What are you playing?

[Bebpo]

Playing Octopath Traveler 1 finally (think I might've posted about this already). Had the cart sitting in my switch for like 4 years since I went all digital a bit after that released. I touched it a couple of times but never sat down with it proper.

On chapter 2 now, have everyone. Game is great, very happy with it. Story-telling reminds me of SaGa with how it does everyone's stories separately. Gameplay is simple but solid enough with some real challenge starting at chapter 2.

My only big complaint with the game is that your team members you don't use don't gain any passive XP and the level catch up when you need them isn't anywhere near as quick as I'd like it to be.

I hadn't used Ophelia the healer girl because her ch.1 story was godawful (Cyrus the best) and she was lvl.9 while my party was lvl.24 mostly (a few stragglers at like lvl.12/15/17). I took her in the lvl.24 sewer dungeon with Cyrus and grinded for like 60-90 mins because the elemental shits would do all party attacks x 2-3 and wipe everyone under 1k HP. Then I took on the boss and beat it and got a ton of XP. And 2 hours later when I came out of that my lvl.24 party was lvl.29 and my lvl.9 Ophelia was only...lvl.19 so still ten levels behind.

If every chapter when I do a character's story if they aren't part of my main team rotation and they're behind on levels it means I gotta grind an hour or two each time and then do it again next chapter. Seems a bit too grindy even if the grind is fun.

I think I'm just going to start rotating party members to try to keep them closer to the same level so I don't have people 10+ levels behind. But I don't have sub-classes yet, and I feel like some characters are way less useful than others.

Right now basically Olberic and Cyrus are damage dealers with Olberic being powerhouse physical all enemy attacker and single boss attacker, meanwhile Cyrus with his double tap elemental spells on all enemies does great all enemy damage as well. The medicine axe guy and Ophelia are pretty solid healers with axe guy better for status/single character big heals and Ophelia better for reflect/all party medium heals.

Beastmaster girl seems potentially good. But catching stuff limited use summons is something I haven't spent the time on yet. Dancer girl seems kinda bad, for good NPC summons you have tiny % chances to get them, otherwise NPC summons at lower levels suck (same deal with Ophelia's summons, by the time you are at a level you can guide the NPC they suck and do like no damage. Also not worth wasting a turn you could be healing or all enemy light attacking to summon an NPC). Anyhow Dancer's skills seem pretty crappy. Thief is cool for bosses debuffing armor/attack and good for grinding with passive double money on collect and double steals, but for group combat he's useless.

My protag is the merchant girl who I can't change out. Which is OK because her hired help summons can be extremely useful when you buff them with BP and get like 4 sword slashes in a row to all enemies for break purposes. Same with axe and maybe dagger if you aren't being cheaper (2,500 gold). I don't fuck with the 10k gold light damage or 30k gold major damage summons though. I like having lots of money and good gear. Also her merchant ability to give her BP to others so Olberic can keep doing max BP single enemy attacks on bosses during break is great support, plus her item usage where 25% passive chance to not lose an item when use. All in all I'm happy with her from a gameplay perspective so I don't mind her being always stuck in the party. Plus she has all enemy wind damage which unfortunately Cyrus doesn't which sucks when you need wind.

Anyhow, great game so far. Ch.1 was a bit boring since it was easy and just very talky, but ch.2 upping the challenge and becoming more of a grind and having everyone is super fun. Plus the game has great music, good art. Wish it had more music tracks though so it didn't re-use the same ones for everything.

Not planning on playing Octopath 2 after this. Lots of other rpgs to play but assuming I enjoy Octopath 1 through the end, I'll play Octopath 2 at some point in the next couple of years.

Since SE is shitcanning all of their small dev teams in favor of nothing but AAA (terrible decision), might as well take my time with their AA output from the last 4-5 years (Octo2, Triangle Strategy, Harvestella, SaGa, Live a Live R, SO2 remake, etc...) since not gonna be a whole lot more in the future.

[Svejk]

Tried the Contra: Operation Galuga demo on both PS4 and PS5.  PS4 version runs like shit stained cheeks; chuggy 30fps and slow ass loading.  PS5 version blazes.  Would like both versions, but definitely not paying for 2.  Need a confirmation if I get the PS4 version, it'll upgrade to the PS5 version for free. (The kids want it on PS4 too. *shrug) Guess we'll see.  It's not showing a pre-order yet on PSN.  Good stuff otherwise.  WayForward knows their shit.

[Bebpo]

Tried the Contra: Operation Galuga demo on both PS4 and PS5.  PS4 version runs like shit stained cheeks; chuggy 30fps and slow ass loading.  PS5 version blazes.  Would like both versions, but definitely not paying for 2.  Need a confirmation if I get the PS4 version, it'll upgrade to the PS5 version for free. (The kids want it on PS4 too. *shrug) Guess we'll see.  It's not showing a pre-order yet on PSN.  Good stuff otherwise.  WayForward knows their shit.

I liked it other than being ugly and kind of busy with the new traversal abilities.

Not sure how you're supposed to use dash while shooting with the default controls. I had to remap it to L2.

[Svejk]

Tried the Contra: Operation Galuga demo on both PS4 and PS5.  PS4 version runs like shit stained cheeks; chuggy 30fps and slow ass loading.  PS5 version blazes.  Would like both versions, but definitely not paying for 2.  Need a confirmation if I get the PS4 version, it'll upgrade to the PS5 version for free. (The kids want it on PS4 too. *shrug) Guess we'll see.  It's not showing a pre-order yet on PSN.  Good stuff otherwise.  WayForward knows their shit.

I liked it other than being ugly and kind of busy with the new traversal abilities.

Not sure how you're supposed to use dash while shooting with the default controls. I had to remap it to L2.

Yeah, I think the art direction leaves some to be desired, as I'd have much preferred the Shattered Soldier art style, but it plays great I think.  I hope it'll have as many gameplay unlockables as Hard Corp Uprising did. 

[Bebpo]

Around 30 hours in to Octopath Traveler now. Explored the whole map and can hang in areas 10 levels above me without a ton of trouble. Basically one turn wipe everything. Scholar job with the double hit elements is really OP.

Really like the game. Almost done with the ch.2 stories and doing some ch.3 stuff for characters. I like/dislike the whole open-endedness of it. I think it's great and super SaGa and there's so many options to how you want to approach your run. Do you speed run to the higher level areas and steal/grab/buy high end gear that breaks everything? Grind some Job Points and get the right subjobs and support skills to break everything? Etc...

The downside is for a game that's like 50-80 hours long, I felt like on my own I figured out how to break stuff by like 20 hours in, so while it's fun, I've mostly just been coasting for a while destroying everything in my path, both main stories and optional dungeons. Almost seems too easy for how much they let you break it. I guess the endgame will get super hard again since you won't have any further to break and the enemies/bosses will have caught up. But for now it's kind of coasting while feeling badass with everyone.

Kind of reminds me of Resonance of Fate/End of Eternity in that it's tough at first, but the challenge is learning how to break the game and the longer that takes, the longer the gameplay balance is there, because once you figure it out it's fun but totally broken.

[demi]

With Rebirth coming this week (god i'm going to cum), I've been just casually playing a couple things

- Remnant 2

This came out on GamePass as a random drop, which is great because I had played the first one already. People call these games "Dark Souls with Guns" and honestly that really couldnt be further from the truth. I can see why people say this, but when you play souls-likes, this doesnt really follow the same style. It's more of a simple traditional co-op TPS with "some" RPG elements. But very light. The sequel is definitely a step up from the first game, but it is pretty much the same as the first game in terms of structure and design. As a co-op game these games are fun. Remnant lets you play up to 3 players as well!

- Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled

Yes, its that random "Chrono Trigger" DS RPG made by Canadians (CRPG?)



I recently went back to my 3DS and discovered I could actually get my old DS flashcart working again with it! So I added some games and decided, fuck it let's ball and picked this. Not much to really say about this. Apparently this used to be a GBA game and was quickly moved to DS. This would have made a pretty great GBA game. The encounter rate is astronomical (a complaint many people bring up) so if you play it on an emulator/flashcart you can patch it to be much more tolerable.

The sprites yes look like fan-made Chrono Trigger sprites (Kairu in particular) and you can definitely feel the Chrono Scam, but overall the game isn't too bad. The combat has issues where your characters can actually "block" your party so they can't proceed forward and attack enemies on screen, so you are often forced to waste MP to use an attack, or just wait for the other characters to attack instead. It does have combo attacks (hmmm) as well.

[Himu]

Beat Tomb Raider and started Tomb Raider II for real and also Tomb Raider Anniversary on Steam.

TR is one of the best games I've ever played and TRII is giving it competition. I believe Tomb Raider 1 is the best game of 1996. Even better than Resident Evil. I'd put it slightly above Nights and significantly better than Super Mario 64. Though I have yet to really dive in Quake since the pc version bugs out when I play it on modern hardware. Duke Nukem 3D is also up there. it's definitely better than Suikoden 1 and I'd also say Super mario RPG too.

Tomb Raider has some of the best 3D platforming I've ever experienced in my life, if not the best. For this franchise to be famous for its "nude code" and "nude mods" is an utter disservice. Its legacy has been tarnished, it as a series hasn't been taken seriously. It was huge in the 90's and while I tried it then it was beyond me and my friend when we played it. However, its influences are all over the early 3D era and so many games owe it their lives, especially 3D Zelda. I akin classic Tomb Raider games to being Zelda games without the bloat. It's like full blown dungeons. Unfortunately as time settled and Eidos milked Tomb Raider to death and Square Enix didn't know what they had, the legacy of Tomb Raider has been forgotten. I really, really hope these remasters do well to show there's an audience for classic Tomb Raider and for others to see, like me, just how damn amazing these games are.

The level design in Tomb Raider II is utterly incredible. I've always felt that Britain was a mid country for games (which is shocking considering how prolific they are in the arenas of TV and music ) but damn they really got me beat with this one.

I'm so inspired by Tomb Raider 1 and 2 that I am getting more serious in wanting to make games. Playing TR I'm just like,"Gosh I'd love to make a game like this." The fact that Tomb Raider was made by a team of 6 or so people gives me hope.

[Bebpo]

In the back 1/3rd of Octopath 1, getting all geared up for endgame. Excited to see where these stories end and the post ch.4 quests and grinding for the true end boss.

I have some small issues with the game, but overall unless it goes to total shit somehow at the end, this game was better than expected, even with the mostly positive word of mouth praise over the years.

I feel like the word of mouth for Octopath 1 has always been that it's pretty good, but it has some major flaws and most people don't like the lack of interaction between the characters, and that Octopath 2 fixed all of the issues with 1 and is a much better game.

But idk, I'd need to look back at my favorite rpgs each year for the past decade, but I feel like this is up there. It feels rare and nice to play an honest to goodness quality rpg that's not a remaster/remake/port of the older era. Also gets points for not just being an iterative sequel like P5.


I'd say my only real complaints with Octopath 1 are:

1. That despite all 8 characters and all the sub-jobs, by mid-game or the back half I feel like no matter who is in my party, I'm just using the same party setup regardless of the characters. I.e. I've got a healer, I've got 1-2 crazy OP magic guys, I've got 1-2 crazy OP physical guys. So despite being so many potential combinations for jobs and characters in party setup, I feel like it's all kind of the same thing. There are clearly good setups like those and anything else is going to be messy and a struggle.

Also I feel like the Apothecary guy is way OP as a base compared to everyone else?? Because he gets "Concoct" which lets him throw out an element x 2 against any enemy or element x 1 against all enemies. So you get every single element + axe  and then whatever sub-job he has. No one else has an inherent battle ability that isn't part of their job as good as that.

2. Doing town shit kills the pacing. I love that there are so many towns and all the NPCs have background text flavor. But every time I reach a new town I spent like 30 mins examining every NPC for their hidden item/discounts, stealing from every NPC, and challenging any NPCs blocking doors. Just sorta became a routine thing of clearing out each town before doing the town story. Honestly kind of bored of stealing and stuff from everyone, but it's way too useful for getting good gear/money.

Very minor complaint - I wish you could turn off encounters in low level areas. The encounter rate is pretty moderate (so always gotta have the lower rate passive skill on), and backtracking around for chests or quests or getting to optional dungeons while hitting lots of encounters that you one shot are kinda zzz. At least you can fast travel almost everywhere, so it's not a big deal.

And Ophelia, the healer,'s stories are so.fucking.bad so far. Help little kids find their lost brooch :|
Some character stories are definitely much better than others, but Ophelia is the worst and the hunter girl Han'nit is pretty weak too with weird english dialogue.

[demi]

FF7 Rebirth

Starts off already to a ?? and I'm excited for more

The "open world" is definitely much more open, but so far it's extremely empty with nothing to do or find. No fast travel that I can see

[Joe Molotov]

Don't worry, it's got fast travel.

[chronovore]

Immortal: Rise of Fenix - it's Zelda BotW with a cartoon take on Greek mythology. Combat is fun. Traversal is not bad, but I'm still having trouble with flight controls. There's also a weird control choice where throwing held objects is disabled if the player uses the LT trigger to aim. Anyway, it's fun. I think I paid $20 for it and it has already justified that.

Sad that this could have been the start of a new franchise for UBI, after milking Assassins Creed, Watch Dogs, The Division, and others to death. The main character design is inoffensive and bland to the point where I can't relate to it at all, there's a generic tone, like they were afraid to do something interesting. The world is colorful and performant, but also less inspired than a DreamWorks riff, let alone Disney/Pixar.

More than that, I suspect it was dinged heavily for GaaS inclusion of in-game currency for materials, cosmetics, performance items, and the LIVE SERVICE inclusion of daily chores to get through. It's just unnecessary, but UBI gonna UBI.

[Svejk]

Finished A Plague Tale Requiem the other day.  The Internet spoiled the ending because of it's shitty algorithm, so it was less impactful, but still didn't like how it ended.  The journey was so great, it was hard to put down, but wtf of the end.  Thought this was intended to be a trilogy. 

Signalis - the puzzles and sound design are really well done. I'm at the last part of it, after the supposed 'end'.  They did a decent job, especially being mostly just the two of them creating this game, but it has been pretty mediocre still imo.  Feels like it got a bit too much praise for an indie; same people that think Hollow Knight is the "King of Metroidvanias".. lol no.  Should finish it tonight.  Never once did I feel claustrophobic like RE or fucked in the head like Nier: Automata did me.  The little bits of lore did not hit hard enough.  Even less impactful of when they try and pull a Kojima and write lore around the "only 6 slots of carry space". 
Again, it's good, just not the best survival horror at all.

[Bebpo]

Finished A Plague Tale Requiem the other day.  The Internet spoiled the ending because of it's shitty algorithm, so it was less impactful, but still didn't like how it ended.  The journey was so great, it was hard to put down, but wtf of the end.  Thought this was intended to be a trilogy. 

Signalis - the puzzles and sound design are really well done. I'm at the last part of it, after the supposed 'end'.  They did a decent job, especially being mostly just the two of them creating this game, but it has been pretty mediocre still imo.  Feels like it got a bit too much praise for an indie; same people that think Hollow Knight is the "King of Metroidvanias".. lol no.  Should finish it tonight.  Never once did I feel claustrophobic like RE or fucked in the head like Nier: Automata did me.  The little bits of lore did not hit hard enough.  Even less impactful of when they try and pull a Kojima and write lore around the "only 6 slots of carry space". 
Again, it's good, just not the best survival horror at all.

Sorry you didn't love Signalis 

It's just a very good indie RE with SH vibes. Not a lot of good RE/SH games out there so it stands out.


Also Hollow Knight is amazing! Not gonna take that slander

[Svejk]

Finished A Plague Tale Requiem the other day.  The Internet spoiled the ending because of it's shitty algorithm, so it was less impactful, but still didn't like how it ended.  The journey was so great, it was hard to put down, but wtf of the end.  Thought this was intended to be a trilogy. 

Signalis - the puzzles and sound design are really well done. I'm at the last part of it, after the supposed 'end'.  They did a decent job, especially being mostly just the two of them creating this game, but it has been pretty mediocre still imo.  Feels like it got a bit too much praise for an indie; same people that think Hollow Knight is the "King of Metroidvanias".. lol no.  Should finish it tonight.  Never once did I feel claustrophobic like RE or fucked in the head like Nier: Automata did me.  The little bits of lore did not hit hard enough.  Even less impactful of when they try and pull a Kojima and write lore around the "only 6 slots of carry space". 
Again, it's good, just not the best survival horror at all.

Sorry you didn't love Signalis 

It's just a very good indie RE with SH vibes. Not a lot of good RE/SH games out there so it stands out.


Also Hollow Knight is amazing! Not gonna take that slander

I haven't hated Signalis, just feel I read into the hype too much, because the aesthetics grabbed me when I first saw it.. then again, I never liked any SH, so maybe that's why it doesn't slap me as hard.

I tried HK 3 times, and I just couldn't take it's slow progression.

[Bebpo]

Played through all of Pseudoregelia that's been hyped up as the next great indie 3d platformer x Metroidvania.

It's not that 

It's not even a metroidvania, there's no xp or loot. But it's a decent to good very, very short platformer with some smooth controls and interesting movement abilities. I'm glad I played it, some "make your hands sweat" platforming for a few hours with a few bits were frustrating with some buggy physics and failed jumps from them.

About a 7/10 game. Could see the dev's next game being great.

It's like $5 or $10 in the latest humble bundle.

[Himu]

As good as TR1 is I'm in utter shock how good TRII is. Like, shock. I'm halfway through the game on 40 Fathoms and this games levels are hit after hit after hit. Truly a GOAT.

[Svejk]

As good as TR1 is I'm in utter shock how good TRII is. Like, shock. I'm halfway through the game on 40 Fathoms and this games levels are hit after hit after hit. Truly a GOAT.

TR1 & 2 are goated.  Just don't expect 3 to continue the brilliance. 

[Svejk]

Finished Signalis last night.. the last part was much longer than expected and better overall than the first half imo.  Felt like it was more focused on piecing the story together and allowed for much more gunplay.  I absolutely loved the puzzles though.  It was the most engaging parts of the game imo.  Overall it was really good. I could nit pick about some of the absurdities and was a bit over hyped, but still a pretty good job for such a small team.

[Himu]

As good as TR1 is I'm in utter shock how good TRII is. Like, shock. I'm halfway through the game on 40 Fathoms and this games levels are hit after hit after hit. Truly a GOAT.

TR1 & 2 are goated.  Just don't expect 3 to continue the brilliance. 

I hear it does.

[Svejk]

As good as TR1 is I'm in utter shock how good TRII is. Like, shock. I'm halfway through the game on 40 Fathoms and this games levels are hit after hit after hit. Truly a GOAT.

TR1 & 2 are goated.  Just don't expect 3 to continue the brilliance. 

I hear it does.

Hopefully the QOL improvements help make it a better experience than the original.  It makes me wonder if they'll remaster Last Revelation and Chronicles (4 & 5), as they were pretty good too (better than 3 imo).
The series in general swanned dived to a rock pit with Angel of Darkness.  It was so bad... So bad.

[Himu]

I play with old graphics and classic controls with dpad and there hasn't really been QOL aside from giving items a pick up market.

TRIII is said to be the hardest TR and is for established vets of TR1 and 2. It's apparently hard as shit. Sounds dope.

[demi]

I think TR3 is the worst out of the collection, but the remaster fixes a couple things from the original

- Save scum (TR3 on console brought back crystals from TR1, but you could use them anywhere -- they were also limited)
- The Nevada scam (In TR3, when you were given the choice to go to what levels, if you saved Nevada for last or towards the end, ALL of your items would be taken and you would NOT be given them back)

Otherwise TR3 is just brutal in terms of levels and traps. The Dark Souls of TR? Maybe

[Himu]

How does it fix the Nevada issue

[demi]

Bitch I just told you, read the post

[Himu]

Bitch, re-read your post your fucking fuck. YOU SAID

I think TR3 is the worst out of the collection, but the remaster fixes a couple things from the original

- Save scum (TR3 on console brought back crystals from TR1, but you could use them anywhere -- they were also limited)
- The Nevada scam (In TR3, when you were given the choice to go to what levels, if you saved Nevada for last or towards the end, ALL of your items would be taken and you would NOT be given them back)

Otherwise TR3 is just brutal in terms of levels and traps. The Dark Souls of TR? Maybe

Given the diction and the way this is written it is reasonable to presume that the points posted were fixed in the remaster.

Am I right or am I wrong, bitch?

[demi]

You are wrong

I explained what they fixed, and why

So eat a dick and enjoy your tomb raider

[demi]

wow i love tomb raider it's so good

[Himu]

You're jealous that I'm sucking Lara's clit

Made my mouth full with her pink.

[Himu]

I was going down on Lara and I was going gawk gawk gawk

Then I looked up and I realized it wasn't a clit I was sucking.

Now this artwork makes sense



And so I kept on sucking

[Bebpo]

I'm at the endgame of Octopath 1 where I'm learning how to break everything to the extreme to handle the optional superbosses. Still have a few character endings to clear.

Pretty fun!

I'm still waiting for the floor to drop out and for something about this game to actually be less than great. Because even with all the praise this game got, I feel like it's a bit underrated? Really feels like the best jrpg since Xenoblade 1 for my tastes. Great stories, good gameplay, great boss fights, fun job system, great art, great music, good length.

Basically just a bit too easy for the central part of it. But then most games/rpgs are too easy for most of them so, it's fine.

And I know the final superboss is crap with an 8 boss gauntlet before it every time that takes an hour only to maybe lose because bad RNG and then you gotta go through another hour of 8 bosses for another attempt (PC version has a mod to save after the 8 bosses but I'm playing on Switch). So idk, maybe that'll be the only negative point of the game for me. Will see...

[Himu]

How does Octopath compare to SaGa? Heard they're similar.

[Bebpo]

How does Octopath compare to SaGa? Heard they're similar.

Stories and non-battle gameplay progression structure are pretty damn close to just being a great SaGa game.

Battle system isn't SaGa at all. Job system is more like FF.

[Bebpo]

Also I'm pretty sure this is the best written jrpg post-Matsuno games.

I'm a little sad that the writer Kakunoshin Futsuzawa only started writing with Octopath and has only written 1 & 2. Was hoping he had a bunch of other well written games I could check out.

Definitely looking forward to Octopath II and anything Futsuzawa writes after. Should get a mainline FF at some point.

[Joe Molotov]

Didn't really click with Octopath 1, but I loved OT2. I might give OT1 another chance at some point.

[Himu]

Also I'm pretty sure this is the best written jrpg post-Matsuno games.

I'm a little sad that the writer Kakunoshin Futsuzawa only started writing with Octopath and has only written 1 & 2. Was hoping he had a bunch of other well written games I could check out.

Definitely looking forward to Octopath II and anything Futsuzawa writes after. Should get a mainline FF at some point.

Interesting.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I bought a steam deck and Insaw Jinfash play halls of torment all the time and i was like whats that lol and now I got 10+ hours on this shit

thanks Jinfash

[Cerveza mas fina]

also big shout out to this old geezer in this game reselling me gear I found myself

/latestagecapitalism

[Bebpo]

Finished all the stories in Octopath Traveler. All great or good except Ophelia's which is dumb and Primrose is good but the antagonist won't stfu.
Did all the optional bosses except the final true ending superboss. The direwolf one was the first boss that took me like 45 mins of retries and strategy changes.

Still have a ton of the little NPC quests to clear up. Going to blow through all these and then give the true ending superboss a shot. I hear you wanna grind to 65-70ish, but my good party members are already like 70 and my shitty party members are like 60, so maybe just need to grind a bit. If it wasn't a two team superboss and you could just use your best 4 characters, I'd be good to go.

Also I feel like some of the jobs were kind of useless. Like Rune Lord feels 99.9% useless job outside OP Sidestep + Transfer Rune Tressa combo. Like otherwise the job has literally nothing else and is useless for any other character. Starseer seems pretty useless too outside a very specific situation where you need to stop a boss from being able to buff themselves. But Sorcerer and Warmonger are pretty OP broken ass end jobs. Literally, for the last 5-10 hours of the endgame I've one shotted every single normal mob with my Sorcerer just doing a triple tap first round. Very OP.

Gameplay is good, satisfied with it, but definitely could've been more balanced while still allowing a lot of creative job/skill combo options.

[demi]

FF7 Rebirth

About 50 hours in, Chapter 9 (of 14)

Game is everything FF16 should have been, I dont even know why they bothered with FF16

There's so much side content and unique scenarios that it is no wonder this game is 2 blu rays. The open world ubi-gaming segments are a slog though

Game is crazy good. So much faithfully recreated

[Himu]

Sounds amazing. Can't wait to get a ps5.

Nomura styling on the main line once again.

[Svejk]

Finished the Rebirth demo.  It's good stuff, albeit a bit more overwhelming than Remake.  Looking forward to going all in on this later this year.

Tried Sifu (PS freebie).  Shit's pretty cool and a bit bad-ass actually.  Pretty tough with reflex reactions and the mass of gameplay mechanics/moves, but this feels like a proper evolution of a beat'em up.  Impressive game so far with it's unique aging mechanic.

[demi]

Took a break from FF7 to play Freedom Fighters as Fox News prepared us for

Game still rules, and "the speech" is still as American as ever

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2086149549

[Svejk]

Fired up Contra to see what the demo extra unlocked.  It unlocks 1300 credits to use towards perks, and it brought up splash screens for additional soundtracks; An 8-bit Contra OST, an 8-Bit Castlevania OST and the Contra 4 OST.  The splash screen for the Castlevania one was like, “I see you like Castlevania, don’t you”.. Maybe those unlocked due to having the Contra and Vania Collection saves. 

Tried out Huntdown briefly.  It is definitely not really a Contra alternative, but still fun as shit.  It’s more like Elevator Action Tribute mixed with TechnoCop and E-Swat.  It totally has old school arcade vibes to it.  Best damn $4 spent. 

[tiesto]

Finished Infinite Wealth last weekend, and started Rebirth. While still playing Star Ocean: Blue Sphere here and ther. Some thoughts about IW:


First, it was overall a fantastic game. The minigames alone are better than most actual games! I am not even a big AC or Pokemon guy and saw both Dondoko Island and Sujimon through to the end (spending at least 20 hours on Dondoko).

I've got a few issues here and there with the game:

    Some of the story beats didn't hit as much as they could have (maybe it's my fault for being a noob to the series whose first one was 7 - I do have plans to play the original 2 on PS2, as well as 0, within the year)
    The side missions feel a bit redundant... like 'Hey remember me from Y7? Well now I'm in Hawaii for a deus ex machina reason, doing something that is gonna play out kinda similar to the quest in 7!')
    You acquire 2 characters wayyyyy too late in the game, I'll admit I didn't even bother with them at all
    Like in 7, the Job system still feels pretty superfluous, I mostly stuck to the characters' default jobs, with the exception of making Saeko an idol for the healing abilities
    Wish there were some more dungeons in Hawaii, would've been cool to explore some more volcanoes or tropics, or even spend more time in the Art Walls/Downtown section
    Battle theme kinda sucks.
    The long-ass random dungeons were kinda boring, even if they were optional.
    Drink links weren't as engaging as they were in 7, excepting Nanba's.

But there was a lot to love:

    Characters are as enjoyable as ever, and the game had the right combination of laugh-out-loud moments with poignant ones
    While it seemed overwhelming with all the side content, the game was probably paced as well as it could've been (excepting the 2 characters that unlock late, and the slowdown in pacing once you hit chapter
    Some banger tunes here and there, I loved the Barracuda theme and Dwight's in particular
    Chaining enemies into one another and the subtle improvements to the battle system, like seeing attack trajectories, or when you can pick up melee weapons, made combat fun
    Once again, the minigames were all enjoyable and had me wanting to play each to completion

[Himu]

Is Cid abusive FFVIIRebirth?

[demi]

Nah Cid doesn't get his backstory told, and they completely ignore Rocket Town

He just "appears" in the story and joins for the fuck of it (he isnt playable)

Same with Vincent

[Himu]

What!?

 

[Svejk]

I assume they pushed their back stories for the final installment filler? Director did say they altered the timing of multiple story events.

Speaking of Cid, with my PS1 watch through I'm still working my way through, I actually like Cid now... And fucking hate Yuffie. 
And that wheelchair scene. Wtf  why don't I remember that?

[Joe Molotov]

Playable Gus when?

[Polident Hive]

Return to Castle Wolfenstein PS2

Heard the console versions had an additional campaign not found in the PC game. Actually kind of weird. It’s an explicit tutorial campaign that ends with you in the original’s tutorial level. It introduces zombies and elite guards well before you encounter them in the main game. Cool how it’s set in Egypt and feels like Indiana Jones. But it’s like a demo for the game you’re about play.

When it gets to the main game, I played it a lot on PC, so it threw me off how it’s not the same level design. They broke everything into chunks. Apparently the Xbox version didn’t need to do that. Presumably this was console war fodder 20 years ago.

[Himu]

I assume they pushed their back stories for the final installment filler? Director did say they altered the timing of multiple story events.

Speaking of Cid, with my PS1 watch through I'm still working my way through, I actually like Cid now... And fucking hate Yuffie. 
And that wheelchair scene. Wtf  why don't I remember that?

Cloud in a wheelchair?

I love Yuffie. She's hilarious.

[Svejk]

I assume they pushed their back stories for the final installment filler? Director did say they altered the timing of multiple story events.

Speaking of Cid, with my PS1 watch through I'm still working my way through, I actually like Cid now... And fucking hate Yuffie. 
And that wheelchair scene. Wtf  why don't I remember that?

Cloud in a wheelchair?

I love Yuffie. She's hilarious.

Yeah, the cut scene where Tifa is rushing him out of the crumbling village. Of all the things I didn't remember of this game.. it made me lol hard for some reason.

As for Yuffie, as funny as she can be, it still feels like she's the most selfish of them all.  Meteor is coming, but she still steals the materia of the group that's trying to save the planet. Wth

[Himu]

I assume they pushed their back stories for the final installment filler? Director did say they altered the timing of multiple story events.

Speaking of Cid, with my PS1 watch through I'm still working my way through, I actually like Cid now... And fucking hate Yuffie. 
And that wheelchair scene. Wtf  why don't I remember that?

Cloud in a wheelchair?

I love Yuffie. She's hilarious.

Yeah, the cut scene where Tifa is rushing him out of the crumbling village. Of all the things I didn't remember of this game.. it made me lol hard for some reason.

As for Yuffie, as funny as she can be, it still feels like she's the most selfish of them all.  Meteor is coming, but she still steals the materia of the group that's trying to save the planet. Wth

When does Yuffie steal materia during meteor event? Did the person playing do the Wutai event on disc 2? That's probably why. You can do that on disc 1 when you get Tiny Bronco.

Yuffie wasn't that embedded into the story because she was a bonus character. She's not playable in OG japanese VII. Neither is Vincent.

[Svejk]

I assume they pushed their back stories for the final installment filler? Director did say they altered the timing of multiple story events.

Speaking of Cid, with my PS1 watch through I'm still working my way through, I actually like Cid now... And fucking hate Yuffie. 
And that wheelchair scene. Wtf  why don't I remember that?

Cloud in a wheelchair?

I love Yuffie. She's hilarious.

Yeah, the cut scene where Tifa is rushing him out of the crumbling village. Of all the things I didn't remember of this game.. it made me lol hard for some reason.

As for Yuffie, as funny as she can be, it still feels like she's the most selfish of them all.  Meteor is coming, but she still steals the materia of the group that's trying to save the planet. Wth

When does Yuffie steal materia during meteor event? Did the person playing do the Wutai event on disc 2? That's probably why. You can do that on disc 1 when you get Tiny Bronco.

Yuffie wasn't that embedded into the story because she was a bonus character. She's not playable in OG japanese VII. Neither is Vincent.

Yeah, that's most likely what the deal was..  That would've played out better then; Before Cid got "recruited" as the group leader by Barrett on the Highwind.  Weird pacing in the vid.

[Svejk]

Contra: Operation Galuga - This is good stuff.  Played through the story mode and got up to stage 5 in arcade mode.  Also did 5 challenges.  Lots of good nods to the series as a whole and fun boss fights.  I couldn't put it down last night.  Playing with the 8-bit Contra OST is the way to go.  Got lots of unlockables coming up (now available, but need to earn more perk points).  Not sure what people were complaining about on level designs... It was clear they just lacked skills.  Konami did good getting Wayforward on this.  Feels like a solid remake of the original while taking memorable parts of other installments and putting it in this. 

Contra will never die!

[Bebpo]

Contra: Operation Galuga - This is good stuff.  Played through the story mode and got up to stage 5 in arcade mode.  Also did 5 challenges.  Lots of good nods to the series as a whole and fun boss fights.  I couldn't put it down last night.  Playing with the 8-bit Contra OST is the way to go.  Got lots of unlockables coming up (now available, but need to earn more perk points).  Not sure what people were complaining about on level designs... It was clear they just lacked skills.  Konami did good getting Wayforward on this.  Feels like a solid remake of the original while taking memorable parts of other installments and putting it in this. 

Contra will never die!
(Image removed from quote.)

Nice.

Yeah, I will definitely cop this when it's $20.

[Bebpo]

So gaming updates for me.

Finished Octopath Traveler and it was basically the best thing since sliced bread. It's got flaws, but I'm willing to overlook them and I'm going to be remembering this game, the characters, and the music for decades. Probably my favorite original series rpg since Xenoblade.

Also I'd say the OST could legit be considered the best game soundtrack of the Switch/PS5/Xbox Series generation. I think it's even better than Xenoblade 2/3 OSTs. Absolutely A++ album and it's no wonder that it got a bunch of arrangement albums and a concert album.

Honestly I'm going to be pretty critical of Octopath 2 just because 1 clicked so well for me.

-----------------------------------

Not ready to start up Rebirth yet. Might as well wait for the next performance mode patch anyhow. I wish I could just wait for the PS5 Pro to come up, but I learned my lesson with FF15 waiting for PS4 Pro support. I bet even when the PS5 Pro comes out it takes another 6 months to get a patch for Rebirth Pro support and it still may be a mess. So will just wait for the next performance mode patch and play it soon.

Meanwhile dabbling in other stuff.

TMNT Shredder's Revenge - I guess I only played the first two stages of this on release, so getting back to it. Combat seems kind of shallow? Maybe just need to unlock more moves at higher levels. Will finish at least one playthrough just to clear this in my backlog, but after Streets of Rage 4 might not give it any more time than that.

Mediterranea Inferno - This is awesome. One of the most stylish games I've played. I feel like some of the indie games these years have more style than professional stuff like Persona. Though I feel a lot of the indie super stylish games are more throw everything at the wall Suda51 style overkill, whereas stuff like Persona is a more refined style. But still as a fan of style in games, this game fucks. Looking forward to playing more.

SaGa Scarlet Grace - I finally sat down and started learning how to play this and getting into the battle system, but given that the spiritual sequel Emerald Grace is out in a month, I think I'm going to hold off on playing this and play Emerald Grace first and then get back to this at a later time.

Little Goody Two Shoes - Played a bit of this. The 90s VHS anime aesthetic is captured perfectly. I'd never seen a VHS filter done right in a videogame until this. Normally I just turn that stuff off. The actual game itself seems a bit...boring initially, but reviews are very good, so will stick with it.

Bravely Default - Finishing and loving Octopath 1 got me to load up my save file in Bravely Default and think about maybe finishing it and playing Bravely Second/Bravely II. I'm about 20 hours in, end of Chapter 3, fire temple with ~lvl. 41 party. Don't remember shit about the game, but that's a good chunk of time to save starting from here rather than starting fresh. Went through all the gameplay systems/plot summaries to refresh.

I just wish BD1 didn't feel so clunky. Like having to hit Brave x 4, then four times select your command (even if it remembers positions), for four characters so 16 commands just to clear out random mobs...it's kind of a sluggish system. Also the load times are surprisingly not instant for a cart game. I've tried to finish BD1 like three times, but like DQ7 I think it just might be too dated for me to ever get through.

I think I'll try to give it another chapter/5+ hours and see if I can get into it. Otherwise maybe I should just read a plot summary and jump to Bravely Second and hope that's a bit smoother playing.

Coffee Talk - Started this, enjoying it. I remember trying the demo a long time ago and not liking it as much as VA-11Hall-A for barista games, but seems chill.

DJMAX V Falcom Music DLC Pack - I've been playing DJMax V casually for years and since I like Falcom, picked up the DLC pack. The song selection is alright. Way too much Cold Steel, way too few Ys', but it's definitely fun playing Ys' tracks in a music game. Even if for these collab ones they don't have access to the original sound files, so it's just like playing notes over a music video and you don't influence the sounds of the music tracks like the main game tracks.

[demi]

Bravely Default and Bravely Second are great. Bravely Default 2 is just boring and the story doesnt do any cool shit like BD/BS. Easy skip

I DID finish Rebirth today and holy christ was that final boss amazing. The ending is definitely wobbly but I'm all in for part 3 easily.

[Bebpo]

Bravely Default and Bravely Second are great. Bravely Default 2 is just boring and the story doesnt do any cool shit like BD/BS. Easy skip

One of the problems with BD for me and why I was never really interested in Second is that I extremely dislike the cast in Bravely Default. Four totally bland kiddie characters (Tiz the MC is the blandest of bland) and goofy cookie cutter kids villains going on boring bland basic adventures.

Pretty much the only thing I was playing BD for was the job system and combat and music. I didn't like 4 Warriors of Light either and didn't get far in it.

Bravely Second featuring the same cast is really unappealing. At least BDII has a new cast that maybe I'd actually enjoy.


Then again I've never gotten to the part in Bravely Default when supposedly the story gets "good", so who knows. But it's extremely boring character and plot-wise for the first 15-20 hours.

[Himu]

Big Dick 1, 2, and Second