Tryhard

now the real hot takes are popping off in the thread frfr

i look forward to seeing your comments on balthier, ashe and vaan in the eventual ff12 review. curious!

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)

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

you love it really BG1 I can understand but by BG2 they had some wind behind their backs, and that game left a legacy that is still highly respected by people today. But it was more so that CRPGs have had a sort of resurgence in recent years with the Pathfinder games, the Pillars of Eternity games, Tyranny, Disco Elysium, and then Larian's own Divinity Original Sin games. CRPGs have always been known as a rather niche genre but this is the first one I've seen break into the mainstream.

BG3 is currently above both BOTW and TOTK on metacritic, that's kind of insane (despite the fact that it is likely to drop I think when more reviews come in, maybe). I know metacritic means pretty much nothing but I haven't seen a CRPG with this much of a high profile and prominence since... well, ever. Even the original BG1 and BG2 didn't reach the levels of the mainstream this much. I just got finished with a full playthrough of Wrath of the Righteous (also an excellent game, although it is admitedly far more niche and has some glaring things that Owlcat are known for failing at) and I played through the early access of BG3 so I know it's very good. The main issues I've been hearing is the bugginess/performance in Act 3. I'll sit down to play at some point soon, but waiting for technical issues to be fixed is probably not a bad idea, considering they have already released multiple hotfixes fixing issues and bugs. Technical issues can at least be fixed, especially with a game of this scale, and I generally haven't seen any complaints with the actual content. The steam forums might be the place where the most negative people congregate somehow, I actually browse through there for humour since every other thread is about how this game is woke.

Cyberpunk is at least in a much better state than it was at release, and will probably be better when the DLC releases. There was too many technical issues on release and it never should have been released in the state it was, that made the entire release a farce but the game itself was not bad quality. I'm pretty sure it was said in pre-release interviews at the time but the style that were going for was the same as "Immersive Sim" games as inspiration - games like Deus Ex, System/BioShock, Dishonored, Prey, Thief, etc. Which were always first person in nature, even if they were shooter RPGs that included melee weapons. Personally I never saw a problem with that style since I played and enjoyed games like Deus Ex and System Shock especially.

To make it clear, stuff like BOTW is not the same as what I would consider an open world rpg. Not only are most of the games considered "open world" games in modern times almost exclusively third person, they almost always only have very light rpg elements, probably focusing on skill trees more than other forms of character progresion, more like open world action games than an actual rpg (Horizon, Ghosts of Tsushima, BOTW, etc). They will usually have a pre-determined protagonist instead of having any sort of character creation. This is not to say that they are bad games at all. Games like Dragon's Dogma is generally what I mean (and even then, its world was quite limited), in which it is far more invested in the RPG elements. Which is also a very good game. Under that criteria, I have seen far more rpg-lite open world games in recent times than not.

The entire fight is sort of a reference to a fight in Demon's Souls, all the way down to the weapon you use. I know that people don't like the Yhorm fight for obvious reasons but there is a reason they keep trying to add at least 1-2 "gimmick fights" in every game (in Elden Ring too), because they are trying not for every boss just to be a straight up 1v1 fight with no intricacies. Is it a great boss? No, but even if it was better, people would still complain about it being a "gimmick fight" in nature. I was also thinking of Ancient Wyvern, where the "boss fight" is more of an arena gauntlet instead of an actual boss. Then I guess I can say an unpopular opinion or at least one that is unpopular in certain parts of the internet: Bethesda are unfairly maligned, on the internet at least. Bethesda unironically are fantastic at world-building and lore development. The vast lore of the Elder Scrolls series is proof of that. Very few games have a world background that is developed as significantly. They also are making games that almost no-one else tries to make. The entire genre of first+third person open world rpgs is one that is severely lacking, and in terms of mainstream releases, there are basically very few other games that fit the mold with the exception of Obsidian doing The Outer Worlds, which was generally considered mediocre. Simply put, they have almost no competition in the games they make because making games with that scale is not what most AAA developers/publishers want to do. I don't necessarily think this a good thing, because a lack of competition makes them lazy, but I will say: almost no developers even try and dare to make the type of games they make (and a type of game I enjoy). What Bethesda struggle with is well known, especially technical aspects and main story writing. And their problems are known when they try to act like a scummy publisher and put out things like Fallout 76. But when they actually try to make a type of game like Skyrim or Fallout (3 or 4, I know there is people that dislike 4 because it leaned away from RPG elements) again (whether Starfield will turn out this way I don't know), they actually will put out something worthwhile, at least to quite a few people. There's a reason why Skyrim remains, like the most modded game ever, if there wasn't people willing to play their games, people willing to spend a huge amount of time and effort modding their games would also not exist. I've seen this video before, I'm not a fan of its reasoning, or the other video this person did bashing DS2. They are right that the later games are less methodical and plodding because they are sped up, but if they also dislike Bloodborne for this reason, then yeah that's definitely an unpopular opinion of their own considering how much BB is loved. DS1 can certainly feel very slow, and the enemies are much less aggresive than later games. I remember beating the game very easily by just walking backwards and casting magic the whole game - almost no enemies are aggressive enough to really challenge you and it made everything a breeze. I don't particularly view this as a good thing. I've never heard that about armour in DS1/DS3. I never noticed that armour was "just cosmetic" in DS3, heavier armours did tend to help damage reduction at the very least. Now if they have a problem with the poise systems, then that is another matter. Bloodborne, yes the armours were all cosmetics and had pretty minor changes to the stats. If anything you can still die very easily in DS1 even in heavy armour if you're taking multiple hits. Some people have criticised the whole 'delayed attacks' thing in Elden Ring as well, and yes, a lot of the main bosses in there will delay certain attacks purposely to throw off your roll timing. I guess they felt as though it would be a way for panic mashing the roll button not being the way to avoid most boss attacks as often in ER you have to delay a roll on purpose to correctly dodge an attack. I personally never minded this although I feel as though this is one of the more common complaints about ER. Something like Tower Knight might be more "tolerated" because you actually do attack something, but generally people very much dislike anything where you have to use a specific weapon (Storm King), or you hit some objects and the boss just dies (Dragon God).

I have no idea why they would say this other than the game speed generally becoming faster with the newer games. Yes, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 would let you spam roll a lot quicker, but there was never any major distinction between Demon's Souls and Elden Ring about how the base gameplay is, other than DS1 and DeS perhaps being more lenient on you due to the slowed-down pace of the games, but you will still be punished severely if you do not block/dodge/position yourself correctly. Sekiro is different, but I personally would not even consider that to be compared to the rest. I guess I will say that Demon's Souls in particular does have a lot more bosses that are more, let's say, "puzzle oriented" in how you defeat them. In that regard it likely has more in common with certain Zelda bosses (attacking weakpoints, using bombs etc). Personally these bosses never did anything for me, and in fact those types of bosses generally are poorly received by the fanbase in general that don't like 'gimmick bosses' (there's a couple in DS3 as well). I would also consider Demon's Souls to be the easiest game in the series by far. Unironically the fanbase has always preferred the bosses where you roll and r1 spam against a big enemy (1v1, generally), and shunned any bosses where you might have to do more than just straight up fight something in melee combat. I couldn't tell you why that is. For me it's kinda like going into playing a Bethesda game and then expecting the combat to be stellar - it just ain't gonna happen. The strengths lie elsewhere. It was more prevalent around the time DS1 came out but the whole 'git gud' mentality was something that was always annoying, and a reason to never bother with the fanbase as in most cases. I never really got into Monster Hunter, though.

Souls combat has always been relatively simple despite what people say, the whole roll and r1 spam is the majority of the game if you're playing melee is just how the game is played. If you're not at least tolerating that if not enjoying it, you'll never stick with the games. I would actually say that in depth combat has never been a strong point of the series. The thing From Software do best, better than any of their competitors, is level/map design and enemy placement, atmosphere and enemy designs. I was actually very much not enjoying the first time I was playing Souls, that being DS1, until at least 2/3 through the game. Somewhat because I had no idea what I was doing. I stuck with it somewhat out of stubbornness of the glowing praise the game received at the time. After that I started to gain an appreciation for the game(s).

most people simply do not have the patience to die hundreds of times and still want to continue playing, whether that is due to lack of time or temperament i have always maintained that the only way to lose in souls games is to quit the game, but there is a lot of people who simply become frustrated and have no patience for a difficulty curve, so they will quit the game well before they are able to truly get to grips with it, even though they thereotically could given enough time and effort. having played over a thousand hours of souls I probably will think the souls game are not as hard as someone who tries to pick up a controller for the first time and has not even played a third person action game before. i maintain that I would never say "souls games are easy," but the marketing and general hype around the "wow it's so hardcore dudes" Prepare To Die edition has also been a meme for many years. it has scared off people from becoming potential fans with its reputation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWOjWN_IHc Despite the extreme dryness of BG1, I still like playing it occasionally these days, mostly solo as a sort of breeze-through. I guess I feel kind of guilty if I don't do a full trilogy run if I'm going to play it. Although I now include SoD in that. as a side note - in many CRPG/D&D games, a lot of people get giddy over the prospect of playing high-level characters or basically demi-gods (about the level of your character in Throne of Bhaal). Unironically this is always where any D&D based games are the most terrible, because combat just turns into who can spam their overpowered abilities first and win instantly with no chance for retaliation. A lot of the time it can just be cast time stop and destroy everything before it gets a chance to move. as a side, side note: Baldur's Gate 3 is coming out for full release on August 3rd and the max level is going to be 12, something that has been complained about but like the above I think is a correct decision as well. The amount of complaining about Larian getting the rights to do a third game has been unprecedented by people like me who enjoyed the original games, and unfairly, considering the excellence of Original Sin 2. people unironically complaining about whimsical writing when space hamster man existed in bg1 and 2. In fairness, I do think that was the intention. You have no idea how much the screaming would be if they touched the admitted archaic-ness of Diablo II. For what it was intending to be I do think it was well put together and I did like Vicarious Visions prior work, but it was always just going to be a nicer looker Diablo II. And even beside that it still sits at a 3.2 user score metacritic because of launch issues, general Blizzard hatred (warranted) and "the characters are too ugly and woke."

I should have been clearer: I was not necessarily describing sentience. Because all of our machines in the world currently, including AI art programs, have no free will either, and that's because they are not sentient, and are programmed to do a certain task only. Evidently you believe a non-sentient machine like a AI art program could eventually be capable of genuine human expression from your last reply before this one. Then there's no reason to believe that a pre-programmed, non-sentient robot could not be capable of love, or at least an imitation of love, in your eyes. Right? People would also probably not think that a non-sentient robot could be a slave. The whole "should we treat sentient robots the same as humans" is a whole another argument (feels like we are reciting the synopsis of Detroit: Become Human) that I'm not entirely sure where I would fall on, but that is a far more complicated scenario. But I did kind of give the impression of sentience initially so I definitely phrased it wrong.