Soooooo what'cha playing?

[avensis]

Stardew Valley is a very good game, I have never played this kind of game before, but I can say that I fell in love.
I really love the gameplay, the calm of the game, the pleasure of playing it ect ...

Edited December 11, 2020 by avensis

[Harvey]

Currently playing Tales of Zesteria. So far, I'm finding the story and the cast boring and the gameplay is mostly just mashing buttons. I don't know why I bothered getting this in the first place.

 

[Gemma]

2 hours ago, Harvey said:

Currently playing Tales of Zesteria. So far, I'm finding the story and the cast boring and the gameplay is mostly just mashing buttons. I don't know why I bothered getting this in the first place.

 

I haven't heard good things. Doesn't the game also have a notoriously bad camera?

[Harvey]

1 hour ago, Gemma said:

I haven't heard good things. Doesn't the game also have a notoriously bad camera?

Yeah it does. But that's not what bothers me about it.

1. Terrible Tutorials that are done in text only with little to no elaboration on how the game mechanics work.
2. As mentioned earlier, bland cast that fail to develop their own charm making some of the conversations either cheesy or bad.
3. The gameplay being just mashing with little to no strategy. Not that it matters since again, the gameplay plays blandly.

What's worse is this is my first Tales game. Now I can't say for certain if I want to play Berseria which I also ended up buying for whatever reason.

 

[Gemma]

1 hour ago, Harvey said:

Yeah it does. But that's not what bothers me about it.

1. Terrible Tutorials that are done in text only with little to no elaboration on how the game mechanics work.
2. As mentioned earlier, bland cast that fail to develop their own charm making some of the conversations either cheesy or bad.
3. The gameplay being just mashing with little to no strategy. Not that it matters since again, the gameplay plays blandly.

What's worse is this is my first Tales game. Now I can't say for certain if I want to play Berseria which I also ended up buying for whatever reason.

 

Tales has always had text walls for tutorials, iirc. Tales is a series I used to play a lot and really enjoy a while ago, but I've lost interest in over time, and looking back the games haven't aged well. Phantasia and Vesperia are the only ones I still like. Phantasia's sprites look gorgeous although it's pretty generic, the combat is definitely old but it's simple and enjoyable, unlike say Symhonia's combat which definitely hasn't aged well. Vesperia I feel hits the good spot and does everything Tales is known for well in terms of system and character writing. It has my favorite cast, the characters are fun and have an enjoyable bit of depth as well.

Berseria... I played a chunk of the middle of the game with a friend, and I have to say I'm not sure how much you'll enjoy it given your gripes with Zesteria, lol. The game also tries to be a bit edgy came off as kinda cringe for me. I will say Magilou is a gem from that game though.

Sorry just felt like ranting haha. Tbh the series has frustrated me since Graces. Though I don't know how to feel about the upcoming Arise, since it seems to be taking a new direction with the aesthetics.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, Gemma said:

unlike say Symhonia's combat which definitely hasn't aged well.

I remember mashing my way through that game for 90% of the main story, where a certain one on one fight led me to learning there's a jump button for avoiding getting stuck in a corner. And I only missed such a crucial detail because it's only possible to jump with a specific control setting that is not the default.

[Reality]

I'm very harsh on the Tales series, but I've only played Phantasia and Symphonia . I understand that their is some kind of split into two gameplay styles (one more complicated) in the PS3 + and onward games but I never really looked into it beyond watching a series retrospective on youtube. It didn't seem prudent to invest more time after I disliked my first two.

I think that Phantasia should not be used as a "hidden gem" SNES RPG - Compared to later games in the series, enemies lack any kind of super armor or Invinciblity frame mechanic (and this is still barebones only after knocking down bosses in Symphonia) and the mash to win is at it's absolute worst in that game. The PS3+ games look like they help with this problem, but not enough. I do think that it's story presentation is really good for the first two dungeons, but it becomes a lot more generic later on (vague FF6/Secret of Mana esque Magitech vs a Life tree as the original source of magic thing) and has a lot of backtracking for a short game (the unicorn quests right before getting overworld flight literally requiring on-foot traversal of the entire continent twice) - I think the Quintet RPGs and stuff like Front Mission Gun Hazard push it too far down the ARPG hierarchy  to bother with.

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Reality

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Zestiria is a bad game to begin with for one reason:

The game calculates the enemies's stats based on armatization. Enemies have doubled stats than in other Tales of games. If you fight an elite monster same level as your party, it will have twice as many stats as your party which means you have no chance to beat it without armatization. 

There are other issues I have with that game like dull overworld and lame character cast (Alisha was treated like dirt), bad camera angle in combat, but these are minor to be honest.

Zestiria is absolutely unbalanced thanks to armatization, the worst mechanic ever happened to Tales of.

[vanguard333]

Now that my year of university's finally over, I can finally focus more on completing the video games I have (what else am I going to do in this isolation). I've been playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and I'm almost finished my first Golden Deer playthrough. Once that's done, it'll be two routes down, and two to go. 

I've also been working on finishing Valkyria Chronicles 4. I got that game almost a year and a half ago, not long after it released, and I still haven't finished it. Fortunately, I'm on the last mission. I just need to complete it, then complete several missions after that to get the true ending (I hate true endings hidden behind first-playthrough content, but I may as well complete it).

I will say though; getting back into a tactical RPG, especially one like VC4, after more than 2/3 of a year of not playing it, is a bit grueling. I was tempted to restart from scratch, but then I realized how long that would take me. 

 

After I'm done playing VC4, I was thinking I would get the Link's Awakening remake since it should be small enough for me to purchase digitally without any issues. At some point, I also want to get the remastered version of the original Valkyria Chronicles game, Dragon Quest 11 S, Final Fantasy 7 Remake... the list is fairly long. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by vanguard333

[Ottservia]

With Persona 5 Royal having released a month ago, it’s pretty much completely overtaken my life. God I love that game so much. I’m almost done with the new dungeon. I’m loving all the changes they made to the battle system and story. Akechi’s new confidant is basically everything he needed for his character to work and it works so well. I’m almost done with my first run and it’s been a blast honestly.

[vanguard333]

27 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

With Persona 5 Royal having released a month ago, it’s pretty much completely overtaken my life. God I love that game so much. I’m almost done with the new dungeon. I’m loving all the changes they made to the battle system and story. Akechi’s new confidant is basically everything he needed for his character to work and it works so well. I’m almost done with my first run and it’s been a blast honestly.

Yet another game on the long list of games I need to purchase and play. I never actually played the initial version of the game (or any Persona game for that matter) and I don't know that much about the series. Any advise?

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Yet another game on the long list of games I need to purchase and play. I never actually played the initial version of the game (or any Persona game for that matter) and I don't know that much about the series. Any advise?

What kind of advice? Which game to get? What kind of game it is? Whaddya wanna know?

[vanguard333]

5 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

What kind of advice? Which game to get? What kind of game it is? Whaddya wanna know?

…Both, I guess? I honestly didn't have anything specific in mind. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by vanguard333

[Ottservia]

15 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

…Both, I guess? I honestly didn't have anything specific in mind. 

I mean if you’re going to get the game definitely get the newly released royal because it’s basically an enhanced version of the original game. It is a turn based Jrpg with dating sim elements if I were describe the game in as few words as possible. It’s also very anime so if that bothers you at all. As for what the game is about well. It’s about a japanese high schooler named Ren Amamiya(or Akira Kurusu or whatever you decide to name him) who gets falsely accused of assault and is forced to move away from his home town to live in Tokyo for a year while on probation. On his first day of attending his new school he runs into a vulgar boy named Ryuji and due to circumstances that are explained in the game they somehow wind up at a castle where the school should be. To make a long story short they both along with new teammates,Morgana and Ann, awaken to super natural powers in this new world known as the metaverse where people’s desires have become manifest. They use these powers to become gentlemen thieves to steal the treasures of corrupt people and reform society. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Ottservia

[vanguard333]

18 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I mean if you’re going to get the game definitely get the newly released royal because it’s basically an enhanced version of the original game. It is a turn based Jrpg with dating sim elements if I were describe the game in as few words as possible. It’s also very anime so if that bothers you at all. 

Thanks. And no, that shouldn't bother me at all. 

[Ottservia]

2 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks. And no, that shouldn't bother me at all. 

Okay cool. Also I edited my post with more info if you haven’t read it yet

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I finished Final Fantasy 8. Besides FF15 and the MMOs (which I have no interest in), this is the last of the mainline final fantasies I have yet to play. It's kind of like FF2, the sort of game where the developers are just daring you to figure out how to break it. In both games "grinding" doesn't mean experience levels, but doing totally bizarre things to increase your stats individually. Seeking out an enemy with the Triple spell and drawing it for 5-10 minutes just to maximize my speed stat gave me flashbacks to having my party members attack each other to raise our HP stat in FF2. FF8 does not ditch traditional experience levels like 2 did, but I wish that it had. Gaining experience in FF8 does almost nothing compared to grinding better junctions, and even hurts the player due to enemy scaling. I hear in the remaster there's an achievement for beating the game without gaining any levels, and that sounds like a fairly optimal way to play. Run from every battle unless they have something useful to take. You don't even need to kill the enemies to keep what you took.

The card game, Triple Triad, surprised me in how fun it was. Simple to understand, a hand takes just 20-30 seconds to finish, and the potential rewards are very nice when you can turn rare cards into helpful items. But there's a big problem - the rules keep changing, and can only revert through extremely deliberate rng manipulaton. Only some corners of the internet understand how the system of changing rules can be manipulated in the player's favor, and even armed with that information, it will still take you as much as an hour to get around to playing with straightforward, fun, and fair rules. If you don't learn manipulations, you'll spend hours resetting because you can't choose the cards you want to use, or you lost your best card in a match you definitely won. It's a system that would have been fixed if only npcs asked "do you want to play with my rules? Yes/No". It's a shame because Triple Triad is honest to god the best and worst gameplay of FF8. Every other moment of the game is either grinding draws from enemies or reading a nonsensical story.

[MyLuckyHaiku]

Mount & Blade: Warband.

Been fooling around with a Touhou mod lately, was running a moonrabbit vassal to Eientei, and with all these lovely mod weapons I just had to use a double barreled-shotgun. Also going for all the achievements, just need the achievements that require getting skills to certain levels and the ones that need you to take over the continent ‘n stuff.

But I’ve been playing multiplayer (with bots) for the fun of it instead of that, my favorite faction to play as in this mod is Eientei, due to my soft-spot for moonrabbits and ranged weaponry.

[Harvey]

Currently playing Ys 8. This is by far the most impressive looking Ys game next to memories of celceta. I'm surprised that the game doesn't require high end graphics. Maybe Falcom isn't to the level where they can build up high graphics? idk.

Anyways, so far, I don't like the setting in this one..stranded, requiring to find people and gather resources etc. While its too early to say anything about this, it doesn't look like there will be new worlds to explore here unlike previous Ys games though I guess that will change.

That being said, I'm beginning to miss the classic Ys formula where its just Adol and nothing else. I get that Falcom wants to reuse the Ys Seven formula but the thing is there is nothing that has improved much here other than a few tweaks. And for some reason, the top down Ys games are favorable to me as they remind me of Zelda...a series that also needs another top down game.

 

[Shahrivar]

Mostly FF XIV on PC. It takes way too much time but after 3 years without my love for mmos is rekindled once again.

On Switch Coma: Recut and Stein's Gate Elite, but not as much as I'd like to.

[Jingle Jangle]

In 32 hours I completed Final Fantasy 7 Remake. What a game.
Starting with what I liked. The combat system is a great improvement on top of 15, with every one have a unique roll. Avoiding problem of battles being a war of attrition with the ATB bar.The English dub really gives it all with lots of strong performances overall. My favorite being Barret. The effort that went into making a 8th gen version of Migard is quite a sight from the ghettos to service tunnels and all in between. The writers understanding the cast of 7 well enough as well as expanding on the lesser known characters such as the minor members of avalanche being more of a role. I loved all the remixes of the original tracks, never have I expected a club version of the chocobo theme.

The so-so. I felt the game didn't fully elaborated on some the gameplay tips. I understand to experiment on things but for a while it left me feeling like I didn't get the game. For example some bosses goes into a cut scene after losing a certain amount of health canceling all player attacks. There is a good amount of babysitting to ensure that the ai doesn't to some stupid like run into enemy attacks.  The boss fight quality ranged from from fun and fast paced (first boss) to stall matches (hell house). The sound mixing/ quality makes some voices and effects, quieter than it needed to be.

What I didn't like. I thought that the game could be 7 hours shorter and it would be for the better. In the original game Midgar was about 6-8 hours long. Here it's about 30 hours. What makes it longer is long walking sections, slow menus, cutscenes that could have been in game and dull side quests. The amount that was padded out could be used elsewhere. The game trying to be a remake/reboot/sequel to 7 all at the same time. I don't know who will a brand new person would react to some of the scenes without some context. It wants the Kingdom Hearts approach to telling it's story. That being cryptic hints of the future, consequences of death are not a thing, and the feeling that the game feeling small in the bigger picture.

Overall I give the game a 7. I'll give it a 8 if it was a bit of polish here and there. No clue where will the remake timeline will go. On Nomura crazy train, anything is possible. As Berret puts it " There ain’t no getting of fa this train we on".

[Alastor15243]

I just finished Danganronpa 2, and like with the first game, I loved it until case 5, but especially not when case 6 started. The games have this inexplicable obsession with devoting their last case entirely to exposition about the game's frankly comically asinine "lore". Imagine if Shyamalan movie twists took 5 hours to explain. Imagine that and you have some idea of what it's like to sit through the sixth and final case of the first two Danganronpa games.

[Ottservia]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I just finished Danganronpa 2, and like with the first game, I loved it until case 5, but especially not when case 6 started. The games have this inexplicable obsession with devoting their last case entirely to exposition about the game's frankly comically asinine "lore". Imagine if Shyamalan movie twists took 5 hours to explain. Imagine that and you have some idea of what it's like to sit through the sixth and final case of the first two Danganronpa games.

Hajime and Komaeda best boys though 

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Hajime and Komaeda best boys though 

Hajime definitely. He's a way better protagonist than Makoto for actually having a backbone and standing on his own two feet as a protagonist far more quickly.

[vanguard333]

I finished Valkyria Chronicles 4; I even got the game's true ending. So, I decided to buy the Link's Awakening Remake for the Nintendo Switch. 

I was really enjoying it; the graphics are amazing, the gameplay's great, and the characters are really enjoyable. As someone who never played the original, I can see why this game is well-remembered by Zelda fans. I got more than halfway through the game before I had to stop playing it due to a problem with the controller:

When I moved the control stick left, up or down, Link would move normally. But, when I moved the control stick right, Link sometimes wouldn't move at all. He would randomly go between not moving, moving very slowly, and moving normally; sometimes coming to an abrupt halt after moving normally, sometimes slowing down, and sometimes going up or left instead of right. 

I've experienced joy-con drift once before; in that it would start reading left input all on its own. A quick cleanup of the area around the control stick fixed it. This time however, cleaning it only fixed it sometimes moving left or up; it didn't fix the not moving right problem. 

Anyone have any thoughts on what might be wrong and how I can fix it? I only got the Switch back in October; I don't want it to break this soon; all my previous Nintendo consoles have lasted far longer without any issues.