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Tryhard

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About Tryhard

  • Birthday 02/12/1994

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  • Member Title
    messenger of the gods

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    Scotland

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  • Favorite Fire Emblem Game
    Gaiden

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  1. kefka isn't even a character, really. he's a personification of nihilism and no more. I'm not entirely sure how some people hold him up as one of the greatest villains of all time, but they almost always mention "because he wins (kind of)". Which yeah, I guess, but he's only interesting in terms of how he relates to the main themes of the game (that being that nihilism is bad and JRPG friendship is magic and good. which after I typed it out is not very original) I used to like FF6 a lot more, but honestly I would pass it over for more obscure SNES RPGs these days (which sadly have generally not seen Steam re-releases of course because they don't carry the Final Fantasy name)
  2. played through and completed Morrowind after 22 years on and off of trying, because I felt obligated. expansions and all. I will say I'm thankful for the fact that there is an open source engine port of the game so I don't need to run it on the original application. OpenMW being a godsend. there is definitely things I like a lot about Morrowind, and things I do not like. the sort of feeling of being dropped in a very alien world with the giant mushroom structures and weird ravines called foyadas does have a certain unique charm to it that isn't met in the same way in Oblivion and Skyrim. and I also like the fact that the game truly does not give a shit if you break it, in fact it almost encourages you do. enchanted items are broken. custom overpowered spells are broken. alchemy is giga broken. the game in general is broken. it is not a particularly challenging game, in fact it's quite easy if you know how its systems work (in a very confusing way, is generally the answer), but being able to have the freedom to basically exploit as intended game mechanics has its appeal that not many other games do. I liked the fact the factions are rather low-key in comparison to the other games. You kinda are just sweeping some floors to begin with in the Fighters and Mages guilds to begin with, it's low stakes and it feels like there is sufficient build up to an actual threat slowly. The quests aren't particularly exciting, usually to kill something, escort something, deliver something, or pick something up. The base game main quest is also quite good for the most part. Nothing extremely exciting, but at least it's trying to pace itself. It feels like it's more of a "roleplaying" game in comparison to Skyrim especially. but then there is other less good things, such as the leveling system being atrocious (and carried over to being atrocious in Oblivion too). I completed Daggerfall in the unity port as well, and the fact that the leveling system is better there kind of just astounds me. I downloaded an 'always +5 modifier' mod and I'm not ashamed of it at all. while the main quest is definitely more interesting fare than the other games, people usually like to overlook the fact that it grinds to a halt 3/4 in and becomes extremely tedious (people who have played the game know which part I'm referring to). it's strange because the rest of the game is actually quite well-paced in terms of the main quest, and does not expect you to pursue it under some sort of cataclysmic stakes, at least not initially. and then there's the combat. which everyone knows is based on dice rolls and doesn't accurately show when you miss (there is actually less visual feedback than even daggerfall somehow). which you will be doing a lot with bad weapon skill at the start of the game, and with probably not much understand that fatigue is drained from running and affects your abilities pretty massively. it's not great, but it's also kind of what you expect to have to deal with when playing a 22 year old game. the expansions. I routinely heard Tribunal disregarded as disappointing, and I can see why. Like 70% of it is spent in the Mournhold sewers, which is not even the full intended city of Almalexia and is basically just a closed off area. The fact that many of the regular enemies in both this and Bloodmoon are made to be damage sponges feels very weird when the most threatening enemies in lore in the base game lose out to goblins in the sewers. I like parts of it but it pales in comparison to the base game. Bloodmoon can be especially obnoxious too because it throws a huge amount of enemies out on snowy flat ground and then does the whole 60% reflection bullshit on fucking Rieklings so good luck if you're a mage, jackass. It seems like a strange design decision to throw absurd reflect modifiers in the game when the base game of Morrowind lets you be broken and it's like an attempt to rein you in. Why can Spriggans resurrect and have a combined total of 600hp? The last area of Bloodmoon is also "fuck you" central. I still liked it better than Tribunal. and of course, like true power gamers, we wear robes over our armour, because that's how we roll. (Eltonbrand is a bit cryptic to get, I will admit)
  3. I do not really mean that there don't exist older laws in other countries. It is more that most other countries do not treat their constitutions anywhere to the same degree as America does. Other countries have constitutions as well, the American one is no more special than any other in that regard. Most other countries do not treat their many-centuries-old constitutions as an unchanging, infallible, document, however. How can you when the world has changed so much over the 250 years since they were initially written? To the point where the highest legal positions in the land, the Supreme Court, spend the majority of their time analysing current day laws and cases to determine whether they are 'constitutional' or not as a basis for their legality. It is sort of a prevailing attitude outside of some US leftist opinion (usually called unpatriotic for questioning such attitudes) that whether laws are or are not "constitutional" and the determination of that is an inherent basis for what should be legal or not. I find it strange, obviously.
  4. Despite being fundamentally anti-gun, this is a statement I don't disagree with. Pragmatically, there is no current feasible path. There is too many guns in circulation. But - I am not sure why Americans act like the views of men who lived several centuries ago is inherently important, or necessary. To the point where every aspect of law needs to be compared to attempt to interpret what long-dead men "would" have thought of current modern laws. They are called amendments for a reason. Directing you to the 13th amendment. You may think certain laws like alcohol prohibition was stupid (and I would agree), but that doesn't mean there hasn't been necessary precedent laws set since the US constitution was originally written, or that amendments written in 1787 have the same significance or purpose that they do today. If public opinion swayed enough against it (which I obviously don't think will happen, at least not in the near future), there is nothing inherently sacred about the second amendment that actually makes it an "inalienable right". It's been my experience that most socialists in the US are generally fine with gun ownership and the second amendment because they view it as a necessary defence. Hence the prevalence of groups like the John Brown Gun Club. US liberals are far more likely to go strictly anti-gun than US socialists. Of course, at least outside of the US in other first world countries, the prevalent opinion is anti-gun from both socialists and liberals.
  5. Baldur's Gate 3 is the best I've played from this year, although good other games I have played: Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Boltgun. Want to try the RE4 Remake at some point.
  6. I don't disagree with that. Although it's uncertain if this particular story is even true to begin with, considering I believe it came exclusively from the accounts of Chris Avellone, who I am not so sure is the most trustworthy individual (and his relationship with Bethesda obviously turned sour). I don't even remember other Obsidian employees corroborating this story.
  7. new vegas good upvotes to the left I have an admitted soft spot for Joshua Graham, because even though he has like 15 lines total and the whole militaristic vs spiritual divide of the tribes in Honest Hearts is played out, I can't deny that it was refreshing to see a high-profile positive depiction of a religious person which tends to be uncommon. Aside from that, there isn't much to say though. Lonesome Road really does feel like the only DLC that has any real thought put behind it. I like New Vegas, but mostly the base game. There isn't much to it, other than making explosive weapons functionally unusable, since every grenade you carry around now has weight. It is not particularly challenging other than occasionally going back to wherever you drop everything at to eat one of the 10,000 bighorner meat you have and drink radiated water from the sink. And to amusingly make the game unwinnable sometimes since you can die in some loading screens (i.e hardcore mode will determine that you haven't ate or drank anything in the 2 weeks it takes to travel to the honest hearts dlc, and will freeze your game in the loading screen. without a patch. really does make me wonder how everyone is so surprised that new vegas got a 84 metacritic on launch and that big bad bethesda were so mean for withholding their supposed bonus)
  8. GTA6. Rockstar said there is supposedly a trailer coming in "early December," and while Rockstar are known for typically doing their own thing and dropping their announcements off-hand independently, I wouldn't be surprised if Geoff managed to land what is going to be one of the biggest reveals in the gaming generation. An obvious one is the Elden Ring DLC announcement, finally. As Miyazaki/From have a good relationship with Geoff and the awards show and it's likely that it will be announced with a release date before Q2 2024. EDIT: Of course, very soon after I posted this it seems like the GTA6 trailer is going up 5th December. I did think it had a chance to appear the game awards, but I guess not.
  9. I generally don't take them that seriously for this reason. I will remind people often that Last of Us II was voted GOTY for 2020, that game was pretty widely praised in terms of reviewers and influencers, but the general reaction for it was much more polarised. Not to say these two opinions won't often align, because I would be very surprised to see BG3 not win here after almost universal praise, but worth keeping in mind.
  10. Playing through (the new) Lords of the Fallen right now, which seems to have been fairly polarising from what I've seen, if not people outright saying it's bad. And I don't really get it. It's not the best game ever, by any means, including some objective flaws like performance issues, but unironically I am enjoying it at about a 8/10 game level. The game is basically a love letter to Dark Souls 1, all the way down to things I would consider flaws. The level design takes pretty much the whole "loops back to Firelink Shrine" aspect of the first half of DS1 and copies it. I remember people being so impressed by the interconnected level design when DS1 came out, and still to this day, but rarely have I seen any praise when another game manages to do it to basically the same effect. Then there is the criticisms that I could just as readily apply to DS1. One of the most common is that the bosses are (relatively) easy, which I think is true. But then I think about the boss design and philosophy in Demon's Souls and DS1 and how most of the bosses were intended to be spectacles rather than super challenging. O&S might be the only real difficult boss in the base game of DS1, although I would throw Capra Demon in there for when you fight him as well. The rest of the game is like Iron Golem, Gaping Dragon, and Moonlight Butterfly bosses. Cool looking, but not really much difficulty there, the newer Souls games really stepped it up much more in that regard. In fact, the entire design philosophy has slowly became more action-oriented in games like Bloodborne, DS3 and Elden Ring. Far faster pace when compared to Demon's Souls and DS1, which had more deliberation in its combat. Another being that the levels can be rather brutal or that the mob density can be too much (they have recently patched the game to address this somewhat) - which is the same kind of complaints I was hearing about places like Blighttown or Sen's Fortress in OG DS1. Most of the levels in Demon's Souls and DS1 were harder than the bosses. The whole level design in Lords is generally good and the exploration is pretty interesting with the ability to go in/out of the umbral world and it allowing you to pickup hidden items. People have been comparing the game to Lies of P mainly because it's another Soulslike that's come out recently but LoP has basically no exploration and is solely concentrated on linear levels. It's just weird hearing a lot of people slam the game for attempting to, and doing the same design decisions that DS1 did, which was universally praised and still is. I don't even like DS1 as much as a lot of From fanboys do, but yet it seems like this game gets bashed when it's one of the more faithful homages to DS1 I've seen. There are some things I can definitely criticise, such as the poor enemy variety, and some questionable janky motions on the movesets (the attack motions have a tendency to propel you forward, which takes some time to get used to), and of course the performance issues, but certainly nothing that makes the game "bad," from my perspective.
  11. I recently played through and completed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I think it took me like 130 hours. Long game. It's also very complex, but I've never seen so many options in a CRPG which even if incredibly overwhelming, is honestly great if you do like getting super analytical. The game is very good in general, but also has some problems that kind of plague the entire thing. 1. The severely inflated enemy stats, especially on anything higher than normal. I was playing on Core, and shit gets like 50+ AC. Even more towards the end of the game. So you need to find ways to buff the shit out of your party with synergies in order to even attempt to hit stuff on anything other than a 20. This stuff would be completely ridiculous in the tabletop version of the game. 2. The entire nature of the encounter design and how the game will occasionally just fuck you completely if you don't metaknowledge your way into knowing they are coming up. The game likes to throw a lot of encounters at you in general, which is a step away from how D&D/Pathfinder does it where you usually only do a few fights per rest. 3. The heavy over-reliance on prebuffing in order to win later on. You basically need to download a third party mod that allows you to set up automatic buffing sequences to retain your sanity later on. Thankfully some of the mythic abilities let you buff for up to 24 hours as long as the spell lasts 5 minutes or more but it's still a massive pain in the ass. 4. The fact you basically need to have a leveling guide open for all party members and yourself to know wtf to do if you aren't letting the game auto-level your companions (which is also suboptimal). There are so many classes, feats, and permutations of options to take and some of them are just going to be suboptimal or even plain awful. 5. It will take some time before you even understand the combat mechanics to begin with if you are unfamiliar with this type of game to begin with. 6. The "puzzles" in the game suck complete ass. 7. The crusade mechanic a lot of people don't like as kind of a half-assed ripoff of Heroes of Might & Magic. I personally didn't really care for it but I didn't hate it with a passion like some people. The entire mythic path stuff is a total power trip which while enjoyable just means that they ramp up the encounters hard in order to deal with highly increased player power. But then, the combat is good, the story is fairly good (follows an official Pathfinder adventure path so I imagine it takes a lot from that), the characters are hit and miss (some of them are not very great), the amount of options you get is overwhelming, far more classes than any CRPG to date, etc. Visuals are pretty decent for a typical CRPG genre game but not quite exceptional production values like BG3. I guess I could say that even with all of its problems, I still played it for 130 hours and would rate it probably an 8/10, and even that may be a little generous.
  12. Disco Elysium is a fantastic game, but it's also a game with no combat which a lot of people aren't going to care for. BG3 is more a "complete package" in that regard. I've only played the early access but I rate it very highly from that already. I don't think it does certain things as well as other games (Disco Elysiums writing for example) but it is generally very good in most areas. It has very high production values in a way that no other traditional isometric CRPG really has had. Having just finished a playthrough of Wrath of the Righteous, one of the biggest problems I had was that late game around level 15+ devolved into prebuffing the shit out of my party and just left clicking stuff, having it die within a few rounds, in the nature that high level D&D (or Pathfinder in this case) tends to be. I think the condensed level cap up to level 12 is a smart way of trying to keep the combat interesting throughout the whole game. The critical response to BG3 undoubtedly puts it in contention as a GOTY contender along with Zelda. 2023 has unironically been one of the greatest years for games.
  13. CRPG / Computer RPG generally refers to games with an isometric style. Generally emphasis is put on character customisation (i.e not a set protagonist) and choices and consequences or reactivity. Usually they are also linked with a tabletop gaming license / ruleset adaption like D&D or Pathfinder, but not always. It is kind of a nebulous or arbitrary term but it usually refers to games in the same style as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1 + 2, Neverwinter Nights, et cetera. I certainly wouldn't consider any of the series you mentioned as CRPGs. This is probably the best explanation I've found of it:
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