What Are You Playing?

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Enjoy USPS Simulator. :iva:

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Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I initially didn't understand the image above because I guess I've done a pretty good job not spoiling myself on the details of Death Stranding's story or gameplay, but having played the first couple hours... Holy shit it's weird! Like you know how MGS games are one part hyper-detailed "real" world inspiration and two parts Kojima weirdness? Well, this is without the real-world constraints getting in the way; it's gone full Kojima (never go full Kojima =).

Anyway, I loved the opening, it really felt like a weird sci-fi movie you're playing, and the gameplay is different and compelling and makes sense despite being deservedly meme-worthy; who wants gravity and their inertia to take them over a cliff long after you've pressed STOP, or just plain lose your balance and fall down and get hurt (raise your hands =)? It's all the good Kojima though, and it held for pretty much the entire prologue. Then the first chapter starts and (spoilers below if you care)...

To recap the premise, you are a legendary courier, valued for your ability to traverse the deadly post-apocalyptic world to deliver supplies to fortified human cities, and you have DOOMS, which allows one to sense or even see the supernatural entities out there, giving you an advantage. Even Fragile's name makes sense because she's a courier too, "Fragile Deliveries", get it? Weird babies in clear containers can be attached to your suit and used to connect to "the other side" to aid you (Mads Mikkelsoen is somehow connected). And dead bodies are very dangerous because they will eventually give rise to these terrible entities and such an event can immediately wipe out a city. Sounds like a lot of interesting stuff to take in, huh? Well, strap in because...

You're also a "Repatriate," so if you die you can find your body in a ocean-like purgatory and come back to life. No idea if this is a regular gameplay or just a story mechanic yet. Ok, that's another thing, but fits and sounds useful.

Your mom is the founder and presumably still head of the company you work for that's basically running the country. That's an odd coincidence.

Guillermo Del Toro is a coroner turned doctor that wakes you as a hologram and tasks you with taking morphine to the dying President of the United States, which is a lot easier than it sounds because it's like one building over. So, connections in high places, this is escalating in weirdly operatic ways, but I'm apparently well renowned so maybe this actually makes sense...

Surprise, the President of the United States is also your mom and is protected by Del Toro and a man in a death face mask called Die-Hardman! Congrats, you've been Kojima'd!

To recap:

-You're a legendary delivery man.
-You have DOOMS and sense the supernatural.
-You're a "Repatriate" that can self-ressurect.
-Your mom is the President and CEO of America.

You're basically supernatural Don Jr. contracting for Amazon. I'm sure this is all relevant.


So yeah, what a start! Needless to say, I'm looking forward to getting away from the plot and back into the field where hopefully the real meat of the game lies.
 
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Walter

Administrator
Staff member
So yeah, what a start! Needless to say, I'm looking forward to getting away from the plot and back into the field where hopefully the real meat of the game lies.
From what I've heard, you're in for between 40-60 hours of that. Not sure this is for me :shrug:
 
Was feeling like I was going to take a short break from my Soulsborne venture and started playing Resident Evil 7. Really cool game, but really had to fight with the video settings to get it playable (and my laptop is more than powerful enough to play it reasonably well).

But I just can't not Soulsborne, so I started Dark Souls 3 to finally end this venture. I'm almost at Farron Keep again and for fucks sake, I love everything about that area except playing it. I can deal with the poison swamps in every other one of these games, but for some reason this one gets to me the most.

Everytime as soon as I get out of that damnable area, it's such a huge sense of relief. Knowing Irithyll is soon helps a lot.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Enjoy USPS Simulator. :iva:
What a thrill.
From what I've heard, you're in for between 40-60 hours of that. Not sure this is for me :shrug:

Have your laughs, you wags, but I'll remind you there was another high concept "job simulator" back in the 80's that had some pretty far out ideas about plumbers, and I think that worked out just fine. :daiba:

Oh, I didn't even mention the weirdest part of my experience with the game, which was on my end because I had two separate dreams/a hallucination(?) after playing. One where my 18 month old daughter floated by the door like an astral projection as I laid in bed, which is weird because I don't know if I was just half asleep or full on dreaming my view from the bed. And the other, somehow more distressing, dream where I changed locations at work and inherited there a newborn baby, clearly inspired by the game's, and a chihuahua of about the same size, and the dog was evidently chewing on the baby's earlobes because they were slightly chewed off and deformed. I kept them locked up in a garage and then came back to find it open and them gone and felt so guilty about not watching them that it took a while in the morning for my brain to fully realize it was all a ridiculously impossible dream. 10/10, Kojima does it again! :magni:

Was feeling like I was going to take a short break from my Soulsborne venture and started playing Resident Evil 7. Really cool game, but really had to fight with the video settings to get it playable (and my laptop is more than powerful enough to play it reasonably well).

I tried picking it back up with the DLC a while back and it looked and played like such shit on my PC I don't how I ever ran the base game effectively.

Everytime as soon as I get out of that damnable area, it's such a huge sense of relief. Knowing Irithyll is soon helps a lot.

It's the opposite for me, Farron Keep is far more manageable to me than Irithyll, but I suspect it has more to do with one's comfort level with an area than the relative difficulty of it. For Farron I just stick to the high ground and spam the beasties. Give me that over the dense population of specters and monstrosities of Irithyll any day.

Man, DS3 is Souls as Bloodborne and with all the polish... Not the best world, but still great environments, items and enemies. I might need to play it again myself, and I'm certain it's already the one I've replayed the most times (if not for the most time).
 
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Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Have your laughs, you wags, but I'll remind you there was another high concept "job simulator" back in the 80's that had some pretty far out ideas about plumbers, and I think that worked out just fine. :daiba:

Uh huh, I guess Mario was indeed on a mission to deliver his "package" to Princess Peach
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. I just didn't see it quite that way as a kid. :carcus:

On my side, I've been playing Baba is You on Switch. Fun puzzle game. I'm also trying my hand at Pistol Whip in VR, which is hard on my broken old body.
 
Anyway, I loved the opening, it really felt like a weird sci-fi movie you're playing, and the gameplay is different and compelling and makes sense despite being deservedly meme-worthy;

I actually like the game on a conceptual level. Sam's characterization starts right from the get-go, with him being presented as a lonesome porter with haphephobia. These are pretty interesting and deliberate choices, and in my mind they signify that he's carrying a heavy load not only literally, but figuratively as well.

Overall I can't say I'm a big fan of Kojima, as he tends to get carried away with his ideas to the point that it becomes overly-pretentious nonsense, but on occasion I can get behind some of his stuff. I've been intrigued by Death Stranding since the trailers came out, but it was pretty obvious even then this would fail as a game in the traditional sense. With all the actors and big name people involved in this project, this might as well just be a low budget film made in the Decima engine, because Kojima is stubborn and doesn't want to direct his talents and inclinations to a more suitable environment (not even live action, CGI, stop-motion, you name it); but alas, who am I to tell the man what do to with his creativity.

I guess you could say that traversing the vast empty land, struggling to keep your character on his feet and moving forward to his destination, and letting yourself be engrossed in the solitary atmosphere is the kind of personal experience you could only achieve through gameplay and it's also part of the concept. I kinda get it, but at the same time, not everyone will, and even the people who do, for most of them this is still not gonna be enough and will get old and boring pretty fast.

Also, where the hell are the drones??

Man, DS3 is Souls as Bloodborne and with all the polish... Not the best world, but still great environments, items and enemies. I might need to play it again myself, and I'm certain it's already the one I've replayed the most times (if not for the most time).

I'm with you on that. Dark Souls 3 feels undeniably good to play and I too have the most hours invested into it out of the three. Not necessarily because it's my favourite, but I found myself replaying it more often just because it's so fun at the most basic level.

I'm also trying my hand at Pistol Whip in VR

That trailer looks like it was made 10 years ago (well, except for the obvious new gen VR tech). I hope at least the game itself is more ingenious. :iva:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
That trailer looks like it was made 10 years ago (well, except for the obvious new gen VR tech). I hope at least the game itself is more ingenious. :iva:

It's from an indie studio, meaning the entire game's budget is likely less than the trailer budget for the latest AAA title. To compound that there's the fact VR is hard to make a 2D trailer for. The game itself is great though, you should give it a try if you are able to.
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
I'm on the fourth episode of Death Stranding and so far it's been enjoyable.

I've been skipping the cut scenes though because they are overbloated as fuck, much like (but not as bad as) MGS4.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I'm not that far in, but it's actually not so different than a spiritual successor to MGS5 if people are so concerned it's so off the wall as to not even be a viable game concept (I'm at about the point a bad guy basically tells me, "Haven't you been waiting to fight a boss?") Also, my own personal interpretation is that the whole porter angle is a way to move away from the military aspect MGS was trying to criticize as it actually glorified it (it's also far more grounded and relatable to portray a gofer than a super soldier, even if you're a super gofer =). And for those that find it hilariously mundane sounding, remember you're actually blazing a trail to rebuild a post-apocalyptic America ruled by... wait a minute...

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Oh boy, thank Christ for the ghost angle, because it's actually pretty cool and created most of the awe-inspiring moments thus far.
 
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Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Your take on this game is refreshingly bizarre. I'm very interested in the rest of your time with it, because everything I've read about it was either: THE PHENOMENAL KOJIMA CAN DO NO WRONG / walking around this fucking wasteland for 60 hours made me suicidal.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Sounds like my takes are refreshingly normal then! :carcus: Though, to the extremes of those reviews, it will probably end up either my favorite game of the year or something I ultimately regard as pointless. I don't know which yet, but I'm enjoying it so far, and those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive either.

I'm in Episode 3, the build up has been a slow burn (I just got my first gun, non-lethal of course =), but I'm looking forward to what wrinkles come with each new mission; will the terrain be trouble, my equipment, is it a fragile package, will I be attacked by bandits, ghosts, acid rain, or a giant death wh... well, you'll have to play to find out. There's also this weird network element where you share signposts, items, structures, and can even build roads and such across each other's games (it's like Souls online but not antisocial =). I'm still curious what's around the corner and what else Kojima has up his sleeve (and of course when he'll pull the rug out from under everything in the WORST way and ruin it :ganishka:), but so far it's an interesting little world that benefits from being wholly its own reality instead of some bizarro version of ours.
 
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I tried picking it back up with the DLC a while back and it looked and played like such shit on my PC I don't how I ever ran the base game effectively.

It's the opposite for me, Farron Keep is far more manageable to me than Irithyll, but I suspect it has more to do with one's comfort level with an area than the relative difficulty of it. For Farron I just stick to the high ground and spam the beasties. Give me that over the dense population of specters and monstrosities of Irithyll any day.

Man, DS3 is Souls as Bloodborne and with all the polish... Not the best world, but still great environments, items and enemies. I might need to play it again myself, and I'm certain it's already the one I've replayed the most times (if not for the most time).

The RE7 port seems to be atrocious. On my old computer, it ran well enough but the shadows were so obscenely terrible it pulled me out of the game. I assumed it was just because my computer was 'older', but the entire rest of the game ran well enough on pretty decent settings.

My laptop though, is more than powerful enough. One setting makes the game so insanely dark, it's unplayable at any setting levels. Turning that off though, the game plays alright, but I get frame drops no matter what settings I play it at (high or low). It's pretty lame when a game runs just as well on low settings as it does on max haha. I've done quite a bit of tweaking with my laptop recently so maybe RE7 will quit being a little bitch.

As for DS3, I agree, it's pretty much comfort level. This time around Farron Keep felt really smooth, so it officially pisses me off less, which is real fuckin nice. Those giant hippie horsetree bastards are the real first prize assholes and reasons for hate on the level, way more than the poison though. I'm usually a completionist, but the one item with three of those jackasses is a huge hell no and I can put up with a lot of shit from these games.

But after the first chunk of DS3, which feels kinda by the numbers, Irithyll just feels blissful to me. I find the whole game just gets way better the moment you get there.

I'm such a sucker for winter levels though. Painted World, Eleum Loyce, Cainhurst and Irithyll are all my favorites by far. Plus the DLC in DS3, but it's the weakest of the bunch for a few reasons. Sister Friede rules though.

Also totally agree. DS3 feels like the perfect mix of DS1 and Bloodborne to me. If it wasn't for Bloodborne, DS3 would probably be my favorite game. I love all the other games in the series a ton but DS3 hits all the right notes for me.

It just has that dark elegance like Bloodborne that makes me drool.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Whew, playing a lot over the past month or so, but only in fits and starts. New baby, less time. It's a long overdue post, but here are some quick impressions from things I've touched or played through recently:

Chrono Trigger - I played through the whole damn thing again on DS last month. It is astonishing how well this game has withstood the test of time. I'd even say that it's better than I remember it being, and I've probably played it through 4-5x at this point. Just a fun romp through time with friends in a breezy battle system that ultimately leaves you feeling like a god by the end of it.

Outer Worlds - Though not a Fallout game, it feels tailor-made for fans of New Vegas. A bit of a tougher sell if you are like me and don't have a personal stake in Fallout or how Bethesda/Obsidian have treated that franchise. But it's tackling sci-fi concepts that aren't often seen in games, so I'm here for that.

Outer Wilds - Easily confused with the above, but QUITE a different game. This is a laid back, often surprisingly terrifying game about rickety space travel. The goosebumps I felt as I somehow, miraculously, landed on my first planetoid were a one-of-a-kind gaming moment.

Bloodstained - Better than it has any right to be, given that it is painstakingly painting strictly within the lines SotN, a game that came out 22 years ago. I've had a blast with the ~5 hours I've played with it. Solid comfort food.

Fire Emblem: 3 Houses - Bought it mostly because I remember fondly playing through FE: Awakening on 3DS around the time my son was born 7 years ago. And now, well, new baby, new Fire Emblem! But no, I really did not dig my time with this game. Instead, I sold it and got...

Luigi's Mansion 3 - Beat it this morning with my son, who played along as "Gooigi" in co-op. All-star puzzle design from Nintendo. It's worth the price of entry for the 5-8 amazing "I can't believe they did that" moments with how they theme each of the floors. But the moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't really surprise or amaze. So you really have to be there for the charm and craft the designers put into the character animations. Kid loved it. Wants to do it again (15h game).

Sonic Adventure - Played it with my son, who ... liked it? It is a shockingly bad game. It is an assault. Don't.

Spelunky - Still amazing. I play it for a round or two every few days. Endlessly replayable, yet always surprising. And while each session is short, the path to mastery is long. That's a great, rare combo and something I've always sought in games. This is probably my "game of the decade."

Undertale - I've tried to get into this game 3x at this point, and I just think it might not be for me. Sorry folks...

Romancing Saga 3 - One of many latter-day SNES Square games we Westerners never got to taste. It suddenly appeared without much fanfare on the Switch e-shop last week, and I bought it immediately out of a sense of nostalgia-obligation (nostabligation). But it has proven to be acutely impenetrable so far. It promises a wide range of possibilities by giving the player a surprising degree of freedom, such as several starting characters with stories that intersect but otherwise separately evolve. But the way that freedom plays out is absolutely maddening (Game: Go do whatever, I guess.) Ever get stuck in an RPG after missing a plot flag from an NPC in town (Game: You must trigger a dialogue with the old man in the corner before the next area becomes accessible)? That's this game writ large. Oof... I'll be honest, it's a bit of a blow to me that this long-awaited game kind of sucks so far, despite the great visuals and one of the all-time great soundtracks. I'll probably stick with it though, because I do want to get a better feel for it and hopefully dig myself out of this confusing hole.

Into the Breach - I started playing this on the Switch after having not touched it in about a year. It still manages to capture your attention immediately, in each battle, with absolutely engrossing turn-based perfection.

Here's a quick pitch -- anyone with a PC should check this deal out from Xbox. Game Pass for PC is $4.99 a month, and $1 to start. It has a ton of amazing games you get in the subscription package (including from this list: Outer Worlds + Bloodstained). The value is incredible.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Death Stranding: After some mid-game malaise marked by the absence of an important character, and due in part to the repetitive ways I have to come to it, I finished last night's session on a high and think I'm headed for the endgame. It's a funny thing, if I wasn't playing this in such a goal-oriented way I'd probably get lost doing random deliveries all day. I really have to force myself to ignore lost cargo and only take story orders. I don't know if this has helped or hurt my enjoyment, but it's worth noting those missions are potentially very addictive and probably flesh out the details of the world more. I figured the bandits and terrorists would play a bigger role in the story missions, but they're just sort of out there so I basically avoid them the best I can, like you would in real life. Again, not sure if this is playing it the smart way or the wrong way. =)

Blasphemous: After some mid-game malaise marked by the absence of the next boss, I think I'm headed in the right direction, but there was a big gap between play sessions where I lost some of my zeal.

MGS5: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain: Playing Kojima's latest had me thinking about and revisiting his last game, and last in a few ways; last MGS, last for Konami, and its place in his and the MG canon. I think it was about as good a swan song as could be, if not his magnum opus, even though, or perhaps in part, because he literally had to be stopped from making it (it's his Canterbury Tales =). It really encompasses everything he was trying to do, literally you can do like everything, more than you'd ever think to, and say with MGS or about video games in a much more organic way than some of his more alienating, avant garde experiments. Plus, it's the one where he finally makes YOU into Big Boss! I look at my initial reactions to its first few hours and it's hilariously anti-prescient considering where the game is actually going.

I'm such a sucker for winter levels though. Painted World, Eleum Loyce, Cainhurst and Irithyll are all my favorites by far. Plus the DLC in DS3, but it's the weakest of the bunch for a few reasons. Sister Friede rules though.

I actually really dig the other Painted World from DS3, in no small part due to the Sister, who made me feel accomplished like few can now when I finally solved her final form and beat it like a drum. At first it was a weird setting but in retrospect it's probably the most satisfying of the DS3 DLC despite The Ringed City's best efforts (I don't care how cool they make his moveset, Gael is a lame character/boss, let alone in that spot). BTW, coincidence that we're going from The Ringed City to the Elden Ring? =)

Also totally agree. DS3 feels like the perfect mix of DS1 and Bloodborne to me. If it wasn't for Bloodborne, DS3 would probably be my favorite game. I love all the other games in the series a ton but DS3 hits all the right notes for me.

It just has that dark elegance like Bloodborne that makes me drool.

Well, it's basically the closest thing to Bloodborne 2, and Demon's Souls 2, and let's be honest, it's the real Dark Souls 2 as well.

Whew, playing a lot over the past month or so, but only in fits and starts. New baby, less time.

I want to hear more about this! The real game is the one we're playing with our time vs family time and after a year and half of this I can't imagine doubling the difficulty on this double life like you have. Q1: When do you sleep? =)

Chrono Trigger - I played through the whole damn thing again on DS last month. It is astonishing how well this game has withstood the test of time. I'd even say that it's better than I remember it being, and I've probably played it through 4-5x at this point. Just a fun romp through time with friends in a breezy battle system that ultimately leaves you feeling like a god by the end of it.

It's like FF6 Lite, and I mean that as a compliment, like it has the breadth of FF6 but if that game was somehow a light-hearted, breezy experience. Top of its form, basically (and genuinely funny, too).

Outer Worlds - Though not a Fallout game, it feels tailor-made for fans of New Vegas. A bit of a tougher sell if you are like me and don't have a personal stake in Fallout or how Bethesda/Obsidian have treated that franchise. But it's tackling sci-fi concepts that aren't often seen in games, so I'm here for that.

Hmmm, these are sacred texts you're invoking, not so much Bethesda's Fallouts but the original Fallout concept itself. I'm not sure how much we're on the same page about that to take your word this is Fallout-like, but I may have an opportunity to find out...

Bloodstained - Better than it has any right to be, given that it is painstakingly painting strictly within the lines SotN, a game that came out 22 years ago. I've had a blast with the ~5 hours I've played with it. Solid comfort food.

Yep, and I put in 35 more hours of that before I had my fill (I also might have also left the game paused all day/overnight and greatly inflated my playtime; I hate when that happens =).

Luigi's Mansion 3 - Beat it this morning with my son...

...Kid loved it. Wants to do it again (15h game).

So this is how it's done! I don't know if my wife is going to let me turn my daughter into a casual gamer, though in her first year she did fall asleep to Fallout 4 and this year probably saw and especially heard way too much GTA5.

Sonic Adventure - Played it with my son, who ... liked it? It is a shockingly bad game. It is an assault. Don't.

What's funny is I remember this game being a winner. Like, it was the Sonic equivalent of Mario 64!(!?) I couldn't even play one level of Sonic Adventure 2 recently, which was supposed to be the better one, so I'd probably be just as turned off by this one now, if not moreso.


Like you with Undertale, I never could get into this one. I'm probably being immature and somewhat judging by appearances though, "that's like a baby's toy" but I also genuinely don't think it's my style.

Here's a quick pitch -- anyone with a PC should check this deal out from Xbox. Game Pass for PC is $4.99 a month, and $1 to start. It has a ton of amazing games you get in the subscription package (including from this list: Outer Worlds + Bloodstained). The value is incredible.

That's my pitch! I'm glad you reminded me because they finally solved the issue I was having where it wouldn't let me install half the games to my PC (I kept it anyway for the ones I could) and now that I can I see they have The Outer Worlds on there for me to try, so I snatched that up and a half dozen others I'd like to try (hopefully that Disneyland game is still on there when the girl is old enough =). Boy, I'm regretting some of the purchases I made previously that are available on here.
 
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Right now I'm playing to MHW: Iceborne. I've already spent +200 hours on the base game and I can already predict another 100 for Iceborne. :guts:
Having a great time on this Monster Hunter.
I've also purchased Romancing SaGa 3 on Switch last week. It's awesome to be able to play this gem in english, one of the best J-RPGs I've done.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I want to hear more about this! The real game is the one we're playing with our time vs family time and after a year and half of this I can't imagine doubling the difficulty on this double life like you have. Q1: When do you sleep? =)

After both kids are asleep, I have about 1-2 hours to myself each night, and I'll usually play a game for 30m-1h. That's about it. It's why Spelunky is a perfect solution. Each run is ~5-30m long.

It's like FF6 Lite, and I mean that as a compliment, like it has the breadth of FF6 but if that game was somehow a light-hearted, breezy experience. Top of its form, basically (and genuinely funny, too).

Yeah, even though FF6 has stolen a special place in my heart that CT could never pry away, I can freely agree that it's the best of its kind on the SNES. Flawless execution in every regard.

So this is how it's done! I don't know if my wife is going to let me turn my daughter into a casual gamer, though in her first year she did fall asleep to Fallout 4 and this year probably saw and especially heard way too much GTA5.

To be honest, my son isn't really that into games. He doesn't enjoy playing on his own, but likes watching me play certain games, mostly because he likes the ideas and stories they impart (not much different from me, really). He uses them as source material for what he calls "skits" i.e. acting out new stories, mashing up Mega Man X and his own super heroes, in real life with me. That's his absolute favorite thing to do.

What's funny is I remember this game being a winner. Like, it was the Sonic equivalent of Mario 64!(!?) I couldn't even play one level of Sonic Adventure 2 recently, which was supposed to be the better one, so I'd probably be just as turned off by this one now, if not moreso.

It's so bad I was in disbelief. I kept checking to be sure I wasn't playing some broken version of the game. Nope. it's the real deal. It's just awful.

Like you with Undertale, I never could get into this one. I'm probably being immature and somewhat judging by appearances though, "that's like a baby's toy" but I also genuinely don't think it's my style.

The secret to Spelunky's staying power is the fidelity of its random level generator. It makes every run feels fresh, even almost 10 years since its release. And in lieu of "progress" the impetus is to just see how far you can get with the hand that you've been dealt. Even in failure, if you're paying attention you'll always learn something new about the mechanics, or how different things interact. There are a wealth of things the game doesn't even hint at communicating to you, but you learn with enough experimentation and discovery through lots and lots of trial and error. And after you've invested 30h or so (probably 500 deaths), you feel like you've come a long way even though it's the same game as in the beginning. The game just keeps opening up.

I've also purchased Romancing SaGa 3 on Switch last week. It's awesome to be able to play this gem in english, one of the best J-RPGs I've done.

I genuinely want to believe you. I started with Mikhail. Did I fuck up...?
 
I finished the Outer Worlds. Had a blast with it and was pleasantly surprised at some of its aspects, like the gun-play, which I was expecting to be clunky, and the NV formula, which I was also expecting not to have aged well. And there were hardly any bugs too, which was a relief.

Loved the lore, characters, writing, and so on too. However,

1. I felt the game was rather short. The main quest was short, at any rate, only 8-9 missions long.
2. The story was less complex / morally ambiguous than New Vegas, which was surprising. Deciding between the different factions in NV was a lot harder than in this game.
3. Was kind of disappointed I was forced to fight the final boss, instead of using speech skills to manipulate him, like in NV and the early Fallout games. Though this may just be because of my gameplay choices and not necessarily how it will turn out for everyone.

Got more to say about the game but I suppose that's enough for now. Highly recommended.

Up next: the new Star Wars game. I've been hearing good things.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
I've choose Julian as I did back then on the SFC.
You don't like the game ?

I think it’s confusing and doesn’t provide you with much (or in my case, any) direction. With Mikhail after the intro scenario, which was cool, you wake up in the castle with no motive or quest and you just wander the world filling out side quests. Here’s what I wrote about it yesterday.

Romancing Saga 3 - One of many latter-day SNES Square games we Westerners never got to taste. It suddenly appeared without much fanfare on the Switch e-shop last week, and I bought it immediately out of a sense of nostalgia-obligation (nostabligation). But it has proven to be acutely impenetrable so far. It promises a wide range of possibilities by giving the player a surprising degree of freedom, such as several starting characters with stories that intersect but otherwise separately evolve. But the way that freedom plays out is absolutely maddening (Game: Go do whatever, I guess.) Ever get stuck in an RPG after missing a plot flag from an NPC in town (Game: You must trigger a dialogue with the old man in the corner before the next area becomes accessible)? That's this game writ large. Oof... I'll be honest, it's a bit of a blow to me that this long-awaited game kind of sucks so far, despite the great visuals and one of the all-time great soundtracks. I'll probably stick with it though, because I do want to get a better feel for it and hopefully dig myself out of this confusing hole.
 
I think it’s confusing and doesn’t provide you with much (or in my case, any) direction. With Mikhail after the intro scenario, which was cool, you wake up in the castle with no motive or quest and you just wander the world filling out side quests. Here’s what I wrote about it yesterday.

Well, you have to know that the entire SaGa series is exactly like this in term of direction (I haven't finished it yet but Octopath Traveler feels like this too). Play more, you'll see by yourself, it's very different than most J-RPGs.
The things I really dig are the graphics, the combat system and as you mentioned, the soundtrack (some epic tracks in this game).
The new animations are pretty neat. I'm curious to see that boss fight again:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Well, you have to know that the entire SaGa series is exactly like this in term of direction (I haven't finished it yet but Octopath Traveler feels like this too). Play more, you'll see by yourself, it's very different than most J-RPGs.

Yep, I know of the sordid legacy of the Saga games, but this is the first I've tried my hand at. And it's really not very fun to me, so far. Happy to have my mind changed with a bit more time invested in it, but poking around for the right NPC, based on no guidance just ain't my idea of a fun night. And yeah I own Octopath, but at least that has interconnected towns you can freely travel between, and an overall "go get 'em all and go here once you're lv 20" direction for each character's progression.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
After both kids are asleep, I have about 1-2 hours to myself each night, and I'll usually play a game for 30m-1h. That's about it. It's why Spelunky is a perfect solution. Each run is ~5-30m long.

Ahhh, yeah, I have trouble keeping disciplined so I get enough sleep. I was actually doing pretty well until...

Death Stranding came along. Now I'm a wreck and it's only Wednesday. Speaking of which, I figured this would be a mind-expanding game to play under the influence and had a few hours to myself yesterday... I thought I was on point but immediately lost an hour on the wrong directions, locations, orders, you name it. Oh well. I did eventually reach what I thought was the grand finale late last night only to find out there's at least one more rather large, world-extending leg to go! :magni:I'm kind of pleasantly surprised/looking forward to it though, "HURT ME MORE!" :rakshas:

To be honest, my son isn't really that into games. He doesn't enjoy playing on his own, but likes watching me play certain games, mostly because he likes the ideas and stories they impart (not much different from me, really). He uses them as source material for what he calls "skits" i.e. acting out new stories, mashing up Mega Man X and his own super heroes, in real life with me. That's his absolute favorite thing to do.

That's pretty much what I would do when I was done playing, go act it out in the living room: HIGH DRAMA! I'd even "direct" my own scenes in-game of Sonic and Robotnik, or Mario 64, etc, and kinda still do to this day in my head.

It's so bad I was in disbelief. I kept checking to be sure I wasn't playing some broken version of the game. Nope. it's the real deal. It's just awful.

Yeah, but those tunes tho...


The secret to Spelunky's staying power is the fidelity of its random level generator. It makes every run feels fresh, even almost 10 years since its release. And in lieu of "progress" the impetus is to just see how far you can get with the hand that you've been dealt. Even in failure, if you're paying attention you'll always learn something new about the mechanics, or how different things interact. There are a wealth of things the game doesn't even hint at communicating to you, but you learn with enough experimentation and discovery through lots and lots of trial and error. And after you've invested 30h or so (probably 500 deaths), you feel like you've come a long way even though it's the same game as in the beginning. The game just keeps opening up.

So it's basically bite-sized Diablo II hardcore without leveling. SOLD!

I'll give it another go one day, it's loaded on Steam with all the other "greatest games" on my LIST ( Rhombaad).

Yep, I know of the sordid legacy of the Saga games

Initially read this as "Sega games" and didn't skip a beat.

poking around for the right NPC, based on no guidance just ain't my idea of a fun night.

To be fair, this is basically how every old game, including the classics, operated at some point until that was considered bad design. Back in the day we just read the solutions in Nintendo Power or something and/or shared the info among friends, "So, you have to crouch on a certain pixel for 5 minutes and use the item that says it has no use and press select and cancel at the same time and THEN you can progress... Isn't that RADICAL!?" Seemed that way at the time! SECRETS! Now I'm pretty confident they did that just to sell tip lines and magazines; talk about a lack of ethics in gaming journalis... eh, nevermind. =)
 
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