What are you playing?

[Bebpo]

BG2 - So the Underdark is pretty intense no-breather dungeon crawling. Just mobs and mobs of tough enemies. Like, you thought one or two beholders were rough?

How about like 5-6 of them at the same time?



Or like 4 mindflayers and 2 umbar hulks and a boss at the same time? Or Drow Priestesses spamming all kinds of magic shit and protections in large groups?

Thankfully my party is strong enough at this point of the game that I can handle all of this. I buff so many spells pre-battle there's like three rows of symbols in the character portrait. Chaos Commands for status defense, bless/chant for rolls, enchanted weapon to increase the weapons +1, haste, protection from evil, defensive harmony, divine might, etc...

Buffing everyone is pretty much the most boring part of the game after a while. So when my party is buffed I do a leroy jenkins and after I kill the mob I'm buffing for I just kind of run blindly to encounter as many other mobs as I can before my buffs run out so I don't have to rebuff.

[Bebpo]

Just one shotted a demon knight with my buffed MC Paladin. Dang, this feels good to be super strong in BG.

With buffs I'm rolling -11 THAC0 and 22-33 damage per hit at lvl.17 like 2/3rds through the Shadows over Amn campaign. Feels good, especially for a non-fighter kit that has some heals and low level priest spells.

Basically just this 21 STR belt + this +5 holy avenger sword you get from Firkraag and finishing the Paladin stronghold questline.

[Svejk]

Play for an hour of FFXVI, got bored, then spent the rest of my evening on Dragon's Dogma.  Never tried the Maker's Finger arrow... How have I never tried this thing?! The AOE just fingers all the enemy buttholes with a fierceness!  About to fight Grigori for the first time with my Magic Archer run (My old runs, I usually end up as an Assassin.. can't help it). It's awesome to see the pawn community still alive and well after all these years.  Racking up so many RC with folks using my Warrior pawn. Even saw an armor set that I've never seen before.  Next run will probably go full-on Mystic Knight (change pawn to ranger probably).  Jfc I love this game.

[Bebpo]

BG2 got out of the Underdark. Last two chapters now. Underdark was a pretty meaty section. Enjoyed it overall. Very epic game with all the places you visit that are fleshed out.

Doesn't look like there's much new side stuff to do if you've done everything already in chapter 2. So looks like will be finishing this up soonish. Around 73 hours now. Just hit 3M XP and got my first HLA high-level-abilities for a couple people in my party.

[Bebpo]

Baldur's Gate 2

Got to

spoiler (click to show/hide)

HELL

[close]

Will finish it up tomorrow. At 79 hours gametime, so the howlongtobeat estimate of ~80 hours seems spot on.

Really good game, only nitpicks is that combat gets kinda same-y towards the end and you just do the same things every fight and every enemy just has a million protections that you have to remove or wait out and time stop SUCKS. And that I'm mixed on Irenicus as an antagonist. He has a good VA and he's very EVIL MURDER MAN, but at the end now I find the motivations for his grand plan kind of shallow.

Only thing I didn't do was Watcher's Keep dungeon. I did the first floor but decided for pacing reasons I'll finish Shadows over Amn first, then do Watcher's Keep and then do Throne of Bhaal.

[demi]

i played through all the tomb raiders up to Legend because tomb raider rules.

tomb raider 1 (played on emulator!): nice, classic. just so many classic levels.

tomb raider 2 (played on hardware): https://ibb.co/ChjyHNB -- improves on TR1 and the best of the lot to me by far. again, lots of classic levels.

tomb raider 3 (played on hardware): https://ibb.co/6yrWQN0 -- probably the worst one to me. just stupid brutal with all the traps every which way. also went backwards and brought back limited saving, when TR2 had infinite save scumming.

tomb raider 4 (played on hardware): https://ibb.co/5snVKnX -- this one felt like a return to form early on, but the later levels became annoying.

tomb raider 5 (played on hardware): https://i.imgur.com/0H8FRoB.jpg -- short and simple, this was basically a paid DLC on a disc.

tomb raider 6 (played on hardware): https://i.imgur.com/P3jIhmI.jpg -- the infamous angel of darkness, which is pretty much an unfinished rushed game. in modern times this would have been patched and probably salvaged in some form, but back then, you were fucked.

tomb raider 7 (played on hardware): i played the gamecube version because i was curious, but this is a pretty competent port/version. Legend is a good reboot, and the ending scene is still one of the best in the entire series.


after that i wanted MOAR tomb raider so i hooked up the n64 and started to play Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. it scratches the itch. https://ibb.co/pJT1KRW

[Svejk]

Yeah, Tomb Raider 3 was astronomical horseshit compared to the first two.

[Polident Hive]

To this day I’m annoyed they never made Anniversary 2.

[Himu]

I've never played TR1 besides on a friends pc. I'd like to play 1 and 2. Iirc they're on Steam.

[Bebpo]

To this day I’m annoyed they never made Anniversary 2.

Yeah, me too.

[Svejk]

Bout time they make a TR Collection.  Totally down for that.

[Himu]

oldschool TR is dead though

[bork]

Bout time they make a TR Collection.  Totally down for that.

If you want to play the old games, just grab them on PC on the cheap or use emulators.  The only thing missing are the two DLC levels in TR Underworld that were only on Xbox 360.  But I guess emulating that is not an issue anymore either?

[Coax]

Give us another game in the Lara Croft (not TR) series  Fun horde shooting, old school puzzles and classic Lara.

[Svejk]

oldschool TR is dead though

Well, going by that supposed leak of the new Tomb Raiders reboot script, TR is completely dead. 

Yeah the controls for old school TR are a chore for today's hand holdy standards.  But man, what awesome platforming sections and puzzles.  That atmosphere too.

To this day I’m annoyed they never made Anniversary 2.

Always wanted to try the first one.  Looked great.

[demi]

i also want to figure out how to use a capture card and maybe stream some of these old consoles on twitch. just for fun, of course

[Bebpo]

So, yeah, finished Baldur's Gate 2 last night. Definitely one of the best crpgs I've played.

Really the best thing it has going for it is that it's actually a big long adventure, something a lot of rpgs, especially in modern day, lack; and that the combat in that D&D lvl.9-21 phase is quite good and strategic and fun. So great adventure + great combat + good party members + lots of quests and side stuff to do = pretty great rpg.

I think my top3 crpgs are now like Fallout 2/BG2/New Vegas. Pillars of Eternity 1 is pretty close though, but lacks the epic scope. And as much as I like Planescape Torment, I'm kind of bothered by the fact I only played it for the first time like like 3-4 years ago and I can hardly remember anything about it because it just didn't stick with me particularly.

BG2 is the first wrpg that I feel like I may actually replay someday because it's just super fun and there's enough companions that you can do things a bit different on replay (plus mods to change up the content)

After FF16, was nice playing a real rpg with actual stuff to do in the world and good combat.

Will start on Throne of Bhaal soon, then jump into BG3.

[Bebpo]

I've been slogging through BG2 - Throne of Bhaal almost done. Just one more dungeon slog and final bosses.

This game.fucking.sucks. Easily the worst crpg I've ever played and is just a really tedious unfun expansion. The story sucks, the characters and dialogue suck, the questing sucks, the combat is tedious af with this broken tier AD&D where every enemy group requires boss level buffing and bosses are stupid.

If I hadn't put:

40 hours into BG1
20 hours into BG1 Siege of Dragonspear
80 hours into BG2

I'd have quit ToB completely, but at this point might as well see it through to the end. Been playing it straight the whole time, but tonight at Draconis/Abzigail, I just said fuck this game and flipped to story mode and will just blow through the rest on story mode for the ending because I just don't have the patience or care anymore. Maybe if the story was interesting or engaging it would make all the battle prep and retries worth it, but the story sucks so there's no motivation to put the effort in for these fights. Just a huge waste of time. Shitty fucking expansion.

Also has burned me off playing BG3. I'm very over AD&D right now. Will go play other stuff for a few months and when I'm over the annoyance of Throne of Bhaal I'll pick up and play BG3.

[HardcoreRetro]

Finished The Last Guardian a few days back. Easily the worst of the Team Ico stuff.

Trico sometimes not listening is awful game design. It made me rule out options even if they were the correct one. You end up looking up a longplay and then see that the first thing you tried was the thing you needed to do. Trico was just being a little cunt.

[archnemesis]

I agree that The Last Guardian is quite a lot worse than the first two games. Still, it was one of my favorite games that year.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, it's worse than Ico/SoTC, but those are very memorable genre-defining games so it's a high standard.

The Last Guardian is more like just...a game. I enjoyed it, it was a solid 8/10 with pretty art, but years later I can't remember a single moment from it whereas I remember most of Ico/SoTC and have replayed each a few times over the years.

While all three games have simplistic gameplay, they tried to do too much with the AI Trico stuff and it's the one game where their simplistic programming skill actually detriments the game.

Very pretty journey though with some good feels. I've got no hate for TLG. If they remaster it at some point I'll probably give it one more play.

[Joe Molotov]

Been playing a lot of Holocure on my Steam Deck. Also beat Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, which is a pretty solid VN about curses and folklore.

[Bebpo]

Finished Throne of Bhaal. Yeah, game sucks, glad to be done with it.

Basically fan fiction unnecessary short sequel to a great game (BG2). I should've figured once Sarevok shows up at the start this was all going to be nonsense.

[demi]

Playing Yakuza: Ishin - not really a fan of this one. Combat isnt that fun and the world isnt that interesting.

That said I got a capture card so I can stream old games on twitch when I get the itch to play something. Drop me a follow and come hang out if you see me on - twitch.tv/frostitution

[Himu]

Yeah I played the demo and skipped because the combat was doo doo

[Bebpo]

Finally decided to play Metroid Dread because I'm over anything slow and talky for a bit. Just got the Varia suit, about 3 areas in.

The chase sequences are so incredibly bad with their insta-death game overs they are really close to ruining the whole game. How Nintendo let Mercurysteam put this shit in is beyond me.

Bosses seem like they've got too much HP and the map design is pretty confusing and no quick way to get from one side of an area to another.

Otherwise seems like a decent metroidvania that's breezy to blow through a in a few days, but yeah, I'm not much of a fan of Mercurysteam. Hopefully retro does better with Metroid Prime IV.

[Bebpo]

I think I'm like halfway now. The map design is so weird and convoluted in this. Like if I actually had to explore and figure things out on my own I'd be so lost.

But the game is basically linear on-rails in how it just guides you on a very specific path from teleporter to transport to boss to powerup etc...

I mean I'm having fun, but the map design just seems like a total mess, the boss fights are meh so far and every E.M.M.I. bit sucks.

[Bebpo]

Got to the final boss, probably go grab some energy tanks tomorrow since kinda getting tired of every boss doing 1-2 energy tanks of damage per hit, then finish it. No real motivation in this one to try to get all the missile/powerbomb upgrades for 100%.

Game is a weak metroid, but even a weak metroid is pretty good fun. Enjoyed it but game has a lot of dumb stuff. Will never play this again in the future.

[Svejk]

Yeah, after finishing Metroid 5, I told myself; "I'll probably never want to play that over again."
I guess we all should just be thankful that Nintendo released a 2.5D Metroidvania? 
I don't get why Nintendo gives Mercury Steam such a reach around.

[Bebpo]

I guess we all should just be thankful that Nintendo released a 2.5D Metroidvania? 

I mean, aren't most Metroids released 2.5D these days?

Wasn't the last one before Dread, Samus Returns on 3DS? Then I guess Other M (which I didn't play since everyone hated it), and before that was either Prime 3 or one of the GBA ones. We don't talk about that FPS Hunters game. And Metroid Pinball, while it rocks, is also kind of an exception.

But yeah, Dread kinda flipped the decision for whenever I'm ready to play a Metroid 2 remake, I'm going to go with AM2R over Samus Returns because just not a big fan of Mercurysteam.

[Bebpo]

Going through today and grabbing collectibles, I enjoy the game more now, having all the powerups and no EMMIs to deal with and just exploring and platforming challenges.

Though as smooth as movement is, some of the controls are real wonky. Some of the shinespark storing crap they want you to do to get some of these collectibles isn't hard in concept but execution is way more difficult than it should be because the controls fucking up most of the time.

I'm basically grabbing everything because it's fun, unless it's just too bullshit after 10 mins of tries and then I move on.

[Bebpo]

Got all the energy tanks, like 75% of the missiles/bombs collectibles, took down the final boss.
Dread was ok. Not terrible, not amazing. Like 8-8.5/10. If it didn't have the dumb EMMI robo segments it'd be a 9/10. I guess it's Mercurysteam's best game so far, but still not up there with the main 1st party Nintendo devs.

[demi]

Played Star Wars: Republic Commando on Series X. I loved this game as a kid, but maybe I was thinking of a different game because this one was.... fine? There were also crazy difficulty spikes that basically required me to rush through.

My brief playthrough (about 5 hours, before I had to go to bed): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1910440978

[Bebpo]

Started playing Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed and yeah, I dunno about the story and even the combat is just sorta fine but a bit old and slow by now, but the ubisoft gameplay is soooo good here. Love how they made all the sub-systems work together and it's fun & rewarding exploring and going around doing checklist stuff and getting your party stronger.

They basically fixed every annoying thing about XB3 except they forgot to fix the accessories bloat and lack of good sorting. Oh well there.

Wish base XB3 had all this stuff. They should do a director's cut that incorporates the checklists and affinity goals system back into base XB3. Hopefully they take all their UI lessons learned here into their next game.

Played Star Wars: Republic Commando on Series X. I loved this game as a kid, but maybe I was thinking of a different game because this one was.... fine? There were also crazy difficulty spikes that basically required me to rush through.

My brief playthrough (about 5 hours, before I had to go to bed): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1910440978

Yeah, I never played this. Sounds like it doesn't really hold up, so don't think I'll bother.

[demi]

Power Rangers Day was yesterday, so I sat down and did an entire playthrough of the MMPR games on SNES and Genesis.

After playing them all, I think the SNES Movie game surprised me the most! Though the Genesis Music just goes so hard

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1911346380

[tiesto]

Power Rangers Day was yesterday, so I sat down and did an entire playthrough of the MMPR games on SNES and Genesis.

After playing them all, I think the SNES Movie game surprised me the most! Though the Genesis Music just goes so hard

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1911346380

Did you play Choujin Sentai Jetman for Famicom? Pretty fun game if you're into Natsume's NES stuff.

[Bebpo]

Bought the Horizon 2 Expansion - Burning Shores since I figured I'd play that and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk next after finishing Xenoblade 3 Expansion - Future Redeemed which was fun, but short and the story is nonsense mostly.

I played like two hours of Burning Shores and I had very little fun. Even though I put 90 hours into Horizon 2 and 100%'d it, it's been too long and I don't remember the combat strategies and without remembering what elements to use on what enemies or what weapons are good or what armors are good or which specialist abilities are useful, the combat is kind of a pain. The expansion doesn't really ease you into it at all.

I think all expansions that come out like 1-2 years after the main game should have a mini-tutorial easy intro because people aren't going to remember this shit.

I figure I can either story mode it or put it down and come back another time and spend a day reading all the training tips to re-learn how to play the game. Dunno. The story stuff isn't really grabbing me though the graphics are still really damn impressive and best character models this gen.

Eh, maybe I'll just skip this and Bombrush and just start on Baldur's 3.

[demi]

They made a game based on a Netflix show, so I started to play One Piece Odyssey

It's... fine. Has graphics that remind me of DQXI, the combat is pretty simple, and they do some weird rules regarding enemy strength.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1920713832

I kinda want to play Star Ocean on PS4 to get ready for Star Ocean 2R

[Bebpo]

Yo demi, I saw on era you beat Sea of Stars. I put a couple nights into this and I'm at the part with the pirate group in the town on the 2nd island after getting the wind block pushing ability.

Every time I play this I feel like I should drop it. I don't think I've had any fun yet in the game. I find the battles awful and boring and I started running past every enemy I could just to skip them, the characters/story are dull and the field/dungeon design is dull.

I'm basically just playing it for the music and sprite art at this point.

If I kinda heavily dislike this game at this point, does anything change soon that would change my mind? Just seems like a boring ass mid 7/10 rpg with nice graphics/music.

They made a game based on a Netflix show, so I started to play One Piece Odyssey

It's... fine. Has graphics that remind me of DQXI, the combat is pretty simple, and they do some weird rules regarding enemy strength.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1920713832

I kinda want to play Star Ocean on PS4 to get ready for Star Ocean 2R

Yeah, I tried the Odyssey demo but was pretty unimpressed even as a One Piece fan. Felt like a very mid rpg with nice graphics.

[demi]

Sea of Stars is a mid 6/10 RPG with nice graphics, so yes just drop it if it's not exciting you

Today is Dreamcast birthday (9/9/99) so I am going to play random Dreamcast games on stream

[Bebpo]

Need to find a game that’s pure fun. Last few things I’ve tried just haven’t been very fun and engaging (burning shores, throne of bhaal, sea of stars).

Picked up Baldur’s Gate 3, Bombrush Cyberfunk, Chained Echoes, Astralibra, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood.

Will dabble in them this weekend. Hopefully something in there is fun.
Need a fun gameplay game, even playing the intro of BG3 I was bored with all the jank cutscenes interrupting the gameplay.

[Bebpo]

I did kinda enjoy the bit I played of Road 96 last night though. Reminded me of Where the Water Tastes like Wine where it's just about strange encounters across the world.

I do wish Road 96 wasn't set in some fictional country with fictional politics and was a trek across the USA or another real world country though. Fictional politics always feel too phoned in without nuance.

[Himu]

Road 96 is really good. It's repetitive but I found that it had a lot of good despite that.



From my playthrough

Nah I think the politics was too on the nose. It was obvious it was USA and Trump adjacent.

[Bebpo]

Nah I think the politics was too on the nose. It was obvious it was USA and Trump adjacent.

Yeah, this is what I mean. I don't like that and I feel like the majority of videogames with fake politics are exactly like this.

[Bebpo]

And yeah, like this was a nice moment with the music playing (all the music choices have been great so far).



Will probably stick with Road 96.

[Himu]

Honestly Road 96 made me feel like an RPG that's about trying to make it to the border of a fascist country would be amazing. You go through it with so many characters that crossing the border stops to feel special at times and depending on how you play you may have an easy time or a hard time for that character at that moment. A game with a higher budget, about a character or characters trying to get over the border would be amazing. I'd love for it to take place in North Korea. Raise the stakes and make it super survival where combat is a legitimate threat because you're outgunned and make it heavy in resource management. Fuck yes.

[demi]

Dreamcast porn for 9/9/99

https://i.imgur.com/b3C7j63.jpg

[Himu]

Play Final Fantasy VIII to celebrate too

[demi]

I got interested after playing some Blue Stinger and Carrier that I downloaded all the Blair Witch games on PC. I've never really played these, and they play kind of like survival horror games.

https://www.myabandonware.com/game/blair-witch-volume-i-rustin-parr-c5k

It seems to run fine on Win11, but there are weird quirks where cutscenes dont play out, or doors dont open until you spam the action. Will see how far I can get

[Beezy]

Need to find a game that’s pure fun.

AC6

[Bebpo]

Need to find a game that’s pure fun.

AC6

Yeah, gonna wait for sale on that one. BG3 and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk are enough full price purchases for now.

[chronovore]

Started Star Wars: Fallen Order, the older one not the broken one. Cleared the QTE laden tutorial, and the first Vault. It’s okay so far. I wondered how they would bolt on the Dark Souls gameplay to this license. It feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the license to create Souls-like and have it be constantly chugging, not particularly lethal (early gameplay, I may later eat those words), and floaty traversal.

It feels like a Star Wars story though, so I’ll keep at it.

[Polident Hive]

Need to find a game that’s pure fun. Last few things I’ve tried just haven’t been very fun and engaging (burning shores, throne of bhaal, sea of stars).

Picked up Baldur’s Gate 3, Bombrush Cyberfunk, Chained Echoes, Astralibra, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood.

Will dabble in them this weekend. Hopefully something in there is fun.
Need a fun gameplay game, even playing the intro of BG3 I was bored with all the jank cutscenes interrupting the gameplay.

Whenever I get in that mood, which frankly I’m in now, I dive into arcade games. Spinning the wheel and playing a random MAME entry usually leads to something fun. Into the gameplay after 10 seconds and games typically last 30 minutes.

[Pissy F Benny]

Started Star Wars: Fallen Order, the older one not the broken one. Cleared the QTE laden tutorial, and the first Vault. It’s okay so far. I wondered how they would bolt on the Dark Souls gameplay to this license. It feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the license to create Souls-like and have it be constantly chugging, not particularly lethal (early gameplay, I may later eat those words), and floaty traversal.

It feels like a Star Wars story though, so I’ll keep at it.

Its a very 7.5 game from what I played, I think it got overrated a bit because of the graphics and that it was a decent single player only game from EA, who hadn't released one  in about 10 years at that point.

[Svejk]

Besides being horribly broken on PS4 back then, I thought Fallen Order was a solid Star War.  Besides the crashing and bugginess, my only gripe was the lack of any fast travel.  Trekking through an entire level just to come back to a certain spot was way too tedious.   I loaded up the PS5 upgraded one and it looked and played a million times better.  Waiting for the follow up to hit that level of polish.  Supposedly a recent update did just that, but have yet to see.

[Nintex]

It was a fun and great looking game overall that punched above its weight on Xbox One X / PS4 Pro. Sort of a mix between reboot Tomb Raider and Dark Souls. I just don't see the sequel potential.

[tiesto]

Beat Trails into Reverie the other day, now onto the (apparently quite sizeable) postgame. I liked it, the amount of customization of party, equipment, and quartz was really fun... though the story seems a bit meh (yay, Crossbell independence plot point AGAIN) and the gameplay balance is weird - you can absolutely obliterate regular enemies, but then barely defeat a boss after 20 min straight of battle. The hardest boss in the game is at the end of the first reverie corridor (with the second hardest at the end of Lloyd's chapter 3). The pacing is actually really good for a Trails game, you're not bogged down in too many cutscenes, no slow paced town scenes, just a lot of dungeon action and fun minigames.

Really enjoyed it overall, a nice palate cleanser after CS4. Now to wrap up the postgame and wait with bated breath for Kuro.

[Bebpo]

Finished Horizon 2 - The Burning Shores

Ehhhh, it was...decent. Looks amazing, combat against machines still pretty fun.

But pretty boring map without much to explore/do. The writing in the expansion is really goddamn awful, the antagonist is terrible all the way. The final boss is pretty awful too and basically a jank ass fight that prioritizes graphics and spectacle over playability.

Even though it's a short expansion, didn't bother doing all the side stuff as it was pretty dull and just felt like a waste of time. Even the flying feels pretty bad in Horizon 2 with how slow it is and clunky controls.

For Horizon 3 I sure hope Guerilla focuses on tightening up their gameplay and hiring a better script writer. The scenario story is interesting and they've got the visuals down. Just needs to get the gameplay back to Frozen Wastes tightness. That's still the best Horizon game.

[Polident Hive]

I keep wavering on Horizon 2. By the end of the first (+DLC) on PS5, I was done with the gameplay loop. But the story was pretty interesting. One day I could see returning to it, when that fatigue dies down. That, and I read it’s coming to PC. So that’s an easier sell.

[The Sceneman]

Started Armored Core 6. Game is excellent so far! Love the combat and I'm really pumped to get my hands on the array of weaponry that has been promised. Handler Walter