Zero Punctuation: Hand of Fate 2

Erttheking

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Was not expecting him to cover this game and I'm rather glad he liked it.

Five bucks says the encounters he got disheartened by were either Strength or Justice. In an otherwise quite good game, those two can get fucked.
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
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Apr 1, 2009
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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Weirdly enough, I haven't heard anyone use "fag" as an insult in years... ok, I heard it once in the last like 3 years. But considering I play mobas, I would expect to hear it a lot more if it was even close to a go to insult anymore.
 

Steve the Pocket

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I kept seeing this on the recent videos of Let's Play channels and thinking "Isn't this the sequel to that one PS3 collectible card game that used real cards and required the camera to see what you had?" Only while watching this video did I finally realize I was thinking of Eye of Judgment.
 

Mikeybb

Nunc est Durandum
Aug 19, 2014
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Actually makes me interested in try the game.

No, not because of the 'moms vibrator' analogy.
Really.
It's not.
I MEAN it.
 

Darth_Payn

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I have been turned off by playing cards in video games since Pazaak in KOTOR, since I'm playing against the computer, which is a Cheating Bastard. Never could find a mod that lets me accuse my opponent of cheating and challenge him (or her) to a fight, kill them, and loot their body for money, items, and new cards. Strangely enough, playing Pazaak for hours on end, saving after winning a hand and loading after losing, made me good at blackjack.
 

Imre Csete

Original Character, Do Not Steal
Jul 8, 2010
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Darth_Payn said:
I have been turned off by playing cards in video games since Pazaak in KOTOR, since I'm playing against the computer, which is a Cheating Bastard. Never could find a mod that lets me accuse my opponent of cheating and challenge him (or her) to a fight, kill them, and loot their body for money, items, and new cards. Strangely enough, playing Pazaak for hours on end, saving after winning a hand and loading after losing, made me good at blackjack.
The only redeeming feature of Fable: The Lost Chapters minigames, when you lose during grinding for a minigame related quest, you could just beat the shit out of the NPCs before you quickload.
 

darkrage6

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So I guess Yahtzee is saving WW2 for next year, makes sense since January next year looks pretty damn empty in terms of game releases, I wonder if Yahtzee will bother reviewing the new South Park game next week.
 

Callate

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Sounds like it has much the same problems I had with the original. It's all very well to have the shiny mace and the ring that heals you when you kill someone (okay, a chance that you might find the shiny mace and the ring that heals you when you kill someone), but it gets annoyingly heavy-handed when it decides there's going to be a certain amount of arbitrary "fuck you over" elements. "Yes, I'm starting you with an enormously detrimental curse. If you're lucky enough to stumble into encounters that grant you a huge amount of gold (noting that I dropped four random encounters into the deck that all give you significant pains and no rewards, so you're not likely to want to do a lot of extra searching), you can pay to have it removed- as long as you don't have to buy ANYTHING ELSE. Like, say, food."

"...And then when you die, I'm going to make you listen to my same clever witticism about how it was a matter of my cleverness and your lack of skill, rather than a completely arbitrary screwing-over. OVER AND OVER AGAIN."

Much as I admired some aspects of the thing, by the time I finally clobbered the Dealer, I felt more relief that I could stop playing than jubilation at victory.
 

NerfedFalcon

Level i Flare!
Mar 23, 2011
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Was not expecting to see box art of a Japan-exclusive game like Kiwami 2. I mean, even if you were using it negatively. (And yeah, it is a remake, but at least it's not just a remaster, but that's off topic.)

Played the first, it wasn't bad. Might pick up the second at some point if it goes on sale; I still have the first lying around unfinished.
 

TheFinish

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May 17, 2010
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Callate said:
Sounds like it has much the same problems I had with the original. It's all very well to have the shiny mace and the ring that heals you when you kill someone (okay, a chance that you might find the shiny mace and the ring that heals you when you kill someone), but it gets annoyingly heavy-handed when it decides there's going to be a certain amount of arbitrary "fuck you over" elements. "Yes, I'm starting you with an enormously detrimental curse. If you're lucky enough to stumble into encounters that grant you a huge amount of gold (noting that I dropped four random encounters into the deck that all give you significant pains and no rewards, so you're not likely to want to do a lot of extra searching), you can pay to have it removed- as long as you don't have to buy ANYTHING ELSE. Like, say, food."

"...And then when you die, I'm going to make you listen to my same clever witticism about how it was a matter of my cleverness and your lack of skill, rather than a completely arbitrary screwing-over. OVER AND OVER AGAIN."

Much as I admired some aspects of the thing, by the time I finally clobbered the Dealer, I felt more relief that I could stop playing than jubilation at victory.
In that sense, Hand of Fate 2 is much more forgiving. The levels are smaller, and, suprisingly, far less random as a whole. There's tons of ways to game the system (in a good way), with far, far more 100% good cards that help you a lot.

Exploration is also encouraged a lot more, since only stepping on cards you've not travelled through consumes food, which means you're not penalised for trying to complete a whole level.

Also, and this is as someone who completed Hand of Fate 1 unlocking all cards, most of the unlocks are straightforward and free of bullcrap. There's nothing in the game like the absolute idiocy that was unlocking the full Dragon Relics line; there's no card you have to purposefully fail to get the token, etc etc.

Even the most annoying unlock card (the Questing Mace, which as 10 iterations, each one requiring you to kill X of Y) you can do, without fail, in like an hour.

Overall HoF2 is a marked, complete improvement over HoF 1, and I heartily recommend it to anyone that ever enjoyed the first one. It's much better designed and built.

erttheking said:
Was not expecting him to cover this game and I'm rather glad he liked it.

Five bucks says the encounters he got disheartened by were either Strength or Justice. In an otherwise quite good game, those two can get fucked.
I found Strength to be hard.....until I realised I could take the Healing Draught, drink all it's uses on the first campfire, and be much better off. Strength with the Jousting Armor though, holee crappoli.

Justice is just a math game, really, but I do agree it's an incredibly annoying one. I got gold on my second try though.
 

Zydrate

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I've only done a couple hours and a few adventures but I'm not sure how the deck optimization thing works. I still can't seem to get those six goddamn blessings for that damn empress because it will either autoconsume one when something relevant happens or I'm too short on gold to buy one at the entrance to each level of the adventure. I imagine later in the game I can stack blessing cards in some fashion.

Hof2 also seems to lack the true roguelike aspects the first one had. In the first game, your whole adventure would reset but you'd keep your cards and extended deck size to make getting through the adventures easier (and it usually did). I failed a combat on purpose (I've attempted that goddamn six blessings encounter like three times) just to find out what would happen and the answer is fuck all. It just ended the 'venture with no coin to my name which was fine because I didn't make the objective anyway. Meanwhile I'm stuck with ALL the same stuff I had before, effectively wasting that 15 minutes or so for no reason.
 

Callate

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TheFinish said:
In that sense, Hand of Fate 2 is much more forgiving. The levels are smaller, and, suprisingly, far less random as a whole. There's tons of ways to game the system (in a good way), with far, far more 100% good cards that help you a lot.

Exploration is also encouraged a lot more, since only stepping on cards you've not travelled through consumes food, which means you're not penalised for trying to complete a whole level.

Also, and this is as someone who completed Hand of Fate 1 unlocking all cards, most of the unlocks are straightforward and free of bullcrap. There's nothing in the game like the absolute idiocy that was unlocking the full Dragon Relics line; there's no card you have to purposefully fail to get the token, etc etc.

Even the most annoying unlock card (the Questing Mace, which as 10 iterations, each one requiring you to kill X of Y) you can do, without fail, in like an hour.

Overall HoF2 is a marked, complete improvement over HoF 1, and I heartily recommend it to anyone that ever enjoyed the first one. It's much better designed and built.
Thanks for the summation. That sounds like something I might be more willing to try... Though I have to admit I'll still probably wait for a GOG sale.
 

MaatMons

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Is this the right place to beg Yahtzee to review a specific game? I'd like to see MxM reviewed while there's still a chance. It's a MOBA that for some reason had actual, good PvE content. Plus, he can poke fun at how it announced its closure just 5 months after it opened.