Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 3558555 times)

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Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36600 on: March 07, 2021, 07:47:59 PM »
Finished Maquette - It's a kinda weak puzzle game with a good soundtrack and VA and is reasonably short (~4 hours). Wouldn't pay money for it, but for PS+ was fine.






Potato

  • Senior's Member
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36601 on: March 08, 2021, 06:06:30 AM »
Started playing Death Squared on the Switch with the family.

Honestly one of the best co-op puzzle/party games I've ever played.


At least one other person is a must though. Don't even bother with single player.
Spud

I'm a Puppy!

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36602 on: March 09, 2021, 01:13:34 PM »
finished Age of Calamity. I think the best I can say is it's got a ton of content and is passable.
That being said, it never really reached for "greatness".
As a Mosuo game I think Dragon Quest Heroes II was better. It had a better story and flow and enemy/combat variety.
As a zelda game I don't think it was very brave.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
It opted for the stupid "alternate timeline" where they stop calamity ganon and BOTW never happened instead of trusting themselves to tell the story of the failure
[close]

There wasn't a lot of enemy variety. And the bosses were recycled all over the place, and the idea of making them harder was making them more damage spongey.
You unlock most of the characters in the last section of the game which means you're stuck with a handful of well leveled characters and a bunch of under leveled characters.
I don't mean to sound really down on this , I did enjoy the game and it was fun, it just could've been really something special and instead it comes off as passable.
que

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36603 on: March 09, 2021, 01:21:17 PM »
My problem with Zelda musou is I don't really find any of the side characters in Zelda games interesting? So there's like Link/Zelda/Gannon and then a bunch of weirdos? It's just not very appealing to me.

demi

  • cooler than willco
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36604 on: March 09, 2021, 01:32:00 PM »
Only good Musou spinoff is DQ, really did a good job of capturing the feel of the series and blending it

Fire Emblem: wack
Zelda: 50/50, AoC is wack
Persona: ??? haven't played
fat

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36605 on: March 09, 2021, 01:59:28 PM »
One Piece & Gundam are good if you like the franchises.

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36606 on: March 09, 2021, 10:54:53 PM »
Persona Strikers is good. It barely counts as a musou though.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36607 on: March 10, 2021, 04:02:20 AM »
DQVIIr - Finished the petrified rain town elopers story and the roamer camp story where a certain party member leaves. Was pretty good, you can go visit their graves in the present right after which is kinda sad.

At the Dharma/Alltrades Abbey island now so will be able to start on jobs soon, yay. This game is slow but great.

paprikastaude

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36608 on: March 10, 2021, 06:16:22 AM »
replayed Streets of Rage 4 and Sonic Mania. :lawd Some of the best Sega games ever made. And they aren't even made by Sega. In fact, I find it concerning that they are giving all their IP away to random people while focusing on nonsense like Sakura Wars internally. But if these are the results, so be it.

Now, can anybody pick up the mantle of Shinobi 3?  :bow

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36609 on: March 10, 2021, 08:19:40 AM »
Sega is so damn lazy now it seems... either that, or they're too afraid to take those risks like they use to during their hardware era.  Grow a pair, Sega.  DO SOMETHING!!

How hard is it for them to even port a Shinobi & Nightshade HD bundle??

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36610 on: March 10, 2021, 11:26:05 AM »
A smattering of stuff. Still going through 3D World, wrapping up some of the last stars I missed in the postgame worlds before challenging Champion's Road.

Started playing Moon: RPG Remix Adventure but I didn't really like it. It wasn't what I expected at all, more of an adventure game where you wait around for people to be in the right place at the right time (i.e. like Majora's Mask), and none of the guides are good... I end up just keeling over and dying because I run out of stamina. I'm not a huge fan of 'quirky' games but this came so highly praised to me so I dunno, maybe I'll have to bear with it.

Also been playing The Ultimate DOOM on Hurt Me Plenty... it's quite a bit tougher than I remember, seems I'm swamped with enemies on this difficulty... especially hate the invisible pink demons. I should've probably done the Not Too Rough difficulty... but on E1M7 now. I haven't played this game since 1995 so it's a nice trip down memory lane, even if the "hit a switch and get bum rushed by enemies" is wearing on me...

The main game I'm concentrating on now is Seiken 3 (Trials of Mana on the Mana Collection). It's giving me a ton of nostalgia since the original SFC game was one of my first imports... I made it to the final boss back in the day but then my brother saved over my game :P The music especially hits me, I love Kikuta. But the combat is a bit clunkier than I remember, and the dungeon design is mediocre... there's no real reward for explanation, and going down the wrong path means you're trapped and forced into a fight. There's the occasional puzzle, but FFA and SOM had much more interesting dungeon design. I also don't like how there's no way to avoid attacks and magic spells, just hope RNGesus and your Dexterity stat are working in your favor. I need to play the remake since I hear it fixes a lot of the problems while still remaining true to the original.

Right now in Seiken 3 I just hit level 18 and did my first class change, now I have to go meet Undine in the ice fields. Using a team of Duran, Riesz, and Charlotte.
^_^

Mr Gilhaney

  • Gay and suicidal
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36611 on: March 10, 2021, 06:40:19 PM »
outrageous deagling 1 min in


I'm a Puppy!

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36612 on: March 10, 2021, 08:41:54 PM »
Trying my hand at Horizon this game just screams "EARLY GEN TITLE!!" I feel like most of it exists to show off pretty landscapes. The faces would've blown my mind....back at the beginning of PS4. And the animation is stilted. The story is "meh" with some perplexing choices (Oh the Sun king wants to marry me after I talked to him twice) and the facial animation and overall animation is jank.  I am not a real fan of the combat so far as it seems to up its difficulty not by making enemies different or smarter, but just absorb more damage. I think if I had played this when it came out it would've blown my mind. But this late in the Gen? It's sorta underwhelming

Started 13 sentinels I'm really only about 1 hour in so far. Very surprised at how visual novel-esque it is. I know people said to expect it but so far it's been like 85% visual novel. I wasn't expecting the balance to be so one sided. Not that it's bad, I like VNs but still sorta surprised. Too early to tell, but I do have to laugh at the tropes  "Oh you have to pilot these naked? Of course! And he's dressed up like a hot school girl? Yeah, that's expected. And the big tough bad guy has conflicting feelings about school girl guy? Welp, I'd be surprised if he didn't!"
que

SmokyDave

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36613 on: March 11, 2021, 05:39:15 AM »
I'm getting deep into Switch games that have no business being on the Switch. At present, I'm playing Thief Simulator. It's a proper 'bought it on Steam for 59p' janky-ass PC game but I'm fucking loving it. Nowt like mooching around in a burglary sandbox while the missus watches TV. I also grabbed Cooking Simulator and some Alaskan Wilds truck game that allowed you to adjust every last parameter for the axles (even individually adjusting ackerman angles). They're both funny in a 'these do not belong on a Nintendo' way, but neither measures up to Thief Simulator.

Next up: One of the American Truck Sims.

Edit: I should add that I wouldn't recommend anyone purchases any of this shit.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 06:18:25 AM by SmokyDave »

BIONIC

  • Virgo. Live Music. The Office. Tacos. Fur mom. True crime junkie. INTJ.
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36614 on: March 12, 2021, 06:05:10 PM »
Got Crash 4 on PS5 since it has a $40 launch sale. It’s not the half off it had during the Christmas sale, but it’s good enough.

I finished the first three worlds I think, and It’s a pretty decent platformer. It doesn’t fuck around difficulty wise, but I’ve been playing platformers for 20+ years, so it’s nothing too crazy.

The box locations are complete fucking dogshit though. Going at a snail’s pace through a level combing through every nook only to end up missing three boxes because some cunt game designer decided to put them off-screen and behind geometry for extra measure is super infuriating  :lol

Anyways, if you like the old ones this one is worth checking out. Just don’t bother going for full completion if you don’t wanna off yourself.
Margs

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36615 on: March 12, 2021, 07:15:19 PM »
Ok so I got bored of Persona 5 Strikers (it just doesn’t hit the same without social sim/time management stuff) and went back to Xenoblade 2 Torna. It’s really fun with a great art style and music, but does the worst jrpg trope ever in gating story progression behind side quest completion. So when I got to the next big story event and I was super invested, they were like “go do at least 16 side quests” and the quality of them is generic jrpg dogshit. Why do games do this? I’m not interested in finding some random guy’s lost keys...

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36616 on: March 12, 2021, 07:58:57 PM »
Ok so I got bored of Persona 5 Strikers (it just doesn’t hit the same without social sim/time management stuff) and went back to Xenoblade 2 Torna. It’s really fun with a great art style and music, but does the worst jrpg trope ever in gating story progression behind side quest completion. So when I got to the next big story event and I was super invested, they were like “go do at least 16 side quests” and the quality of them is generic jrpg dogshit. Why do games do this? I’m not interested in finding some random guy’s lost keys...

Because it's an easy way to add content and hook the OCD/completionist set. As an OCD/completionist, I'm not a fan either, it's MMO filler design adapted for single player RPGs... a lot of the sidequests in RPGs are pretty unnecessary and rarely give interesting items/have interesting stories/have you go to unique locations/etc. I miss the days of stuff like the SNES Square sidequests.
^_^

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36617 on: March 12, 2021, 08:06:34 PM »
So last night my power was out for 7 hours while they upgraded equipment and I played a bunch of DQVIIr and holy crap the Dharma/Alltrades island arc is BRUTAL. I felt like I just played an SMT game.

-Troll -> Depowered
-Sad depowered town
-Long cave dungeon with tons of unavoidable encounters and you have no spells and no skills and have to rely on using a 30hp heal ring every fucking turn with your 3 person party just to keep everyone alive. Including milking out every few fights defending while you heal people back to close to full HP so they don't get murdered next fight.
-Get to the end and...get trolled and used as bait and die!
-Time to do the mountain dungeon AGAIN...still depowered
-cliffside town
-time to do a long mazy prison dungeon with unavoidable encounters mostly while still depowered
-depowered boss fight and bosses can straight up murder one of your 3 party members in like 1 turn from full HP if they gang up and you have no heal magic
-back to clifftown
-Bottom half dharma dungeon - STILL depowered
-FINALLY GET POWERS BACK FUCK YEAH
-...In time for Coliseum arc!

Stopped there last night, but yeah was like non-stop hard survival battling.

Though at least in the first part of the game, the MP ring is insane. Can spam magic and then use it a few turns and be back at full MP. So I guess this was like making up for that overpowered item they gave you a few arcs back making life breezy.

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36618 on: March 13, 2021, 05:52:55 AM »
Everything about Torna is just a fucking chore. Menus are slow, movement is slow, dialogue is slow. There’s like a second of dead air between every spoken line and it’s really painful. Also the cutscene direction is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Random shots of characters out of frame, random shots of unimportant scenery or the sky, super stilted animations, weird zoom ins and outs. Who the hell is in charge of this dogshit? Anyways I’m enjoying the combat but that’s literally it. At least it has that going for it.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36619 on: March 13, 2021, 06:55:07 AM »
Crash 4 PS5 is nice. 99% same game as PS4 version but the higher resolution got rid of the softness/slight blur the PS4 version had and now it's sharp and crisp. Since it's a really good looking game the IQ improvement is nice. Load times are maybe a second or two shorter. Pretty much the same game.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36620 on: March 13, 2021, 09:41:46 AM »
Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me

This shit's mental but much more enjoyable than the original game :titus
🤴

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36621 on: March 13, 2021, 02:36:16 PM »
DQVIIr - So continuing all the crazy hard stuff from the Alltrades island arc, the colesium then is a six boss fight in a row match which takes a good 10-15 mins to get to #6 and then the sixth boss can basically 1 turn wipe party members with some bad luck. Especially because these bosses like to hit hard AND have first turn to act. So they knock out 50% of your HP in one turn and the next turn before you can heal it they knock out the other 50%.

I barely survived, this is the first DQ I'm using up all my revive leaf items. Usually I never touch those and just hoard them. They've gotten me through a few bosses where someone died.

The final boss for that arc was easier, but still had an orb attack that hits 2 random party members for 90 damage. Which is a lot when your party members max HP is like 110-130HP and you can only heal one character for 75HP and one for 30HP in a round with 2 characters.

Also only having 3 party members is rough on top of everything this arc. Sure you get a 4th slot NPC often, but they aren't controllable and who knows what they'll do so you gotta dig in and play defense.

So finished it up and got JOBS and started re-learning how DQ Job systems work since it's been a while. I forgot that basic jobs are "fuck your stats in exchange for giving you permenant cross-job skills/spells" so everyone has shitty stats now and like barely 100HP. But cross-job classing is nice and quickly getting some useful stuff for party building. Again, having a 3 person party definitely makes it tougher.

One thing I would have liked is if DQVII had monster recruiting like DQV for party member spots. Yeah I know you can get their hearts through tedious ways mostly and learn them as a job, but that means wasting a lot of time fighting 100-200 battles to get some stuff you could have spent those battles on your main jobs. I got the heal slime heart that has multiheal at 180 battles but I don't know when I want to sacrifice losing 180 battles going towards my main job growth just to get that spell. Monster party members you can just recruit and swap in to fill out the party at times would've helped.

Then again when I get the rest of the party members it'll be fine.


I gotta say, the writing in DQVII is excellent. This is one of the best written jrpgs so far and I can see why people love this game and I gotta imagine it'd be pretty mindblowing back in 2001 along with stuff like Xenogears/FF7-9. The stories don't have insane amount of cutscenes or anything but they're very fleshed out for the tales and settings they are doing and tend to have a whole handful of npc characters whose stories progress through the island tale.

Like in Alltrades island arc you have your main story of your group, but also the story of this girl and her little brother and the swashbuckling priestess guard, the story of the town gang that run the depowered town, the story of the theif who wants to become a priestess guard, and it all weaves through the tale of reclaiming your powers and taking back the temple. During the course you end up pairing with the theif, the swashbuckler, the kid and priestess as battle 4th npc members. It's really involved.

Also the party talk is INSANE in this game. Holy hell we're talking Trails of level of dialogue. I can't believe there are 1-2 sentence party reactions after like every NPC you talk to. I'm sure I'm missing half of them, but what is there is great and fleshes things out.

And I started the next bit in the present and got the carpet and I totally forgot DQ series has flying magic carpets. That's pretty charming.


I gotta say that at this point about 24 hours in, I'd put DQ7 over DQ11. In story I think these story arcs are better than the DQ11 towns and in gameplay DQ11 was zzz easy outside the final superbosses and here the game is actually legit challenging this early on and the job system gives a lot of build variety that DQ11 lacks. DQ7 also has more and better music.

This might end up being one of my favorite DQs, I just hope it doesn't get too grindy later on to progress through the story, especially with all the battles needed to master jobs. I haven't had to grind yet and I'm a little underleveled for the areas (I just hit lvl.18 and Alltrades final dungeon lvl cap was lvl.20). The leveling is incredibly slow because of the length of the game. So much that fighting normal battles and getting xp/gold feels really incremental since you can fight battles for an hour or so before you gain 1 level and only get enough gold for like 1 weapon or 1 piece of armor from those 50 battles you just fought.

But it's a long game and the slow progression works and the way the stories are chaptered and talking/story focused makes it all good.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36622 on: March 13, 2021, 06:29:30 PM »
More Xenoblade, lvl 74 now.

I think I can go to what I think is the final boss but I'm doing some quests first.
There are quite a few interesting side quests in the end game.
🤴

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36623 on: March 13, 2021, 06:31:27 PM »
The ending is real good, so don't wait too long.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36624 on: March 13, 2021, 07:51:42 PM »
The ending is real good, so don't wait too long.
I'm trying to do some sort of Ritual for Melia but that involves getting back into places where level 80 Telethia are roaming  :yeshrug

So instead I've been hanging with the Nopon  8)
🤴

naff

  • someday you feed on a tree frog
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36625 on: March 14, 2021, 01:11:04 AM »
FF X. Last time I was peak stoner teen phase 20 years ago   :stahp

I'd forgotten a lot of little things of course. and it feels fresh. The encounter rate is great, fights are fast, the system straddles a really nice line of simplicity and strategy. Love having all team members available and constantly switching out the battle lines. So far one of the best ff replays I've done (just got to macalania), downsides being blitzball sucks and the temple puzzles are tedious and boring from the very first encounter.
◕‿◕

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36626 on: March 14, 2021, 01:11:19 AM »
Inside - Uhhhh, I sorta assumed with all the acclaim that this game was going to be a 6-8 hour adventure. When it ended I thought it was just another segment and then ...the credits rolled.

Insanely good art direction & animation, good puzzles/controls, but honestly it felt like half a game? Can't say I loved it given where it ends, but it was good. Definitely better than Limbo. Will check out their next game for sure.



Also this section was very disturbing   :dayum

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36627 on: March 14, 2021, 01:53:01 PM »
The ending to Inside pissed me off beyond belief.  Shit ending.  Never in my life have I yelled "THAT'S IT?!?!?!?" as loud as I did when I finished that game.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36628 on: March 14, 2021, 01:54:22 PM »
Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me

This shit's mental but much more enjoyable than the original game :titus
Finished it.

Ok, for 88 cents :trumps
🤴

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36629 on: March 14, 2021, 03:01:46 PM »
About 5 hours in FFXV:RE.  Gotta say, I had no interest in this game when launched, but now, I am sucked.  Even watched Kingsglaive prior (which was actually not bad).  Although the battle system isn’t as balls fun as FFVIIR is, but it’s still fun.

Also jumped back into my second run of Strider (2014).  Originally played it on PS3, this time on PS4/5.  Finished getting all the fallen strider outfits last night…  It’s such a damn shame that Amazon bought and destroyed Double Helix.  :( They did such a stellar job on this game.  They absolutely nailed 2.5D action platforming to such an immaculate degree.  This game is right up there with Bionic Commando: ReArmed.   

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36630 on: March 14, 2021, 09:06:38 PM »
Trying my hand at Horizon this game just screams "EARLY GEN TITLE!!" I feel like most of it exists to show off pretty landscapes. The faces would've blown my mind....back at the beginning of PS4. And the animation is stilted. The story is "meh" with some perplexing choices (Oh the Sun king wants to marry me after I talked to him twice) and the facial animation and overall animation is jank.  I am not a real fan of the combat so far as it seems to up its difficulty not by making enemies different or smarter, but just absorb more damage. I think if I had played this when it came out it would've blown my mind. But this late in the Gen? It's sorta underwhelming

Started 13 sentinels I'm really only about 1 hour in so far. Very surprised at how visual novel-esque it is. I know people said to expect it but so far it's been like 85% visual novel. I wasn't expecting the balance to be so one sided. Not that it's bad, I like VNs but still sorta surprised. Too early to tell, but I do have to laugh at the tropes  "Oh you have to pilot these naked? Of course! And he's dressed up like a hot school girl? Yeah, that's expected. And the big tough bad guy has conflicting feelings about school girl guy? Welp, I'd be surprised if he didn't!"

Yeah, the facial animation is one of the really low points of production value in H:ZD. Apparently the DLC has substantially better animation in its cutscenes, but by the time I finished the main storyline, the game had already overstayed its welcome with me.


chronovore

  • relapsed dev
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36631 on: March 14, 2021, 09:09:57 PM »
I'm getting deep into Switch games that have no business being on the Switch. At present, I'm playing Thief Simulator. It's a proper 'bought it on Steam for 59p' janky-ass PC game but I'm fucking loving it. Nowt like mooching around in a burglary sandbox while the missus watches TV. I also grabbed Cooking Simulator and some Alaskan Wilds truck game that allowed you to adjust every last parameter for the axles (even individually adjusting ackerman angles). They're both funny in a 'these do not belong on a Nintendo' way, but neither measures up to Thief Simulator.

Next up: One of the American Truck Sims.

Edit: I should add that I wouldn't recommend anyone purchases any of this shit.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/704850/Thief_Simulator/
It's $20 on Steam, and there's a bundle for the VR version! I bet it's a puke-inducer in VR.

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36632 on: March 15, 2021, 09:15:28 AM »
About 5 hours in FFXV:RE.  Gotta say, I had no interest in this game when launched, but now, I am sucked.  Even watched Kingsglaive prior (which was actually not bad).  Although the battle system isn’t as balls fun as FFVIIR is, but it’s still fun.

Also jumped back into my second run of Strider (2014).  Originally played it on PS3, this time on PS4/5.  Finished getting all the fallen strider outfits last night…  It’s such a damn shame that Amazon bought and destroyed Double Helix.  :( They did such a stellar job on this game.  They absolutely nailed 2.5D action platforming to such an immaculate degree.  This game is right up there with Bionic Commando: ReArmed.

Did Strider 2014 ever get a physical release? I played the NES Strider a few months ago and that compelled me to want to give this one a try. Usually I have hestitation about western devs following up on Japanese classics but lately there's been some good ones (SOR4 and Monster Boy in particular).
^_^

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36633 on: March 15, 2021, 09:39:19 AM »
About 5 hours in FFXV:RE.  Gotta say, I had no interest in this game when launched, but now, I am sucked.  Even watched Kingsglaive prior (which was actually not bad).  Although the battle system isn’t as balls fun as FFVIIR is, but it’s still fun.

Also jumped back into my second run of Strider (2014).  Originally played it on PS3, this time on PS4/5.  Finished getting all the fallen strider outfits last night…  It’s such a damn shame that Amazon bought and destroyed Double Helix.  :( They did such a stellar job on this game.  They absolutely nailed 2.5D action platforming to such an immaculate degree.  This game is right up there with Bionic Commando: ReArmed.

Did Strider 2014 ever get a physical release? I played the NES Strider a few months ago and that compelled me to want to give this one a try. Usually I have hestitation about western devs following up on Japanese classics but lately there's been some good ones (SOR4 and Monster Boy in particular).
Not sure about the physical aspect ( I want to say no), but if you like Strider in any shape or form; NES and/or the Genesis version or Strider 2 (PS1), you really ought to play this.  It is a Metroidvania too, not just an action game.  They put a lot of care into this reboot.  They pulled music tracks from both versions as well (NES & Genesis)  ;)
If this doesn't pump you up....  8)


It controls as tight as it looks too.  This game was most highly underrated imo. 
« Last Edit: March 15, 2021, 09:49:00 AM by Svejk »

I'm a Puppy!

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36634 on: March 15, 2021, 02:45:18 PM »
Everything about Torna is just a fucking chore. Menus are slow, movement is slow, dialogue is slow. There’s like a second of dead air between every spoken line and it’s really painful. Also the cutscene direction is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Random shots of characters out of frame, random shots of unimportant scenery or the sky, super stilted animations, weird zoom ins and outs. Who the hell is in charge of this dogshit? Anyways I’m enjoying the combat but that’s literally it. At least it has that going for it.
I'm playing XB2 right now. Is Torna something you do after you finish if you want? Is it worth doing?

Bebpo like I said DQVII was my favorite after III. That being said, after the DS remake and especially after XI it just hasn't aged well. Most people aren't good with investing the massive amount of time to get through it and I totally get it.
que

demi

  • cooler than willco
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36635 on: March 15, 2021, 04:10:51 PM »
Torna takes place before XB2 and is during Jin's time before he became all wishy washy evil

(hint: because he's a simp who cant let go)
fat

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36636 on: March 15, 2021, 05:30:33 PM »
Bebpo like I said DQVII was my favorite after III. That being said, after the DS remake and especially after XI it just hasn't aged well. Most people aren't good with investing the massive amount of time to get through it and I totally get it.

Is 3 still gonna hold up after 4-6/7/11? Because I hear a lot of people like it since it was the first to have the job system, but after the job systems of the later games, especially if I play it right after 7, not sure if it'll just feel more restrictive.

I'm planning on playing 3 after 7 since people seem just kinda alright on 1/2 and they're short & simple (sounds like FF1/2) and I can play them last in my DQ catchup.

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36637 on: March 15, 2021, 06:34:58 PM »
Bebpo like I said DQVII was my favorite after III. That being said, after the DS remake and especially after XI it just hasn't aged well. Most people aren't good with investing the massive amount of time to get through it and I totally get it.

Is 3 still gonna hold up after 4-6/7/11? Because I hear a lot of people like it since it was the first to have the job system, but after the job systems of the later games, especially if I play it right after 7, not sure if it'll just feel more restrictive.

I'm planning on playing 3 after 7 since people seem just kinda alright on 1/2 and they're short & simple (sounds like FF1/2) and I can play them last in my DQ catchup.
I think the main reason that I love 3 so much is how it ties the first trilogy all together. I don't know how it would be without 1 and 2, but I do know it wouldn't be anywhere near as high in regard without that.
que

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36638 on: March 15, 2021, 07:01:36 PM »
Bebpo like I said DQVII was my favorite after III. That being said, after the DS remake and especially after XI it just hasn't aged well. Most people aren't good with investing the massive amount of time to get through it and I totally get it.

Is 3 still gonna hold up after 4-6/7/11? Because I hear a lot of people like it since it was the first to have the job system, but after the job systems of the later games, especially if I play it right after 7, not sure if it'll just feel more restrictive.

I'm planning on playing 3 after 7 since people seem just kinda alright on 1/2 and they're short & simple (sounds like FF1/2) and I can play them last in my DQ catchup.
I think the main reason that I love 3 so much is how it ties the first trilogy all together. I don't know how it would be without 1 and 2, but I do know it wouldn't be anywhere near as high in regard without that.

Oh, didn't realize they were connected. Just assumed DQ was like FF and they're all independent.

Will definitely play them 1->2->3 then.

Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36639 on: March 15, 2021, 07:38:52 PM »
Everything about Torna is just a fucking chore. Menus are slow, movement is slow, dialogue is slow. There’s like a second of dead air between every spoken line and it’s really painful. Also the cutscene direction is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Random shots of characters out of frame, random shots of unimportant scenery or the sky, super stilted animations, weird zoom ins and outs. Who the hell is in charge of this dogshit? Anyways I’m enjoying the combat but that’s literally it. At least it has that going for it.
I'm playing XB2 right now. Is Torna something you do after you finish if you want? Is it worth doing?


If you’re invested in the XB2 story, then Torna is pretty nice. It’s got a better combat system and less bullshit like the loot box weapons. It still has field skills though.

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36640 on: March 15, 2021, 07:46:40 PM »
Bebpo like I said DQVII was my favorite after III. That being said, after the DS remake and especially after XI it just hasn't aged well. Most people aren't good with investing the massive amount of time to get through it and I totally get it.

Is 3 still gonna hold up after 4-6/7/11? Because I hear a lot of people like it since it was the first to have the job system, but after the job systems of the later games, especially if I play it right after 7, not sure if it'll just feel more restrictive.

I'm planning on playing 3 after 7 since people seem just kinda alright on 1/2 and they're short & simple (sounds like FF1/2) and I can play them last in my DQ catchup.
I think the main reason that I love 3 so much is how it ties the first trilogy all together. I don't know how it would be without 1 and 2, but I do know it wouldn't be anywhere near as high in regard without that.

Oh, didn't realize they were connected. Just assumed DQ was like FF and they're all independent.

Will definitely play them 1->2->3 then.
Better if you don't google anything about it (and 2 sorta sucks and doesn't really tie in as much as 1) you could just 1 then do 3.
1 is pretty good and definitely quick
que

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36641 on: March 16, 2021, 06:04:05 AM »
What?
2 is the straight up sequel to 1.
3 is a prequel to the first game.

If you're playing the Switch versions I wouldn't fret too much over the length of 1 and 2. The first game took me like 5 hours and second like 12. The third game is about 20 hours long.

tiesto

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36642 on: March 16, 2021, 09:48:04 AM »
I'd just play 1 and skip 2 - 1 is super basic but is only about a few hours long and it's good to just chill and grind through. 2 is super frustrating and obtuse with a ton of grinding... I'd say play 1 before 3, so you get more of the story... 2 isn't really required nearly as much.
^_^

demi

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36643 on: March 16, 2021, 09:58:10 AM »
11 is the prequel to 3
fat

Joe Molotov

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36644 on: March 16, 2021, 07:03:16 PM »
3 is p good. There are classes, but it's not super fleshed out or anything, it is still an NES game.
©@©™

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36645 on: March 17, 2021, 03:48:01 AM »
DQVIIr - Desert arc, loll at this scientist guy whose like "travel the past, I wanna go!" and you're like ok and he joins the team and travels through time and spazgasms out to everything. The way random npcs just join your party in this game is pretty great.

Also jobs level pretty quick. I'm already on 7 out of 8 stars on my first jobs in the first arc after alltrades. And having big damage spells makes leveling way faster (and probably bosses way easier). Start fight -> Boom -> end fight.

SmokyDave

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36646 on: March 18, 2021, 07:32:03 AM »
Y'know, I was too harsh on Thief Simulator (Switch). I spent about a quid on it, and it's now my most played 2021 Switch game with the exception of RFA. It's rough as fuck, but I really enjoy the core gameplay loop and the weird 'relaxed-pressure' of sandboxed burglary.

I found out last night that it has most of 'Car Mechanic Simulator' still tucked inside it. When it's time to disassemble a stolen car you literally chuck it on a lift and then take it apart piece-by-piece, awkwardly selecting one screw at a time. Stupid and pointless but goddamn I enjoyed myself. I've also unlocked the second sandbox where everyone has CCTV and guards patrolling. Time to buy those night-vision goggles.

In summary: It's the best £1.xx I've spent all year. 10/10 GOTY 2021.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/704850/Thief_Simulator/
It's $20 on Steam, and there's a bundle for the VR version! I bet it's a puke-inducer in VR.
Wishlist'd for when I finally buy a VR headset :)

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36647 on: March 18, 2021, 08:56:16 AM »
Finished Maquette - It's a kinda weak puzzle game with a good soundtrack and VA and is reasonably short (~4 hours). Wouldn't pay money for it, but for PS+ was fine.

Having San Franciscan Nights as the opening song was a damn strong choice.



Guess they couldn't get the The Animals version. Gabor Szabo is cool though.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36648 on: March 19, 2021, 01:44:53 AM »
So AC Valhalla added the Ostara Festival today which I guess Midsommar was based on? There is a May Queen and all that. I wonder if they're gonna have Midsommar nods in this and any horrible sacrificing in the questing.

If I was a lead dev on Valhalla I would do that.

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36649 on: March 19, 2021, 05:59:06 AM »
Ostara is the pagan/germaic easter myth. Seems it's just an egg hunt.

Edit: Wow, Maquette has some awful puzzle design. I'd say just listen to the ost and give the game a skip.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 07:11:29 AM by HardcoreRetro »

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36650 on: March 19, 2021, 05:38:45 PM »
Put another hour or so into Xenoblade 2. Holy crap, Is this Tutorial: The game?  There has to be a better way to teach me things rather than stopping my progress every 5 minutes to have me read something I'm going to forget an hour later. It's rather ridiculous

Getting further in 13 Sentinels Honestly, maybe I'm not far enough yet. I love the fights but the VN segments are "bleh" and so far the story is very tropey.  Everyone speaks so highly of this. So far it's been OK. Not great. But ok.
que

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36651 on: March 19, 2021, 06:19:21 PM »
Tutorial in XB2 is like 6 hours or something.

HardcoreRetro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36652 on: March 19, 2021, 06:37:27 PM »
Man, Phantasy Star 2 is fucking fantastic.

You go and save some girl just to trick her dad, who has turned evil in her absence, to stab her to death. Beautifully animated pixelart with her guts spilling onto the floor. After the dad sees what he has done he commits suicide by blowing himself up. Then some textbox pops up talking about the many tragedies in this world.

All of that just to get to the next town. I love it.

Joe Molotov

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36653 on: March 19, 2021, 07:25:42 PM »
Beat the first three chapters of Ys IX. Loving it so far.
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I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36654 on: March 19, 2021, 07:53:17 PM »
Man, Phantasy Star 2 is fucking fantastic.

You go and save some girl just to trick her dad, who has turned evil in her absence, to stab her to death. Beautifully animated pixelart with her guts spilling onto the floor. After the dad sees what he has done he commits suicide by blowing himself up. Then some textbox pops up talking about the many tragedies in this world.

All of that just to get to the next town. I love it.
I know I had said before that being able to get to the last level of battletoads (NES) consistently was my best gaming achievement. But in thinking about it, making it through PS2 back in the day with no internet, no save states, and all that? I think that might be a bigger achievement. I love the game but no way I would play it without modern QOL improvements.
que

Svejk

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36655 on: March 20, 2021, 04:37:15 AM »
My friends and I literally went through a ritual of burning the strategy guide PS2 came with.  We were pyros anyway.  :trumps

tiesto

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36656 on: March 20, 2021, 11:33:58 AM »
Yeah, Phantasy Star 2 has a lot of shocking and poignant scenes littered through the game. Its ending is in particular a shock. The dungeons are super grueling but I think that's what I like about the game so much.

Glad to hear people are enjoying PS2 and Ys IX.

I've been continuing my playthroughs of a few games:
3D World - Up to Champion's Road. Can't get past the damn switching blocks. This part always trips me the hell up.
Ultimate DOOM - Up to E2M7. Progress is going a lot smoother as I've gotten the flow of combat much better and save a bit more often instead of once a level.
Seiken Densetsu 3 - Beat 5/8 of the Benevodons. Still have to do the Moon, Light, and Dark ones... the Moon one (giant wolf) I remember being a huge bitch when playing the Japanese version.
^_^

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36657 on: March 20, 2021, 06:36:43 PM »
My friends and I literally went through a ritual of burning the strategy guide PS2 came with.  We were pyros anyway.  :trumps
Before or after you beat the game?
que

Sho Nuff

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36658 on: March 21, 2021, 12:31:02 PM »
I just wrapped Ys VIII: LACRIMOSA OF DANA

Turning on the PS4 RIGHT NOW to continue Adol’s travelogue in YS IX: MONSTRUM NOX

HERE WE FUCKIN GO!

Svejk

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36659 on: March 21, 2021, 01:07:09 PM »
My friends and I literally went through a ritual of burning the strategy guide PS2 came with.  We were pyros anyway.  :trumps
Before or after you beat the game?
A little more than half way through...  for what ever stupid reasons, it seemed to cause us fighting over it.  So we made a truce to just destroy it with fire.  :beavis

Just now realizing it was the goddamn ring of power straight out of LOTR  :existential