What are you currently playing?

[thebobmaster]

Aaand once again my unwillingness to deal with frustration and getting stuck on a game has bitten me, so I might start a little bit of a project. Never really did/committed to a Renegade playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy, so I might give that a try, and pull a Dalisclock and make a thread on here about my experience. I'll also be doing the unthinkable and killing off Wrex in the first game, so we'll see how THAT goes.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes! Love this one!
I don't normally go in for the 8 or 16 bit thing any more but every couple of years there is one that hits me just right and this was the last one.
Unfortunately I did lose patience at the very end but mostly had a real good time. Good luck with it- some of the stuff is a real PitA to figure out. Well it was for me at least.

I'm loving it! Most games, like or dislike, take a couple of sessions or at least a few hours before I have an opinion, and then maybe that changes anyway. But this has been a blast from the very beginning. Connected immediately with it.

 

[Dalisclock]

DragonAge Veilguard.

I’m up to my first proper boss fight and boy oh boy am I just not good at games any more xD

Spoiler

So Dalisclock doesn’t get spoiled, I chose to save Minrathous - mainly because making whoopie with Neve is impossible otherwise - and I don’t know if I’m just thick headed but fighting the dragon feels different to the previous mini bosses and not in the sense of just being more difficult. Technically this isn’t a fight I’m meant to win cos this thing is endgame material so it’s more like a primer but I remember dragons in these games moving a bit ponderously. THIS fucker on the other hand is jumping all over the place and diving at me. This isn’t helped by the stagger mechanic meaning I have to press B to start moving again half the time. And whatever sadist put a hard limit on healing potions; fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Now this isn’t a difficulty complaint, killing or wounding a dragon lich should be hard, but I just feel that this is too much too soon and it shouldn’t be sprung on us the way it was

I’m still enjoying myself but I am feeling fantasy burnout a little so I took a break to play Space Marine II. I don’t know if it helped but never let it be said firing a heavy Bolter isn’t cathartic.

Don't worry about spoiling me, I already beat the game. I'm writing the commentary post hoc(with some replaying the early game on a different rook to remember what happened).

 

[Worgen]

Aaand once again my unwillingness to deal with frustration and getting stuck on a game has bitten me, so I might start a little bit of a project. Never really did/committed to a Renegade playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy, so I might give that a try, and pull a Dalisclock and make a thread on here about my experience. I'll also be doing the unthinkable and killing off Wrex in the first game, so we'll see how THAT goes.

As much as killing off Wrex sucked in my renegade playthrough, killing the Rachni queen was much harder and made me feel worse.

 

[Worgen]

Beat the first campaign in Dawn of War definitive edition. It really does hold up, although some cut scenes seem buggier then they were. Like I feel like one of the near end game scenes was missing some dialog, and the scene where you kill the traitor... well it took place on this dais and I had a bunch of other troops up there so when my guy was fighting him he was just getting shot to hell by a couple infantry units and a dreadnaught and they also knocked him away from where he was supposed to be fighting.

Started on Winter Storm as DA ORKS CAUSE DEY ARE MADE FER FIGHTIN AND WINNIN! Ahh, I missed Gorgutz.

 

[Ezekiel]

This level is highly annoying. One of the commentators quit here. Game feels rushed.

 

[Gordon_4]

Don't worry about spoiling me, I already beat the game. I'm writing the commentary post hoc(with some replaying the early game on a different rook to remember what happened).

Ah. That I did not know. Still, courtesy cost nothing so I did what I did.

 

[Ezekiel]

Perpetual Fluidity took me over two hours. Found all five upgrade crystals in my endless wandering. I want the human construct levels to be over.



I don't even remember what the Vortex look like in this game.

 

[Dreiko]

So I started Triangle Strategy, a game I didn't know existed 2 days ago. It's an Srpg in the vein of FFT made by the bravely default/octopath people, and it kinda fixes my one core issue with the Srpg genre while being excellent in all the areas I always loved since first playing FFTA on the GBA, those being the combat depth and various classes and strategies and so on.

Those games always had an issue in the way they delivered their story for me, and I would always contrast them with Jrpgs and how I was much more able to feel immersed and involved in the story thanks to actually walking around in the world and talking to people and stuff. Srpgs tend to be basically a battle and then a cutscene and then a menu and then another battle and it just kinda kept being that way, you'd navigate everything through menus and choosing the next mission to go on. Some like Disgaea would have a couple of hub areas or bases where you could walk around a bit, but nowhere near as in triangle. Here, they just do this very simple thing of having an "exploration" phase between all the cutscenes and battles where you do just get to walk around like in a Jrpg and talk to people, and they do it in practically every area you end up fighting in. So the connection to the story and world is just instantly so much more gripping thanks to that.


They also have a very robust choice system that defines your values. There's 3 countries and each broadly stands for the principles of utility justice and morality respectively, and based on the choices you make in dialogue your own personality and convictions form. It affects which party members you can recruit and the endings and the general plot of the game. Also for the big choices there's a voting system and you have to not only decide on what you feel is right but also convince your party members to vote in your favor, and doing that is helped if you talk to a bunch of npcs during the exploration phase and obtain information upon which to form your arguments, so it's all just very integrated and meshes well together. Also the game is just very plot heavy, the ratio is something like 60-40 towards story content. And the story is very interesting and instantly makes you care about the main cast of chars. Everyone has something to love or hate about them enough to be super interesting. Though there is a free mission style option if you feel like grinding combat a while or just wanna level up a bit before a difficult fight.

This game also does the best hd-2d I've seen so far, by funnily enough not being quite as HD and leaning more towards the 2D look. A main thing I always found weird about HD-2D was that the backgrounds looked too nice so the chars kinda stood out in a bad way. The star ocean remakes had this problem the worst for me. Here though, the background objects like beds and pots and stuff also look kinda like low quality polygons from Breath of Fire 4 or something...which actually fits the visual theme of the game more, funnily enough. It all looks more cohesive and fits together.



Still pretty early on, maybe 10 hours in, but I'm super in love.

 

[Worgen]

Still pretty early on, maybe 10 hours in, but I'm super in love.

Cool, thats one of those I've had my eye on, maybe when I'm finally finished with Octopath Traveler 2 I'll get it for my jrpg fix... although I do still have Persona 3 remaster to play... I really need to play these for more then like an hour or 2 a day.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Cool, thats one of those I've had my eye on, maybe when I'm finally finished with Octopath Traveler 2 I'll get it for my jrpg fix... although I do still have Persona 3 remaster to play... I really need to play these for more then like an hour or 2 a day.

And I gotta play more of Expedition 33, but with Silksong coming out in a couple of weeks next week, I'm saving my energy for that. Or maybe that's just a bad excuse for being lazy, hell if I know. E33 is pretty good. I love the way it looks, the mechanics are interesting and while I haven't played as much as I could've or should've, the plot and characters are likeable so far.

 

[Worgen]

And I gotta play more of Expedition 33, but with Silksong coming out in a couple of weeks next week, I'm saving my energy for that. Or maybe that's just a bad excuse for being lazy, hell if I know. E33 is pretty good. I love the way it looks, the mechanics are interesting and while I haven't played as much as I could've or should've, the plot and characters are likeable so far.

That ones on my list also, I've only heard good things about it, but gotta do Persona 3 after Octopath since I never got to play 3 past an early point back in the day, my memory card ate my save. Despite having gone through Persona 5 twice in a row and then Metaphore I need more Persona style play.

 

[laggyteabag]

Decided to take a quick detour from Darksiders 2, and i've completed the first Dawn of War campaign, which I'd never tried.

I think tha Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansion campaigns are much more famous, because they give you this large map that you can tackle in any order, and you can play any faction you want, but this one is a linear mission-based campaign, where you only get to play as the Space Marines.

And yeah, its your very typical Space Marine story: A planet is under attack by Orks. You come in an kill a bunch of them. The Eldar are also there fucking about, whilst being super vague and mysterious about the real threat. Then surprise! the Chaos Space Marines are behind the whole thing, and serve as the big bad. Throw in the innevitable betrayal of one of your allies, and hey presto, that is Dawn of War 1's campaign.

Honestly, from a story perspective, if you've played one, you've played them all. Specifically, Dawn of War 2 (except it is Tyranids instead of Chaos) and both Space Marine games come to mind.

As for gameplay, there isn't too much variety here. In each mission you build your base, and then either capture points, or destory the enemy base, or both. I think StarCraft 2 has me spoiled for what RTS campaign variety can look like, but at least this one is comparatively short.

So yeah, that is Dawn of War. Its fine. I'll probably also do Winter Assault, because i've never played that one either.

 

[meiam]

So I started Triangle Strategy, a game I didn't know existed 2 days ago. It's an Srpg in the vein of FFT made by the bravely default/octopath people, and it kinda fixes my one core issue with the Srpg genre while being excellent in all the areas I always loved since first playing FFTA on the GBA, those being the combat depth and various classes and strategies and so on.

Those games always had an issue in the way they delivered their story for me, and I would always contrast them with Jrpgs and how I was much more able to feel immersed and involved in the story thanks to actually walking around in the world and talking to people and stuff. Srpgs tend to be basically a battle and then a cutscene and then a menu and then another battle and it just kinda kept being that way, you'd navigate everything through menus and choosing the next mission to go on. Some like Disgaea would have a couple of hub areas or bases where you could walk around a bit, but nowhere near as in triangle. Here, they just do this very simple thing of having an "exploration" phase between all the cutscenes and battles where you do just get to walk around like in a Jrpg and talk to people, and they do it in practically every area you end up fighting in. So the connection to the story and world is just instantly so much more gripping thanks to that.


They also have a very robust choice system that defines your values. There's 3 countries and each broadly stands for the principles of utility justice and morality respectively, and based on the choices you make in dialogue your own personality and convictions form. It affects which party members you can recruit and the endings and the general plot of the game. Also for the big choices there's a voting system and you have to not only decide on what you feel is right but also convince your party members to vote in your favor, and doing that is helped if you talk to a bunch of npcs during the exploration phase and obtain information upon which to form your arguments, so it's all just very integrated and meshes well together. Also the game is just very plot heavy, the ratio is something like 60-40 towards story content. And the story is very interesting and instantly makes you care about the main cast of chars. Everyone has something to love or hate about them enough to be super interesting. Though there is a free mission style option if you feel like grinding combat a while or just wanna level up a bit before a difficult fight.

This game also does the best hd-2d I've seen so far, by funnily enough not being quite as HD and leaning more towards the 2D look. A main thing I always found weird about HD-2D was that the backgrounds looked too nice so the chars kinda stood out in a bad way. The star ocean remakes had this problem the worst for me. Here though, the background objects like beds and pots and stuff also look kinda like low quality polygons from Breath of Fire 4 or something...which actually fits the visual theme of the game more, funnily enough. It all looks more cohesive and fits together.



Still pretty early on, maybe 10 hours in, but I'm super in love.

The game has a massive weakness for me, while it tries to have this big "your choice" system, there's actually a very specific route you're suppose to take (that's completely arbitrary) if you want a good ending, otherwise, you end up forced to pick a really crappy choice (that are very forcefully trust on you).

 

[Dreiko]

Cool, thats one of those I've had my eye on, maybe when I'm finally finished with Octopath Traveler 2 I'll get it for my jrpg fix... although I do still have Persona 3 remaster to play... I really need to play these for more then like an hour or 2 a day.

Gameplay wise triangle is totally different, it really feels like a modern take on fft in the best way possible. Other than that though yeah, massive time investment.

 

[Worgen]

Gameplay wise triangle is totally different, it really feels like a modern take on fft in the best way possible. Other than that though yeah, massive time investment.

I am aware. How much of a time investment?

 

[Worgen]

Beat Ender Magnolia. I did really like it, I think its a bit better then their other game Ender Lilies. The plot is more coherent less darksouls mysterious. I found it mainly rather easy, but there are a few bosses like the last one that can be tricky. Its got some really nice difficulty options, like you can change difficulty whenever you want, higher gives you more money and fragments. I do have a few other achievements I need for 100% that I'll probably go for since Silksong is still a week away.

 

[BrawlMan]

Currently on Chapter 7 of darkSector. The game doesn't have many set pieces, but more than makes up for it with varied level designs and upping the enemy encounters with new enemy types introduce in each stage or section. Similar to Gears, you almost always doing something different in these encounters, and Glaive only adds to the combat pace even further.

The game has some hilarious jank with the rag doll physics and I am here to stay for them.

 

[Dalisclock]

So I started Triangle Strategy, a game I didn't know existed 2 days ago. It's an Srpg in the vein of FFT made by the bravely default/octopath people, and it kinda fixes my one core issue with the Srpg genre while being excellent in all the areas I always loved since first playing FFTA on the GBA, those being the combat depth and various classes and strategies and so on.

Those games always had an issue in the way they delivered their story for me, and I would always contrast them with Jrpgs and how I was much more able to feel immersed and involved in the story thanks to actually walking around in the world and talking to people and stuff. Srpgs tend to be basically a battle and then a cutscene and then a menu and then another battle and it just kinda kept being that way, you'd navigate everything through menus and choosing the next mission to go on. Some like Disgaea would have a couple of hub areas or bases where you could walk around a bit, but nowhere near as in triangle. Here, they just do this very simple thing of having an "exploration" phase between all the cutscenes and battles where you do just get to walk around like in a Jrpg and talk to people, and they do it in practically every area you end up fighting in. So the connection to the story and world is just instantly so much more gripping thanks to that.


They also have a very robust choice system that defines your values. There's 3 countries and each broadly stands for the principles of utility justice and morality respectively, and based on the choices you make in dialogue your own personality and convictions form. It affects which party members you can recruit and the endings and the general plot of the game. Also for the big choices there's a voting system and you have to not only decide on what you feel is right but also convince your party members to vote in your favor, and doing that is helped if you talk to a bunch of npcs during the exploration phase and obtain information upon which to form your arguments, so it's all just very integrated and meshes well together. Also the game is just very plot heavy, the ratio is something like 60-40 towards story content. And the story is very interesting and instantly makes you care about the main cast of chars. Everyone has something to love or hate about them enough to be super interesting. Though there is a free mission style option if you feel like grinding combat a while or just wanna level up a bit before a difficult fight.

This game also does the best hd-2d I've seen so far, by funnily enough not being quite as HD and leaning more towards the 2D look. A main thing I always found weird about HD-2D was that the backgrounds looked too nice so the chars kinda stood out in a bad way. The star ocean remakes had this problem the worst for me. Here though, the background objects like beds and pots and stuff also look kinda like low quality polygons from Breath of Fire 4 or something...which actually fits the visual theme of the game more, funnily enough. It all looks more cohesive and fits together.



Still pretty early on, maybe 10 hours in, but I'm super in love.

I started it a couple years ago and then got distractd. On the bright side it has a way to replay cutscenes so at least I can catch up when I do decide to play it again

 

[Casual Shinji]

Against my better judgement I picked up the MGS3 remaster/reskin/"remake". This thing looks kinda like trash. In the world of reskins that we're currently living in this one is visually the most creatively lacking. The best comparison I can think of is one of those colorized manga scans. Though an even better comparison would be to just look at the Death Stranding games and than look at Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

Realistic looking games are often derided for only putting focus on realism, but Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater shows how much those games actually invest in visual design - whether it's Naughty Dog, Quantic Dream, or even Ubisoft - because it has pretty much none. I'm not even really a fan of the look of the original MGS3, but there's certainly a mood and a style there, unlike the "remake".