in turn would make opening chests in dungeons a pain, or waste your time by going into battles and only defending for a few minutes ( for readers who aren't familiar; defending in this game recovers 10% of a character's maximum hp ). And the battle system itself isn't really built for speed either, there'd often be inexplicable pauses between character / enemy turns.
I played it some years ago and also didn't finish it, but I just kind of lost steam with the plot. What I REALLY liked was how the game actually found a way to have main character death work with an RPG leveling system since the dragon power got transferred to someone else.
 
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The Rogue Wolf

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Having basically dominated the Anomaly mod for STALKER, I have moved on to Gamma, which ratchets up the difficulty the way a sadist ratchets the clamps. Quicksaves are limited to safe bases or lit campfires (although you can earn a "daddy token" every few minutes), fast travel is heavily restricted, the health system is completely revamped and forces the player to actually take several steps to restore health, and traders no longer sell weapons or armor, which means you need to scavenge half-broken gear off of corpses and salvage replacement parts from others- and then make sure to maintain what you've rebuilt so that you don't find yourself with a jam or misfire in the middle of a fight.

I think some parts of it are far more difficult than they ought to be, though. I understand that 12-gauge buckshot isn't highly effective against modern body armor, but when someone withstands eight shotgun blasts, including two to his facemask-clad head, and then walks up to me and knocks me half-unconscious with a buttstroke, well, that's just not cricket.
 
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laggyteabag

Scrolling through forums, instead of playing games
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Finally finished Dragon Age Inquisition, having finished the three expansions.

Jaws of Hakkon is... more Dragon Age Inquisition. Which is to say that from a gameplay perspective, you are dropped into a fairly open area, with a bunch of unexciting side quests to complete. The story does put a decent spotlight on the Avvar (who are basically a bunch of tribal mountain people), but there aren't really any interesting characters or reveals that will likely have a lasting impact, and the plot is wrapped up neatly at the end, with no loose ends to follow up in later games. Frankly, it largely suffers from the same faults that the base game does, as well as feeling completely unessential. Its whatever.

On the other hand, The Descent was great a breath of fresh air, which is pretty ironic, considering it is set deep underground. This expansion takes place in the series' infamous Deep Roads, which are abandoned Dwarven tunnels, that have been overrun by monsters. In contrast to the rest of Inquisition's content, this one is actually mostly linear, with a few opportunities to tackle objectives in whatever order you want, and the ability to backtrack and explore some newly opened tunnels. Due to its linear nature, this adds something that Inquisition has otherwise been sorely missing up until now: actual pacing. Despite a few interesting lore reveals, the plot wasn't anything exceptional, but oh my god, the feeling of being told a decently paced, concise story, after spending 100 hours running around the various wildernesses of the base game - it was beyond refreshing. The only curiosity is that this expansion does a decent job of expanding the enemy roster of the Darkspawn, before almost immediately abandoning them, in favour of another group of enemies that uses the same enemy archetypes as every other humanoid faction in the game.

Then finally, we have Trespasser, which is probably the best slice of content in the whole Dragon Age Inquisition package. Regrettably, this bit of content is one of those essential epilogue DLC's that you have to pay for, but what an epilogue it is. Like The Descent, this is a mostly linear set of levels, with some great pacing, fascinating story reveals, and suitably sets up the upcoming DA4. Honestly, between this and The Descent, it made me appreciate how Dragon Age Origins was structured so much more than I ever did, and I really hope DA4 follows in its tracks, instead of being another open world slog like the rest of Inquisition. Oh, the game Inquisition could have been, if the rest of it was of this quality.

In the end, I am happy to finally put Inquisition behind me after around 150 hours. I am certainly in no rush to touch this one again, for at least a good few more years.
 
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BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
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Replaying Streets of Rage 4, Ninja Saviors, Final Vendetta, and Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders. I'm currently stuck on a level in Ark vs. SI. I did some Mercenaries earlier this in RE4R.
 

XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
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Miasma Chronicles.
Was this...did anyone bother to advertise this at all? Maybe they threw their hands up at the new Zelda consuming the whole internet's attention span, no point pissing the ad money into the wind. By the Devs of Mutant Year Zero (for some reason I keep remembering the game as 'Duckman, Pig, Human' first, the real title takes a second or 2 after) - The Bearded Ladies - and it is seemingly the same genre of exploration/narrative-focused Xcom turn-based combat in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Was surprised how pretty it was for a 10gig download, is this an unreal 5 going on? The dialogue didn't offend my ears, nor the delivery of it. No idea what's going on, tho it's dripfeeding backstory a little like HZD did, and am quite suspicious it's going for the 'nanobot goo gone wrong' type of scenario so far. Not made much progress yet, just wanted to say it existed and it isn't initially terrible.

Will see how long it takes to return to Zelda. Discovered a new setting on my telly last night called Vivid which just made 30fps Switch games look 60 fps, upped the resolution and made colours and lights glow as if HDR was unlocked. Like various lighting and coloured smoke in Zelda magically fuckng glows now! - Is not perfect, a millisecond delay can be felt in Zelda's camera, sudden/far away/small animation movements remain unsmoothed, motion blur cannot be toggled, and certain tricks used by Devs to disguise limited power are a tad more visible in TotK. Results are much clearer in Pokémon Artrius however: It is now a 60fps game for all intents and purposes. More testing needs to be done. But this is quite an interesting set of tricks going on.
 

meiam

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Miasma Chronicles.
Was this...did anyone bother to advertise this at all? Maybe they threw their hands up at the new Zelda consuming the whole internet's attention span, no point pissing the ad money into the wind. By the Devs of Mutant Year Zero (for some reason I keep remembering the game as 'Duckman, Pig, Human' first, the real title takes a second or 2 after) - The Bearded Ladies - and it is seemingly the same genre of exploration/narrative-focused Xcom turn-based combat in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Was surprised how pretty it was for a 10gig download, is this an unreal 5 going on? The dialogue didn't offend my ears, nor the delivery of it. No idea what's going on, tho it's dripfeeding backstory a little like HZD did, and am quite suspicious it's going for the 'nanobot goo gone wrong' type of scenario so far. Not made much progress yet, just wanted to say it existed and it isn't initially terrible.
They're a tiny studio, I don't think they could afford to advertise. Mutant year zero was okay but it wasn't like a smashing success or anything so I don't think they managed to grow this much since then that they'll get big coverage.
 
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Chimpzy

Simian Abomination
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Will see how long it takes to return to Zelda. Discovered a new setting on my telly last night called Vivid which just made 30fps Switch games look 60 fps, upped the resolution and made colours and lights glow as if HDR was unlocked. Like various lighting and coloured smoke in Zelda magically fuckng glows now! - Is not perfect, a millisecond delay can be felt in Zelda's camera, sudden/far away/small animation movements remain unsmoothed, motion blur cannot be toggled, and certain tricks used by Devs to disguise limited power are a tad more visible in TotK. Results are much clearer in Pokémon Artrius however: It is now a 60fps game for all intents and purposes. More testing needs to be done. But this is quite an interesting set of tricks going on.
Sounds like its doing a frame interpolation thing i.e. creating and inserting intermediate frames at the cost of latency. You'd probably feel the difference between it and actually running at 60fps, tho the downsides shouldn't be too noticeable in most games. The extra latency might cause fast-paced games feel a little unresponsive.

Also, if your tv supports full rgb, go into your Switch settings → tv output → rgb range → set to full. Not huge difference vs limited, but gives you better blacks and colors pop a bit more.
 
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XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
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Sounds like its doing a frame interpolation thing i.e. creating and inserting intermediate frames at the cost of latency. You'd probably feel the difference between it and actually running at 60fps, tho the downsides shouldn't be too noticeable in most games. The extra latency might cause fast-paced games feel a little unresponsive.

Also, if your tv supports full rgb, go into your Switch settings → tv output → rgb range → set to full. Not huge difference vs limited, but gives you better blacks and colors pop a bit more.
Cheers for the advice! Yeah that frame interpolation technology I remember coming across way before I even knew what it was - a mate's telly was playing daytime channel shows at a jarring 60fps that would jolt and hold still every couple of minutes or so, tho they didn't know what it was when I asked them about it. - Either way, it was unpleasant, yet those freaks didn't seem to care. Wasn't until articles reporting on Tom Cruise and others saying that it ruins movies with it turned on that I understood and was like "well yeah of fucking course, did you see that shite??" Maybe this telly has an updated version, or it just works more smoothly with 30fps videogames, or both or more, but it works almost well enough for these switch games. Turning the camera fast in TotK does turn the background into an amusing mush of swirly green soups tho lol.

Not sure how they're getting things to glow yet, is different technology must be. Tried taking a photo, not sure if it shows difference much;
ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-27.jpg

They're a tiny studio, I don't think they could afford to advertise. Mutant year zero was okay but it wasn't like a smashing success or anything so I don't think they managed to grow this much since then that they'll get big coverage.
That is why I prefer to still support them! 😇 (the graphics do look like a higher budget game too, is why was wondering if it's unreal 5 or something)
 
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Chimpzy

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Turning the camera fast in TotK does turn the background into an amusing mush of swirly green soups tho lol.
Yeah, that's interpolation's big flaw, the bigger the distance between two data points, the more errors you get. AKA shit gets all smeary.
 
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laggyteabag

Scrolling through forums, instead of playing games
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Im currently playing through The Ascent, and to be honest, im not really in love with it.

At the very least, it is a decent change of pace from a massive RPG, but the game isn't really doing it for me.

This is an isometric twin-stick shooter, set in a grimy/cyberpunk setting. And to be honest, I really cannot fault the visual or audio presentation here. The game is frankly gorgeous, even when you are surrounded by mostly dirt and rust, let alone when the backdrop opens up, the rain starts falling, and there are neon signs everywhere. The amount of detail packed into every environment is incredibly impressive, and in this regard, it receives only glowing praise from me.

Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't quite up to the same standard. Frankly, there isn't really much going on with it. At its best, it is kind of dull, and at its worst, it is pretty frustrating.

So this is mostly a shooter, though there are a couple of melee weapons, but the guns are a lot more boring than I would have liked. You do have ballistic weapons, and energy weapons, and heat based weapons, etc, but they all fall into the same few classic categories of guns - pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, etc. So far, the only unique weapon that I have found, is a minigun that shoots rockets, that is sadly much less effective than it sounds. Other than that, the roster of weapons has so far been very uneventful, which doesn't make combat particularly exciting at the best of times.

One issue with the shooting though, is it feels really inconsistent. Enemy hitboxes are seemingly incredibly unforgiving, with projectiles appearing to pass straight through some enemies, without causing any damage. Of course this happens with automatic weapons too, but it especially makes the single shot weapons feel really frustrating to use, because shots that look like they landed, in fact end up missing entirely. Rapid-fire weapons are definitely the way to go, which is fine, but it does unfortunately eliminate a decent chunk of the armoury.

The game does attempt to spice things up with its gadgets, and some are pretty fun, like summoning a small army of kamikaze robot spiders, but outside of a few niche uses for your offensive abilities, these slots are generally best saved for support abilities, because it is generally just quicker/easier to just shoot enemies, than try to set up any of your gadgets.

Another frustration is with the navigation. There are free fast travel stations that take you to other free fast travel stations, or you can pay for a taxi to take you to a waypoint, but actually walking around the gameworld is really slow. There is no sprint button, so you are forced to sometimes just slowly jog from one side of the map, to the other, often passing through low-level areas, where you just one-shot a lot of enemies, running around for minutes at a time, to reach your destination. It is a bit of a slog.

This game is apparently relatively short, and im about half way through - and I am really enjoying the art design - so I will probably finish it. But as things are, I don't think this one is going to be getting a glowing review from me.
 
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Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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Getting very close to done on Pathfinder Kingmaker.

I've reached the very final dungeon(I think) of the game and it's a fucking slog. It's mazey, it's full of enemies and all of the enemies have multiple ways to fuck you in some way(notably with a liberal use of FEAR or Confusion) and I've been able to make not very much progress in a play session. Like in an hour of play I think I get to clear like a fraction of the dungeon. I've got 2 of the 3 keys I need to access the final boss and I'm fumbling around trying to find it.

And it's frustrating as hell. I feel like i have to be buffed against everything to have a fucking hope of surviving and while the game in general does this, this feels a lot more egregious about it. Even worse my primary buffer is no longer available at this point.

What's more annoying is that I'm about 130 or so hours into the game and the ending is apparently not far beyond this bit, so it feels like there's no point in giving up now, not this close to the end I've invested this much time in. Even worse, the premise of this whole endgame dungeon is actually pretty interesting, being deep inside the Fey world and the home base of the main villian. It's just the execution is so fucking annoying and from the look of it, everyone seems to agree that this whole dungeon is basically bullshit.
 
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FakeSympathy

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I have decided to return to Skyrim. After getting all the achievements, I thought there was nothing left to do. I played as archsage, a goodie-two-shoes chivalrous knight, a cunning thieft, spellblade, ranger, and even as a npc-turned-mc wearing nothing but regular clothing.

And this was after installing 200+ mods. You are probably wondering what is there left to return for?

Well, somehow i never bothered to install any combat overhaul mods. The vanilla combat is pretty bad, and it’s probably why stealth archer is so famous and memed to death, because facing enemies head on is pain especially on legendary difficulty. To that end, I’ve installed Valhalla combat mod. Hopefully this will bring some life back to this game.

I am also trying out alternate start mod, because goddamn i am so sick of that meme intro
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Im currently playing through The Ascent, and to be honest, im not really in love with it.

At the very least, it is a decent change of pace from a massive RPG, but the game isn't really doing it for me.

This is an isometric twin-stick shooter, set in a grimy/cyberpunk setting. And to be honest, I really cannot fault the visual or audio presentation here. The game is frankly gorgeous, even when you are surrounded by mostly dirt and rust, let alone when the backdrop opens up, the rain starts falling, and there are neon signs everywhere. The amount of detail packed into every environment is incredibly impressive, and in this regard, it receives only glowing praise from me.
I really enjoyed the Ascent, but it really did feel like it wanted to be an RPG, not just a twin stick shooter. Its got this interesting world with so many npcs and such, but its just a shooter... Really felt like it wanted to have more complicated systems, maybe still action combat but like moral choices, rpg stats, etc etc.
 

sXeth

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Cheers for the advice! Yeah that frame interpolation technology I remember coming across way before I even knew what it was - a mate's telly was playing daytime channel shows at a jarring 60fps that would jolt and hold still every couple of minutes or so, tho they didn't know what it was when I asked them about it. - Either way, it was unpleasant, yet those freaks didn't seem to care. Wasn't until articles reporting on Tom Cruise and others saying that it ruins movies with it turned on that I understood and was like "well yeah of fucking course, did you see that shite??" Maybe this telly has an updated version, or it just works more smoothly with 30fps videogames, or both or more, but it works almost well enough for these switch games. Turning the camera fast in TotK does turn the background into an amusing mush of swirly green soups tho lol.

Not sure how they're getting things to glow yet, is different technology must be. Tried taking a photo, not sure if it shows difference much;
View attachment 8895



That is why I prefer to still support them! 😇 (the graphics do look like a higher budget game too, is why was wondering if it's unreal 5 or something)
Probably that videogames in themelves are interpolating indvidual frames usually when they generate animations which means more things stay identical between frames, whereas footage of real life will have all sorts off oddball random jitters and stuff that doesn't behave linearly.



Getting very close to done on Pathfinder Kingmaker.

I've reached the very final dungeon(I think) of the game and it's a fucking slog. It's mazey, it's full of enemies and all of the enemies have multiple ways to fuck you in some way(notably with a liberal use of FEAR or Confusion) and I've been able to make not very much progress in a play session. Like in an hour of play I think I get to clear like a fraction of the dungeon. I've got 2 of the 3 keys I need to access the final boss and I'm fumbling around trying to find it.

And it's frustrating as hell. I feel like i have to be buffed against everything to have a fucking hope of surviving and while the game in general does this, this feels a lot more egregious about it. Even worse my primary buffer is no longer available at this point.

What's more annoying is that I'm about 130 or so hours into the game and the ending is apparently not far beyond this bit, so it feels like there's no point in giving up now, not this close to the end I've invested this much time in. Even worse, the premise of this whole endgame dungeon is actually pretty interesting, being deep inside the Fey world and the home base of the main villian. It's just the execution is so fucking annoying and from the look of it, everyone seems to agree that this whole dungeon is basically bullshit.
Yeah I haven't played the Pathfinder Games, but D&D games have notoriously had the problem of there being utterly OP magic effects, and random saving throws, where you're basically a dice roll away from a dozen or more varities of instadeath (petrify and death spells) or death on a slight delay while you have no control (fear, confusion).


Bonus points to Neverwinter Nights Shadows of Undetide which added petrification enemies to the game, including a whole dungeon full of group spawns of them.... and never added the level spell or any item that could block the effect..... so you either modded the campaign (thankfully quite easy in NWN) or you basically had to save scum every single fight and get lucky on 20 odd rolls or so in a row.
 

sXeth

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Finsihed Strayed Lights.

Its a very pretty game, but its also kind of standard in whats it presently. Vaguely defined humanoid protagonist wanders through color pallete world and has fairly basic and standard interactions with things. And the gameplay while it does up the difficulty in later bosses, never really adds anything on terms of mechanics or combos. Its not bad, but its very much just there and gets by on presentation.

Doing the usual things in Warframe.

Sadly some illness at the start of the month knocked the budget off kilter, so Wild Hearts will be a bit further off.
 

Bartholen

At age 6 I was born without a face
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I am also trying out alternate start mod, because goddamn i am so sick of that meme intro
You... cleared all achievements in Skyrim and installed 200+ mods... and not once did you even try the Random Alternate Start? I installed it on like my third playthrough, because that intro is so goddamn long and the same every time. RAS on the other hand allows for something not one Elder Scrolls has achieved for me, which is pure roleplaying. You don't even have to start the main quest, the only instructions even related to dragons is to investigate Helgen. Starting at a random location breathes so much life into the early game because you actually feel like you could be anyone in the world. Your "starting" area is different every time, as are the enemies you fight, the environments you go through, and the NPCs you encounter. That one single mod makes Skyrim so much more enjoyable it's criminal.

In other things, I finally beat Delirium with The Lost in Binding of Isaac. While it previously seemed impossible, there's one item that, if combined with even a couple of the right items, makes it a total cakewalk. That item is the Gnawed Leaf, which opens up what you could call "AFK builds". The Gnawed Leaf turns you completely immune to all sources of damage if you stand still for like 2 seconds. If you do anything - move, shoot, use items, anything - the effect wears off. While this is a B-tier item at best, combining it with passive sources of damage means that you can clear rooms and even boss fights by literally doing nothing. By lucking into a few critical such items like Mom's Razor, Cube of Meat and the Virus, I could just sit there while the hardest boss in the "stop punching yourself"-ed itself to death.
 
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