Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 3558426 times)

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Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36120 on: December 23, 2020, 08:45:59 PM »
Just wrapped Paradise Killer, please let me reiterate how much this game fucks

What platform did you play it on?

Thinking of grabbing it on Switch for portableness. Not sure how it plays on there.

Switch. It runs fine, locked 30. Kind of surprised it runs as well as it does.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36121 on: December 23, 2020, 09:35:11 PM »
Might've blown like $90 on DJ Max Respect V and all the DLC from past games since everything was on-sale 67% off on Steam.

As a music game junkie, I played Beatmania for so long, both at home with turntables on PS2 and in the arcade occasionally at Round 1s until Covid. The lack of home releases for the past 10+ years kinda killed it though. I played the first 3 DJMAX Portable games on PSP and enjoyed them lots, but didn't follow the series afterwards. Always felt like the best Beatmania clone. Looks like there were about 5-6 more games after that before Respect.

Wasn't sure if I'd enjoy playing music games on the PC with a keyboard instead of a music controller or even a game controller. After a few songs it felt pretty good and isn't toooooo off of a turntable controller. Still get satisfying key presses in.

Respect V seems good, only weird thing is there's no arcade mode to do the traditional 3 songs in increasing difficulty, but the free style/free play mode is pretty solid so just gonna go through all the tracks there.

After Respect V came out, I was interested in jumping back on DJMAX but was waiting to see if they'd do a Switch version since I prefer all my music gaming portable since music games are awesome for traveling. But from what I understand Switch isn't popular in Korea, so Switch version never happened, so figured I'd get it on PC when it was on a good sale, which is now.

*edit* actually, I like it more playing on a DS4. No idea why, just feels more fun and natural coming from playing the PSP games on a PSP controller.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2020, 10:27:08 PM by Bebpo »

Tuckers Law

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36122 on: December 24, 2020, 04:00:25 PM »
Vandal Hearts 2 is a strange cat...

Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36123 on: December 25, 2020, 01:58:27 AM »
I’m playing DISASTER REPORT 4 because it was FINALLY on sale on the Epic Store and there was a coupon. I am delighted to be playing a PS2 game in 2020.

The best part of the game is playing as a sociopath. The game never punishes you for it, either.

Cryo

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36124 on: December 25, 2020, 01:04:17 PM »
Might've blown like $90 on DJ Max Respect V and all the DLC from past games since everything was on-sale 67% off on Steam.

As a music game junkie, I played Beatmania for so long, both at home with turntables on PS2 and in the arcade occasionally at Round 1s until Covid. The lack of home releases for the past 10+ years kinda killed it though. I played the first 3 DJMAX Portable games on PSP and enjoyed them lots, but didn't follow the series afterwards. Always felt like the best Beatmania clone. Looks like there were about 5-6 more games after that before Respect.

Wasn't sure if I'd enjoy playing music games on the PC with a keyboard instead of a music controller or even a game controller. After a few songs it felt pretty good and isn't toooooo off of a turntable controller. Still get satisfying key presses in.

Respect V seems good, only weird thing is there's no arcade mode to do the traditional 3 songs in increasing difficulty, but the free style/free play mode is pretty solid so just gonna go through all the tracks there.

After Respect V came out, I was interested in jumping back on DJMAX but was waiting to see if they'd do a Switch version since I prefer all my music gaming portable since music games are awesome for traveling. But from what I understand Switch isn't popular in Korea, so Switch version never happened, so figured I'd get it on PC when it was on a good sale, which is now.

*edit* actually, I like it more playing on a DS4. No idea why, just feels more fun and natural coming from playing the PSP games on a PSP controller.
Sold my IIDX home controller for $80 more than I paid for it. Kinda regret it but also I don’t think I would ever pick it up again  :(

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36125 on: December 25, 2020, 02:42:17 PM »
Well you can always pick up a new fancy one from a 3rd party if you ever want to. I was looking around to see if they even made any sort of turntable controller for DJMAX and basically these days there's a couple brands that make & sell 3rd party turntables that work on all the games.

Unfortunately they're like $300 and from what I read the compatibility with the steam/pc version of DJMAX is kind spotty (has some issues in menus, have to remap everything yourself, right turntable doesn't work properly). Kinda bummer, but saves me $300 so I'm ok playing on a kb or DS4 (been switching back and forth, like both for different reasons like on a kb when I go to the turntable button I have to move my hand and then I lose track of where my hand is on the kb when the notes come back).

EZMAX and Virgoo are the two main 3rd party ones these days from what I found:
https://www.dj-dao.com/en/ezmax

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36126 on: December 25, 2020, 08:08:39 PM »
Played and beat What Remains of Edith Finch yesterday morning and I can’t stop thinking about it. Usually I’m not big on these short walking games but like... omg  :'( :'( :'( I was so into it. Just amazing and perfect holy shit. Everyone should play it. It’s on gamepass!

chronovore

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36127 on: December 26, 2020, 01:05:02 AM »
I’m playing DISASTER REPORT 4 because it was FINALLY on sale on the Epic Store and there was a coupon. I am delighted to be playing a PS2 game in 2020.

The best part of the game is playing as a sociopath. The game never punishes you for it, either.


Cryo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36128 on: December 26, 2020, 05:05:09 AM »
Played and beat What Remains of Edith Finch yesterday morning and I can’t stop thinking about it. Usually I’m not big on these short walking games but like... omg  :'( :'( :'( I was so into it. Just amazing and perfect holy shit. Everyone should play it. It’s on gamepass!
Grabbed almost all of the Annapurna games currently on sale on switch. So far only played Gone Home and If Found, both were interesting in the same vein (though Edith Finch is more of a traditional “game” than those 2, if that makes sense.)

Soundtrack in If Found is fantastic, it’s by 2 Mello.

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36129 on: December 26, 2020, 05:22:17 AM »
2mello is a cool guy
What

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36130 on: December 26, 2020, 04:36:55 PM »


Finished Man of Medan

You know, it was good. Nothing amazing, but if you're into the interaction branching fiction genre that's stuff like Until Dawn and Alpha Protocol, it's a pretty fun game.

Enjoyed the story & cast. Story was a little predictable but solid and I guessed where it was going about midway. The characters were fun and I totally enjoyed playing as a bootleg Michael B. Jordan and Brie Larson. Visually, looked nice, but the ship was a bit boring of a location. Just a lot of hallways and rooms that all look the same. Location was probably the weakest part. Also way too many jump scares to the point you just figure everything thing you open will go BOO.

Watching all the endings/death scenes now. Game is maybe a little too lenient on how hard it is to actually kill characters. I worked hard to keep everyone alive, but could've half-assed it and got the same result it seems. Got close to the best ending on first run, just lost one character. Replayed the end scenes and got the best ending. Like the ending options, most make sense and are logical branching.

Also the length is perfect. Feels like a full length game. During the PS2/Xbox/GC era it totally would've been a full $50 game. Games are too long mostly. 4-5 hour games can definitely work. Hell RE3 Remake is about this length. I'd rather get 3 games of this length from this team with their own separate stories/casts than 1 single story that's bigger and longer.

Liked it enough that I'm looking forward to and will definitely play Little Hope and the 3rd one. But maybe not enough that I'll buy Little Hope when it'll probably be on Game Pass in 6 months as well. I've got plenty of other stuff to play.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2020, 04:34:18 AM by Bebpo »

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36131 on: December 26, 2020, 09:05:40 PM »
I'm like halfway through Spider-Man Miles Morales and it's ok. I'm kinda bored. Having just played Spider-Man and the DLC a couple months ago this is too much the same. The main story stuff is enjoyable but it's basically just a lot of bases and grunt fights which was my least favorite part of the original game. The stealth is a little better since you can camouflage and reset enemy awareness but it's still boring to stealth enemies one at a time when there's a ton of enemies. Combat is a little better with the venom attacks but it can go on a while with a lot of enemies.

Visually the game looks really next-gen nice indoors, but outdoors looks about the same as the original even with RTX. But the original was one of the best looking games last gen so it still looks good.

But yeah, for Spider-Man 2 they're gonna need a big shake up in gameplay because this formula is a bit boring after a while. The stealth is more fun in Arkham. Also feels like there's fewer guys in those games.

*edit* Actually enjoying it more once I got all the side stuff done. Just too much side stuff like the original game. Some of its good and better content than the first game, but there's still a lot of filler. Also so.many.enemies. Same issue I had with the first game. There's like 4-5x the enemy count that Arkham games have for the stealth & combat sections. Stealth & combat are fun but when there's like 40 guys every room it gets tiring.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2020, 02:35:45 AM by Bebpo »

Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36132 on: December 27, 2020, 07:35:22 AM »
I liked Man of Medan but nowhere near as much as Until Dawn. Played the latter with my dad last time I was visiting him in the states, got him Little Hope for Xmas, hope it's good.

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36133 on: December 27, 2020, 02:28:01 PM »
Little Hope is better than Man of Medan, but the story still sucks

Until Dawn > Little Hope > Man of Medan
fat

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36134 on: December 27, 2020, 04:22:47 PM »
But Man of Medan's story was fine?

I also don't have an overly high opinion of Until Dawn. I enjoyed it, and was surprised it wasn't terrible given how jank it was, but it was just a solid B game and the branching stuff was the most interesting part. Man of Medan seems like the same to me but smaller scope and fewer characters and less colorful/interesting location.

Like I would've preferred

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Actual supernatural stuff/monsters over hallucinations, but the latter worked fine.
[close]

This team is really good at 3d modeling creepy corpses though. Until Dawn and Medan have a lot of creepy corpse looking things.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36135 on: December 27, 2020, 05:47:13 PM »




Finished Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

It was good, but yeah too many enemies and all the game knows how to do gameplay-wise is have stealth groups, combat groups or boss fights and there's not many boss fights.

The story stuff and cutscenes were good. The shorter length works against it. It could've used some more downtime to develop the characters. But it's good. The stealth is mostly improved since you can reset detection with camouflage which lets you dart in and take out some guys and then disappear and repeat if you want.

The combat is ok. The new venom attacks are fun and useful, but the simon says enemies that you have to use specific attacks against is kinda of tedious. Especially when it isn't easy to aim which enemy you are going to attack when they're grouped together and there's so many enemies.

By the end of the game I ended up dropping the difficulty to baby easy, did the same with the original game, especially by the 3rd DLC. It's not that it's particularly hard, but the endless waves of dudes you have to take out and then 2-3 hits out of nowhere kill you and you have to start over again just isn't fun for me. If I can't decrease the enemy grunt count at least I can make them die fast in baby easy mode. But really, these games just need way fewer enemies in the combat & stealth sections.

Like:



That looks like a reasonable amount of enemies for a stealth section. Except that I took that like 5-10 mins into the section after already having taken out 10-20 guys and those were the ones still left. It feels so padded (so did the original in this aspect).

There's some good side missions (like locating sounds) and some weaker stuff. A bit more variety in the crimes and easier to 100% since crimes aren't counted in that but are for the trophies.

The ray tracing is mostly mild, especially coming from Watchdogs Legion which does it far better (though the city looks like crap in that game), but there's definitely bits where all the reflections look cool.




Worth a play, but hopefully Spider-Man 2 isn't that far off with some real gameplay changes for Miles & Peter to do their stuff in.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36136 on: December 27, 2020, 06:24:15 PM »
Oh and I wanna give a shout out for Miles having one of the most blatant "our game is short but we want to pretend it's longer" grifts there is. On the skills/gadgets/suits the last tool/skill in every branch has a +sign that says "available in new game+"

So they basically lock you out of a bunch of moves and tools to pad out a reason to replay the game a second time. And a lot of those tools/moves are moves that were in Spider-Man 2018 and they just took away from Miles to give back on new game+ which is lame af.

chronovore

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36137 on: December 27, 2020, 06:36:16 PM »
In the first Spider-Man game, by the third DLC I was really tired of fighting guys that were somehow boring AND over-powered compared to everything I’d encountered in the main game and first two DLC packages. Truly remarkable how well balance the first game is, in a sense. I think that’s what the third DLC proved to me, but I didn’t enjoy seeing the proof so much that I was willing to sit through hours of getting my ass handed to me.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36138 on: December 27, 2020, 06:46:18 PM »
Yep. Miles isn't anywhere near as obnoxious as the 3rd DLC grunt padding, but it's nowhere near as well paced as the base 2018 game.

As much as people hate on the MJ/Miles/Lab bits in that game, I think they were good to add some variety to the stealth & combat areas/cutscene loop. I actually enjoyed the MJ stealth bits, especially the one in Osborn's apartment.

Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36139 on: December 29, 2020, 01:50:05 AM »
"Disaster Report 4 is a truly astounding bit of video game art and a true reflection on something that is important to understand about the Japanese culture and mindset."


Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36140 on: December 29, 2020, 02:03:58 AM »
Also I'm SUPER in the mood for janky, hilarious Japanese adventure games; is Deadly Premonition 2 good-bad or bad-bad

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36141 on: December 29, 2020, 03:35:42 AM »
Well its not good-bad like DP was
fat

daycru

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36142 on: December 29, 2020, 05:06:27 AM »
Also I'm SUPER in the mood for janky, hilarious Japanese adventure games; is Deadly Premonition 2 good-bad or bad-bad
It isn’t half as good as the original. Most of the things that made it unique have been stripped away. It has a degree of charm though.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36143 on: December 29, 2020, 05:13:12 AM »
Also I'm SUPER in the mood for janky, hilarious Japanese adventure games; is Deadly Premonition 2 good-bad or bad-bad

I mean if you're ok with Japanese only, City Shrouded in Shadow is literally DR4 but way more over the top ridiculous and is great.

Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36144 on: December 29, 2020, 05:29:05 AM »
Oh yeah! And what with the licensing there is absolutely no way that game is ever coming out in English. Can you continue to be a complete piece of shit in that game too, that is seriously my favorite thing about these games.

Also gonna see about playing ZZT3 on the PSP, there was never an english version but i can take a crack at the J

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36145 on: December 29, 2020, 03:22:44 PM »
Can you continue to be a complete piece of shit in that game too, that is seriously my favorite thing about these games.

Yeah, definitely. The situations and dialogue options are even more absurb in that one.

brawndolicious

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36146 on: December 29, 2020, 08:27:33 PM »
Just finished Mass Effect: Andromeda, now going back to the rotation of Nier: Automata, Plague Tale, and RDR2.

Believe it or not, I actually liked ME:A. The Angara homeworlds were kind of boring and the combat got kind of repetitive but I finished all the main/side-missions and got to level 60 so I basically saw every part of the game.

Gameplay wise, the biggest negatives were the research/crafting system which I never bothered with outside of two tutorial missions that teach you how to use it and the fact that you can only equip three powers so you end up with a lot of excess skill points that you can't use on anything useful. Another problem is that your power and gear doesn't level up all that much throughout the game so you don't really get the sense that you're becoming a super bad-ass by the end game.

Was this game kind of broken at launch? There are definitely still some bugs left over and better bookkeeping of the conversation choices.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36147 on: December 30, 2020, 01:59:02 AM »
So I started playing Divinity OS2 last night and now I'm like 10 hours in pretty far into chapter 2 in the Hollow Marshes.

This game is so much more jank than I expected considering the praise and that Larian got Baldur's Gate 3. Having gone through Planescape this year, Baldur's Gate 1 last year and Pillars 2 probably the year before it and probably Tyranny a year before that, I kinda expected something similar. It soooorta is, but goddamn the jank.


I like the turn based combat a lot! Maybe it could be a little faster with watching the enemies cast twice every turn, but otherwise the combat is good with a ton of options.

But the rest...my inventory is a gross mess even with mods, I've hit a ton of bugs including one of the main party members (Ifan, the main soldier guy on the cover) turning hostile for no reason so not getting his story this run lol.

The journal/quest/marker management is terrible and it's really difficult trying to parse all the quests I have and what I'm supposed to be doing next and where I'm supposed to be going. So I just am exploring and running into things.

And the worst jank is that sometimes I click on attacking an enemy and the character runs past them like I clicked on the ground next to them. Not only do I lose AP, maybe a turn & my chance to attack, but when running by them I get attacked as well! Considering how difficult and challenging the fights are, one or two fuck ups like that can cost the whole fight. It's pretty damn annoying.

And the highlight tool doesn't show NPC names floating over them so you have to scroll around to look at whose who. And the camera angle sucks and a lot of times it's hard to see. I tried a camera mod which zoomed further back and let you adjust the angle and it was great except that in combat every time someone took a turn the camera defaulted to watching it from 200 feet in the sky and you couldn't see anything -_- So yeah, just using the default camera.

The writing is ok. Kinda generic though I like the main party members. I like that the quest options are varied with a lot of ways to do stuff, though because the journal/questing is not super straight-forward sometimes I start on one quest line and end up in another one on accident. Like in Fort Joy I thought I was doing some elf cavern method of escaping but then I ended up in the fort dungeon and saved some magistrate and took a boat out with his passcode which I think was a different quest line?

I've done a lot of exploring on the island and trying to clear out all the quests and I'm only like mid lvl.5 and the enemies are lvl.6 so feeling a little under leveled. Plus the classes/skills are a lot different than Baldur's Gate/D&D/Pillars so I really have no idea what I'm doing with my party and am just winging it with what I got. I kept everyone on their default classes and I'm playing as Lohse as a Witch which is apparently a rogue/necromancer but I'm mostly playing her as support with blob summons and healing (because no one else has any heals?) and buffing and using leeching attacks. Meanwhile Red Lizard is all tanked up and fortifies and tanks, Sebille is rogue and dashes behind and gets stabby and Fane is like elemental blowing up shit attacks. It's tough but working but yeah I have no idea what I'm doing whereas in BG/Planescape/Pillars and stuff I feel like I'm min-maxing pretty good with specific builds for each party member.

If I wasn't 10 hours in already I'd almost want to restart OS2 from scratch and use some online recommended team/character builds so I know what I'm doing and building a party with specific strengths.

Anyhow I'm addicted to it enough and blowing through it at a fast enough pace I'll probably stick with it through and if I get totally stuck because my party is fucked I'll just drop the difficulty and use mods to scrape through the end stuff. Not loving it, but that may be mostly because it's overwhelming and I don't have a hang on it and if I learned how to play/strategies/builds it'd be a lot better. Though all the janky stuff sucks.

I hope BG3 is a lot more polished. Obsidian rpgs for example are buggy, but in terms of user interface & playability they're extremely polished. Divinity OS2, which is like 6 years later of OS improvements, still feels barely above Witcher 1 in jank.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36148 on: December 30, 2020, 02:08:58 AM »
Also apparently you can respec anytime from chapter 3 onwards. So at that point might try to re-work my team build into something a bit more solid. Gonna get through the rest of this chapter by the skin of my teeth.

And ugh, all this inventory clutter. So grossss

« Last Edit: December 30, 2020, 02:14:00 AM by Bebpo »

Coax

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36149 on: December 30, 2020, 02:24:57 AM »
Divinity OS2, which is like 6 years later of OS improvements, still feels barely above Witcher 1 in jank.

Huh, didn't realize it was that jank. Had it on my wishlist but could never make up my mind about it.

tiesto

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36150 on: December 30, 2020, 02:34:58 AM »
Up to the final chapter of CS4. Hopefully will beat it sometime before the new year... then it's back to retro until Ys IX hits America.
^_^

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36151 on: December 30, 2020, 02:49:58 AM »
Divinity OS2, which is like 6 years later of OS improvements, still feels barely above Witcher 1 in jank.

Huh, didn't realize it was that jank. Had it on my wishlist but could never make up my mind about it.

To be fair I haven't played Witcher 1 in forever and I don't play a lot of eurojank rpg type stuff so I'm used to pretty polished isometric crpgs from the big guys. This definitely feels more amateurish in a lot of the UI design and quality of life in comparison, though the combat depth and strategies is very next-level and what the games get their renown for.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36152 on: December 30, 2020, 04:39:11 AM »
Actually had a really good dungeon run tonight. When the combat clicks, it really clicks. Getting the hang of the strengths of my party and skills. Good stuff.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36153 on: December 30, 2020, 09:41:03 PM »
Have the hang of Divinity OS2 now. Got to the end of the first island but it's like "once you leave you can never, ever, ever come back" and being a quest completionist I've been finishing up my quests and discovering more and entire sub-areas I never even found.

The map didn't seem too hugely long on first run, but full questing it a lot damn there is a lot here. And apparently Act 1 here is like 20% of the total game haha.

But I'm almost lvl.8 and probably will be 8-9 when I finish up here out of lvl.20 cap, so definitely seems like there's a lot more xp than needed. Probably will turn the difficulty up a bit after leaving the island. I'm not even bothering looking at my loot today, will wait until next act and then sort through it all and equip everyone. Inventory is a real slog here.

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36154 on: December 31, 2020, 01:23:08 AM »
My son has been playing Divinity OS2 and I have to say, I'm not really seeing why it gets as much hype as it had. I've taken to calling it "Fire: the game....of fire" because half the fucking game seems to be fire. For a game that so touted about being able to do anything in combat it seems 80% of the time opponents and you will just end up using fire.
que

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36155 on: December 31, 2020, 02:25:59 AM »
Eh, I don't use the elemental stuff that much outside normal rpg spellcasting. I don't strategize in set barrels and changing floor elements to combo or anything. I'm just playing it like a normal crpg and it's going great.

Like my best character is my glass cannon rogue that has like crazy cheap movement and can get behind characters and stab them with criticals real fast. She just eats enemy mages for breakfast in first round. Then I've got a battlemage that can ram dash straight into a group knocking them down and then hit them with point blank elemental AoEs for big damage. Then I've got a traditional spellcaster that does big AoE fire/earth/ice attacks. Also have a tank but so far haven't needed him much and he doesn't do a ton of damage but is pretty unkillable along with supports.

All in all it's pretty standard combat, but the amount of skills are crazy vast, so there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with character building between fights.

I also like that the game doesn't really commit classes. You can swap equipment and then swap in spells/gear from all sorts of stuff. It's pretty handy and lets you mix things up.


I ended up doing like eeeeverything on the first island and just left it. I think I got to the end in like 8-10 hours, but I'm at 17 hours now haha. I gotta say I wasn't too invested in the world lore / story / npcs much at that 10 hour point, but going around doing all these quests and reading all these journals and talking to npcs I got a much better picture of the world building and what's going on and I'm definitely more invested now.

The thing where your party members do their storyline mostly offscreen when they go and talk to people though is kinda lame. They really want you to play this multiple times instead of just like...seeing all your party members' full stories in a single run unlike errr....almost every modern rpg.

And the inventory is so bad, I just can't overstate. I spent like an hour tonight putting things in container bags to try to clear up my mess of an inventory. Also the way gear levels work so all your cool unique quest loot is outdated soon but simple plain stuff that's just higher level. And the mods for this aren't great. There is a mod that lets you upgrade individual armor pieces to your level, but it's expensive and it seems like if you pickpocket everyone you get insanely rich, and otherwise you barely have money. The other mod I found auto-levels all your armor every time you gain a level, but it also upgrades the stat requirements so pieces you may be using and like suddenly you don't meet the stats and can't wear them which is bullshit. Their solution is to use a mod that removes stat requirements on gear, but I feel like that takes away from it too much since I like gear being for certain groups. Might end up going that way eventually though. For now just using old gear w/cool skills and not caring about levels too much.

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36156 on: December 31, 2020, 04:12:46 AM »
Been playing Monster Train a bunch, game is on Gamepass PC.

Shit is a lot of fun, after Slay the Spire I was ready for something new. Although after a few wins im already kinda zoning out on it

 :lol I guess these deckbuilding games are fun for awhile but dont really have any staying power for me.
What

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36157 on: December 31, 2020, 11:21:54 AM »
Finished Mario 64.

While I played a few levels, I gotta admit I never finished it before. I honestly feel more like I beat the camera than I beat the game it self.
I can totally see if you had the time for it how revolutionary it was in the day, but it has not aged well. Sorta surprised they did so little to fix the camera in the 3D all-stars edition.
que

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36158 on: December 31, 2020, 11:25:17 AM »
Eh, I don't use the elemental stuff that much outside normal rpg spellcasting. I don't strategize in set barrels and changing floor elements to combo or anything. I'm just playing it like a normal crpg and it's going great.

Like my best character is my glass cannon rogue that has like crazy cheap movement and can get behind characters and stab them with criticals real fast. She just eats enemy mages for breakfast in first round. Then I've got a battlemage that can ram dash straight into a group knocking them down and then hit them with point blank elemental AoEs for big damage. Then I've got a traditional spellcaster that does big AoE fire/earth/ice attacks. Also have a tank but so far haven't needed him much and he doesn't do a ton of damage but is pretty unkillable along with supports.

All in all it's pretty standard combat, but the amount of skills are crazy vast, so there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with character building between fights.

I also like that the game doesn't really commit classes. You can swap equipment and then swap in spells/gear from all sorts of stuff. It's pretty handy and lets you mix things up.


I ended up doing like eeeeverything on the first island and just left it. I think I got to the end in like 8-10 hours, but I'm at 17 hours now haha. I gotta say I wasn't too invested in the world lore / story / npcs much at that 10 hour point, but going around doing all these quests and reading all these journals and talking to npcs I got a much better picture of the world building and what's going on and I'm definitely more invested now.

The thing where your party members do their storyline mostly offscreen when they go and talk to people though is kinda lame. They really want you to play this multiple times instead of just like...seeing all your party members' full stories in a single run unlike errr....almost every modern rpg.

And the inventory is so bad, I just can't overstate. I spent like an hour tonight putting things in container bags to try to clear up my mess of an inventory. Also the way gear levels work so all your cool unique quest loot is outdated soon but simple plain stuff that's just higher level. And the mods for this aren't great. There is a mod that lets you upgrade individual armor pieces to your level, but it's expensive and it seems like if you pickpocket everyone you get insanely rich, and otherwise you barely have money. The other mod I found auto-levels all your armor every time you gain a level, but it also upgrades the stat requirements so pieces you may be using and like suddenly you don't meet the stats and can't wear them which is bullshit. Their solution is to use a mod that removes stat requirements on gear, but I feel like that takes away from it too much since I like gear being for certain groups. Might end up going that way eventually though. For now just using old gear w/cool skills and not caring about levels too much.
Yeah my son has said the same thing about inventory. Again it just strikes me as odd for a game that won SOOooooooOOOo many awards to have such aggrevating issues like Inventory being worse than a late 90s CRPG and (at least in my sons case) be like "oh look! The computer set everything on fire...again." Oh well, maybe its a slow burn.
que

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36159 on: December 31, 2020, 03:42:49 PM »
Finished Mario 64.

While I played a few levels, I gotta admit I never finished it before. I honestly feel more like I beat the camera than I beat the game it self.
I can totally see if you had the time for it how revolutionary it was in the day, but it has not aged well. Sorta surprised they did so little to fix the camera in the 3D all-stars edition.

I honestly can't say if I ever beat Mario 64. I know I played pretty far in it at times and I probably did beat it like 15-20 years back, but yeah I don't find it that replayable. It was groundbreaking for its time but it's real dated now.

It's neat seeing people turning around on Odyssey with the collection as the best Mario game. I thought Odyssey was A++ and Odyssey 2 was great even if it was just more of the same. The Switch one was good, but I think Odyssey is the best of the 3d Mario games. I liked Sunshine at the time, but I have a feeling I wouldn't like it if I tried it these days. My brother replayed through all of them in the collection and boy did he hate Sunshine this go around.

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36160 on: December 31, 2020, 08:54:28 PM »
I played a lot of Divinity OS 2 and had a few of the same issues, mainly with the horrible inventory. The story just never appealed to me so I ended up dropping it around halfway. Combat starts off kind of boring, then gets really fun as it opens up, then gets annoying again as enemies start using cheese tactics. I recommend playing it coop so you can just hang out with a friend and not get too invested in these super boring generic rpg stories.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36161 on: December 31, 2020, 09:51:44 PM »
Also the pathfinding for your AI companions is a bit bad.

Still, after spending some time working on team build strategy, I'm pretty into it. Had to up the difficulty since between a 6 person party instead of 4 with all the origin characters + leveled up gear + good build strategy was just kind of wrecking everything. Just exploring around Driftwood now.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36162 on: December 31, 2020, 09:56:30 PM »
Also I started playing Picross S1 on switch the other night after a bunch of posts here and elsewhere reminded me it exists. Helps me sleep at night doing these until I fall asleep. Good stuff, though honestly I think I enjoyed the 3DS one the most because seeing the pictures in 3d was really cool at the end.

The mega picross mode is interesting. Kinda hard, but also sometimes find it a little easier.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36163 on: January 01, 2021, 05:26:39 PM »
Divinity OS2 - In Driftwood and I'm pretty damn impressed by this game and I'm seeing the where the hype comes from. The worldbuilding in this is excellent. Really dense areas and every npc even before you talk to them will have 1-3 different conversations with other NPCs fully voiced while you walk around the area they are in, then there's tons of fully voiced dialogue when you talk to them. The NPCs actually feel pretty alive and there's tons of quests and most NPCs and locations are involved in something. Combined with the books and interactions, it definitely brings things to life.

Like I murdered a psychopath guy in Fort Joy and I found a locked room at the tavern in Driftwood across the ocean and lockpicked it and went inside and it was the guy's room with his journal and various knick-knacks that showed his personality. Very cool.

I can spend like an hour or two in a tavern just talking to people and inspecting everything and getting sucked into quests there. At the entrance there was a dwarf singing a poem and when I talked to him he wrote a new poem for my MC and sang it instead and I talked to him afterwards and gave him feedback.



This game actually gets me really excited for Baldur's Gate 3 because BG and D&D is an interesting world lore and Larian apparently knows how to handle that aspect very well.

Also Driftwood here just re-confirms that in crpgs in general, I fucking love cities. Like exploring around wilderness plains and stumbling across quests and caves and loot is alright, but densely packed cities full of NPCs with quests that take place within the cities and are full of branching solutions and reputation/attitude/factions are really the cream of the crop of what makes crpgs. I think I like that stuff because these cities feel more like role playing adventure games whereas outside cities are more combat/exploration rpgs.

But yeah, whether it's the giant city of Baldur's Gate in BG1, the huge city in Pillars 1, Planescape's city, etc...giant multi-screen cities are awesome and the best parts of crpgs. Driftwood in OS2 isn't that huge, but just being an actual town/city with this stuff compared to act 1 only having little settlements, is just so much better. Loving the game now.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36164 on: January 02, 2021, 02:59:52 AM »
Dungeons can be kinda long & draining though since each encounter can be 5-20 mins. I did Wrecker's Cave dungeon and it probably took me a good 4-5 hours to get through including the fight before the cave. It's nice when you're done and can move on. I was experimenting with stealth to see if I could maybe sneak by some stuff, but with the way your teammates AI paths are setup and the way stealth works, it doesn't seem possible most of the time. Stealth in general seems kinda of crap in this compared to some other crpgs. That's one area BG3 could improve on this.

Questing is great, cities are great, dialogue is kinda ok written but enough choices & good VA that it's great, combat & dungeon are good in doses.

Clockwork5

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36165 on: January 02, 2021, 12:00:37 PM »
I’m probably about halfway through Dragon Quest XI (about 35 hours) and I’m still surprised that I like this game so much. First, there is almost no challenge throughout the game. It is hard to fail at anything, the game tells you where to go and what to do. The only time combat is tough is when you realize you’re under-leveled for a certain encounter because everything has been a breeze for so long. Everything is just quite simple and in this case that simplicity does lead to the near complete elimination of anything resembling difficulty. I would say the biggest challenge in the game is getting that sweet +3 item from crafting. The voice acting is not great as many of the accents are just awful. The character design is, for the most part, well outside of my personal preference, to put it softly. The main character being among the worst. So? Why do I like this game so much??

The story is really good, or should I say, it is told really well. The luminary, orphaned at birth, sheltered in his youth, exiled in adulthood, sworn to defeat the Dark one. Is it ground breaking? No, but it doesn’t try to be either. It is told like a Saturday morning cartoon, a good one, like your favorite cartoon, the reason you used to wake up early on Saturday, before anyone else in the house and sit eagerly in front of your TV with a bowl of Lucky Charms.

But there is so much more than just “The Story,” with each location comes a new plot arc and these are great. This is where the reason I really like this game starts to bubble to the surface. The personality of the world. It is just fantastic. Every town has a story, every story defines that town in some way, every story involves memorable characters in impossible situations that require the player to resolve the story. This formula isn’t new but the writing is just so darned good. The characters are so darned good. The locations are so darned good. The stories are so darned good.

This is where everything starts to come together. This is when I start to appreciate the character design within the context of some great looking environments. This is when that character design starts to feel like the story, just kinda comfy. This is when I realize that difficulty would destroy the pacing; in fact, this is when I realize that the underlying simplicity of this game exists to solely to serve this perfect flow from town to town, story to story. Each a self contained adventure.  This is when some of those voiced actors don’t sound so grating. I dare say they become tolerable, serviceable, or even appropriate??? Idk, I really disliked a lot of the voices in this game early on but now like everything else in this game, it just works.

It all just works, really well. I do think the location based story arcs really pull it together for me. They are just refreshingly fun, cheerful, easygoing and exploding with character. This gives everything else in the game a place to find meaning, to get comfy and fit perfectly in this world.

I really hope it can hold this S-tier level of quality through to the end.


demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36166 on: January 02, 2021, 12:32:16 PM »
Is this your first dragon quest? Theyre all pretty consistent like this
fat

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36167 on: January 02, 2021, 12:34:02 PM »
Hey, yeah I'm playing that too! I'm just at Phon Nom mural place.

I'm sorta in agreement, though my love for it is waning a little just because the difficulty is so low. Every time there's story stuff the game is great, because yeah the stories and cast are wonderful. DQ as a series has always been good at telling good little story arcs and the production values here make the storytelling even better.

The towns are cool and nice looking and the NPCs have fun dialogues so I like searching every nook & cranny for items/gold medals and talking to everyone.

The boss fights are solid, especially if they hit hard or have something unique you need to get around.

The crafting is fun & useful.

The dungeons & fields though...they look great! But after like the first 10-15 hours, every dungeon just has the same enemies and the combat is brain dead easy especially using AoE spell blasting with multiple characters to 1st round win every time. I've started just avoiding all enemy encounters and only fighting bosses to speedrun dungeons/fields and try to keep my team lower leveled so there's maybe some challenge. But overall the dungeons/fields are kind of boring. The game needs more enemy variety imo. I don't remember enemy variety being this bad in DQ prior.

A hard mode selector/difficulty modifier would go a long way towards making the dungeon/fields/battles a lot more engaging. I know there are is the draconian setting stuff in the S version, but it's poorly designed for an 60-80 hour game where you have to commit the whole game and can't toggle it which is just stupid. Let me toggle the difficulty in games these days.

That said, I think DQ games get tougher in the 2nd half, so hopefully that is the case here.

Clockwork5

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36168 on: January 02, 2021, 12:47:15 PM »
Is this your first dragon quest? Theyre all pretty consistent like this
This is indeed my first and sadly I’m not sure I have a way to play many of the others. I should dig around to see if there are any I could get my hands on later in the year when I would be ready for another.

I have a PS4, Switch, 3ds and Vita if you know any off of the top of your head that would be worth digging in to.  I guess there are probably a bunch on mobile but I strongly prefer to play games anywhere other than my phone.

Clockwork5

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36169 on: January 02, 2021, 01:24:35 PM »
I do agree about enemy variety! The enemy design was something I found sort of bland and simplistic but grew to appreciate the nuance. The way that troll looks at you when you smack it with your sword and little details in animation had me noticing. Though, there are a lot of re-skins popping up already which is one aspect of the game that is not served by its simplicity. It would be entertaining to mow through a huge cast of monsters but seeing the same wizard with a different hat who hits twice as hard (but still isn’t a real threat) is not so much.

Also, some of the music in this game is clichéd to degree that almost seems inhuman. I understand that the alleged composer is quite celebrated but you cannot convince me that this music wasn’t written by a robot.

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36170 on: January 02, 2021, 01:31:08 PM »
Is this your first dragon quest? Theyre all pretty consistent like this
This is indeed my first and sadly I’m not sure I have a way to play many of the others. I should dig around to see if there are any I could get my hands on later in the year when I would be ready for another.

I have a PS4, Switch, 3ds and Vita if you know any off of the top of your head that would be worth digging in to.  I guess there are probably a bunch on mobile but I strongly prefer to play games anywhere other than my phone.

Just get all the ones on ds (4,5,6,9) and 3ds (7,8) and you are set

You can play 1-3 on switch or phone but the storytelling is pretty sparse there imo
fat

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36171 on: January 02, 2021, 01:31:30 PM »
The 3DS has remakes of Dragon Quest 7 and 8. If you can find the DS game carts they released Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6 and 9 on there.
Switch has a collection of the first 3 games.

Dragon Quest 10 is an MMO that never got a western release.

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36172 on: January 02, 2021, 01:40:31 PM »
I would play 8 next it is really good, so much that S had to yoink from it (overworld theme option, hero skin). And it has Yangus the hottie

It also only has 4 characters to worry about no need to worry about juggling characters. Only drawback is the forge isnt as user friendly as 11 (cant buy missing materials, no guarantee on failure etc)
fat

Clockwork5

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36173 on: January 02, 2021, 01:40:42 PM »
Those DS carts are like $100 a pop.
 :snob

But I’m gonna dust off the 3DS for the remakes for sure.

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36174 on: January 02, 2021, 01:44:33 PM »
Sell off that Vita and switch collecting dust
fat

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36175 on: January 02, 2021, 02:54:12 PM »
Why play the 3DS remakes when you can emulate the PS2 versions?
What

Coffee Dog

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36176 on: January 02, 2021, 04:26:13 PM »
I basically can't imagine DQXI without stronger monsters on, the early hours of the game were basically carried by the gameplay for me. I liked the characters well enough, but compared to the last DQ game I played (7) the gameplay makes the big monsters plaguing the towns actually able to harm me instead of waiting dozens of hours, and it helped my engagement a lot. I hadn't played a DQ that much since VIII.

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36177 on: January 02, 2021, 04:30:33 PM »
Why play the 3DS remakes when you can emulate the PS2 versions?

Because piracy is illegal and the 3DS versions are the best
fat

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36178 on: January 02, 2021, 04:36:44 PM »
I also enjoy grinding rpgs on the shitter.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36179 on: January 02, 2021, 11:46:52 PM »
With DQ, I'd put the 4/5/6 trilogy over everything else I've played in the series with 5 > 4 > 6 (DS probably best way to play these). 8 is great (maybe 3ds is best way now). 9 was really forgettable, I haven't played 1-3 and I got maybe 15-20 hours into the 3DS remake of 7. Might go back to it after 11 and finish 7 up. I liked 7, it was just long and slow.

I basically can't imagine DQXI without stronger monsters on, the early hours of the game were basically carried by the gameplay for me. I liked the characters well enough, but compared to the last DQ game I played (7) the gameplay makes the big monsters plaguing the towns actually able to harm me instead of waiting dozens of hours, and it helped my engagement a lot. I hadn't played a DQ that much since VIII.

I don't like committing to stuff like this for an 80 hour game that I have no idea what the difficulty curve is like. Yeah, maybe the first 20 hours will be much better with enemies with double stats, but then maybe you get to the final boss and it's impossible without 20 hours of grinding because double the stats.

It should've been a toggle and I would've kept stronger monsters and some of the other ones unless I was hitting a wall.

I also kinda miss the job system (which DQ8 was also missing iirc). It helped with engagement leveling up various jobs for their skills.