What are you playing?

[tiesto]

Anyways Bebs, to get back to your point about "church bad", what do you think of the theory that the grandmaster of Ouroboros is

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aidios

[close]

I dunno, there's really no information yet on any of this stuff as it's like final game in the series reveal stuff.

The only reason I mention the church could end up being "bad" is just because it's like the most tropey trope of tropes in jrpgs so it's always a possibility. That being said, all the church members we've encountered in the games so far have been VERY MUCH GOOD GUYS so for that to happen it'd need to be some type of church vs church kinda thing which honestly I don't think is going to happen. So because all these church fellows & gals are good in a sometimes anti-hero way like best guy Kevin, still think Church will end up being good in this franchise.

Which would also kinda go against the theory you posted since the church worships Aidos as the god of their religion.

My running theory has been that Oroboros & The Church are headed by two people from before the ancient civilization fall ~1200 years ago and the two people both founded different groups and have opposing views on the future of modern Zemuria. But even that's a very light theory since I'm just going off both groups have access to hi-tech ancient civilization technology and know about the goddess treasures/artifacts. Oroboros wants to do experiments with them towards some goal of doing something whereas the church wants to safekeep them all and at least from their word wants to do nothing with them other than keep them safe from individual hands.


That being said, out of all the running mysteries in the series, the mystery that I find the most interesting which started way back in Sky SC the moment when

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wiseman has an 100% invulnerable shield up and then Rave (uh, I forget what his English localization is, Joshua's brother, in JP it's pronounced Rave which is a way cooler name) uses his Divine Weapon and cuts through it because the Divine Weapons don't have to follow the physical law of the universe.

[close]

That last bit about the Divine Weapons which are pulled from "somewhere" is probably the coolest & most original mystery thread in the series. Everything else in the game can be explained from ancient pre-fall technology or demons and astral shit, but weapons that literally are from somewhere outside of the universe is going into straight Xeno~ territory and I'm always excited to get more hints on where they are going with that. I wonder if they're going to pull a Xenoblade style

spoiler (click to show/hide)

sci-fi expirement gone wrong creating the universe Zemuria is in

[close]

At least in CS2 we got a bit more of a tease about them

spoiler (click to show/hide)

During the McBurn fight where he pulls one out and Emma calls him on it and he gets really defensive & secretive about where it's from.

[close]

Maybe Hajimari will throw some more info in as well later on, but I feel like that's gonna be a pretty tightly kept secret until the end of the series as well. Especially if it leads to the backstory of the creation of the universe.

Rave? Heh yeah that's a much better name... we got Loewe (prounced loo-VAY), which makes me think of a movie theater and not a villain

[paprikastaude]

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.

Nah, it's on you in Crash singleplayer. It's got much fairer item balance than Mario Kart, not even a contest. However, it's also much harder and they really want you to know the mechanics, which are more skill based than MK.

[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.

Nah, it's on you in Crash singleplayer. It's got much fairer item balance than Mario Kart, not even a contest. However, it's also much harder and they really want you to know the mechanics, which are more skill based than MK.

Yet when I'm not in 1st place I get a rocket spam behind me every 3 seconds until I'm in last    and yeah I know you can block the rockets with items which is what I do when I'm in 1st and keep them on me, but early on anywhere in the middle is like non-stop rocket spamming and it's bullshit.

[chronovore]

Finished the Spider-Man DLCs

I never want to fight another group of enemies in Spider-Man again. Holy shit did the DLC go insane with the enemy marathon in the bases. Like 200 guys in a row each base, and then you have the screwball fight challenges which are enemy marathons and then the main story is a lot of enemy marathons and the entire thing just feels like nothing but fighting the same 4-5 enemy types in enemy marathons over and over and over and over and over and yeah I am burnt the fuck out.

The story stuff in the DLCs was pretty good, I actually thought the first DLC was the best because Black Cat >>>>>>>> Silver Sable >>>>>> Hammerhead/Captain Watanabe. Lots of good writing along the way, funny lines, great VA, good cutscenes. Enjoyed the story 100% and it was a pretty solid length expansion with all 3 combined.

Some of the side stuff that was not MORE BASES or the stupid screwball challenges was solid. I liked the hidden paintings side story in DLC1 (again why DLC1 was the best) and the story it told. The final audio recorder search in DLC3 was solid too and I guess setup for future game stuff.

Anyhow it's a very good game, but Insomniac needs to work on some design beyond just "fight a bunch of mobs" and the Miles game better not be tons of mob rushes like this, especially on the side stuff. Otherwise looking forward to the Miles game, especially for the story stuff and NYC at xmas.

I finished up the main game, played the first DLC and liked it, but when I got to the hammerhead second DLC stuff, I was somewhere between bored and overwhelmed.

It’s this weird dead zone in the middle of “being in the flow.” I felt like I was in the flow throughout the entire main game. Then the Screwball Challenges in the DLC really started testing the limits of my patience. They exposed problems in the control scheme, poor instructions for gadget challenges, and questionable paths for EMP races. It added up to make me feel less like a hero and more like an incompetent newb, despite having finished the main game.

I might adjust the difficulty just to finish DLC 2 and 3. But there’s part of me that feels like I’m super done already.

I’ve started playing PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, which I am really enjoying.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I mean if you can hold back on that feeling of having to do everything, it's probably best just to do the main story missions in the DLCs. It's an enjoyable little story, though I think the first DLC is the best because the Black Cat x Spider-Man dynamic is fun.

[Bebpo]

Played the demo for Carto that came in this month's humble choice bundle. It's a neat idea where you move around the tiles of the world map to make people appear and things happen, but seemed like it was kinda dull beyond a nice art style and that. Finished the whole demo but probably wouldn't play the game. Needed another layer to the gameplay.



A few weeks ago my internet curiosity took me to a page on Discworld Noir, a game that I surprisingly had never heard of even though I feel like I've played 90% of all point n' click adventure games from 1980->2001. I never knew there was a Grim Fandango-esque 3d point n' click Noir adventure game about Discworld.

And that it was abandonware and not available anywhere but available on non-shady abandonware sites in full.

Finally tried installing it and other than having to change the desktop resolution to 800x600 to make the mouse cursor appear, it seems to play fine. Played some tonight and it's enjoyable. It still plays fine and the music is great and VA is pretty good. Writing is ok, sometimes clever, sometimes not so much. Art style is a bit ugly (it's no Grim Fandango) but it's not bad. Liking it so far, might stick with this the whole way through, especially if it's not too long.

Couple of write ups on it which generally say the same thing aka. not much in puzzles, mostly just a talking to people game, but still pretty likeable adventure game.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-11-retrospective-discworld-noir-article

https://transmithim.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/discworld-noir-52-weeks-of-adventure-games-week-9/

[Rufus]

Last time I played Noir I used DxWnd alongside dgVoodoo to make it work.

There is a fan fix, but it appears to have a few issues. It sounds like your copy already includes it?
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=64638

There's another site (Collection Chamber) that does what GOG won't. They went so far as to package it with an instance of Win 95 running on PCem.
While we're at it, bookmark Zomb's Lair. The guy also packages old games and puts them on Archive.org.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, the no cd launcher included the latest fan fix it seems. Will check out collection chamber and zomb's lair.

[MMaRsu]

I always wanted to play Discworld Noir so I'll have to check that out too

[team filler]

thebore.com for ages filler and up

[tiesto]

Played through Vice: Project Doom the other day. It's highly reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden, with the occasional Spy Hunter-esque driving scene and an Operation Wolf-esque first person shooting mode. The graphics are lovely, music has its moments but is mostly repetitive and drowned out by the sound effects which cut the channels. The level design in some parts feels extremely reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden (2 specifically), like one area with a train and thunder that brightens a normally dark screen (basically combines levels 2-1 and 3-1 of Ninja Gaiden 2), then you have another level based on 4-2 from NG2. But the enemy design is pretty haphazard, as you get to the later levels, the designers just clutter the screen with a million enemies no rhyme or reason. The final boss took me a bit because if you die you get sent back fairly far and it's not all that easy to get up to him... but eventually I beat it once I got the penultimate and the final boss' patterns down. Cutscenes are pretty nice and the story has some interesting moments, but it doesn't feel as fleshed out as its inspiration.

It's surprisingly not too expensive for a late-release NES game, it's worth at least giving a try to.

[Bebpo]

Finished The Blackwell Deception. Game 4 of 5 in Dave Gilbert/Wadjet Eye's Blackwell Noir adventure series. Never got around to finishing the series and felt in the mood for some adventure gaming. Was solid, but didn't think it was great and some of the puzzles drove me nuts. A lot of it was just setup for the final game The Blackwell Epiphany which I just started and spritework/art is a big step up.

Also finished Act I in Discworld Noir. Still liking it other than it being ugly. The writing is pretty hit & miss, but there's some funny lines throughout and the VA for the main guy is great (the Blackwell series also has real good VA).

Kinda fun playing a couple Noir Point n' Click games. Noir is always pretty enjoyable with that jazzy music and gumshoe detectives.

[chronovore]

Yeah, I mean if you can hold back on that feeling of having to do everything, it's probably best just to do the main story missions in the DLCs. It's an enjoyable little story, though I think the first DLC is the best because the Black Cat x Spider-Man dynamic is fun.

I went into Hammerhead DLC, was doing the stories, but then tried a base battle a couple times, and was cheap-shotted to death TWICE after clearing the additional win-conditions each time. I ended up rage-deleting the game. Done. Super-duper spider-done.

Edit: Guess I wasn't alone -
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpidermanPS4/comments/9yth68/hammerhead_dlc_too_hard/

[Bebpo]

Yeah, that's a reasonable reaction to the bases.

Really hope Miles chills down on the base waves.

[demi]

Finished Yakuza 3, and completely could have skipped that one

Yakuza 4 already looks better at least

[Bebpo]

Finished Yakuza 3, and completely could have skipped that one

Yakuza 4 already looks better at least

 

I liked it when I played it last year for the first time. It's not top-tier Yakuza, but I liked the Okinawa locale & questing, the bad guy was solid and the story was entertaining and had some good bits.

Might've helped that it was the first Yakuza game I'd played in like 5-6 years since I took a break, so wasn't burnt out on the formula.

[Positive Touch]

funny, i just finished Yakuza 2 last nite. been wanting to do that for 12 fucking years now, and i gotta say it was still worth the wait. even tho it was cranked out in a year and reuses the same map it still manages to feel incredibly fun and fast-paced.

i'm sure it helps that random battles disappear when you're overleveled and that loading times are improved by a trillion, but in general the combat was really fun and satisfying. overall game difficulty was down from the first one, as the bosses were much easier and there were loads and loads of items to get from the lockers. the sidequests might have been the weakest point, with the big hosting game and restaurant management ones feeling like a slog (and having a 38 year old former Yakuza boss decide to become a host on a whim - come on man).

i liked the story, the villain was good and cheesy, and the melodrama scenes with the cop were enjoyable and a bit better than what you'd usually see in a video game while still being kinda silly and over the top. the constant korea hate was a lot, especially when they had to keep saying they were worse than animals or whatever. other than that it was all good, with the endless stream of over-the-top plot twists and enjoyable and memorable scenes.

i wanna move on to 3 soon, but tbh i might go back to 2 and finish up the sidequests and maybe do a hard mode run. the game is fun enough that i don't wanna walk away just yet.

[demi]

Finished Yakuza 3, and completely could have skipped that one

Yakuza 4 already looks better at least

 

I liked it when I played it last year for the first time. It's not top-tier Yakuza, but I liked the Okinawa locale & questing, the bad guy was solid and the story was entertaining and had some good bits.

Might've helped that it was the first Yakuza game I'd played in like 5-6 years since I took a break, so wasn't burnt out on the formula.

The whole Kid thing was pretty dumb, most of the game was dealing with those brats and their insecurities

Not sure which bad guy you thought was solid, he was pretty much as one note as every Yakuza villain so far haha

"I'm the final boss! But in a final turn I will do something that will attempt to redeem me as a kinda sorta good guy! But I'm dead anyway fuck it"

[tiesto]

Was playing Joe and Mac for SNES, I think the game still looks great for an early-1992 SNES game, backgrounds are colorful and vibrant. Made it to the second to last (?) stage and then ran out of continues, which sucked.

Also started playing through Super Castlevania 4, I think the farthest I ever made it was to the first castle stage (where you're jumping on the swinging chandeliers), last night I was slightly buzzed and managed to make it to stage 8, the catacombs.

And continuing on my BOF2 playthrough, now inside the tree's dream... game is warming up to me even though it's still grindy af. I like the goofy and unique scenarios the game presents, like shrinking down and entering an obese princess's body to defeat "fattys", or collecting gross insect ingredients for a meal for a cooking contest with a group of frogs that act like French stereotypes...

[Bebpo]

Finished Yakuza 3, and completely could have skipped that one

Yakuza 4 already looks better at least

 

I liked it when I played it last year for the first time. It's not top-tier Yakuza, but I liked the Okinawa locale & questing, the bad guy was solid and the story was entertaining and had some good bits.

Might've helped that it was the first Yakuza game I'd played in like 5-6 years since I took a break, so wasn't burnt out on the formula.

The whole Kid thing was pretty dumb, most of the game was dealing with those brats and their insecurities

Not sure which bad guy you thought was solid, he was pretty much as one note as every Yakuza villain so far haha

"I'm the final boss! But in a final turn I will do something that will attempt to redeem me as a kinda sorta good guy! But I'm dead anyway fuck it"

I don't remember the kids being bad, but it might be a take it or leave it thing if kid stuff in games annoys you. I mean since the first game Yakuza has been partly a dad sim with Haruka.

And I just remember the boss guy being pretty cool/badass, not as cool as Ryuji in Yakuza #2, but not bad at all.

I liked it /shrug

Still haven't started Yakuza 4 yet. I think I need at least 2 year breaks between each of these games since they're so similar. Though I'll probably play 7 next since at least it plays different.

[Bebpo]

Almost done with Hajimari no Kiseki, unlocked the final dungeon and the game map is like "hey now you can go everywhere in the world and there's new NPC dialogue in every screen", and I've unlocked all the 3rd style doors & mini-games, but I've only watched five doors so far out of

spoiler (click to show/hide)

18

[close]

total, and they're decently long around 20-30 mins each. So probably gonna take another 5-10 hours to talk to all NPCs and watch the rest of the doors and then figure a few hours of final dungeon & cutscenes so maybe 10-15 hours left. Should finish it by mid-week.

I'm around 60 hours now, so probably 70-75 hour game, which is shorter than the 100 hour+ Cold Steel 3/4 games, but then this one doesn't have any questing so it still feels moderate length. It's not short, but not hugely epic either. The game's biggest fault is that the story is just a filler sequel story like when they make sequels to movies/anime that didn't need sequels so they just gotta make up some new situation to deal with. It's entertaining and provides a lot of good character interactions and epilogue wrap up for Cold Steel series and the Crossbell series (the game is more Crossbell game #3 than Cold Steel game #5, I have no idea how that will work in the west with no Crossbell still).

At this point before all the final dungeon crazy shit that usually goes down in a Trails game, I'd say the story is like a 7.5/10 and the rest of the game design is pretty much perfect for a Kiseki game. If this had an exciting, intriguing or emotional story on the quality of Kevin's story in The 3rd rather than a filler low-stakes side story, it'd probably be one of the best games in the series. Can't judge how the doors compare to the 3rd since I still need to watch the bulk of the them, but I do appreciate there's no unlock requirements this time around since some of those mini-games in The 3rd were brutal to unlock the doors.

Also the story in this one is kind of really weird in the explanations, like almost jump the shark kind of weirdness for a side story they will waive away and most likely never mention in the future games. There's been a lot of mumbo jumbo shit in the previous games, especially in Cold Steel, but this is like the most out there. I feel like the story is straight out of a Super Robot Wars game or something as in hokey B-movie sci-fi. Ys IX's story is much better than this and all 4 Cold Steel game stories.

[tiesto]

Does Hajimari re-use a lot of the assets from CS1-4 or is it self-contained? One thing that frustrated me about Sky 3rd was how much was reused (especially in chapter 6)

[Bebpo]

Does Hajimari re-use a lot of the assets from CS1-4 or is it self-contained? One thing that frustrated me about Sky 3rd was how much was reused (especially in chapter 6)

There's almost no new locations or characters in the entire game. Just like 3rd.

Most of the new areas are areas from the Crossbell games (Zero/Ao) that didn't make it into CS3/4. Basically they've remade the entire Crossbell world in 3d at this point. Which is interesting because with like 75%+ of all the character models/npc models/town/city/dungeon models in Zero/Ao remade in the engine if they weren't such a small company it'd almost make sense for them to remake Zero/Ao on the new engine so they could finally have a version to sell in the west.

But if you've played Zero/Ao/CS1-4 there's definitely a bit of lack of adventure & exploration since it's all just areas you've been too and characters you know (mostly). Which still works like it did in 3rd and is fine, but it does get me a little excited for Calvard's entirely new country and locations to explore.

[tiesto]

I haven't played Zero/Ao yet (waiting for official English versions, hoping those ports get announced for the west, if not I'll go Geofront), so the areas will feel pretty new I think.

Anyways - time to storm the church in BOF2!

[Bebpo]

Had my best run in Hades and got to a boss in Elysium thanks to get a build setup. 25-35 mins in and then it crashed



There goes all that time. Roguelikes 

[Bebpo]

Got to Underworld a couple of runs later and got wrecked with all the poison and stuff ><

[MMaRsu]

I need to get in on Hades I think

[kingv]

Got to Underworld a couple of runs later and got wrecked with all the poison and stuff ><

I got to the surface once and died on the boss there when he was almost dead. Had a godly build

[Nintex]

74 stars

Shifty Sand Land is garbage

[paprikastaude]

Bomberman Tournament - How on earth did I never hear anyone talk about there being a Zelda game with Bomberman?  This is cool, even if not too deep. Worst part was the running speed in the beginning, but thankfully that improves after the first dungeon.

[tiesto]

Up to the final dungeon in BOF2, but the guide I'm following says I need to do some SERIOUS grindan... so time to get on that. Also gonna start Legend of Dragoon soon.

[Positive Touch]

i'm interested to hear your take on dragoon; the only people i've ever heard praise it were ones who were kids when they played it

[tiesto]

i'm interested to hear your take on dragoon; the only people i've ever heard praise it were ones who were kids when they played it

Yeah I hear so many divisive opinions about it... either "one of the best games ever" or "mediocre af", but I do love that PS1-era prerendered background aesthetic. It's supposedly one of the best selling RPGs ever in America, it's hard to believe I never bothered with it back in the day (maybe some reviews turned me off?).

And back to game playing - I beat Sonic Chaos for the Master System. The levels felt super short and empty, and the jump physics were weird (especially since the screen jumped forward a few pixels whenever you turned). I didn't get all the chaos emeralds so I got the bad ending... some of the music was cool though.

[paprikastaude]

Mega Man Zero 4 - Was looking forward to finish the series with what many claim is the best entry. At first I was very glad to see the difficulty back. Level design is great. But now it's getting so hard, I don't know if I'm just playing wrong. Particularly because there's some kind of crafting system that's extremely shitty and intransparent. I am certain that I need fundamental power-ups at this point, but no one tells you how to build them. Not interested in cheesing through games with save states either - annoying as fuck.

Bomberman Tournament - Got timed bombs Making a Zelda progression system out of Bomberman's usual power-ups fits pretty well.

[Bebpo]

Beat Hajimari no Kiseki. Took me the entire week and about 8 hours to talk to every NPC again in the world, that was pretty boring and then about 6 hours finishing up the doors/mini-games/fishing log. Did the final dungeon today which had a million cutscenes and finished a bit over 78 hours.

Just have the post-game final door episode to watch aka the only one with heavy foreshadowing like the Grand Master final door in 3rd. Will watch that and then write up a review of the game.

What's interesting is after you beat the game like 3 more floors of the random dungeon open up (a floor takes about 2-5 mins to clear; so that's like 15 mins more of game) and one boss at the end which unlocks the last door episode. Then there's a elevator to the next floor but it's blocked off. I looked it up online and on October 1st they're doing a big free update to the game which will add at least a few more floors, add new door episodes(?), add more mini-games and add more playable characters to unlock (I wouldn't expect much, there's a couple of playable characters in existing doors that aren't playable in the dungeon yet, no one interesting or new) and unlock the level cap and let you boost enemy levels by +50/+100/+150.

The only thing that's substantial out of that is the character episodes. Wonder how many they will add. The episodes are pretty long 20-40 min VNs essentially, so it's not like cheap easy things to throw a bunch in. Also since you have to be post-game to get them I hope they have more stuff for Calvard & beyond. The doors outside of the final one which I haven't watched are a lot less foreshadowing than the stuff from 3rd. 3rd introduced Lector and his relationship to Chloe, Osborne and Osborne v Olivert rivalry, Tida's mecha development plan and plan to chase after Ren and the main game introduced some more stuff with the Church and Demons and whatnot through Kevin/Reese's story. It definitely got you interested in Crossbell/Erebonia. The doors in this new game are mostly slice of life episodes with a few subplot wrap ups and epilogues for characters that got screwed out of them in Cold Steel 4.

Anyhow hope the last door gets me hyped for Calvard. Right now I'm mildly interested, but there's no exciting hook yet.

[Bebpo]

Ok, looked on Falcom's main page for the Oct 1st update to Hajimari.

4 new door episodes, all of them look like slice of life filler although one should be fun.

and then there's a 5th episode called "Beyond Hajimari no Kiseki..." that is...3 short novels like Ren's backstory in 3rd where it's just writing with some art that is all about set up for Calvard. I guess that's cool. I get they haven't done the art assets for any new characters so I see why they're not doing them as full episodes. Better than nothing I guess.

[Bebpo]

lol, that last door in Hajmari was something. For a series that is nothing but vagueness and foreshadowing, it pretty much just makes a bunch of reveals in 3-4 mins and then it's done.

*edit* actually I hated CS4 so much I forgot the post-credit scene reveals in that one. Hajimari adds some stuff but a lot of it is just repeating info in CS4's post-credit.

[Bebpo]

Also I'm pretty sure the last 30 seconds of the credit roll in Hajimari no Kiseki is Trails PS5 engine test. At the end of the credit roll it suddenly cuts to a modern Tales-looking game engine which looks about a generation above current visuals and then the character runs out to their friends and you see a huge open green grass field.

With the talk of the next game being action-gameplay, I could see them trying to do the big green grass fields like Tales/Xenoblade/etc...

[Bebpo]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hajimari-no-kiseki-cold-steel-5-crossbell-3-import-spoiler-free-review.296246/

Finished up a review for Hajimari. Didn't talk about the story at all since CS4 isn't even out in the west so it's kind of a weird review and more just a breakdown of it. Overall I think it's a good, but not great game. I'd probably rank the Trails games like this:

Zero > Ao > Sky 3rd > Cold Steel 3 > Sky SC > Hajimari > Cold Steel 2 > Cold Steel 1 > Cold Steel 4

I generally like all of them through CS2, I think CS1/4 are the only games in the series I straight up didn't enjoy.

[Bebpo]

Back to Return of the Obra Dinn - Love this game. Have all the chapters unlocked outside the final one now. Only solved about 15 people out of 58 though, so have a loooong way to go. The captains/cooks/surgeons/women/formosean royalty/etc... are all pretty solveable since they're unique. But the dozens of unnamed seaman/topman? Ughhh, this is gonna take me a bit.

I guess the trick is that once you figure out 2 you're sure of, use the third slot for random guessing in groups since it'll click in once you guess right and then narrow down the suspect list in that group.

Also, how the fuck am I supposed to know where the people who don't die/escape/fate unknown went. That's evil that if you put alive you have to put what country/area they are currently alive in.

[chronovore]

Back to Return of the Obra Dinn - Love this game. Have all the chapters unlocked outside the final one now. Only solved about 15 people out of 58 though, so have a loooong way to go. The captains/cooks/surgeons/women/formosean royalty/etc... are all pretty solveable since they're unique. But the dozens of unnamed seaman/topman? Ughhh, this is gonna take me a bit.

I guess the trick is that once you figure out 2 you're sure of, use the third slot for random guessing in groups since it'll click in once you guess right and then narrow down the suspect list in that group.

Also, how the fuck am I supposed to know where the people who don't die/escape/fate unknown went. That's evil that if you put alive you have to put what country/area they are currently alive in.

Pretty good piece on how difficult it was to localize Obra Din:

[Bebpo]

Yeah, makes sense. Great game though. Just finished it.

It's weird cause like the first dozen or so bodies take a bit to figure out, and then you get in a rapid fire rhythm and things just click one after another and you knock out like 30-40 in an hour (at least in my case). Once I figured out which group were the topmen, which were the seamen, midshipmen in the main photos, through process of elimination and guess work and guessing countries of origin could knock them out quick.

Then the last 8-10 were SO HARD. I thought it'd be easy when only a few left since you can just trial & error it but a couple were just argh. Took me like as much time as the middle 30-40 to clear the last few.

I think the game is aces, with some of the best authentic sounding VA work ever and probably one of of the best pirate games ever made. I'm glad it's tall tales-ish as that made it a lot more fun and exciting.

I do have a couple qualms with the game though. For one you should be able to replay a scene from the book without having to go and find the damn corpse somewhere on the ship either by memory or pulling up the map for that scene and finding where it originates. It's just a pain in the ass in the later half when you want to review scenes one after another and you first have to find them all again. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to jump into any scene from its book page with a press of a button.

Second stems a bit from that and it's that in the end I wish there was a way to just easily re-watch the whole story in chronological order to see it all play out once you know what happens. I'd like to do that, but I don't want to be doing scene by scene gymnastics pulling up the book and finding the next scene after scene for a replay of the whole story. Just too tedious. Maybe I'll look up if there's a youtube video. Otherwise I think I'll just read the wiki.

The wiki will be fun too because there's a loooot of guys I got by lucky guessing based on elimination and it'll be neat to see what the hints you were supposed to use were.

Game also got easier when the default solution to what happened to any person you don't see die is just say they're drowned. Because that's probably correct!

Also great, great music and the visual style was perfect. Pretty much a closer to perfect game and worthy follow up to Papers Please.

[Bebpo]

played through the first Control expansion: The Foundation.

Took me a bit to get back in the hang of the combat, but was a good little expansion. Control isn't perfect, but it's a quality action game for sure. One thing that impresses me is the low budgetness of the game. It should bother me how little variety there is and the whole game is just made out of some sterile office rooms, some caves and some black shiny monolith objects, but for some reason they make it work with how few assets the game has and its pretty impressive. They just made a tight mostly corridor/arena shooter with a handful of environments, a handful of enemies/weapons, and kept it together with good pacing and a decent amount of weird story/lore notes/videos. And somehow it all works.

Oh and having stellar art direction and fancy tech to make everything shiny and reflective really helps with the minimal environment variety.

I remember when the game bombed Remedy seemed to say it still did fine. I think they really kept the budget down on this one. It's not an indie game level, but Control is absolutely not AAA. Probably closer to Japanese dev mid-tier games budgets.

I'd like to see what Remedy could do with a much bigger AAA budget with more impressive environments and set pieces, but eh don't want them to go bankrupt either.

Started the Alan Wake DLC#2 and will play it over the next few days as well.

Took a bunch of screenshots of Expansion #1 in the photo mode only to find out the link I read that Epic Game Store had added screenshot taking with F12 was bullshit and I didn't take any screens  :'(  Epic Store sucks so much. Still better than Windows store, but that's about it.

[Bebpo]

Hey, Tiesto, so the major expansion for Hajimari no Kiseki came out for free today and I can confirm that there's absolutely no grind or gatcha mechanics in the game. Turns out looking on the DLC store it's all just the usual level boosters and item packs that every jrpg sells and I have no idea who buys them + some additional costume packs even though there's tons in the game.

The expansion is pretty meaty with its own new storyline and loot character episodes and a new book series (until now Hajimari didn't have a new book series) that is seventeen volumes long. Fuck, that is going to be a pain to read in Japanese. But will probably lead into stuff for the next game so will read it.

[Bebpo]

Finished the main story part of the Hajimari/Trails post-game dungeon. Was good. Just have the doors to watch/read.

I read the first of the 3 Calvard short stories and it's pretty legit in hype. Basically reads like a trailer for Calvard game. And Calvard which always seemed like Trails version of China is now apparently China x Japan. Weaboo arc it seems. Gonna be a while for that game though. Hopefully they can localize them faster by then. Probably fall 2022 in Japan.

[Bebpo]

Also I'm gonna call Falcom's next game for 2021 release as either Ys 1 remake or Ys 5 remake for PS5 with sorta nice looking visuals and full short launch-year action game. Ys 1 makes sense if they're trying to reach a new audience though I guess they could do Ys 5 like Celceta and not give it a number.

Kondo said it their 2021 game should be announced in the next few months or early 2021.

[naff]

Waiting for Star Wars Squadrons later today. Reviews are sounding extremely promising. The game looks incredible.

[kingv]

Star Wars squadrons comes out this soon? I actually want to play that.

Though I'm not sure it will live up to my Tie Fighter memories.

[G The Resurrected]

I was playing Hades when it came out on Switch. But I got the dreaded boot loop and now my Switch is off to Nintendo. Thank fucking god I backed up my Animal Crossing island.

So since then I decided to start playing Forza Horizon 3 because of the delisting and that lead me back to 4. I don't know what the fuck I was doing around the time 4 came out, but apparently I didn't play much of it. I'm having a blast in the game though.

[kingv]

Waiting for Star Wars Squadrons later today. Reviews are sounding extremely promising. The game looks incredible.

it's good so far!

[HardcoreRetro]

Sounds like a better experience than actually playing the thing.

[Bebpo]

Finished the Control DLC#2 Alan Wake Expansion

Meh

I think they really held back when after all these years they could've & should've done a fun cross-over with Wake & Jesse interacting on some mini-adventure getting Alan out of the Dark Place and setup for Alan Wake 2/Control 2.

Instead the entire expansion is just Jesse chasing a monster through 3 section in the building with a couple Alan Wake narrations and then a short teaser at the end for Alan Wake 2.

Feels like they're going to make Alan Wake 2/Control 2 the same game. But since they didn't bring Wake back in this DLC, it seems like it'd be a sequel where you play as Jesse until a certain point where you bring Alan Wake back and then the two work together.

Would be cool, but the Control expansion brought back some Alan Wake gameplay and reminded me how unfun the gameplay was in that game where you just point lights at things the entire game. Hopefully if they do this crossover game it plays more like a TPS like Control than point lights at stuff Alan Wake.

I think the main game for Control and first DLC is great. This second DLC is the only disappointing part. The story feels a lot less interesting/weaker than the other Control content (which you wouldn't expect since it's the Alan Wake expansion) and without that it's just fighting enemy waves in similar looking old rooms. Foundation at least had a Metroidvania aspect to it, new powers and a full short story.

[naff]

Yeah, this Star War game is p dope but I wish I could play it on ps4 w my stick. Might need to rebuy on pc at some point. getting used to the pad controls, just don't feel like I'm nearly as good as I am when playing elite.

The VR seems OK, but psvr feels really cheap and tinny now compared to what I got used to with pc and quest.

[Bebpo]

Trails

So I finished the patch expansion in Hajimari no Kiseki and man those 3 Calvard short stories are fucking hype. Especially the third one which is straight up told from the point of view of the new protagnist for the next game. They decided not to even hint this time and to just introduce some cool shit for Calvard to get people hyped for the wait.

It's possible for the next arc they're going to try to make the series a little more mature/darker/older audience. I say this because the new lead is a few year post-high school so I'm guessing like 20/21? Which for a jrpg is pretty decent! And the antagonist organization is super dark and fucked up psychopath murders and the prologue short story has a body count.

So while they could still make it all PG and toothless, I'm hoping this means they're at least going for a PG-13 and there's gonna be some fucked up stuff in the Calvard game.

New lead backstory is pretty solid setup too.


For spoilers, the 3 Calvard game prologue short stories are:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Rean v new Ninja Assassin group with super sword leader that wrecks him.

-17 year old now Rin as a transfer student at Calvard and getting into trouble trying to keep a low profile. Introduces Calvard arc's Journalist.

-New character, Sword Maiden whose being pushed by Zin to take the A-rank exam because the Bracers need a model frontperson for Calvard's Bracer Guild and she's hesitant because she doesn't feel worthy of it and keeps saying no. Then she tracks down some missing kids to a drug dealer group that turns out is a front for the Assassination Org (from 3&9 books) to kidnap and train new child assassin's, one of Assassin Org's main dudes shows up and murders the fuck out of all the dealers to get rid of evidence and fights main girl and takes off, dude is psycho & Scarecrow-inspired with a goal to spread fear and use it to control, main girl is pissed she can't beat this dude and beats herself up and decides if the world needs a hero, even if she doesn't feel confident in being one, she'll take the mantle until she meets someone whose a real hero and takes the A-rank exam and becomes the world's youngest Bracer. She's also got childhood trauma and grew up with 2 friends and they all swore to pursue the same thing (Justice?) in different ways, with her going the path of the Bracers and doing everything legal, guy friend going to work for CID aka Calvard's CIA doing things through the gov, and one friend who it seems is In, the underground Ninja Assassin from Crossbell/CS.

She's also popular and gets offers to be a movie star in Calvards new cinema scene and modeling offers which she refuses because she's determined to be a Bracer. You see her from the back and her sword but don't get to see her from the front yet. Tall gal w/long hair in ponytail.

[close]

[Coax]

Honk, honk. More puzzle oriented than I anticipated, which is interesting.

[Rufus]

Genshin Impact is fun, but I don't see myself playing this long term. The grind does not look satisfying at all. It's all too straightforward and shallow. No builds, no real loot, no nothing. Just make these numbers go up by farming this and that material. Meh.

Will finish the first Arc in Mondstadt, then drop it.

[Svejk]

Tried out Resident Evil 3 (remake)....  Dem Jill modz!

So far it's been ok... I never played through the OG, so this is technically all new to me...  I like the more openish city layout so far, but the one thing that annoys the crap out of me, is that they changed the zombie grab breakout button to the A/X button, and no counter whatsoever (coming from RE2).  With a knife and/or grenade on hand, there's no option to use your secondary weapon to break out like RE2. WTF  Plus, the window to break out seems so much smaller.  I have yet to properly break out with getting bit. The roll mechanic is.. eh.  A newbie police officer and a biker chick can self defend from a zombie grab, but a S.T.A.R.S member can't?  Shamon, bruhs. 

[brawndolicious]

Just started Hellblade and Nier: Automata. Hellblade has really, really good production values but the combat is super simple. I'm like in Chapter 3 now, after you defeat that shadow illusion dude boss and it looks like they're still teaching the combat basics so maybe it'll get more complicated later on.

Nier is super fun in that pretentiously janky way but it's also really triggering me. I died in the prologue at the boss fight because I didn't realize the dodge mechanic is based on timing, not hitbox. Apparently this makes you lose 34 minutes of progress and resets you to the very beginning of the prologue. That wasn't a big deal though and I got passed it and now I learned how the save system will work in the rest of the game.

The bigger problem with Nier is how they keep trying to show you panty shots. I tried googling how to avoid this and I tried adjusting camera distance which helps. But my googling also showed me that there's an achievement for looking up her skirt 10 times and apparently you can outright remove the skirt and have her run around in a cyber-thong? That's why I don't play Japanese games.

[chronovore]

Picked up Star Wars Squadrons.

Is there a way to play with friends? I haven’t found it.

The Fleet Battles Tutorial was buggy, didn’t acknowledge power core destroyed. So I couldn’t finish. Will try again later.

[naff]

dang, i hope so. i haven't gotten to that point yet, just making my way through the campaign.

Press Tab / Select / Touchpad to open the Social Menu; this will bring up a list of your first-party friends, as well your EA cross-play friends. Scroll to the friends you'd like to invite, select them and choose "Invite". They'll receive an invitation, and once they accept you'll see them added to your party.