What are you currently playing?

[Casual Shinji]

The big complaint about the game was that Garl got all the (grating) personality while Zale and Valere were basically interchangeable boy and girl PCs. The more devoted fans made excuses for their GOTY claiming their lack of personality or individuality tracked with their monastic upbringing.

Two years later the studio released a DLC that went to great pains to 1) remove Garl from the game and 2) differentiate Zale and Valere by randomly giving them insecurities about giving in to their inner darkness, so now Zale is insecure about the vanity that's fueling his actions and Valere is scared of giving in to an angry, feral id.

The DLC doesn't make the characters any more interesting (or less flat) and works as an admission of their weak characterization by working so hard to fix that (it doesn't).

I'd be okay with the main characters being blue haired girl and blond haired boy with powers if the rest of the side characters picked up the slack, but I'm just given nothing. It tries to be quirky with the pirates with annoyingly middling results.

And yeah, I didn't know about the DLC trying to spruce up the charisma. I certainly didn't notice a difference from when I played it back when. I'm not asking for A-grade comedy writing or anything, but something like Owlboy (which I wouldn't even say is a better game) had a much more solid whimsical presentation of its characters.

 

[BrawlMan]

I did three arcade runs of Street Fighter Alpha 1. Good game, but one, i'm not going to come back to often. It's still fun though.

 

[Worgen]

I basically agree with all of that, and at some point I need to actually finish it myself; I remember I left off in Chapter 11, just before Vanille's Eidolon fight. Hope is my favorite.

One of the things that really struck me about FF13 was how streamlined it is. I mean, there is very little faffing about. You can kinda roam and do side hunts when

Spoiler: Minor general game spoilers

you get to gran pulse, but aside from that there is no extraneous stuff, its story is about you being on borrowed time and there isn't really anything that takes away from that, the linearity of the levels, lack of side activities, no card games, even the lack of normal towns for shopping. Its all about, your characters are on borrowed time and while there is no time limit, the character actions are all within the context of they have a mission and can't really deviate from their goals, even if they do second guess exactly what those goals are.

 

[Ezekiel]

Somebody told me that you don't have to beat that Tomb Raider game in game, that it only gives you another way out of the place. But I figured it out, beat it and rather liked it. But, psychologically, when faced with having to learn a game... I probably wouldn't do that in my game. Probably...

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm gonna try out Air Twister tonight. Is that a huge discount on PSN.

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[Worgen]

I'm gonna try out Air Twister tonight. Is that a huge discount on PSN.

​

Looks kinda cool, if you like that style of game then you also might want to check this out.

 

[Bartholen]

I got into XCOM 2, but I don't feel that much drive to go back to it. Maybe it's because I just recently had another bout of permadeath tactical gameplay with Darkest Dungeon, but XCOM 2 just doesn't feel that fun. I feel like the only way to victory, or at least victory without terrible casualties, is to just savescum. The way the game reveals enemies constantly throws wrenches into your game plan, often forcing a restart because you lose a soldier in the first few turns to an ability you had no possible way to know of beforehand. Like in the first game, it's often near impossible to determine whether an enemy can see your units from a position or not before moving into it, and inversely you'll often end up in a situation where it looks like you should see enemy units, but for some arbitrary reason don't.

Now all of the above was also present in the first game, but the second throws in more elements that push it over the edge of nonenjoyment for me. Unlike in the first, there is now a long-term ticking clock, and you have to traverse a world map to get to different missions. It feels like you can't really take your time and are instead forced to rush on, scraping by with whatever scraps you can gather along the way. Money and resources feel much tighter while the game also constantly bombards you with new missions and tasks.

 

[thebobmaster]

I got into XCOM 2, but I don't feel that much drive to go back to it. Maybe it's because I just recently had another bout of permadeath tactical gameplay with Darkest Dungeon, but XCOM 2 just doesn't feel that fun. I feel like the only way to victory, or at least victory without terrible casualties, is to just savescum. The way the game reveals enemies constantly throws wrenches into your game plan, often forcing a restart because you lose a soldier in the first few turns to an ability you had no possible way to know of beforehand. Like in the first game, it's often near impossible to determine whether an enemy can see your units from a position or not before moving into it, and inversely you'll often end up in a situation where it looks like you should see enemy units, but for some arbitrary reason don't.

Now all of the above was also present in the first game, but the second throws in more elements that push it over the edge of nonenjoyment for me. Unlike in the first, there is now a long-term ticking clock, and you have to traverse a world map to get to different missions. It feels like you can't really take your time and are instead forced to rush on, scraping by with whatever scraps you can gather along the way. Money and resources feel much tighter while the game also constantly bombards you with new missions and tasks.

There's a reason why one of the first mods made for the game was to disable/extend the timer.

 

[meiam]

Finally beat FF13. Pretty good, story was interesting, but kinda poorly told. Took reading the datalog to understand things and motivations and even then there are questions. Characters ended up being really good and some of the more well realized characters I've seen from Final Fantasy. Aside from Snow they all seemed like rather real people and their motivations made sense. Snow regularly seems to think hes the main character of a shonen manga. It really is Final Fantasy hallway edition, so many areas are mainly just hallways or essentially hallways. Combat is fun and challenging, but there are parts with just way too many enemies. The start of the game is also really rough. I mentioned it before but has one of the worst introductions I have ever seen in a game. Lots of things happening with no explanation, combat is totally hamstrung with just having you auto attack for entirely too long, literally running down a hallway, etc. Once the story starts kinda explaining things (mainly though the datalog) it gets much better, characters are developed, combat is fleshed out and made much much more interesting, it gets quite good, but it shouldn't take as long as it does.

I won't redo my FF13 rant, but I disagree on everything. FF13 is my "worse video game of all time" because unlike something like superman 64, they can't use the excuse of limited time or money. Every aspect is an abject failure (except graphic and music).

 

[Worgen]

I won't redo my FF13 rant, but I disagree on everything. FF13 is my "worse video game of all time" because unlike something like superman 64, they can't use the excuse of limited time or money. Every aspect is an abject failure (except graphic and music).

Did you actually get far in the game or is this a first impressions thing? I understand if you are going off of first impressions since it has one of the worst first impressions I have ever encountered, but if you actually beat the game then I hard disagree.

 

[meiam]

Did you actually get far in the game or is this a first impressions thing? I understand if you are going off of first impressions since it has one of the worst first impressions I have ever encountered, but if you actually beat the game then I hard disagree.

Nope, finished the game (regret it, but the final dungeon soundtrack is great so I guess that balance out). Flat out the worse ending of all time, instead it could have cut to the dev taking a dumb and I would consider it a massive improvement.

 

[Worgen]

Nope, finished the game (regret it, but the final dungeon soundtrack is great so I guess that balance out). Flat out the worse ending of all time, instead it could have cut to the dev taking a dumb and I would consider it a massive improvement.

If you think that was the worst ending ever then you haven't beaten that many games.

 

[meiam]

If you think that was the worst ending ever then you haven't beaten that many games.

Well over a thousand, but I can't remember any other that somehow:

Contradict everything the game taught you.
Has the player party do 100% of what the bad guys want.
Reward all the terrible decision character have done.
Rely on Deus Ex to fix everything.
Are complete non sense.

It like the dev wanted to insult you for even playing the game in the first place.

 

[BrawlMan]

Well over a thousand, but I can't remember any other that somehow:

Contradict everything the game taught you.
Has the player party do 100% of what the bad guys want.
Reward all the terrible decision character have done.
Rely on Deus Ex to fix everything.
Are complete non sense.

It like the dev wanted to insult you for even playing the game in the first place.

I can't blame you for feeling that way. My older brother and I could not even finish the game. We stopped halfway into disc 2.

 

[thebobmaster]

Playing through more of Robocop: Rogue City. This game has confirmed two things for me. Firstly, I suck at FPS games. Secondly, this is the real Robocop 3. Fuck that Japanese ninja bullshit.

 

[Gordon_4]

Playing through more of Robocop: Rogue City. This game has confirmed two things for me. Firstly, I suck at FPS games. Secondly, this is the real Robocop 3. Fuck that Japanese ninja bullshit.

Dude. The robot ninja and the Jetpack were like the only good things about RoboCop 3

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Finally finished replaying Deltarune. There's a couple of things that I marked out as wanting to do that I didn't last time, but the big one was definitely completing all four of the optional bosses, as well as the 'S Rank' content that I missed out on last time.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Playing through more of Robocop: Rogue City. This game has confirmed two things for me. Firstly, I suck at FPS games. Secondly, this is the real Robocop 3. Fuck that Japanese ninja bullshit.

Eh, the real Robocop 2 can take a hike as well.

 

[BrawlMan]

Playing through more of Robocop: Rogue City. This game has confirmed two things for me. Firstly, I suck at FPS games. Secondly, this is the real Robocop 3. Fuck that Japanese ninja bullshit.

Eh, the real Robocop 2 can take a hike as well.

FTR: It's implied that rogue city takes place after the second movie, but before the third movie. So the second movie still happened. Though I can't blame anyone for ignoring it. The second film I don't find that bad though.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Started Sonic Adventure 2. Initial impressions:

-Sonic: Plays decently I suppose. I think I actually preferred how he controls in Adventure 1, though admittedly the last time I played that game was 15 years ago, and I played it with a keyboard. The Homing Attack seems kinda finicky about when it is or isn't locked onto something, and not having an indicator like the later games doesn't help. Also I'm sure there are ways to get through the stages faster than I have been, but they're a lot less intuitive to find than in the 2D games. Or maybe I just need to play the stages more to find them like those games. I can't judge everything by my experience with Mania, after all.

-Knuckles: I spent 13 minutes on Pumpkin Hill because the camera wouldn't allow me to spot the one specific pumpkin head that the hints were talking about. Says it all.

-Tails: I think Omega's controls were definitely better, though the lock-on noise is annoying for both and never gets better. Lock-on feels like it either has a disgustingly short range or it's just extremely precise and I'm not aiming 'through' the enemy properly. Jumps are both really short and really heavy, and even having the Booster from Mission Street doesn't make them feel great, just tolerable. Even with it, you still can't get on top of a lot of things it looks like you should be able to.

-Story: I know that a lot of the events of the plot are based on actions taken by the Dark Side characters off-screen, but even with that aside, the plot is legitimately stupid. Events happen for no reason as well as reasons you're just not told about, the cutscene direction and animation is all over the place, and the English voice acting is simultaneously tied to the Japanese diction, which sounds totally unnatural in English, while missing all of the timing cues, leading to characters speaking over each other. Also, Angel Island just... kinda doesn't exist anymore, it feels like?

-Overall: Maybe I'm just too old for it now, but I'm not feeling the magic like I did when I was playing Adventure 1 15 years ago. Still, it's not like it's a super long game if you aren't trying to 100% it, and from what I've been told the story does get significantly better on Dark Side. And I do like Shadow, so getting to see his origins firsthand is something worth playing through the rest of the game for.