|
Post by Rune Lai on Aug 3, 2023 21:13:12 GMT -5
What do you mean that various ways of dying aren't meant to be fu... oh wait, this is no longer the golden age of Sierra games. Of course, death can no longer be quite that full of purposeful humor. You gave me Mystery House flashbacks of finding all the poor dead stick people. xD I never finished it, but I distinctly remembered finding one of them was strangled to death with pantyhose and I thought that was a funny way to go. Not sure how old I was, but probably in elementary school. Anyway, with Tokyo Love Hustle, I also agree that I would rather have more from them as opposed to the other LC stories. I do think the 2nd route they released, though, kind of harmed things, because it seemed like he was not as central as he should have been in his own route. Not that it wasn't good, but it just seemed odd. That's too bad. I didn't play the second guy's route since I didn't have the hearts saved at the time, but I liked the first guy, and was waiting for the friendly accountant (?) looking guy to become available, and the title just stopped. Your backlog's under better control then mine, even if it's composed of long games. I have both long and short in my backlog. xD As much as I keep grousing in my annual gaming threads, I actually do pass on buying games. One of the reasons I picked up Detective Di for my summer Steam sale pick is because it's short. It's supposed to be a 5-6 hour playthrough according to How Long to Beat. I'll probably run a bit longer since I'm slow, but I'm enjoying the fact it's a finite experience.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Aug 5, 2023 0:12:04 GMT -5
Finished Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders. Only took me three play sessions, though the last one was about three hours long because once I caught the tiger by the tail I didn't want to let it go. In all it took me about six and a half hours, but that's also because I got stuck a few times when my point and click instincts failed me. I did resort to checking a walkthrough on three occasions, but only after I was well and truly stumped. There were a couple puzzles where I thought "How is someone supposed to solve this puzzle if they can't read Chinese?" (as I was reading the Chinese) but then I found out if you inspect the item a little closer Di will tell the player what the meaning is so you can solve the puzzle. (It was very basic Chinese. I couldn't read anything that was an actual sentence. ) I thought it was a good mystery with some nice twists and turns given that it's such a short play time. My only real complaint is that even though it's based on the old Sierra/LucasArts style, that doesn't mean they have to feel beholden to the old move across the entire screen at walking speed to get from one end to the other. D: A quick exit to map or a run if the player clicks on the opposite side of the screen would be nice. (Maybe a power walk if Di is too dignified to run.) Side note: I thought it was really cool that women's script played a role in the story. It's not widely talked about, and I don't think anyone uses it anymore, but it was unusual for being a written language only known and used by women. I learned about it in a Chinese history class back in college, but was shocked to see someone actually wove it into a game's story.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Aug 8, 2023 22:53:06 GMT -5
Started Radiant Tale, which I expect will take me the rest of the month into September since most Otomate games take me about a week per love interest and there's five here. I'd heard from some people that there's a very JRPG feel to it, and I can see where they're coming from. The game takes place in a fantasy world where humans, fey beasts, and spirits co-exist. There is a lot of worldbuilding for an otome, with enough glossary entries in the opening segment that even as a enjoyer of worldbuilding I thought it was too much. You know those Codex entries in Dragon Age? It's like that. There's lots of stuff. This is a very quest driven story where the performance troupe called CIRCUS is on a mission from the king to perform in the kingdom's five largest cities in order to cause the magic Flora, one for each city, to bloom and undo the spell that has shackled the crown prince's mind and body for the past ten years. So right off the bat we can reasonably assume we'll be visiting each of these cities, most of which seem to have been founded by elemental spirits, and we've got our cast of weirdos who make up the troupe. Vilio, the friendly neighborhood dragon, was my favorite off the bat, but he's the final locked route, so I have to pick someone else for my first time around. That leaves me with Paschelia, the water mage who doesn't fully understand his own magic; Ion, the ex-military/police officer who scares everyone just by looking at them; Zafora, the most unfriendly clown you could imagine; and Radie, the alcohol-loving fey beast mascot (who has a human form that the protagonist doesn't know right away). I'm actually a bit disappointed with Radie, because despite his character profile saying that he smells like booze, and that fact he's usually calling for booze while in his fluffball animal form (probably because it's cute), I went through the whole first chapter and he didn't have a single scene nursing a bottle. I want to know how he manages with those adorable little paws! I'm not really sure who I'm going to end up going with first. Zafora interests me the most as a player, but he's so darn prickly I'm not sure I want to inflict him on the protagonist. Maybe he'll get better after his subplot wraps up, as I'm currently in chapter 2 and it's about his past. If he gets better, there's time to lock in his route. Otherwise I'll probably go for Ion. Paschelia hasn't made much of an impression yet other than "nice guy who's a little helpless," and Radie is recommended to be played second to last due to plot revelations on his route. I'm RPing my choices so it's possible the game will set me up with someone other than who I want most, but I've found that generally if the game has a long common route like this one I'll naturally end up with my first or second favorite on my first playthrough just through the types of answers I give.
|
|
|
Post by Solana on Aug 25, 2023 13:14:17 GMT -5
I picked up 'Okamiden' again for the first time in a while. (I caught the virus that my aunt gave to my mom when she came over sick.) I still have to go back and beat DQVI, and Suikoden IV as well.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Oct 1, 2023 23:48:48 GMT -5
Radiant Tale took me much longer than I planned. I expected it would be about a week per love interest and another week for the common route play time, but instead it took almost two months. Part of that was that the usual blind playthrough for my first time ended up giving me the "you romanced no one" ending which I hadn't encountered in an otome for ages, so I had to replay the common route again (while paying more attention), but I also could have pushed a little harder instead of playing other games at the same time.
I finally started getting in binge mode with Radie's route (my fourth out of five) because it has the protagonist's backstory and explains some of why she is the person she is, and by the time I was on Vilio's route for the finale I pushed to make sure I finished before the end of the weekend.
I have to say that even though there are a lot of details I'd fault Radiant Tale for (contradicting previously established facts, illogical sequencing of events), it does the broad strokes really well and I was crying by the end of Vilio's route. I was under the impression this was a bright and optimistic game, after all it's a game where we're trying to heal a prince frozen in time by literally bringing joy to the world, but it's got some serious drama chops even if the happy endings work out well. And though there are "normal" endings if you don't get the best ending, the normal endings range from just another happy ending to a complete tragedy for both parties involved, which is kind of weird, so you don't know if you want to read the alternate ending if you want a half hour of reading something snuggly.
Still, it'll probably be one of my Top 10 otome, maybe even Top 5 after I get some more time and distance. I like all the characters, and the worldbuilding is unexpectedly deep for an otome visual novel, being more in line with what I'd expect in a much larger JRPG. One of the things I like is how the worldbuilding is just background detail for much of the story, but the different parts of it get layered more and more through the different routes so when you finally get to Vilio's route, it could not have had the dramatic impact it had if not for everything we're learned before. I'm not used to seeing that in an otome.
That said, the other game I've been noodling on is the latest season of Path of Exile, which is Trial of the Ancestor league. I was chatting with one of my Friday night friends as we started TotA league because he had already ditched Diablo IV and wasn't happy with Blizzard's live service plans for it. PoE is free to play with cosmetic only microtransactions and at this point over ten years old. D4 is the shiny new thing, but at this point my friend is out of things to do and it's gotten boring.
The problem, from my understanding, is that D4 expects too much out of players for each season (though it's still only in season 1, so a lot of subject to change), and that it has a poorly underdeveloped end game, so once you're done with the story there's no reason to keep playing other than grinding levels and loot. On the other hand, PoE has a terribly underdeveloped story, but an amazing end game. The reason I keep playing is to try out new builds or refine old ones, and choose different parts of end game to focus on, since PoE's end game is so varied it gives you its own skill tree so you can say "I hate chasing after abyss monsters who burrow in circles around the map, don't give them to me anymore" or "I love playing tower defense in an action rpg so give me increase chances to have Blight encounters." Letting players tailor their own end game content is probably the best thing PoE could have ever done because anyone who plays that far probably will develop an affinity for some mechanics more than others.
But PoE leagues are like Diablo seasons, so they're generally only around for 3-4 months and the player base really starts dropping after the first 6 weeks as the hardcore players wrap up their goals for the league. I want to get the free cosmetic set reward for getting 16 challenges done, but I needed to make sure I traded for everything I needed before too much of the player base disappeared, which led to some nights when I didn't play Radiant Tale because I was pushing on PoE. I still have 5 challenges to go, but I probably won't need to trade anymore to complete them.
I'm not sure what I'm going to be playing next. I'm going to be going on vacation later in the month with my brother and his family, so I want my next game to be either airplane friendly (so I don't need to look up maps/walkthroughs) or short enough I can finish it before I leave.
|
|
|
Post by Ambrienne on Oct 2, 2023 13:44:49 GMT -5
I guess it's time to update my recently finished/playing stuff. First up: On the Love 365/Voltage stuff, there's the Metro PD series Special stories that all have the Family Ties name separated by character. So far, only two, Hanai and Tennoji have come out. And yes, it's definitely not main story material. It involves the first post marriage/family vacation type stuff with both sets of parents. Hanai's is pretty much pure fluff and doesn't have an actual case even incidentally. Despite that and him being my least liked of all the guys in that title, it's still not as disappointing as some other Voltage titles that shall remain nameless. Tennoji's is hilarious with various family members giving each other grief, giving him grief, etc. and it does have action in it, too. Because, well, he is the essence of comedy/action movies in visual novel form. In both stories, there are portions from the LI's POV. Even though I haven't spent a dime in months on 365, I'll probably pick up the rest of the FT side stories from the daily login/spin coins I'm slowly collecting. Then, there's a game called Dungeons and Keyboards. It features pixel art, decent quality thematic music, and the challenge of combining typing speed and accuracy to defeat your foes. The words vary in difficulty, but there's a surprisingly great number of them in its lexicon. It may not be all that complicated to understand, but it's still decent fun for its price point. There's even a hardcore mode for people who like punishing themselves with an instafail upon one mistake. And leaderboards for both modes. Heh. Anybody who's ever played one of the first two Cook, Serve, Delicious games on the keyboard would probably like it. And then... I got a Steam Deck. They had a decent sale on it, so I decided 'why not'? I have not yet tested how well the offline play works on any of the titles in my Steam library, but it's supposed to be possible. I went for the middle of the three models, because the lowest one seemed like it might not have enough storage depending on how many games you wanted to keep downloaded. I've tested a few of the titles just for giggles. Things that definitely don't work/aren't supported yet: Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires and Persona 5 Strikers. So, I'm guessing that it holds true for anything using that DW style engine. Some things that have been declared working according to Steam but I haven't tested out yet: Etrian Odyssey 1, 2, 3, Rune Factory 3, 4, 5 (with the last two maybe requiring bringing up the virtual keyboard manually for name entries), Disgaea 4 and 5, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Stardew Valley, Persona 3, 4, & 5. No, I haven't installed every single one of those. I only went with a handful for now, mostly those that I'm highly likely to appreciate as much (if not more) in a portable setting. I was going to hop/skip through some titles in that initial handful I downloaded, but then the original Phoenix Wright trilogy sucked me in. Apparently, I've been infected by the urge to replay them, even though I can sense the spectre that is that urn in the Ashes case looming in wait. I'm hoping that the Steam deck's control scheme will make that less of a hassle to deal with. Ha, ha.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Oct 2, 2023 23:34:54 GMT -5
I was going to hop/skip through some titles in that initial handful I downloaded, but then the original Phoenix Wright trilogy sucked me in. Apparently, I've been infected by the urge to replay them, even though I can sense the spectre that is that urn in the Ashes case looming in wait. I'm hoping that the Steam deck's control scheme will make that less of a hassle to deal with. Ha, ha. Well... it was built for DS originally, right? Maybe you can use the Steam's touch pad? Though it wasn't particularly easy on the DS either. By the way, I don't know if you've heard that Liar Uncover the Truth is being retired by Voltage. I seem to remember you liked it and they're pulling it from the store Oct 16th, though it will remain playable until the end of November.
|
|
|
Post by Ambrienne on Oct 3, 2023 9:19:07 GMT -5
Yeah, I played through all the free stuff on Liar (as well as a few of the 'technically free, but I paid it with coins collected from normal gameplay goals' stuff. Some of it was good, some downright crazy, etc. I didn't know that it was being retired, though. I'm kind of surprised it hung around as long as it did because, even while I was playing it, they never seemed to reopen any of those limited event stories so players who hadn't been with them from the beginning (like me) could even have a chance to play them. Oh, well.
|
|
|
Post by Ambrienne on Oct 7, 2023 19:02:24 GMT -5
Shockingly... it only took three tries to make the big bad urn go away. I used the touch screen for the initial turning motion until I got it pointed mostly the right direction before fine tuning it with the stick they'd assigned general rotation to and a few taps of right and left rotation buttons to square it up. I don't know if it genuinely made it easier or not, but I'm glad to wave that part goodbye. So, now the only thing to think about is dusting off the portions of my brain that deal with Psy-locks. Yippie.
...And for anyone that's curious, the newest Disgaea, number 7 also works on the deck. I have not tried anything real with it given that I am still going through the AA trilogy, but I'm going to say one thing for it so far. There's no way I'm paying pretty much the same price as the base game over again just to unlock all the other series characters for use. Nope. Not happening. Especially since I have a tendency of using mostly generics with only a few that story's characters.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Oct 9, 2023 2:36:30 GMT -5
Disgaea is that series that keeps adding installments that I keep putting into my backlog. xD I didn't realize 7 was out already. I probably wait for the inevitable rerelease where they repackage the game with all its DLC and a couple more bonuses added in. At one point they said they were going to stop doing that (since I think too many people were waiting for the inevitable rerelease), but then they did it again with D6 so I don't know that I'll believe them.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Oct 11, 2023 17:01:00 GMT -5
Spent the last week or so catching up on later seasons and side stories for a couple of Love 365 titles since I didn't want to start anything new with the upcoming trip hanging over me. This meant I ran through all the epilogues of the My Sweet Bodyguard crew. I liked Subaru a little better than on his route, Sora still ticked me off (I pretty much like him on any route other than his own), and the rest were as expected. Katsuragi is the only one that I bought installments for past the epilogue since he was my favorite, and I nearly bust my gut laughing when the crazy jester assassins made their return. This is definitely not high brow entertainment, but sometimes it's nice to play something that's intentionally silly.
Then I ran through a bunch of Rose in the Embers side story/epilogue stuff that I've been sitting on. I'm not all that keen on the upstairs/downstairs employer/servant relationship thing that makes me feel like I'm watching the Japanese version of Downton Abbey, but I like the way the guys bounce off each other and that the historical setting results in smack talk along the lines of "Gentlemen, if you would remove the stick from your collective bums..." I haven't gotten to the season 2 material yet, which I assume will put more of the drama of having a forbidden relationship back in, but only some of the guys even got season 2 stories which seems a pity. Love 365 has so many office dramas you'd think they could support the one Taisho era title they have.
Still have Metro PD and Be My Princess stories in backlog, but I think I'm gonna go back to working on my Path of Exile challenges until I go on vacation, and then I'm probably going to go with either Ghost Trick or Sega Ages Phantasy Star once at the airport.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Oct 22, 2023 19:54:58 GMT -5
My game of choice for my trip to Hawaii was Ghost Trick, which is another game by Shu Takumi and the game he worked on after writing the first four Ace Attorneys. It originally came out on the DS, but I didn't particularly like the art style and wasn't sure I'd want a game by him that wasn't another AA title, so I passed on it at the time, though I heard it was good.
So when it was picked up as a remaster for Switch with a few extras and cleaner graphics, I decided this was the time. In a way, I'm glad I waited so I got to enjoy the remaster, since the characters visually pop more than they ever would on the DS's tiny screen (and I could take screenshots!), but it also seems weird to say I'm glad I waited since I likely would have enjoyed it just as much back in the day as the graphics don't make or break this kind of game.
It's not quite as over the top as the AA games, but there's a certain sense of ridiculousness and outsized personalities that are likely just how Shu Takumi likes to write his characters, and being that there are a lot of mysteries, there are a good number of reversals where what you thought you knew gets turned on its head. I also find it hilarious how many people end up dying in this game. One of the core gameplay mechanics is that the main character Sissel can rewind time by 4 minutes of a person's death, and as a result of that being an integral mechanic, we sure run into a lot of recently dead people!
Sissel is actually dead himself, and learns that the newly dead usually have some degree of amnesia. He decides he wants to find out who killed him and why (as well as just who the hell he is since his memory is a giant void) and he gets to do this by doing "ghost tricks." Sissel is essentially a poltergeist, and by jumping from object to object he can be manipulate them into wobbling around, flipping switches, and other ghosty things.
The game encourages you to experiment, since Sissel can always rewind if things don't work out, and sometimes even small movements can be enough to change a living character's behavior by spooking them or making things inconvenient, which in turn open up new avenues to approach a problem.
Unlike later AA games, I didn't have as much trouble figuring out the solutions with Ghost Trick, and the only time I had to consult a guide was when I thought I had the solution, but was missing what I needed to do next (which it turned out was to let time run out).
I thought it was pretty well crafted and highly recommend if you're looking for something Ace Attorney adjacent and don't mind environmental puzzles instead of matching evidence. The ending was surprisingly poignant and you'll likely love it even more if you're a pet lover.
|
|
|
Post by Solana on Nov 11, 2023 15:17:09 GMT -5
I swapped out my Wii for my PS2 and popped in some 'Megaman 6'. I love the series, but man am I rusty beyond belief. Oh, well, practice makes perfect.
|
|
|
Post by Rune Lai on Dec 16, 2023 22:47:09 GMT -5
Picked up Ten Trials of Babel: The Doppleganger Maze because it's the indie game cross-over I've always wanted (at least in premise... a little less in execution). Basically, it's a survival/death game crossed with otome. You have a female protagonist and as she solves puzzles and fights monsters in an attempt to survive (and by way of it, ensure the survival of humanity) she also has the option of romancing the guys on her team and a few others she runs into.
And romancing is not optional, as I found out by getting a bad ending because I didn't have those affection meters high enough up before an event that I'm pretty sure would have gone another way if somebody liked me enough.
The puzzles are creative and a bit on the hard side if you're not willing to pick up a pen and make notes (or open a text file). The translation is mostly pretty good, though there are the occasional gaffes where terminology is used inconsistently or the wrong word is used. The most hilarious one was picking up "Bondage" instead of a bandage to wrap up our wounds.
Unlike most otome in the west, this isn't a visual novel. You navigate everything from a top-down approach like the old 16-bit RPGs. The art is all done old school pixel style, even the large CGs for important moments. The menus could use some work though, since there's a lot of picking up items, combining them, giving them to people, or using them on objects, and I died because I couldn't figure out how to put a knife in my action bar fast enough, but given that the publisher is asking for $3 for a voice acted game I'm guessing they're pretty new so I'm cutting them some slack.
The voice acting is a little strange though, not in the level of performance, which seems perfectly fine Japanese anime style acting, but the fact this is a Chinese game where the only supported audio is Japanese is a little weird. After doing some digging I found out that the publisher on Steam is Japanese, so my guess is they liked the original Chinese game and came to an agreement to publish the game in other languages. They funded the dub themselves so they could be competitive in their own country, and the English translation was done on the side.
But every time I find a Chinese language game defaulting to Japanese VO (looking at you OPUS: Echo of Starsong) I get a little annoyed, especially when I can tell the Chinese to English and Chinese to Japanese translations were done without consulting each other. Like, I'm listening to the terminology in Japanese and hear the very obvious English loanword being used, and it's completely different from the word being used in the English translation. What's more, the Japanese loanword was actually the more appropriate choice for a native English speaker.
Since Ten Trials of Babel is not a visual novel but has lots of dialogue choices, hidden triggers (certain areas are only available during certain windows of time), and it's totally possible to screw yourself over by missing something or doing things in the wrong order, I decided to use a walkthrough to collect everything my second time through.
Not for the puzzle solving, since I still want to do that myself, but I'm checking the list of collectible items in each room to make sure I don't miss anything, and I'm visiting rooms and giving out gifts strictly when the walkthrough tells me to.
Apparently this is more of a "harem" game due to the more linear nature of trying to survive the doppleganger maze, so even though all the guys have their own story, there's no penalty for starting a relationship with all of them and then just choosing who you want in the end, which quite frankly I'm fine with since I've already played the first floor of the maze three times and haven't gotten to the end. (First time was the bad ending, second I missed an item in the walkthrough and had overwritten my last save, and third I did everything correctly.)
I do like that even though this is supposed to be a shortish game (How Long to Beat puts it at 10 hours for everything, though I'm currently at 7 with no end in sight due to all my restarts) the characters are more than simple archetypes. Saint is supposed to be the reliable leader, but even before a non-party member suggests he's not the leader he seems to be, I got the feeling I shouldn't trust him. Victor initially seems to be a scared cat who is happy to be a flirty trophy boyfriend, but he actually has a stronger survivalist streak than it appears.
I don't know the rest of the guys as well yet, since Kruger is being the usual tsundere and won't talk much, and the other three are not in the party so I've had limited interaction with them, but I'm similarly hopefully that they're not who they are on the surface.
As for the protagonist Xixy (renameable), I like her. She only speaks through player dialogue options, but she is clearly competent since she is usually the solver of puzzles (since she's the player character) and the other guys know it. She can also be the one who voices the fact that an NPC is trying to hide, and she's not afraid to physically fight. It's actually kind of funny hearing the guys in the party comment on how she's essentially one woman army-ing her way through the game.
|
|
|
Post by Solana on Dec 17, 2023 14:31:40 GMT -5
Interesting- I like when otome games have a twist to them like this.
|
|