What are you playing?

[Bebpo]

RDR2 - Yeah, some stuff is pretty hard/not fun to do with non-violent attempts. Game definitely favors just going with the story and killing people. Like I stole the oil wagon and tried to stealth it and drive away and was kinda annoying. Would've been more fun just to sneak into the oil place and kill some of the guards and take off.

So do all the stranger quests in this game just fucking suck? Because I swear the stranger quests in RDR1 and GTAV were like actual sidequests, but all these ones I've unlocked have just started collectathon quests. Go find perfect card sets, go find dinosaur bones, go find treasure maps, etc...

I feel like the main story quests/story is going good, but all the side stuff seems kinda so-so? The challenges are kinda fun but they're also kinda annoying because you have to do them in a specific order. I'm generally doing everything I can find because I do that in sandbox games and did basically 100% outside some small collectibles in RDR1 and GTAV, but not really impressed by the side stuff yet. The best bits have been just finding abandoned houses that have interesting notes or things in them.

The camp camaraderie stuff is really nice. They're doing a good job making the hideout camp feel like a family gang life sim.

[Don Rumata]

Bepbo, you gotta stop with the "I have to do 100% for no reason" bullshit, it's what ruins open world games for many people.
I loved RDR2, and did exactly NONE of the collectibles missions (yes there are good side missions, just do the ones that sound interesting).
100% games is fucking stupid, unless you're genuinely having fun.

[Bebpo]

I'm not doing the collectibles. i generally do everything outside those and just pick up the ones I run into.

Did a homestead robbery mission, seemed pretty lame.
also reeling in the fishing is annoying in this one.

[MMaRsu]

There are a bunch of really great stranger missions, but yes there are also a bunch of collectathons which I never did. Fuck going around looking for dinosaur bones

[nachobro]

stranger missions are both story stuff and some collectathon stuff. they give you the collection ones early so you can spend the rest of the game finding shit for them.

one of my favorite story focused stranger missions doesn't hit til near the end of the game, in the north-east corner of the map.

[Freyj]

Been in a rut of starting and stopping new games lately so figured I’d go back to Kiseki with Trails in the Sky the 3rd. Can’t overstate how much more enjoyable these games are with the customizable, separate turbo options for Field and Battle.

I know the chronology gets a little fuzzy post 3rd with Cold Steel 1 and 2 overlapping (?) Crossbell. For Bebpo or anyone else with a good knowledge of the series how much should I seek out the fan translations for Crossbell before starting Cold Steel?

[Freyj]

Skyrim

 

[tiesto]

Been in a rut of starting and stopping new games lately so figured I’d go back to Kiseki with Trails in the Sky the 3rd. Can’t overstate how much more enjoyable these games are with the customizable, separate turbo options for Field and Battle.

I know the chronology gets a little fuzzy post 3rd with Cold Steel 1 and 2 overlapping (?) Crossbell. For Bebpo or anyone else with a good knowledge of the series how much should I seek out the fan translations for Crossbell before starting Cold Steel?

I haven't played the Crossbell games yet and am currently about 90 hours into CS3...

You can get through CS1 and about 90% of CS2 without issue, you will be completely lost in the second chapter of CS3 though.

[Great Rumbler]

Skyrim

*laughs in Todd Howard*

[Bebpo]

Been in a rut of starting and stopping new games lately so figured I’d go back to Kiseki with Trails in the Sky the 3rd. Can’t overstate how much more enjoyable these games are with the customizable, separate turbo options for Field and Battle.

I know the chronology gets a little fuzzy post 3rd with Cold Steel 1 and 2 overlapping (?) Crossbell. For Bebpo or anyone else with a good knowledge of the series how much should I seek out the fan translations for Crossbell before starting Cold Steel?

CS1&2 spoils some crossbell stuff
Crossbell spoils some of CS1&2

CS3/4 is the combined follow up to both Crossbell and Cold Steel.

Ideally the best time to play Crossbell is before CS1, second best time is before CS3. You can play it after CS but essentially the ending and some major plot beats are spoiled which kinda sucks since it's the best arc of the series so far and CS's arc is the worst.

[demi]

You are overthinking this series to worry about timeline. Just treat each entry as their own series. I played Cold steel 1 & 2 and gave no fuck what happens in Crossbell.

Far as I care that was resolved when I played Trails Sky 1 & 2.

[Freyj]

I mean I’m gonna play it all eventually anyhow. The series seems fairly rooted in each arc being a particular couple of months and a particular nation state so I figured it was all building in some way.

My main problem is that while Zero will have the Geofront translation before I’m ready to play it, Azure won’t.

[Stro]

I tried to get a platty on RDR2 but I gave up with the dinosaur bones and dreamcatchers. I think I did finish most of the challenges (animal/weapon related ones).

[Bebpo]

I mean I’m gonna play it all eventually anyhow. The series seems fairly rooted in each arc being a particular couple of months and a particular nation state so I figured it was all building in some way.

My main problem is that while Zero will have the Geofront translation before I’m ready to play it, Azure won’t.

Even with a shitty translation I'd recommend Zero/Ao. They really are the best and most exciting of the series. Demi will see eventually.

[Bebpo]

Oh before I forget, when I was playing Binary Domain, I kept thinking how it's essentially one of the best Terminator games. Imagine if they could get the license like how they got Fist of the North Star. Would be perfect.

[tiesto]

Just made it to Chapter 4 in CS3... think this may even take the place of DQXI as being my favorite RPG of the current gen. The revelation at the end of chapter 3 had me going HOLY FUCK. And I like that the difficulty is a bit easier in this one than CS2, though some battles can still be long and grueling affairs.

I get so hyped whenever I get into a mech battle, love the music, those 90s trance supersaws 

[Bebpo]

rdr2 I've been killing lots of birds to get feathers to craft small game arrows because that's what the in-game hint says under the 3 perfect rabbit skin challenge and been frustrated that even a dead eye vital organ headshot with small game arrow doesn't kill them and I can't get one damn perfect pelt

...only to google it after a couple of days to find out I'm just supposed to be shooting them with a varmint rifle from the gun shop 

anyhow, feel like I'm getting to the end of ch.2. Maybe just a mission or two left. Got the normal dead eye from the train mission yay.

[bluemax]

I found my copy of DQIX while rearranging my apartment last month. I've dropped like 30 hours in and barely progressed the story because I spend too much time leveling jobs and doing alchemy. I actually nuked my previous save file which was like 70 hours in and I have no idea how far into the game.

[Bebpo]

RDR2 - So because RDR2 is essentially "scripted path the game" it's pretty frustrating when the context sensitive stuff glitches in story missions which I'm noticing happening a bit here and there. Especially since there's no easy "restart from checkpoint" button and these missions can be kind of long and don't save at checkpoints which sucks on PC where there are crashes.

My experience on the last mission of Ch.2:

-Go do scripted walk leading horse with John, talk talk
-Buy sniper rifle
-Go do scripted ride out
-Go herd the straggle sheep
-Go herd the sheep flock back to valentine
-cutscene
-Go do scripted walk to saloon
-cutscene
-Shootout
-Game crashes during shootout

-Reload at start of that mission, have to do all the scripted walking and herding and everything again
-Shootout again but no crashing
-Have to take professor guy from cart to my horse
-take him to my horse but the context button to put him on my horse won't appear no matter what
-all enemies are dead so no way to die and can't get him on the horse
-eventually figure out if I just run away with him on my back far enough it gives me a game over and lets me reload checkpoint

-reload checkpoint at the part where you take the professor, this time context button is there and I can put him on my horse
-finish mission like 90 mins after starting it 

Then on the next mission where you have to find a new base you get to this abandoned camp where the german woman and kids are under the wagon and there's supposed to be a context sensitive button to search crates.
-but didn't appear on my first try, so walking in circles around the wagon trying to have something happen
-can't figure it out so shoot at the crates and it gives me a game over and retry from checkpoint

-next time button to search crates is there and can finish mission 

I normally don't run into glitches every mission like that. But I've definitely seen glitches every couple missions here and there and in a game that's so scripted it's not good. If the game was built to be more open ended there'd probably be ways around this but when the game is like press 1 -> 2 - > 3 the mission then if "2" doesn't script perfect you get stuck.

Oh well, got to Rhodes. South is pretty nice looking. Rowing the boat was a bit slow and boring.

[RyoonZ]

I didn't expect Odyssey to be this good. I wasn't a fan of RPG elements in Origins and Bayek was boring an dull. I still don't quite like the overall gameplay loop but the storyline is great, it was very cohesive and the characters get development unlike in the past where they just came out of nowhere and you're told to kill them. I was also quite hesitant when they announced character select and fear for girlpower all men are trash character but I was wrong, Kassandra is amazing. She tops even Ezio for me.

This game is huge and beautiful. I hope they make one sets in China for next gen. Yeah I know there are already 2D sidescrolling one but I want full fledged title that I can explore, just thinking about makes me moist.

[Svejk]

I always thought AC2 was going in that direction; having a near future/present timeline, and was so stoked for that..... Never happened. Total tease... Then they stuck it in and broke it off with AC3.

[Bebpo]

For AC, I'd take non-Japan Asia or other countries in later periods of Europe.

Japan is sorta overplayed in game environments...but it's also true there's really no large scale open world sandbox Japan game so there's a void to fill. I think the closest is probably the Way of the Samurai series or Shenmue 1 but those are tiny environments compared to an AC. A feudal Japan AC set in Kyoto with temples everywhere and stuff would be pretty epic. Kyoto has really varied environments with rivers and mountains, bamboo forests and temples and cities.

I'd also really like to see a game like Watchdogs do a modern 20XX open world map of the entire city of Tokyo. I think Watchdogs would be best series for that, for being able to hack into stuff and mess with it. Plus it's less interactive and violent so it works better like Watchdogs 2 did SF.

[tiesto]

I don't follow the AC series, did they ever do an Indian setting? If not, that would be really cool. Barring that, Thailand or Southeast Asia...

[MMaRsu]

Oh fuck me I installed new drivers and now RDR2 wont run in Vulkan anymore and it reset all my graphical settings

 

[Bebpo]

Oh fuck me I installed new drivers and now RDR2 wont run in Vulkan anymore and it reset all my graphical settings

 

After my game crashed, I looked it up and apparently the error_gfx_state crashes are exclusive to vulkan and an issue with the vulkan api, so I’m playing in dx12 anyhow. Not worth risking crashes 30 mins into missions for a few extra fps.

[MMaRsu]

Oh fuck me I installed new drivers and now RDR2 wont run in Vulkan anymore and it reset all my graphical settings

 

After my game crashed, I looked it up and apparently the error_gfx_state crashes are exclusive to vulkan and an issue with the vulkan api, so I’m playing in dx12 anyhow. Not worth risking crashes 30 mins into missions for a few extra fps.

Never had that message, for me it wont even boot into the menu if I put it on Vulkan, it just says rockstar social club cant initialize graphics api or some shit. So I changed it to DX12 and it runs, but slightly worse than on Vulkan and I could really use all the extra FPS since i had my settings over the maximum limit.

Fuck it, not gonna bother till I upgrade my graphics card. That 5700 XT or whatever sounded great. 270 or something for better perf than a 1080?

[Nintex]

I didn't expect Odyssey to be this good. I wasn't a fan of RPG elements in Origins and Bayek was boring an dull. I still don't quite like the overall gameplay loop but the storyline is great, it was very cohesive and the characters get development unlike in the past where they just came out of nowhere and you're told to kill them. I was also quite hesitant when they announced character select and fear for girlpower all men are trash character but I was wrong, Kassandra is amazing. She tops even Ezio for me.

This game is huge and beautiful. I hope they make one sets in China for next gen. Yeah I know there are already 2D sidescrolling one but I want full fledged title that I can explore, just thinking about makes me moist.

(Image removed from quote.)

Yes this game rocks.

For a new AC I'd like to see The Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam, East India Company Colonies, Orange royalists faction lynching De Witt. etc. . I must admit though that Ragnarok also sounds cool.

They'll probably never do this because this is exactly what Patrice wanted and partly created for THQ.

[Nintex]

Some more AC Odyssey

The Mykonos island quest was crazy good.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's this rebel lady aided by a Spartan general who wants to help her overthrow the evil ruler.
But then things get spicy. You meet up with Sokrates who teaches Kassandra about making choices. I had to free a rebel who was captured for murder who turned out to be a lunatic.
Even a small ripple can change into a wave that changes everything.

Back to the main task of dealing with this evil ruler. You can pick two sides. You can either go with the Spartans and kill the fucker or sneak about and help the rebel lady.
Of course it seems obvious to help rebel lady to weaken the leader. But by doing so Kassandra and the rebel lady fall in love and she tells her that she has a thing with the spartan general. Ooh boy.

Next up, I was unsure what to do and a new quest pops up. Some different Spartan just wants to take the island. I figure that would be easiest, just do a big battle.
The battle is tough but I win. The leader is evicted from his house and hiding somewhere on the island. Easy kill but first some homeless woman sends me on a short quest to discover that the evil ruler is actually rebel lady's father.
Oh shit, things get complicated now. I decide to tell her in person and not in front of all the rebels, who would probably leave her if I did. After I break the news she needs to time to think about this, I got out and kill the evil guy I'm supposed to kill.

This leads to the rebels winning and of course a big celebration. The evil ruler is dead!
But not all is well. Even though I help rebel lady with the funeral proceedings of her now dead father that she hated so much, I also have to come eye to eye with the Spartan general and invite him to our big victory party.
Not pleased, he decides he wants to kill me. Whatever I say, the outcome is always fighting this dude, for taking his glory, girl and victory. After a short battle he dies. I win, haha.

I return to the party to find the rebel lady. She tells me the general has been called back to Sparta and is due for a promotion. Hurrah! I can lie to her, but instead i bring her the news that he's dead.
She calls him stubborn but also berates me for killing him. She had send word for both him and me to help her and her rebellion and we've brought nothing but sorrow.

Aye, time to wrap up this party. Good old Sokrates returns and starts his lecture on making choices again. Goddamn you were right little man. Had I kept it 'professional' the Spartan general might still have lived as a powerful ally no doubt.
I make a speech about how we have won our freedom and everyone including rebel lady gets drunk.

Fin.

[close]

It's not the bloody baron, but there's a lot of choices that determine how everything plays out.

[kingv]

Played through the beginning part of vampyr last night. This game is pretty hype honestly.

[BIONIC]

Played through the beginning part of vampyr last night. This game is pretty hype honestly.

It’s pretty darn good breh. Beating it without feeding on anyone

[kingv]

Too late for that
 

I’m gonna go bore mode and suck every man dry.

[MMaRsu]

Too late for that
 

I’m gonna go bore mode and suck every man dry.

 

[MMaRsu]

What are some needed Skyrim mods?

Cause the inventory management, spells assignment, map, skills explanation and progress suck.

Also what are some recommended GFX overhauls?

[Svejk]

SkyUI
Realistic lighting Overhaul
Realistic Ragdoll and Force
RaceMenu
Skyrim HD - 2K (There's probably better ones now)
Static Mesh Improvement
Sounds of Skyrim
Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch (if that's the version played)
VioLens (Killmove mod)
Visible Windows
100x Your Carry Weight 
A Quality World Map
ApachiiSkyHair
Belt Fastened Quivers
Better Bows
Beyond Skyrim - Bruma
CBBE (for female characters)
Climates of Tamriel
Cloaks of Skyrim
Corners of Skyrim
Enhanced Blood Textures
Enhanced Character Edit
Enhanced Lights and Fx
Fores New Idles
Helmet toggle
Immersive Armors
Pretty Combat Animations

To name a few I felt to be essential

I haven't personally used Vortex, but my time with Nexus MM had been great.  Heard shitty things about Vortex to not even bother with it.

[Purple Filth]

Too much of a dirty poor to buy Monster Hunter World: Icebourne so instead of continuing my progress on PS4 i'm currently going through the PC version of the base game i had bought some time ago.

Now i need to toss a zenni to my Witcher since he just appeared in the world 

[Joe Molotov]

Sweaty skin texture mods

[Freyj]

What are some needed Skyrim mods?

Cause the inventory management, spells assignment, map, skills explanation and progress suck.

Also what are some recommended GFX overhauls?

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/10694?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Start there. And yes it’s mildly a pain in the ass if you don’t have SE just because that’s where most of the dev is happening at. This is a deep rabbit hole depending on how much or how little anime waifu you prefer in your Skyrim. Also some of the ENB stuff is insanely expensive to run so YMMV.

I really enjoyed the Ordinator perks overhaul fwiw. Went through this all last December and that stood out.

[Freyj]

Also lol wtf someone made a Sekiro combat mod. I’d check that out if it wouldn’t be a lost weekend modding out Skyrim again.

Most of those complete combat overhauls miss the mark but there’s some fun shit around like turning the H2H into suplexes and other wrestling moves.

[Spieler1]

Replaying Contra 4. Back in the day I finished all of those crazy challenge missions, but I never played through the whole campaign. I remember why, shit is hard Though mostly because of how long it goes compared to other Contra titles. They should've cut some things like the 3D stages or reduced boss HP, because 45 minutes for a good run is too long - particularly if you have to repeat it a dozen times to get it down.

[BIONIC]

I’m 100 hours deep into Witcher 3, and I’m not even half done with Skellige yet

Loving it though

[MMaRsu]

I’m 100 hours deep into Witcher 3, and I’m not even half done with Skellige yet

Loving it though

It's a pretty repetitive and copy pasted game tho

 

[Freyj]

Trails in the Sky the 3rd: Christ some of these door side stories are so long. Don’t like the way the narrative being all doors based throws off the pacing.

[BIONIC]

I’m 100 hours deep into Witcher 3, and I’m not even half done with Skellige yet

Loving it though

It's a pretty repetitive and copy pasted game tho

 

raist

[Bebpo]

Trails in the Sky the 3rd: Christ some of these door side stories are so long. Don’t like the way the narrative being all doors based throws off the pacing.

It does, and some doors are less good than others, and some are good but go on way too long (Chloe school arc), but when you're done you'll appreciate all the different world building you got in addition to the main story tale.

Fwiw, the next game coming out in 2020 sounds like it's gonna be the same structure as 3rd with doors and all. Probably have the same pacing issues, but the Trails series has always had pacing issues anyhow. The only game without pacing issues is the back half of Ao/Azure and it's why its considered generally the high point of the series.

[Bebpo]

finished Cthulhu saves Christmas

The writing was good and funny throughout although the game feels like a stand up comedian in depression taking potshots at itself way too much. The music, though few in tracks, is great synth. The gameplay though...I thought it got worse as it went along and enemies got stronger and more HP and your movelists and power generally didn't increase along with them. I thought a lot of moves were pretty useless, there's a lot of rng, normal enemy fights take too long on anything above easy and boss fights were fun on normal but felt cheap on hard. The balance in general just felt pretty out of whack (you get a non-rng party heal spell in like...the last dungeon and I got the very first revive spell upon beating the final boss -_-).

I want to recommend it, but I don't think the gameplay is good enough to play over other rpgs. I mean it's nice that it's short at like 5-6 hours and funny, but the battles and really boring simple dungeon design bring it down a ton.

I'll still give Cosmic Star Heroine a shot at some point, since it's a larger effort title by this dev team of like 3 people, but if they can't nail the gameplay balance here I'm not expecting the gameplay balance in that one to be much better.

Fwiw, I thought the final boss fight on normal had pretty good balance. But it's a multi-enemy fight and as you clear each enemy the fight gets easier to the point when only the final boss is left it's a joke and there's no threat. Shouldn't final boss fights be the opposite and get harder as the fight progresses? Balance is just odd.

[Coax]

Ghost of a Tale. Had it installed for like a year or more but wasn't in the mood for it until now. Interestingly has various outfit sets one can acquire in different pieces and has Souls-looking regenerating stamina bar for the playable character (more to balance sprinting after guard alerts that anything combat related).

Trying to find some combination of FoV tweaks, aspect ratio and... something that will help with the nauseated feeling I get playing it. Bumping down a number of settings gets me to 55-60fps but I'm still getting that feeling. Game is otherwise okay so far but that aspect is putting a dampener on the experience.

[bluemax]

finished Cthulhu saves Christmas

The writing was good and funny throughout although the game feels like a stand up comedian in depression taking potshots at itself way too much. The music, though few in tracks, is great synth. The gameplay though...I thought it got worse as it went along and enemies got stronger and more HP and your movelists and power generally didn't increase along with them. I thought a lot of moves were pretty useless, there's a lot of rng, normal enemy fights take too long on anything above easy and boss fights were fun on normal but felt cheap on hard. The balance in general just felt pretty out of whack (you get a non-rng party heal spell in like...the last dungeon and I got the very first revive spell upon beating the final boss -_-).

I want to recommend it, but I don't think the gameplay is good enough to play over other rpgs. I mean it's nice that it's short at like 5-6 hours and funny, but the battles and really boring simple dungeon design bring it down a ton.

I'll still give Cosmic Star Heroine a shot at some point, since it's a larger effort title by this dev team of like 3 people, but if they can't nail the gameplay balance here I'm not expecting the gameplay balance in that one to be much better.

Fwiw, I thought the final boss fight on normal had pretty good balance. But it's a multi-enemy fight and as you clear each enemy the fight gets easier to the point when only the final boss is left it's a joke and there's no threat. Shouldn't final boss fights be the opposite and get harder as the fight progresses? Balance is just odd.

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

FWIW I didn't get very far in CSH because I felt like regular fights took just way too long. I think I've had this issue with every one of their games (never played the Penny Arcade one), like all the pieces are there, but the balance just never quite feels right. I want to love Zeboyd games more than I do because they are doing the thing I wish I was doing.

[Bebpo]

finished Cthulhu saves Christmas

The writing was good and funny throughout although the game feels like a stand up comedian in depression taking potshots at itself way too much. The music, though few in tracks, is great synth. The gameplay though...I thought it got worse as it went along and enemies got stronger and more HP and your movelists and power generally didn't increase along with them. I thought a lot of moves were pretty useless, there's a lot of rng, normal enemy fights take too long on anything above easy and boss fights were fun on normal but felt cheap on hard. The balance in general just felt pretty out of whack (you get a non-rng party heal spell in like...the last dungeon and I got the very first revive spell upon beating the final boss -_-).

I want to recommend it, but I don't think the gameplay is good enough to play over other rpgs. I mean it's nice that it's short at like 5-6 hours and funny, but the battles and really boring simple dungeon design bring it down a ton.

I'll still give Cosmic Star Heroine a shot at some point, since it's a larger effort title by this dev team of like 3 people, but if they can't nail the gameplay balance here I'm not expecting the gameplay balance in that one to be much better.

Fwiw, I thought the final boss fight on normal had pretty good balance. But it's a multi-enemy fight and as you clear each enemy the fight gets easier to the point when only the final boss is left it's a joke and there's no threat. Shouldn't final boss fights be the opposite and get harder as the fight progresses? Balance is just odd.

FWIW I didn't get very far in CSH because I felt like regular fights took just way too long. I think I've had this issue with every one of their games (never played the Penny Arcade one), like all the pieces are there, but the balance just never quite feels right. I want to love Zeboyd games more than I do because they are doing the thing I wish I was doing.

That's too bad. Yeah I think the balance and long battles just stop being fun after a few dungeons. I feel like they design it this way to pad the game length tbh.

[Coax]

Trying to find some combination of FoV tweaks, aspect ratio and... something that will help with the nauseated feeling I get playing it.

This might be the first game in like a decade to give me this intense reaction after not that long playing. Knocks me out Managed to tweak it to where ~30m sessions are probably doable.



Impressions so far apart from that (in the first set of areas).

Likes:

- Premise and animal characters.
- RPG-like inventory system where you can browse, equip and use through things you've collected such as food, clothing, quest items.
- Various cute collectible outfits, some required for quests and affect movement speed for example.
- Decent variety of video and general game settings, including native ultrawide support.
- Dualshock 4 prompts option (however it changes the default good mapping of the Xbox controls, though the buttons can be remapped again).



Dislikes:

- While being decent looking visually the lighting can be hard to make out when it turns night or in darker areas. You have perishable candles but they're mostly intended for areas entirely lacking light (presumably enemies, too) and I feel the environments in general could have benefited from better thought-out environmental lighting.

- Level design isn't particularly intuitive and I frequently find myself accidentally returning to spots due to this. The rudimentary map only helps somewhat.

- In several scenarios throwing a bottle at enemies from behind does nothing but break the bottle despite showing the correct prompt. Since one has to scout around for more bottles (unsure if they respawn) it's annoying when inconsistent quirks like this occur.

So-so:

- Not a bad variety of dialog (tips, some bard related like songs, little bits of backstory) but not amazing either.
- For some reason the game sticks the version number faintly in the bottom right as if it's some early access version (I bought it after its official release).

[Rahxephon91]

Might as well play this Astral Chain that I've had since it came out.

[bluemax]

Booted up Octopath Traveler this weekend. The systems in this game are still good, but battles feel like they take too long and I feel like all my characters except the one I can't swap out are way under leveled. I'm at like 45 hours and have only done 1/4 of the third chapters

[demi]

it doesn't get better, bail

[Freyj]

Octopath was another Emperor’s New Clothes for me. Don’t get the praise beyond it being a neat aesthetic.

[Rahxephon91]

For me the problem with Octopath is that it does itself no favor with its structure. Which doesn’t hide how repetitive it is. I mean all games are repetitive, but like in Persona 5 the point is to create a routine in how you will tackle your activities or something like Astral Chain makes the episodic feel more natural through maybe the narrative or whatever. In Octo it made me feel more disconnected and and a bit more route.

I only made it 10 hours in and do plan to go back though.

[bluemax]

Right, most JRPGs don't have that much variation and the way they break it up is with the town->world map->dungeon->story flow. But since there is only travel between towns when going to a town for the first time, and all the dungeons have identical length and general structure it all just blends together.

One thing a lot of good JRPGs have are what I call connecting dungeons, ie they aren't just caves or temples in a corner that you walk to, go to the bottom of and then warp out, but rather things like caves through mountains, or just mountains you climb over. I feel like good RPGs have these, and they're shorter than standard dungeons, with weaker bosses (or no boss), but a bit more challenging than simply walking across the world map.

I don't expect Octopath to get better, I'm just kind of going back through games I stopped playing last year because of work and seeing which ones I want to finish and which ones I'm okay with re-shelving.

[MMaRsu]

I started playing XCOM 2 WOTC again, made a squad with CJ from GTA, Sam Fisher, Agent 47, Garak from DS9, Rex Colt from Far Cry Blood Dragon, Riddick from Pitch Black etc  and have a lot more voices to create soldiers with

shit is pretty awesome, especially CJ

[I'm a Puppy!]

Finally finished DQ XI It's Dragon Quest. You either love that or hate that.

Finished Katana Zero Loved it. Need the expansions.

Finished King of Cards- Very charming. But definitely not everyone's cut of tea. My kids are massive Shovel Knight fans and when they saw this was more of a precision platformer they just sorta gave it up for other things. I had fun with it. That being said, it totally is an expansion. If this was a total game in of itself I'd feel somewhat ripped off. The card game was ok, but it lacked the simple cleverness of something like triple triad or something like that.

Finished Gris - Essentially it's this gen's Journey. But with better art, and some actual gameplay. It's more a game that you play for the lesson than the game itself. If you like that kind of game then you'll love this. If you just want very good gameplay then I'd look elsewhere

In the middle of Celeste After finishing King of cards I figured if I was going to do a precision platformer I'd do an actual one. I love and hate this game. I'm on stage 4. I've died over 500 times in that space. It doesn't beat you over the head with it's much lauded symbolism. But it's there if you like that kind of thing.

Currently watching my kid take on Sekiro He just fought that huge headless monkey. I started Sekiro when it came out and thought I'd go back to it. After seeing him go through all those generals and all the stuff he's had to do, I'm not sure I'm actually up for that challenge. I'll say this, I thought that Bloodbourne had the most exciting boss fights. I believe Sekiro's got that beat. That being said, it seems just beyond my grasp. I could get the abilities eventually to git gud, but I could use that time playing something else from my massive backlog

[Rufus]

Finished A Plague Tale: Innocence.
- Best rat physics 2019
- Beautiful game. (I need to start taking screenshots as I play. It even has a photo mode, but I never touched it. :I)
- Varied challenges. Stealth heavy, but forgiving. Was never bored and only rarely annoyed (moving the braziers in the castle got old fast).
- The rat apocalypse is seriously over the top stupid, but it worked for me.
- Crafting was superfluous. All but the sling upgrades just aren't interesting or useful enough. Resource management for ammo types is not required either, since you will always find the required materials nearby should the game require a certain type for an upcoming challenge. It's just one of those boxes you have to tick, I guess.
- Boss fights were 'eh', but the final boss was comical, in a good way.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Giant rat pillars crashing down on you as the deranged old man crowns himself the pinnacle of all creation? Yeah, sure!

[close]

- Amicia never washes that blood off her nose. Or the scab? Or is it a really strange, scarlet red scar? Either way, it stood out to me after several time-skips.
- I played with French audio, for added flavour. Had a hard time keeping up with the subtitles during incidental dialogue, but it was a great choice overall.
- Hugo is obviously not voiced by a child (in French, anyway), but the woman who plays him did a great job. Luca was played by a woman also. Would never have guessed.
- Finally, chromatic aberration. Fucking stop with that shit. Thankfully there's a toggle in the options. By default ('normal') it's constant and covers the whole frame. Why make everything look fuzzy just to simluate an undesireable artifact of camera lenses? I don't get it.

I also finished PSP perspective puzzler CRUSH. Not much to say, besides that it is good. I was captivated enough to go for 100% clears of every level, but not enough to do any of the bonus levels unlocked by that. They're tightly timed and while the controls in this are fit for purpose, they're not smooth enough to play under duress.

[Bebpo]

Still playing RDR2 and enjoying it as an outlaw life sim. Usually if I play for an hour or two I'll get about 2 "missions" done in a session. Missions can sometimes just be like a bounty mission, a fishing mission, hunting a legendary animal I stumble across, so still making slow progress through ch.3's story missions. I like exploring and finding sites to add to the journal and I've found a good amount of the collectible cards just exploring any place that looked interesting. I play it like a sim and try to eat a few times a day and feed and clean my horse and get some sleep each night. Generally having fun.

But tonight I loaded up with my horse next to me and then started a bounty type mission on a train and when I got off the train I whistled for my horse and it told me my horse was dead 
Mostly just sucks because it had better base stats than these generic ones and I don't have a lot of money so I can't buy some fast one from Valentine. Will just have to live with a average stat horse for now.

[Fifstar]

Finally finished DQ XI It's Dragon Quest. You either love that or hate that.

Serious question, how have you time to finish that game? I liked it enough, but at 25 hours I just felt I could to play so many other games/do other things in the 100+ hours it apparently takes to finish it.