What are you playing?

[Joe Molotov]

I did a playthrough of Rygar (NES) today. Fun stuff, but some of the music is grating. WTF is with the boss music?

This game gave me nightmares as a kid

[Bebpo]

Picked up Hajimari no Kiseki aka Cold Steel 5 and played a few hours. Kinda weird so far. It has a lot of stuff that should have been in Cold Steel 4 off the bat and it's like gee thanks? I'm glad I'm experiencing this fanservice stuff 2 years later and out of context instead of where it should have been in CS4 making CS4 a better game? I mean obviously they ran into time/budget constraints to fit it into CS4, but still just kinda weird.

Music seems nice so far. Sounds better than CS4. The gameplay/UI/visuals/battles/everything are 100% identical to CS3/4. No battle system revamps at all so far. So this game is likely just straight up just additional story content, almost like an expansion.

[HardcoreRetro]

Died in Moon Remix Rpg cause I forgot to ask grandma for a cookie.

10/10

[tiesto]

Picked up Hajimari no Kiseki aka Cold Steel 5 and played a few hours. Kinda weird so far. It has a lot of stuff that should have been in Cold Steel 4 off the bat and it's like gee thanks? I'm glad I'm experiencing this fanservice stuff 2 years later and out of context instead of where it should have been in CS4 making CS4 a better game? I mean obviously they ran into time/budget constraints to fit it into CS4, but still just kinda weird.

Music seems nice so far. Sounds better than CS4. The gameplay/UI/visuals/battles/everything are 100% identical to CS3/4. No battle system revamps at all so far. So this game is likely just straight up just additional story content, almost like an expansion.

I heard they tacked on a gatcha system... any truth to this? 

[Bebpo]

Picked up Hajimari no Kiseki aka Cold Steel 5 and played a few hours. Kinda weird so far. It has a lot of stuff that should have been in Cold Steel 4 off the bat and it's like gee thanks? I'm glad I'm experiencing this fanservice stuff 2 years later and out of context instead of where it should have been in CS4 making CS4 a better game? I mean obviously they ran into time/budget constraints to fit it into CS4, but still just kinda weird.

Music seems nice so far. Sounds better than CS4. The gameplay/UI/visuals/battles/everything are 100% identical to CS3/4. No battle system revamps at all so far. So this game is likely just straight up just additional story content, almost like an expansion.

I heard they tacked on a gatcha system... any truth to this? 

Yeah I've heard there's gatcha and...story paywalls??

Which sounds terrible and totally out of place for this series on consoles. I haven't run into it yet and so far it's a normal trails game, so I guess I'll see how it's implemented.

[Bebpo]

Just looked it up and found this:

Coming next up, they quickly reexplained how Hajimari no Kiseki works. Most notably the Shin Mugen Kairou / True Corridor of Reveries and how it’s a randomly generated dungeon, independent from the main game, and where you unlock and play the mini games. Unlocking them works like a gacha. You get special stones by defeating strong enemies, and use these stone to randomly get Characters Episodes and Mini games as rewards. Certain stones can also unlock special characters that aren’t playable in the main game.

So it sounds like at least it's not in the main story. But it also sounds like if they're going The Third formula you might need Gatcha to unlock the doors for optional episodes. Which could suck. I guess I'll see.

Also looked up the store DLCs. It's all just normal level up/item up/stats stuff/costumes.

Except, there's an "Random Dungeon Starter Set" for $2.50 that says "used to unlock parts of the Random Dungeon" gives 500 of an item for $2.50. This sounds like the gatcha...

[Great Rumbler]

Died in Moon Remix Rpg cause I forgot to ask grandma for a cookie.

10/10

Gonna play that later today.

[tiesto]

Now I know why some people are getting real soured on Falcom/Trails
I thought they were the one company immune to this kinda BS.

[Bebpo]

Now I know why some people are getting real soured on Falcom/Trails
I thought they were the one company immune to this kinda BS.

Did you also hear that the next mainline Trails game in 1-2 years which is the start of the Calvard arc isn't going to be turn-based?

Yeah, Kiseki was hot when it was selling well and Falcom was riding high around Crossbell games and Cold Steel 1's release. Then sales started to go down and the budgets for these games got higher and things have just been falling for years and I doubt anything will help them recover. They're always going to have a dedicated fanbase of like 80-100k players who follow the story and pick up each game in Japan + western sales, but that's not enough to keep this series alive at the budget they want to do it at. So they're gonna keep throwing shit at the wall hoping something helps.

Also they already did a mobile gatcha Trails game called Akatsuki no Kiseki. Luckily it didn't have any major plot/character events for the franchise so you could just ignore it.

[tiesto]

Now I know why some people are getting real soured on Falcom/Trails
I thought they were the one company immune to this kinda BS.

Did you also hear that the next mainline Trails game in 1-2 years which is the start of the Calvard arc isn't going to be turn-based?

Yeah, Kiseki was hot when it was selling well and Falcom was riding high around Crossbell games and Cold Steel 1's release. Then sales started to go down and the budgets for these games got higher and things have just been falling for years and I doubt anything will help them recover. They're always going to have a dedicated fanbase of like 80-100k players who follow the story and pick up each game in Japan + western sales, but that's not enough to keep this series alive at the budget they want to do it at. So they're gonna keep throwing shit at the wall hoping something helps.

Also they already did a mobile gatcha Trails game called Akatsuki no Kiseki. Luckily it didn't have any major plot/character events for the franchise so you could just ignore it.

I heard but from what I got out of it was "action elements" which could be anything... it could be ATB, it could be the Gagharv PC game battle system again, it could be timed button presses a la Mario RPG... don't really see why they'd move completely in an action direction when they have Ys but who knows?

[Bebpo]

Now I know why some people are getting real soured on Falcom/Trails
I thought they were the one company immune to this kinda BS.

Did you also hear that the next mainline Trails game in 1-2 years which is the start of the Calvard arc isn't going to be turn-based?

Yeah, Kiseki was hot when it was selling well and Falcom was riding high around Crossbell games and Cold Steel 1's release. Then sales started to go down and the budgets for these games got higher and things have just been falling for years and I doubt anything will help them recover. They're always going to have a dedicated fanbase of like 80-100k players who follow the story and pick up each game in Japan + western sales, but that's not enough to keep this series alive at the budget they want to do it at. So they're gonna keep throwing shit at the wall hoping something helps.

Also they already did a mobile gatcha Trails game called Akatsuki no Kiseki. Luckily it didn't have any major plot/character events for the franchise so you could just ignore it.

I heard but from what I got out of it was "action elements" which could be anything... it could be ATB, it could be the Gagharv PC game battle system again, it could be timed button presses a la Mario RPG... don't really see why they'd move completely in an action direction when they have Ys but who knows?

Yeah I haven't seen the original Japanese interview, so just going off the translation it sounds like it'll either be something like Tales or something like Ys.

To be fair their turn-based battle systems are so broken from a strategy perspective it might not be a big loss. The order system in CS3/4/Hajimari really breaks things.

[Bebpo]

Died in Moon Remix Rpg cause I forgot to ask grandma for a cookie.

10/10

Gonna play that later today.

Yeah, picked it up too. I heard about it in the PS1 days but never tried it. Sounds like a good time to try it now. Kinda curious about the Tim Roger's translation too. His writing style is interesting but he's nothing if not passionate about games and I respect that.

[Freyj]

I wonder how much the Trails drop off was due to having 4 60-100 hour long games in the Cold Steel arc. I’m no JRPG shy person and it’s probably only because of covid that I caught up to CS4 at all. CS3 in particular is about 30 hours too long.

The Crossbell bits in Hajimari interest me most though. Glad it’s not just another Class VII game.

[Bebpo]

Probably, though I think it has more to do with just traditional videogames and rpgs being less and less popular since the PSP, early PS3 days.

This game ain't gonna be much different though even if it's shorter. I literally spent almost 4 hours at the start just talking to every NPC in Crossbell before advancing the story at all. If you do the whole talk to every NPC every story update to see all their life stories, the game is gonna be the same slow & long dance.

That said, as someone that hated CS4, about 6 hours in, I'm liking Hajimari no Kiseki. It helps that this game is bringing the quality Falcom music that has been missing for several Falcom games lately. Lots of great tracks so far, great new tracks, good remix/arrange tracks and picking and choosing the best tracks from CS for re-use. If it keeps this up, this will easily be the best soundtrack of the CS era.

Another thing I like about Hajimari so far is there's no bullshit budget gating. You see a poker table? You can go play poker. You see a character that should be playable? They join and are playable. CS4 has so much of "this should be what happens...but it doesn't because they make up some excuse because budget didn't allow this" (i.e. like we're too busy to play poker, or the casino isn't open yet, or that character is busy on some other errand, etc...), so it's nice that Hajimari is like not having any of that from the start and just seems like a normal Trails game.

[tiesto]

Moon gets a physical release in Japan on Oct 15 that has the full English translation. I think I'm gonna wait for that...

Anyways, while on the subject of Falcom, I've been making a concentrated effort to finally beat Legacy of the Wizard. Though I'm straight up following a walkthrough since this game is obtuse AF. The block-moving puzzles in Xemm's (the father's) area are awful, and control is so fussy that even if you can figure out the solution, it's easy to fuck up and even get into unwinnable states. I don't know why I do this to myself 

[Positive Touch]

putting in work to study the history 

[paprikastaude]

First hour of Onimusha HD: This is a PS2 ass PS2 game in the best way possible 

Enter hardcore sliding puzzle with a timer, that makes you repeat a five minute long portion after every failure: the fuck. I don't care that you can just look it up. If this was the whole trilogy in the package - and I don't know why it isn't out of all the Capcom remasters - I'd just straight skip to the second game.

[demi]

Playing the inferior version of Onimusha

[Snoopycat_]

Onimusha and Crazy Taxi were the first PS2 games I owned



 

[paprikastaude]

Playing the inferior version of Onimusha

?

[BIONIC]

The HD version doesn’t have any of the extra features of the OG Xbox port.

I actually ended up snagging it for like 12 bucks in near mint condition on amazon last year. Plays perfectly well on a 360 via BC.

Oh, and they replaced the soundtrack because it was made by the same fraud that made the infamous RE1: DC Basement Theme and they didn’t want to pay him I guess. Though this one was actually good.

[paprikastaude]

I completely forgot about that. Weird how barebones this is compared to the majority of retro Capcom ports recently. It's not like that other remastered series were strikingly bigger sellers back in the day.

Will we ever get HD Jean Reno

[Bebpo]

Liking Hajimari no Kiseki a lot. It's like when you make a Trails game that has 1) no school, 2) no sidequests, 3) no repetition structure and is just a straight up traditional rpg w/great music...it's great!

Story feels kinda filler-ish sequel story, but it's entertaining and I like the characters and world (this game makes me realize that while I really disliked how the story played out in CS4 and resolved, I don't dislike the CS cast, just CS4's plotlines).

The gameplay is pretty solid (difficulty is ramped up a lot like 3rd was, actually a real challenge early on).

It's actually pretty cool to be able to change instantly between 3 different sub-rpgs going on at the same time from different viewpoints kinda like Suikoden 3. Each group is 100% independent so surprisingly money/items isn't shared. It's like 3 completely seperate games that you can just switch back and forth between and it will resume at the exact spot you're standing in each storyline at any time. At certain points they'll lock until you clear the other ones to avoid spoiling events, but generally feels pretty free to switch between them. So you can mix up talking to NPCs in a town down-time with instantly switching to a group in a dungeon and do some battles and back and forth. That helps the pacing a lot, which is already helped tons by the lack of repetitive structure and so far zero sidequests (3rd didn't have any quests either iirc).

Haven't gotten to the independent dungeon that's supposedly like 3rd where you can just use every character with whatever team you want separate from the storyline where the gatcha and mini-games and character episodes happen. I wonder if this doesn't unlock until post-game or if it'll unlock soon since apparently levels for the characters carry-over between the main story game and the dungeon.

[tiesto]

Heh, I saw some people complain about Hajimari because there's apparently VR where you can check out the girls in the game 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you can check out Sara I might have to invest in PSVR...

[close]

Anyways got 3/4 Crowns in Legacy of the Wizard. Game is still really tough but now I'm more attuned to its gameplay and its fuckery. Unfortunately the final crown is in the father's area and the push-block puzzles are a janky mess and a bitch to get through.

[Positive Touch]

the annoying thing about the HD Onimusha is that they did bring over the soundtrack from the xbox version, but nothing else.

it's a cool game, but it's so tiny and has zero replay incentive. it's a shame they didn't put in a little more effort into this new release.

[Bebpo]

Heh, I saw some people complain about Hajimari because there's apparently VR where you can check out the girls in the game 

Oh, yeah the game is just as slightly perv as ever (series has had a bit of that animu perv since Crossbell. The Sky trilogy is the only one that doesn't pander much). I mean they have the usual "omg have your boobs grown bigger since last time I saw you?? poke poke" kinda anime perv stuff that's just inherent to anime-styled anything in Japan. It's embarrassing & cringy, but luckily I play video games alone.

I was reading an interview from an early play demo of the game and the host, who is a woman, is playing as Noel and her first comment about the game is "omg I love her short shorts"

Japan is still Japan.

At least they're getting away from the homophobic/transphobic stuff that was super common place in their media until the last few years. Also they're starting to add more diversity and give women clothing a bit more (but then still offer DLC swimsuit/scantily-clad outfits ^^;).

[Svejk]

Going back into Monster World IV.  I was stuck in water way maze.  Finally figured out the bucket use, so things started to click again.  Got past it and freed the Moon Spirit.. I love these Monster World games!  I never played this one, as it never came Stateside.  These games, along with several Genesis/MD games, seem to age like a fine wine.

[tiesto]

My girlfriend has been hooked on the original Super Mario Bros, so today I played it and did something I never have done before in all my years of gaming - play through it straight through, no warps, 1cc no continues.

[demi]

Oh, yeah the game is just as slightly perv as ever (series has had a bit of that animu perv since Crossbell. The Sky trilogy is the only one that doesn't pander much). I mean they have the usual "omg have your boobs grown bigger since last time I saw you?? poke poke" kinda anime perv stuff that's just inherent to anime-styled anything in Japan. It's embarrassing & cringy, but luckily I play video games alone.

I was reading an interview from an early play demo of the game and the host, who is a woman, is playing as Noel and her first comment about the game is "omg I love her short shorts"

Japan is still Japan.

At least they're getting away from the homophobic/transphobic stuff that was super common place in their media until the last few years. Also they're starting to add more diversity and give women clothing a bit more (but then still offer DLC swimsuit/scantily-clad outfits ^^;).

Bebpo in tweet form

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/Falcom_Onion/status/1299829179878240258

[close]

[Bebpo]

lol

[Mr Gilhaney]

starting wasteland 3 today

[Bebpo]

Hajimari no Kiseki - Got to the gatcha and it's actually pretty great. First time I've enjoyed gatcha in a videogame (horrible flashbacks to Xenoblade 2 cores grrrr).

Basically there's no real RNG or p2w for the meaningful content in the bonus dungeon which is the same style as The 3rd's dungeon. Each chapter dungeon has a set amount of character orbs, character episode orbs, mini-game orbs and there's 1 enemy every floor that guarantee drops those and the final boss of the chapter dungeon does as well.

For instance the first dungeon has 0/1 character orbs, 0/2 character episode orbs, 0/1 mini-game orbs. The dungeon is 3 floors long + boss, each floor has a glowing boss-like enemy so 4 bosses total, just fighting them all will get you all that stuff and you'll finish the dungeon with 1/1, 2/2, 1/1 for the orb types. You can replay it and get more, it's set, so while the gatcha of which character unlocks from the orb and which door episode unlocks and which mini-game unlocks is probably RNG, basically if you do all the dungeons you'll get everything because it's all set. There's also no duplicates for these, so you'll get everything just the order is random most likely.

Now the actual gatcha is the lesser stuff, fighting non-boss bigger enemies gets you a guaranteed silver orb that you trade for 8 or 9 random items. These items are costumes, costume accessories, orbment covers, quartz, and items. Basically all the costumes/costume accessory stuff is the shit you would have to buy DLC packs for in these Trails games and I never do so I never get any of this. Now just by dumping the orbs I get from fighting enemies as I go through the dungeon floors I'm getting cool costumes and costume parts and it's pretty neat. Zero complaints on this. If people want to pay to get more rolls of this, then go for it.

Note you can also turn the difficulty to super easy and one shot everything in the dungeon and the game has a ~4x speed FF mode which is amazing. Combined with those two you can blow through a dungeon floor in about 1-2 mins per floor and get all the loot.

Also the actual dungeon floors have tons of treasures and it's like loot game style really good loot, +1 customized equipment, good accessories, good quartz. You even get books from all the past Trails games in the chests. So it's fun going through the dungeons which are randomly generated for the floor layouts (but the dungeons and their bosses are set).

Basically they turned the dungeon crawler from The Third into a diablo style loot game with some minor gatcha for costumes & costume accessories and this is all separate from the main story which is just a traditional trails jrpg storyline. The only thing that carries over between the two are levels and I assume the costumes. I'm not even sure if the items and quartz and stuff carry over back to the main game or are only used in the dungeon since in the main game the parties have separate inventory but everyone is combined into one group in the dungeon. I'll check that out next time.

Anyhow, was concerned about this, but it seems like they made sure not to fuck over people who care about the story/gameplay and just gatcha'd cosmetics which is the way to go.

They also still haven't made anything from the browser game Akatsuki no Kiseki appear or be referenced or important, so they're not screwing over people who skipped that too, which is great.

[tiesto]

Well, that's a relief that the gatcha and loot is mostly optional and not too intrusive. I'm not really a fan of loot either, (I remember in Xenoblade it was really intrusive) - getting swords that give me like +1 poison attack over my last weapon, while creating inventory management headaches, is just not exciting for me...

So that VR mode... are you able to interact with Sara in it...? Asking for a friend...

[Bebpo]

Haven't gotten the VR mode yet. I'm actually betting it's one of the mini-games you unlock since it sounds like a pervy mini-game.

[Cheddahz]

I'm still playing New Horizons (mostly) every day for a few minutes, but I've been playing PGA Tour 2K21 and Moon: RPG Remix Adventure on my Switch

[Tektonic]

finished, finally & for the first time, The Legend of Heroes - Trails In The Sky pt1.... that ending!
onto part 2

[tiesto]

finished, finally & for the first time, The Legend of Heroes - Trails In The Sky pt1.... that ending!
onto part 2

Yeah, when the first game came out I was a bit cold on it up until the final chapter... but after that ending I was absolutely chomping at the bit to play the second game. I had to wait 4 +years from the original PSP release of the first game and the release of the 2nd in English, and there were a bunch of times when it was looking completely unlikely the series had no future in the west.

[Svejk]

I need to finish TITS (lawl) part 1 still.  At the part where you first meet Colonel Richard.   Not even sure how far I am in it, but it gets to drag quite a bit... If the ending is that good, I got Part 2 ready to go!... Just need to get into it again.

[demi]

I don't think it's that good (it's a cliffhanger) but after the agonizing build up it is a decent payoff and gets your cock fat and hard to jump into part 2 (which is wayyyyy better than the first part)

[Bebpo]

Sky FC is pretty slow. But the thing is that sets the tone for the entire franchise. It's a slow world building/npc building slice of life series where every game is slow as fuck until the final chapter and then everything comes together in a really exciting payoff. Generally they nail their payoffs really, really well. Crossbell games, which unfortunately are still not officially out in English, are the best paced versions of this formula.

The characters and world end up being extremely well developed and likeable compared to most rpgs because of the slow build up. It's something that doesn't really click until the second game or later when you're revisiting places and you actually give a shit about the people and know the layout of the country.

That being said, SC is a lot better than FC although SC is still pretty slow until about the midway point, but the instead of waiting for the final chapter to kick off, the game kicks off midway and is great for the back half.

It also doesn't help that the battle system is super slow and simple in Sky FC, by modern Trails the battle system is fast and has a billion things to it. But that's because each game they keep adding sub-systems to it. The only time they backtracked was after Crossbell they removed team S-crafts (because too many characters to make a teamup S-craft for every possibility of 2 people; still sucks though because they were flashy and cool) and they removed arcana which orders in Cold Steel 3/4/Hajimari basically replaced and break the combat just like arcana cards did.

Sky The Third is the best paced but it's a dungeon crawler without the world exploration adventure aspect. It also has the best battle system because like I just said they keep adding to the battle system and 3 games in is a lot more depth than the first game. Some of the turn-order effects they add like DEATH and Vanish and CP LOSS to 0 are greaaat for playing around with turn order.

Still Sky FC has its charm. I got into it with the PSP releases and it was a nice throwback jrpg to play at the time.

My recommendation for Trails to anyone I talk to is start with Sky FC and keep an open mind for a slow paced slice of life old school jrpg experience, then if you like it somewhat stick with SC and by the end of SC you'll know whether the franchise clicks with you or not. If it does Third will be great and Crossbell whenever it's in English will be great and Cold Steel will be fun but has its own issues.

[Bebpo]

Now Hajimari no Kiseki has gotten pretty awesome. I definitely think this is the best the Trails series has been in many, many years. It's just a really well designed game, lot of cool ideas and the gameplay is great throughout, as is the story/character stuff. Only problem is the balance is kind a mess already because there's too many combat and loot options available so you can get OP very quickly. They even give you tons of EXP+ items that you can use to catch up characters in level to whatever the level of your highest level character is.

I've only done 1 of the character episode doors so far, and I was worried it'd be less interesting as the ones from 3rd and more slice of life given how Cold Steel has been in general, but it was actually a really good sub-story that did some nice setup for Calvard's arc coming up. I went from zero interest in Calvard to slowly through stuff in this game I'm getting more excited for that arc.

Also the mini-games are fun. It's nice having all the mini-games so far in the series in one place and some new stuff.

I read the 3&9 novel series last night. It's the new book series in Cold Steel 4, so pretty soon y'all will read it in that. I stopped reading the books in the games because they got long af and I hate reading novels in Japanese lol. But one part of the 3-way Suikoden III style storyline is told from the point of view of the main characters from 3&9 and 3&9 is essentially their origin story and it's pretty damn important. Like in the title screen at pre-story where it has summaries of Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki (Crossbell), Cold Steel I-IV, it has the full novel of 3&9 w/illustrations because it's as important as those.

Anyhow 3&9 was a pretty good story. Maybe the best book series they've done, so enjoy it in CS4 and look forward to the continuation of it in Hajimari.

[tiesto]

I love how those books eventually play into the main series in some way or another. The vampires roaming around Heimdallr, the Carnelia series... seriously, the absolute best lore in gaming.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, and iirc the books in Sky SC/FC setup the church stuff with Reese in The Third.

I think I've read all the books at this point. I was super into this series and reading all the lore until somewhere in Cold Steel when I got burnt out. I didn't read the CS4 books but I think I read the ones prior.

[tiesto]

Friend came over last nite and we did some gaming - I beat Felix da Cat, he played a ton of FX Unit Yuki and then the Turbo Duo CD stopped reading the disk near the end of the game :/ , then we played a bit of Tiny Toons on NES (a decent Mario 3 clone), Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout (crap), and my friend beat Little Mermaid NES. Good times...

Today I gotta do some cleaning then gonna finally start BOF2. After a bunch of smaller NES action games it'll be nice to jump back into a long, grindy RPG.

[Nintex]

Have mostly been playing Breath of the Wild

Finding all sorts of new treasures, events and gear during my Switch run I didn't the first time around on the Wii U even though I completed all the shrines.
Now I have about 50 shrines completed and beaten 2 divine beasts.

[MMaRsu]

Game is so good Nintex

[paprikastaude]

Ion Fury - good game, but shouldn't have gotten the console version. Aiming feels like shit 

[paprikastaude]

Also prepping for the final Monster Hunter World update. Tempered Furious Rajang event today

[MMaRsu]

Ion Fury - good game, but shouldn't have gotten the console version. Aiming feels like shit 

Havent u heard the devs are nazis

🙄

[Nintex]

Ion Fury - good game, but shouldn't have gotten the console version. Aiming feels like shit 

Havent u heard the devs are nazis

🙄

[MMaRsu]

I think its bullshit too but reee does

[paprikastaude]

   back to the trash thread

[tiesto]

I started playing BOF2 and it feels like an 8-bit RPG in the body of a SNES RPG. It seems super grindy, especially since for these first few areas I only have control of one or two characters. Experience and (especially) gold accumulation is slow, the encounter rate is heavy. The graphics in battle look beautiful, but the overworld environments look kinda OK, not really on the level of comparable RPGs at the time though. And the translation is pretty terrible. People say 5 is the worst of the series but I actually kinda liked that one so this may go down as my least favorite if things don't start picking up. I just got Katt in my party and have to go rescue Nina from the thieves.

[Pissy F Benny]

The nba 2k21 storyline before you get drafted is wack as fuck

Still no patch on the insane spike lee one though

[Don Rumata]

The nba 2k21 storyline before you get drafted is wack as fuck

Still no patch on the insane spike lee one though

For 'nam?! 
I need that CoD crossover.

[paprikastaude]

Better than paying for the literal exact same thing except with a few names updated? Not that I care either way.

[Bebpo]

I mean I'm all for putting ironic story modes into sports games if they're self-aware that nobody wants it but the suits are making them put it in so they make it as insane and stupid as possible. Makes for good youtube videos.

[Pissy F Benny]

Who the fuck ever wanted story modes in their yearly sports games

Me

The story mode to nba2k16 was the real metal gear solid 5

[Bebpo]

Tried Crash Team Racing for the first time. The general racing & stages seem good.

But man, I cannot take the fuckery in this game. I'm about to break a goddamn controller. So many times I'm in first on lap 3 and then some fuckery occurs and I instantly fall to 7th place and hit pause and restart race because good fucking luck at that point.

I'm playing adventure mode and like on normal these are the starting island first four races and they're taking me 3-4 tries each because of the rng bullshit stuff. Like Mario Kart's first cup is goddamn easy and it eases you in, not this game. On easy difficulty you get so far ahead it doesn't matter, but it's no fun because it's too damn easy.

Like I get cpu fuckery is inherent to Kart racing games and it's why I fucking hate Mario Kart (although I love Wipeout and that has powerups and stuff too, but I feel like if you race great tight lines in Wipeout you can ignore the power-ups and win), so it's not surprising I am deleting the shit out of this game after a couple hours. Great game but not worth the rage. I liked Mario Kart when I was like 10 years old playing split-screen local 4p with friends.

[Bebpo]

I'm like 35 hours into Hajimari no Kiseki and I'm pretty sold at this point that game-design-wise this is the best Trails game ever made by a good deal.

Now since Trails games are like 95% about the story, it likely won't end up the best Trails game overall since the story is good and has nice interactions and legit let's do this highs, but nothing amazing so far. Still won't know this until the end.

But in terms of just fun gameplay, this really feels incredibly well designed and next-level and is the first real jump forward Falcom has done with the series game structure/gameplay design since Trails in the Sky The Third.

The game is like two games in one that are both great and intertwinned. One game is essentially an iterative sequel to The Third's dream-party, character episodes, dungeon crawler, and the other is a great traditional jrpg with 3 different teams doing 3 different interesting things at 3 different locations at all times.

I kinda wish this game was like 200-300 hours long because it just works so well. Gonna be sad when it's over but it honestly seems like a huge thank you to the fans package game to the western Zemuria arc.

I'm pretty sure just like how CS4 retroactively made CS3 worse imo, Hajimari is retroactively making CS4 better. The reason is that when CS4 seemed like the end of the western Zemuria arc and goodbye to all these characters and their subplots...it just didn't pull it off and a lot of characters were mysteriously missing and major events missing and it just didn't deliver. So if we went on to Calvard and new cast members and slow beginnings in Eastern Zemuria arc #1 next game it's just a shitty sour way to end everything that was built up from Sky FC to CS4. But now that CS4 is not the last game, and instead Hajimari is and Hajimari is delivering CS4 works better as just an end to Rean's & the schoolkids story and it's not great but it doesn't sink the overall story, just a kinda weak arc overall.

I have a feeling if Falcom survives for the next decade or two, which I think is very, very debatable at this point as their games just keep losing sales and they can't even afford to hire more employees to port their games to other systems and have to ask license companies to do the work, then I think after the final Trails arc finishes, they'll do another game like this that will be the third and final iteration of The Third. It just makes sense and would be a nice way to finish it all.

Also I still have zero clue what the middle arc in Eastern Zemuria is going to be. Calvard is the first country, churchland Arteria would make sense to be the final country with every church member being present in the final arc vs Oroboros, but if they're going for 3 arcs again, the middle is still we don't even know the rest of the continent and countries on the other side of Calvard so in a few years at least we'll get the rest of the map. I kinda half-expect them to throw off expectations and do Arteria church arc after Calvard and then some place total new for the final arc. They could wipe out the church (or the church could become the villains) which would make the final arc more interesting, while Calvard probably won't be all that interesting off the bat, the setup it brings for the last arcs should be really interesting in a couple years. Calvard should be 2022/2023 (probably a new title or Ys for 2021 from Falcom).