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Post by Rune Lai on Dec 18, 2023 0:57:02 GMT -5
Yesterday I decided to bum rush the ending to Ten Trials of Babel, but it took longer than I thought so I had to take a break from viewing all the endings (so many endings) and go to bed. Not all the endings are necessary, but I wanted to 100% this.
I ended up fairly surprised by the time I got through to the true end. While it was a fun puzzler in the first half to two-thirds of the game, I thought the worldbuilding was oddly stuffed with details that the game didn't really need given its limited size and scope, but by the time I got through the true end, I could finally see the big picture and that the length of the game really just covers a turning point in the characters' lives. There's a lot more out there, and it's important that the characters are aware of it, but it comes to a satisfying conclusion without solving all the problems of the setting itself. (And I like that the game leaves room for a sequel without specifically leading into one, so if a sequel is never made the game ends perfectly fine.)
I ended up liking most of the cast, even the ones who are clearly crazy, since there's such good chemistry between the characters. The only one I was a little disappointed by was Carrus, the beast race guy. He's a good doggo and works well as part of the ensemble, but by himself he doesn't really have much going for him other than being the humanoid equivalent of a golden retriever. Everyone else has some level of nuance to them.
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Post by Rune Lai on Dec 20, 2023 4:19:20 GMT -5
Started even if Tempest, which I can hopefully bum rush though (bum rush by my standards) by the end of the year. This is Voltage's first console original, so I wasn't sure whether to expect it to behave more like a console otome or a mobile otome. It is definitely more console style in pacing and comes fully voiced with an opening credit song (sung completely in English and mostly understandable). I'm told there are trials at various points in the story (kinda like Ace Attorney), but haven't gotten far enough in yet. I've only gotten to experience the trial part as the accused where the protagonist is sentenced to burn as a witch. Obviously the game doesn't end there because otherwise there would be no game, but I find I'm really liking Anastasia. After the witch trial the girl is fueling herself off piss and vinegar to get revenge on the one who orchestrated all of it. It probably isn't who she thinks it is, otherwise that would be too simple for a game with politics and rewinding time mechanics, but she's being very methodical about getting herself in a position where she can enact her revenge and hasn't done anything stupid yet.
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Post by Ambrienne on Dec 20, 2023 9:08:17 GMT -5
...Wow, that makes her automatically smarter than 85 percent of the Voltage leads. Here's to hoping that she stays strong. Currently, I got through one of the Rune Factory 3 Special routes (with Raven) and have currently set it to the side to (mostly) go back to Rune Factory 5 and am in hopes of reaching an ending there before the end of the year. It depends on how diabolical RNG treats me, which I heard is challenging when it comes to starting a relationship. But then, they said that about 4, too, and I got it on the first try. The dating part, anyway. It was still evil with trying to get the final needed side event to pop up. So far, the only 'evil' 5 has done is me forgetting (how embarrassing) how to use the capture function for wanted monsters on a keyboard versus playing it on Steam Deck. Almost every other function seems to have an in game hint/reminder somewhere that tells you what in the world you mapped it to, but not that. And yes, both Rune Factory 3 and 5 play well on the Steam Deck. I think a charge lasts around 5 hours for number 3, and 3 and a half for number 5. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles should be embarrassed by that as it only lasts around 2 and a half on a charge. I'm also working on the Cinderella Evermore game as well, which I can probably finish off, too, as it's basically a five or six episode epilogue continuation of the main game. I got through 2 of the 5 guys so far and forgot all about who had died during what routes until mentions popped up during the epilogue. ...Now, I'm trying to remember if there was a route where everyone lived. I guess I'll find out soon enough.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jan 3, 2024 2:11:36 GMT -5
Finished even if Tempest by the end of 2023. Just took a while to find the time to write this up. This is probably going to be one of my favorite visual novels of all time and Anastasia is one of my favorite protagonists. She's very strong, but it's less a case of being strong enough to survive, so much as she's strong because she had to survive. I love the witch trials and how the game strives to make them a little different each time. Phoenix Wright is always a defense lawyer, but Anastasia plays different roles in the trial depending on the current timeline she's going through. Also, I really like that you can make mistakes but the trial will continue instead of throwing you back to the evidence window or the dialogue box until you pick the correct answer. It's even possible to enter a trial without getting all the evidence (!) and still succeed as long as you have enough to work with. The thing is the investigation segments are time limited. Ace Attorney and Danganronpa let you investigate until you get all the clues, but even if Tempest tells you each lead will take X hours to follow, and you are never given enough hours to follow them all. If you don't have the evidence you need, most of the time you can take a hit to your reputation or that of the person you're trying to help and the trial will continue. Also interestingly, the court is the court of public opinion, so it's less about being right and smacking that contradiction in the other person's face, and more about swaying the 300 jurors to vote the way you want. I don't know if it's possible to indict anyone you want, but I did read one player tried to get the game's scumbag prince executed, which quite frankly I wanted to do too, but the game also warned me it would be hard to frame him and I didn't want to work the trial mechanics hard enough to see if I could. I know the trial is not as scripted as other games because I checked the walkthrough at one point when every choice I could make was giving me a favorability hit, and I found out I was interrogating a completely different person than the walkthrough said to focus on. I ended up just taking the hit and made it out of the trial anyway. As long as you don't screw up enough to ruin Anastasia's current goal, you can complete it and the trial will still make sense. I was so into the courtroom thing that when I finished my first trial and ended up back in the knight barracks staring at my current love interest I just kinda blinked and remembered, "Oh yeah, I'm in an otome." It's been surprisingly easy to forget with the gruesome murdering going on. The condition of the corpses is more Danganronpa than Ace Attorney. No graphics, but the narrative is not shy about describing any gore (if it's there, not every murder has it). Anastasia also has to die to trigger her time loop ability, which is not great for her mentally, though it's darkly amusing once she gets into the mindset of "Well, I'll just learn what I can here and then kill myself to do better next time." But because each "route" of the game is one timeline, and she begins carrying the memories of different timelines with her, the game starts getting less romance oriented the more it goes on. Like she'll look at the love interests from previous timelines and want to help them since she knows all their backstories, but by then she has so much on her plate and snuggling isn't one of them. The game's a pretty wild ride once all the secrets start coming out. After the finale the game finally remembers it's an otome so after the credits roll the epilogues unlock and it's possible to have a romantic ending with each of the guys. xD Due to the time looping nature of the game, all the romance routes actually happened to her, though not necessarily to them, which makes things interesting. I'm definitely picking up the fan disc sometime in 2024, though probably not right away so I can space things out. I also played some Frostpunk over the holidays to access the Christmas content. Yes, this thematically miserable setting has a Christmas story arc only accessible in the second half of December. It only happens in Endless mode so it doesn't ruin the plot in any of the preset scenarios, and you basically need to make sure you set aside enough resources (wood for toys and rations for the party) and raise enough hope by deadline to make sure the Christmas holiday is not forgotten in the harsh new world. The difficulty was not too hard under the Serenity settings, with the reward being a massive Christmas tree you can erect in your settlement for people to look at. This also reminds me that I picked up the DLC pass last summer and still haven't played through the new content. >.> Lastly, I wanted to squeeze in one final game for 2023 to complete a total of 12 and I didn't have much time left so I went with an indie I had previously tagged for backlog called The Last Matches which is a visual novel version of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. It felt appropriate for the season, though it was sad, as expected. There are actually two endings, the OG tragic one from the Andersen story and the other happy, but the happy end was surreal enough that I think she might actually be dead and the happiness is just her dreaming.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jan 12, 2024 1:02:04 GMT -5
Went back to Frostpunk to work on "The Last Autumn" DLC. Full playthrough in the Frostpunk thread, but as a high level review, I found this scenario to be extremely worth it. Since it's separate paid DLC it makes sense that it's as long and involved as the opening "A New Home" scenario. There are a lot of new mechanics since this is a prequel and the snow hasn't started yet, but it still has a lot of that balance between pushing your people too far and getting the job done. Since I barely scraped by with a successful run (it didn't feel successful, though by the letter of it, I completed all tasks required), I want to do another run where I complete all objectives, even the optional ones, I don't cross any moral lines, and everyone comes home safely.
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Post by northlander on Jan 18, 2024 19:55:48 GMT -5
So, I did something I haven't done in quite a while: I picked up quite a few games on the PS5 through a new year's sale of sorts. I tend to prefer to be more picky since I only have so much time to play games. ^^;; But... I got the following:
Aliens Fireteam Elite - well, I didn't buy this per se; it was the game of the month in either November or December, and I picked it up on the request of a friend of mine whom I play games with from time to time. Tried it out. It was OK.
Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series - I loved the games on the PS1 and 2 (respectively), so I went with this with the intention of giving my Youtube channel a playthrough of this once I'm done with Sable. And speaking of which...
Sable - This looked like a... well, kind of a Journey-like game? Apparently, mix in some Zelda BOTW as well, at least insofar it has a stamina-based climbing mechanic. I already have a video out with how far I've gotten in about three hours of time, and it seems like a decent game so far. Interesting art style.
The Final Station - I did kinda dig the graphical style here, especially when you're on the trains. It's a difficult game, though, but I also think I just completed what counts as kind of a tutorial session where I didn't get to choose where to go to with the train, but maybe now I can?
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights - This one is a bit tough too. The bosses are very mechanics-based, but even regular enemies are a bit of a chore to deal with, especially given how many of them fire homing shots at me. It looks nice, but yeah, it's tough.
Sublevel Zero: Redux - If you've ever played the very old game Descent, then this is a modern version of that. The controls are incredibly complicated, so I kinda resented that I couldn't set up my very own control sceme.
Generation Zero - This is the game I've undoubtedly played the most. It's a big open world game taking place in Sweden in the eighties, where a mysterious robot acopalypse has plagued the whole world. The game is taking place in a peninsula/island collection in the southern parts of Sweden, and it's atmospheric as all hell. The game isn't super difficult per se, but it takes a very sensible approach to fighting in that you have to take cover, scout ahead when applicable and simply be careful. If you run around in the open like a gormless idiot, you will get killed. And so far, the game world has been entirely seamless. A lot of it is overworld areas, granted, but you enter houses and bunkers and other areas without having to take loading breaks like you would in, say, Skyrim. Granted, most of the beings running around are the robots that are trying to murder you. There are very few nonhostile NPCs. While I'm sure some graphical experts can pick flaws in this game, I think the sheer atmosphere of it is amazing. And even more fun, I can play it with a Swedish dub.
And lastly...
Cross Code - I saw this one on someone doing a top ten relatively unknown RPGs on the Switch, although I got it on the PS5 instead. The playstyle is a bit different than what I'm used to, but I've barely started playing it, so I'll reserve my judgement for later. Looks promising, though.
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Post by skylark on Jan 20, 2024 17:20:48 GMT -5
I've been playing through Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name in preparation for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth in a few days.
At this point, the only game I don't have in the Ryu Ga Gotoku series is Lost Judgement.
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Post by Solana on Jan 21, 2024 10:41:50 GMT -5
With Final Fantasy Renaissance done, I'm either going to try FFV or Kingdom Hearts. I'm not great at action games, (Okami took a while in certain spots) but we'll see how I do.
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Post by DarkKnight on Jan 22, 2024 13:06:35 GMT -5
Between work stuff and various family obligations, I'm finally finding ways to have the time to do some gaming (and check in with old friends I haven't seen in a while) and actually contribute to some of these threads.
I've been bouncing between a couple of different games lately. I nabbed the Phantasie trilogy from GOG.com (I had Phantasie III for the Apple II and loved that game - except now I have a better idea of how games like this actually work), and I've been making my way through the first one. It's been slow leveling up some of my characters because of their low charisma, leading to higher cost to level them up, but I'm finding plenty of loot to sell off to afford the fees.
I've also been making my way through the Telltale Batman games - beat the first one, and still early on in the second. The takes on the Batman mythos are interesting and creative, although I hate having to make some of the sadistic choices. I'm surprised more superhero games don't try this format.
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Post by Rune Lai on Jan 28, 2024 23:16:04 GMT -5
Glad you're finding some time for yourself, DarkKnight! I've heard good things about the Telltale Batman games.
In my own gaming, I restarted Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, which I bought mostly because it's a dungeon crawler with a completely crazy premise. It's an alternate 1970s when these giant stone structures full of monsters appear across the world, but they also contain this precious argen energy that proves to be too valuable a resource to leave alone, setting off a corporate race to mine argen in these most deadly of places using the desperate and criminal elements of society as explorers called "undernauts." The particular structure the game takes place in is called Yomi, which appeared in Japan and is not so subtly named after the Japanese land of the dead, and you play as your character created team of undernauts who do the "mining" (i.e. killing monsters) for the scrappy upstart known as the Cassandra Corporation.
The artwork is really something else, and I'm sure there's some cultural relevance for selecting the 1970s that I'm not picking up on. Character art for your teammates is often some crazy blend of improvised armor and 70s fashion. Oddly, the dev also included art from a couple of their previous dungeon crawlers (which I haven't played, since generally Etrian Odyssey has been my jam) so I gave one of my party members the appearance of a faction leader from Stranger of Sword City, which I never played.
I didn't want to mess around too much with team comps this time, even though this is supposed to be one of Experience's easier dungeon crawlers, so I looked at a suggested comp in the walkthrough I'm using and basically assigned names and characters from my stories to the necessary roles instead of my usual method of coming up with characters first and then picking their classes. Undernauts's character management is surprisingly user friendly though, allowing instant respecs of character skills at any time, even in the middle of the dungeon!
The game is a little more story oriented than I expected though. I can't say Undernauts is very plotty, but events do happen and there's an unknown main antagonist who kicks things off pretty early.
The atmosphere also screams horror. I don't like seeing actual gore and I hate jump scares, but oppressive atmosphere and suggested off-camera gore is fine, so the fact Yomi is a nightmarish place where life is cheap and people get torn apart and eaten by the monsters leaving grisly remains to be found by the player is fine. The unknown enemy has trapped the undernauts of Cassandra Corps inside District 99 of Yomi and it appears the only way out is to defeat enough "Sinners" to power up our fusion reactor (which our creepy blind girl in a wheelchair calls the Great Tree). The Sinners seem to be the boss of a given area, and after having beaten the first one it's implied the monster may somehow be the soul of a serial killer who had been executed a while back.
I'm not sure if Undernauts is going anywhere with this heavy-handed suggestion that we might actually be in the underworld, but it absolutely nails the horror vibe with monsters that eat people, small children with supernatural powers, and some of the monster designs are pretty unique, with the monster catalog suggesting how they may have been the inspiration for fantasy creatures such as orcs or harpies. (The bird-mice are awfully cute though for being such foul creatures. They kinda feel like they should be in a different game.)
But I suppose the fact there is actually an enemy contacting us on our radio and wishing for our demise puts a more focused intelligence behind at least some of what's going on, and if nothing else that's a plot thread that should be wrapped up eventually. Cassandra is not the only company present, though I've yet to meet undernauts from other corporations (unless they were among the various dead ones I'd stumbled across.).
How Long to Beat pegs this at 38.5 hours for the main story and 59 for everything. I can't see myself doing post-game content (which the walkthrough implies exists), but I do have that neurotic urge to step on every tile in the dungeon so it's logged on my auto-mapper, so I'm figuring this will probably be in the ballpark for 60 hours for me, especially since I'm not as fast as some of those How Long to Beat people.
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Post by northlander on Feb 3, 2024 9:11:54 GMT -5
Still playing Generation Zero and Cross Code. The former continues to impress me with the incredibly atmospheric representation of Scandinavian countryside and terrifying robot apocalypse, and the latter is also really growing on me for being a nice action-based RPG with an adorable retro-inspired graphical style, but the story also seem good so far. I don't even mind the whole amnesia plot line this time around in regard to our main character. Amid the mystery and intrigue, the whole world is taking place in a kinda MMO-like enviroment where people apparently control real-life avatars of sorts -- don't know if it's robot bodies or something else entirely, though I think I've seen some hints of it being a case of bioengineering. This seems to be a huge game, though; I'm still in the beginner section of it, but it is kinda fun seeing other players run around as you explore the world. It does have a very MMO feel to it, even if it's a single-player game.
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Post by northlander on Feb 28, 2024 7:29:01 GMT -5
Got Elder Scrolls Online. I got the PS4 version so I could store it on the external HD I got for my PS5, since the game takes up a whopping 190 gigs of hard drive space, and that's even just the base game.
So far, the game controls kind of clunky compared to Oblivion/Skyrim, to allow for better MMO gameplay, I'm guessing. I'm not super fond of the fact that I can't set up my own controls, even if the PS5 itself at least allows me to swap sticks to how I prefer it. At least I can still dodge backwards as I need to.
The character designs look nice, mostly avoiding the doofy-faced expressions you have in Oblivion. The backgrounds look detailed enough -- I need to see more of the game to make more than just a snap judgement -- although not quite on the level of Oblivion, much less Skyrim. As in the opening temple looked nice, but the outside map was more like.... early gen/PS3 FF XIV, I guess? Will keep playing, and admittedly, it is kinda nice to be able to play a coop Elder Scrolls game.
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Post by skylark on Mar 5, 2024 15:48:55 GMT -5
They have Knights of the Old Republic on XBox One. Time to reacquaint myself with my first BioWare game.
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Post by skylark on Mar 15, 2024 21:33:26 GMT -5
Dusted off the PS3 to purchase Suikoden I, II, and III.
Time to see what all the fuss about the original games are…
Also, I was expecting Gremio to be an old fart, not a pretty boy. The Yamcha chin scar is pretty telling though…
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Post by Ambrienne on Mar 15, 2024 22:32:41 GMT -5
I did finish Rune Factory 5's main game/got a marriage with the character I was pursuing before the end of the year. I just didn't mention it then, because I was lazy. That and, it didn't really feel complete to me until I at least got all the kids. ::twitches:: I literally had the shortest route to talk to everybody in town branded in my brain by that point, along with 85% shipping rate, all recipes cooked/shipped, and almost all of the weapons forged except for a few ones near the end where the rare drops I needed never dropped and a couple towards the middle where I couldn't remember where to get a couple of missing ingredients. I did think it was cool how the twins reflect the appearance of the marriage partner instead of your player character. I can't recall too many other games I've played that do that much when there's a choice of marriages involved (Phantasy Star 3 and the Agarest series, I think, but other than that... ::shrugs:: ) Someday, I may go back to check out the full story of the other guys but not any time soon. I need a break from that before the thought of the 'round Rigbarth loop' doesn't make my irritation level go through the roof.
Also recently finished: the Cinderella Phenomenon: Evermore addition. Yeah, I was right. There was no ending to the main game where some sorrow of some kind didn't carry over into the epilogues. Some routes may have been sadder than others, but nothing was tear free. I can't say I didn't enjoy the epilogues, but they did make for some mixed emotions.
Another couple I went through recently because Steam had a sale:
Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain and Henchman Story. As for how I felt about them, well... I only played through one of Henchman Story's route and, though the ending I got was decent, even the quirky humor wasn't enough to make me want to go for the other routes. As for Penny Larceny, well, its very nature makes it so that you want to play through all the routes just to get the full story and the True route is available only after everything else is done anyway. It was a nice touch that it let you choose who the true love interest, if any, actually was instead of hard coding it almost invariably to someone who I didn't like/was lukewarm about. The author is still a bit too into political/social commentary, though. And it's not as funny as when Terry Pratchett does it.
Last of what I've been through recently game-wise: Persona 5 Tactica. Gameplay-wise? I'm sick of the elevators. Having viewpoint switching combined with position jockeying all because somebody thought it was a good idea to make a one turn battle quest made me highly annoyed... and honestly a little nauseated. There was still some fun showcasing of Yusuke's personality quirks in various conversations to make me laugh, but overall I felt like the tactical part was kind of, um, uneven. Like some quests with precise positioning that was annoying while a lot of the rest of it was kind of a snooze fest. Also, the P5 cast was kind of like support staff to the new faces instead of feeling like an integral part like in Strikers.
As for what I'll be playing now... I'm honestly not sure. Maybe Persona 3 Reload or the Apollo Justice trilogy. It depends on what kind of mood I'm in.
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