Slumber

I just want REmake 3 and FF7R to enthrall me like they did when I was a kid. I know they won't, but I can hope. Aldo, deets on the next FE would be nice. Other than that, I'll just keep banging my "WHERE'S DRAGON'S DOGMA 2?!" drum outside of the Capcom offices. Now that Itsuno's been working on a mystery project since DMCV came out, I'm hoping we'll hear about it.

I figured as much. Modern WRPG/CRPG developers have largely moved away from the D&D approach since the early 00s. I'd say since KotOR that they really moved more towards more linear(But not JRPG linear) approach. It pretty much is Obsidian and Larian carrying the torch in the mainstream gamespace, and Larian is literally making D&D games. I've found it easier/more straight forward to just say "open-ended" and "linear".

In open-ended ones, like the Fallout games, I agree. Especially since those games absolutely consider that "Dumb luck" is a viable character trait, stumbling past a number of the "intended" sequences to get you to end game helps with building your character. Not so much in linear RPGs, that just tends to cause narrative issues. Still cool to see with glitches and such, but not something I think should really be accounted for from the get-go.

I've played The Outer Worlds. I really disagree with this assessment. Narrative wise, TOW has one huge problem, and that is MAJOR tunnel vision. It hammers home the "The Board/Rampant corporatism is bad" point so hard that everything just becomes very numb at the end of the game. Which was already a theme touched on in New Vegas and older Fallout games. But those games also explored other themes. New Vegas takes an even more interesting route with it, I feel, in that it actually shows the debauchery and insane frivolities that the uber-rich get into. When TOW gets to the point where you get to see what the wealthy value, it's literally money and gated communities that they like. We get to see some of the heinous shit they'd do, but by the time you get really excited to see that side of the galaxy, the game ends. I enjoyed The Outer Worlds a lot, but it really felt half baked after the first few worlds. It's a game that gets less compelling the more you play, not more, which is not something I'd consider a strength of something narrative-driven. Additionally, while TOW is certainly a much more polished game, the scope is much narrower, and it felt more limited in what you could actually do in the game compared to New Vegas.

I can't agree with this. First, it's bullshit to say any games is "objectively" a certain score. The only thing I can say is no game is objectively 10/10 because every game can be improved upon, and no game is a 0/10 because every game can always be worse. Yes, even Big Rigs. If games could only be scored by their gameplay, then there'd be no need to make shooters or third person action games anymore, because DOOM 2016 and Devil May Cry 5 are just about the most perfect examples of their respective genres in terms of gameplay. Second, there are things New Vegas that no games have managed to accomplish since. It's arguably the most "free" open world game in the medium since... Well, probably Fallout 2. The ability to craft your own story and build it by your own means is second to none. The only things that come close are maybe the Divinity games. To anyone who values that kind of thing, like you or me, or the number of any other people who hold Fallout New Vegas in high regard, that quality alone is a HUGE deal. And a low 7 is not at all indicative of what those kinds of people value in games.

Decade: Dark Souls (2011) Dragon's Dogma (2012) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) Fallout: New Vegas (2010) Red Dead Redemption (2010) Persona 5 (2017) Final Fantasy XIV (2010 technically, but it was garbo until 2013) Resident Evil 2 (2019) XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) All time: Dragon Warrior/Quest VII (2001) Psychonauts (2005) Resident Evil 3 (1999)/Resident Evil (2002) - I ping-pong between which I like more Final Fantasy: Tactics (1997) Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1999) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004) The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000) Dark Souls (2011) Mass Effect (2007) Xenogears (1998) Tried to restrict entries in my "All times" to just one per series, or else like 3 games would have been Final Fantasy titles, two would have been Dragon Quest titles, and two would have been Resident Evils. Clearly I have a bit of a bias towards RPGs. Also I always knew @Glennstavos was a man of exquisite taste. Lots of overlap in our Best of the Decade.

I'm still a Halo fan at heart, and an opportunity to play the classics on PC is very appealing to me. So yeah, MCC on Steam is a big "Hell yeah" from me. Halo's managed to survive long enough that we're now at a point where nothing else on the market it really like it. The closest being, obviously, Destiny, but the MMORPG aspects distract heavily from the Halo core. Which is ironic, because 11-18 years ago EVERYTHING was trying to be Halo.

A major good for Hong Kong, but China using it to control their populace is sad. I really, sincerely hope somebody can de-frag the Chinese people in the very near future, because it's a danger to have such a large portion of the world's population so hypnotized by their country's propaganda. Seeing, reading about and hearing about how Chinese people dissociate from what's happening by just... pretending it isn't happening is very bad. It leads to shit like over a billion people being silently complicit in multiple genocides. "Social Credit" did a fucking number on China. It's scary to think what would happen if other countries were to implement such an idea.

4chan's a good example. It's always been full of degenerate racists, but they were left-leaning degenerate racists for a long while. A site with virtually no moderation and complete anonymity. For the last 6ish years, it's been a breeding ground for literal neo Nazis. And that's after they tried to contain it(In /pol/) and took steps to stamp it out(Which led to 8chan).

McConnell is literally the most unpopular senator in the whole country, and that's just comparing his approval rating at home(His approval rating in KENTUCKY is worse than Trump's is nationwide). It will be very difficult to unseat him, but it's possible. And again, you're going to have to elaborate on the positives of working across the aisle at the moment, other than nothing will get done. ESPECIALLY with Biden. As a reminder, and this was one of Biden's biggest bragging points when he first launched his campaign because he was super proud of this, he's directly responsible for getting one of the most right-wing criminal justice reform bills passed in recent American history. Something he only just recently started backtracking on(Again, he was bragging about it less than a year ago), by the way, because it turns out that marking yourself as one of the people most responsible for our awful criminal justice system is actually a wildly unpopular thing. It's straight up a case where him not getting involved and nothing happening would have 100% been a better option than working across the aisle. AND AGAIN, this was in the 90s, before the Republicans went super off the deep end.

Obama was a moderate Democrat. He was still rebuked almost universally in his attempts to work across the aisle. What, besides him being a white dude, makes you think Joe will have any more success at actual progress than Obama? Being even more willing to bend over and spread for the Republicans, again, is not a good argument for Biden. Trumpism is an evil ideology. You don't eradicate evil by negotiating with it. We need a president who will stand up to the Republicans. There's not a single bone in my body that believes Biden can do that. And yes, I'm aware you'll need leverage in the senate to get anything done, and a huge part of that is getting rid of McConnell. While Republicans in the senate are a cancer, I don't think any of them want to be in his position. The only reason McConnell can get away with what he does is because of his nearly limitless coffer, and him being from possibly the most comfortable state for a republican politician. Even with those two things in mind, McConnell still barely scrapes by with a win in all of his elections. I don't think any other republican will pick up his position as Vanguard of the Stupid and Feckless because quite frankly, they can't afford it. In a scenario where McConnell is still in the senate, I'd rather have a president who wouldn't make concessions, because working with the animals across the aisles is just going to lead to the same shit that happened with Obama, but 10x worse. In a scenario where McConnell is out, I'd rather have a president who will put the screws to the republicans, because they need a MAJOR course correction. Neither of those scenarios is one with Biden in it. EDIT: And for clarification, so we can stop this nonsense about what Biden is, he's not a "moderate" or "centrist" Democrat. He's a right-leaning Democrat.

We lucked out that Kavanaugh didn't turn out to be as big of a Trump stooge as we thought he would. Still a totally vile man who shouldn't be in the court, but it could have been worse.

It's really not more than those 3. The republicans vote distressingly in unison. Bare minimum in the senate, republicans vote with the president 70% of the time. And that's accounting for the few outliers, who you would call "moderate". The vast majority of senate republicans vote with Trump over 90% of the time. You're arguing for unison and cooperation in a senate where that's absolutely not going to happen. There's not a chance the senate republicans will cooperate with a democratic president to help pass any meaningful change. The Overton Window has shifted drastically to the right for the republican party since Barack Obama took office. These are not the same republicans we grew up with. Well, physically, many of them are, but on the inside, they're absolutely not.

"Seeming moderate" means jackshit when they still vote almost in lock-step with the party. And appealing to Jeb Bush doesn't mean anything. He holds no political power. Do we really want a democrat who will compromise forward-thinking legislature to potentially appeal to three republicans?

You're correct. Biden is the one most likely to work across the aisle. However, that stops being a selling point when one of the sides of the aisle has outed themselves as a party of psychopaths who are 10,000% in the "Party over country" mindset. What good does Biden working with republican politicians do? They sure as shit aren't going to let him challenge anything Trump has put in place, which will just lead us down the path to another recession. Obama bent over backwards to try to appease them, even before they went off the deep-end, and they took advantage of that at every opportunity to game the system. We need a president who will challenge republicans, not treat them with kiddy gloves. Plus, I do not think Biden is mentally fit enough to run a country right now. It sucks, but his gaffes are a totally different beast than past president/presidential candidate gaffes, barring our current one. These are like Trump gaffes.

I hope to God Bloomberg just eats into Biden's base. He won't go far, but as long as he can disrupt the notion that Biden is the "safe, establishment vote", a notion that already seems to be slipping, I'll be happy.

You didn't phrase it like this, but it's 100% the logical conclusion to what you were suggesting. And considering what you follow this paragraph up with, I was being very kind with my paraphrasing. "Good" is very subjective to what you're saying. America HAS absolutely dabbled in trying to take Central American countries in very proxy ways. We're not going over there and planting our flag, but we've propped up people and groups in Central and South America that were supposed to align with US interest. Are you aware of us funding the anti-Sandinista Contras in Nicaragua that was meant to overthrow Nicaragua's government and instill one more like ours 35 years ago? How'd that turn out and how's Nicaragua doing right now? How about our recent meddling with Venezuela and now Chile? Venezuela certainly isn't doing any better, and I'm sure Chile's not going to be better off after their protests. If Greenland, a territory that isn't nearly as foreign culturally or ideologically as Central/South America is laughs at the idea of being owned by America, how the fuck do you think places like Mexico would take having us as their rulers? Have you considered at all that Mexico, right now, is one of the countries with the lowest opinions of America IN THE WORLD? How do you suggest we get a hold of Mexico without a violent take over or massive riots and protests from over 60% of the population that fucking hates America? Have you considered that not all of the people in Mexico are poor, starving, homeless, underage prostitutes controlled by the cartels, and that most of the people in the major cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara and Toluca don't experience most of the shit you just claimed about Mexico, and that just trying to take over their country unwillingly would absolutely ruin their relatively normal lives? And when we eventually lose(Because America never wins wars that are not on home turf by themselves) and retreat, leaving Mexico even worse off than they are now, what would you call the people who don't want to be there but refugees? And a whole wide open path for the Cartels to control even more of one of our closest neighbors? Do you not see a problem at all with your line of thought? And, last of all on this issue, have you ever even considered that there are other ways of helping out places and doing "Good" besides just slapping an America sticker on countries that need help? You need to educate yourself if you think countries would willingly join America at this point. Especially when the other option is an absolute 0 tolerance to immigration. You're implying we take a very "Us vs. them" mentality on the world stage. We barely acknowledge Puerto Rico as a part of the US, what makes you think we'd be any kinder to other places that became part of the country? Do you really think "Oh come on, you'll be just like Puerto Rico!" would be a good selling point to any country on the planet? Or, as I laid out, who in the world do you think would willingly join the US? And you still seem to be implying that we'd still use force as a last resort when taking over countries(If your idea is just "an option on the table"), which, I'll tell you right now, would result in a whole fuckton of refugees. That we're now not going to take any responsibility for. This shouldn't be a hard concept. Just because a country acts one way doesn't mean every single person in that country agrees with how the country is acting, or that they still wouldn't rather be somewhere else. Do you not realize how many Muslim immigrants have come to America after all the wars we engaged in the middle east? Can you not connect the dots and see what would happen in your scenario here? Do you not know how many Vietnamese and Hmong immigrants came to the US after we failed to find Uncle Sam a house in Vietnam? Those people generally didn't come here until after America was rejected in those areas. By your own suggestion, it'd already be too late for those people. Fuck 'em. Their leaders didn't want us so they can just rot in the war-torn countries we left behind. Blacklisted.

Uh, keep in mind the context @eclipse is responding to. Imperialism isn't all bad, correct. I'm sure Hong Kong is wishing it was still under British rule right about now. It's a very, very tricky concept and it's been implemented in a lot of ways. Some with more success than others, with recent imperialism leading to both social progress in some regions, and absolutely horrible exploitation in others. However, "take over every country you want and then blacklist refugees from the countries that don't want in on your empire" is most definitely not one of "the good ways to do imperialism".

Sort of. I think they intended that to some degree, which is why that's possible to do in-game, and why some refining items give crazy high amounts of magic. I just don't think they intended people to do it less than like, 20-30 hours into the game.

Hey look, Leif is actually included this year. I'm sure whatever kanji they use for "Blue Flame" comes out as something ocean-related, which then comes back to literal English as "Shark".

I think they intended the game to be played at a consistent pace, and not really grinding for magic until the very end of the game. Using Draw points, using Card Mod once it becomes available, and, occasionally, drawing heavily from monsters. I don't think they expected people to hunt for an uncommon mob and Draw Water on Balamb Beach for the first 45 minutes of the game, letting people coast on maxed out mid-level magic for the first disc and a half until the game REALLY opens up, or playing Triple Triad for hours on end obtaining super rare cards that mod into high level items as soon as that becomes an option.

I'd like to point out that many people seem to struggle with figuring out the Junction system on their first playthrough, when you're not clear on what Junction Abilities you'll get, how to easily get good Magics, and how to set up Elem-J and Status-J. Some people just skip Drawing, getting Magic and learning/setting up rounded Junction abilities their first time through. Maybe a few people figure it out along the way, figure out stuff like where good Draw points are, what GFs learn the best abilities, but I'd say most don't have the easiest time in the world. Plus, aside from Zell, the super busted Limit Breaks are pretty obscure to get. Squall and Irvine are good, but they're not going to be tossing out 100k+ damage like Zell is without crazy high stats and/or their later Limits/Ammo. But people familiar with the game know how to do most of that out of the gate. It leads to a huge disparity in how the difficulty of the game is perceived. I'd say that FF8 offers a mild challenge when it's played the way the developers "intended". But after your first playthrough, the game gets cracked wide-open, and that's when it starts falling apart. One thing that would fix things super quick would just be to increase how much natural leveling impacts your stats, and nerf how much Junctioning does. This way, it'd be harder to turn your party into a bunch of shit-stomping supermen 5 hours into the game. Even at level 100, I think most characters hover around 50 for their base stats. The extra 200 to max out a stat comes from Junctioning. That gap is pretty insane.

I'm on the "Fuck level scaling" train. A level 100 Grat isn't offering any more tactical experience than a level 1 Grat. What WOULD offer more tactical experience would be a fixed level monster that is supposed to have certain abilities and accurately scales to the section of the game you're at. You know, like 99% of other RPGs. Level scaling with the player never works(I dare somebody to find a game that's made better by the mechanic) in RPGs, because it's never experienced the way the developers intend, and instead it almost always just dampens the feeling of character progression. Another big example besides FF8 being TES: Oblivion, where at a certain point, common bandits will just be wearing the the gear available, and you just get the feeling that "Oh, my world-saving hero character is still having trouble with common bandits. Cool." Same shit happens in FF8, albeit a bit less egregious.

I'm sorry to hear about this, man. It can't be easy.

I thought the premise was incredibly lame.