What are you playing?

[Bebpo]

Found my first SaGa game I don't like with SaGa 2/FFL2 DS remake. I'm like 1/3rd through ~8 hours and it's just kind of frustrating and unfun and looks drab & ugly on the DS compared to the enjoyable simple sprite worlds of SaGa 1.

The stat gain is a joke compared to other SaGa games, and barely gain stats at all and it feels like a ton of work to gain +1 in agility or something and battles drag out because you cycle through using subpar weapons just to have a 5-10% chance of a stat gain at the end of it.

Also the balance is a joke and normal battles are zzz, but bosses one-shot everyone they hit and there's no revive -_- Get back attacked or something and you wipe but try it again without the back attack and it's easy.

Everyone likes SaGa 2 the most out of the first 3, but I couldn't put SaGa 1 down and this I just wanna throw through the fucking window and it's a frustrating experience. No idea if SaGa 3 DS will be like this since it's a very different game but shares some of the same mechanics.

[naff]

I played through the intro to FFX-2 before bed and this is already pretty mindblowing, the 2000s britney x christina aesthetic with the emo chick called Paine  can already tell this is going to be the GOAT

[Potato]

Final Fantasy post IX...not even once.
 

[naff]

another awful opinion from the potato

ff9 is OK, but I'd rather replay almost any other ff. only thing that made 9 palatable on my recent play through is super speed. High encounter rate and slow ass battle loading. very little meat to the endgame too. an ff that gets too much praise on the back of its visual charm imo

[Don Rumata]

I replayed FF9 recently and the first half is fantastic (aside from combat, but whatever) the second half though, when it starts to get into the monkey people lore, it gets really boring and slow, and kind of a bullshit ending, too.

First half though makes it worth it, Vivi is the best FF character of them all.

[Great Rumbler]

Final Fantasy 15

[naff]

I replayed FF9 recently and the first half is fantastic (aside from combat, but whatever) the second half though, when it starts to get into the monkey people lore, it gets really boring and slow, and kind of a bullshit ending, too.

First half though makes it worth it, Vivi is the best FF character of them all.

Absolutely, Vivi and that whole arc is fantastic. I love the first half and have played it I think 4 times? Tried to get into a couple times as a kid being a huge fan of VI, VII and VIII but always lost steam ~Ipsens castle, then on ps3 and pc, then more recently on Switch I finally got through it. I dont even think the battles are that bad, just a little bland and the method for learning abilities through equipment is just not interesting. If they fixed the load time issues I think everything would flow a lot better, even on super speed there's a massive delay the first time you load a battle in an area every time.

I appreciate every FF I've played. Great series with no real misses, though I still haven't played XV 

[Potato]

another awful opinion from the potato

ff9 is OK, but I'd rather replay almost any other ff. only thing that made 9 palatable on my recent play through is super speed. High encounter rate and slow ass battle loading. very little meat to the endgame too. an ff that gets too much praise on the back of its visual charm imo

I don't even like FFIX (or any Final Fantasy). It's just better than playing whatever came next in the series. Most overrated bullshit ever.

[naff]

 

[tiesto]

Played some of the Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX - wasn't really a fan. The redone art looks really nice but they didn't change the physics much at all, making the game really twitchy and frustrating to play in the year of our lord 2021. Alex Kidd is one of those series that I want to like, but apart from Shinobi World (which is about a 20 minute long game) and the first half of Lost Stars, isn't very good (and the less said about High Tech World - the americanization of Anmitsu Hime for the Mark III, the better).

Then I played Keio Yugekitai for Saturn. This is a platforming sequel to Keio Flying Squadron on SEGA CD. The pixel art in this is incredible, but the shitty music hurts it, as well as the super long levels with limited checkpoints. The game also glitched on me in one of the areas after I fell through the board, forcing me to reset and losing a ton of progress.

Also played through the Yuffie DLC for FF7r - was a bit disappointed it was set in Midgar, was hoping it was gonna be set in Wutai or a unique environment. As a whole it felt a bit bland. Fort Condor was a bit more fun than I was expecting, I never really cared much for the original or RTS/MOBA games in general.

And I also started on Yakuza 7 - my first Yakuza experience (about time!). Only in ch 3 so far (just made it to Yokohama) but damnnn, this is my kinda game! I love how some environmental characteristics subtly affect the battle - like when you attack if there's a sign nearby you will pick it up and attack with it, or if the enemy is up against the wall and you do a heavy attack, you can hit them against the wall and stun them. Also the most foodie-porn game since FFXV. Excited to play more!

[ZombieSupaStar]

Still gotta get back to Yakuza 0.....

Tried plaing Streets of Rage 4 and man I just didn't like it, I didn't like the graphics they reminded me of flash games like Castle Crashers you'd see on newgrounds.com. I wish they did pixel art. I didn't like the music at all. And I didn't like the combat much either it felt like I needed to "git gud" which the old school games didnt feel like, at least on normal? I picked fat Axel and all the enemies flying all over the screen while his obese ass plods along, with no dash? Maybe its nostalgia but I liked Streets of Rage 1 and 2 much more than this (didn't play much of 3 back then).

Trying to get into FF14 since WoW classic is dying and Blizzard is full of perverts

spoiler (click to show/hide)

although I may get Diablo 2 resurrected, someday.

[close]

I feel bad for Vicarious Visions now being part of that company, they could have been making Tony Hawk 3+4, and instead they seem to do a GOOD remake of Diablo 2 and Blizzard shits itself right before its released. Lol crappy luck.

[demi]

Lol, you're lost if you think people are skipping out on D2 remaster, none of those internet crusades ever work

[ZombieSupaStar]

I dont think people are skipping it, I watched the deep dive with VV they did back at E3 and feel bad all that work is overshadowed now by grabby hands mcrape jokes. Blizzard North was best Blizzard and unless something bad comes out about David Brevik, or Max Schaefer im sticking to that lol. As a Tony Hawk fan back in the day VV knocked it out of the park with Tony Hawk 1+2.




at this rate ill be playing the FF6 pixel remaster before I can roll a char on Faerie server in FF14

[MMaRsu]

Lel d2 who cares fuck that old shit

[ZombieSupaStar]

Eh Diablo 3 wasn’t very good and I put PoE up there with eve online in the “sounds awesome, till you actually try playing it” category.

 

[Svejk]

Tried plaing Streets of Rage 4 and man I just didn't like it, I didn't like the graphics they reminded me of flash games like Castle Crashers you'd see on newgrounds.com. I wish they did pixel art. I didn't like the music at all. And I didn't like the combat much either it felt like I needed to "git gud" which the old school games didnt feel like, at least on normal? I picked fat Axel and all the enemies flying all over the screen while his obese ass plods along, with no dash? Maybe its nostalgia but I liked Streets of Rage 1 and 2 much more than this (didn't play much of 3 back then).

You should give it another try... it's excellent.  I'll admit, I wasn't too fond of Lizardcube's art direction, but it grows on you.  You can turn the music to retro in the options as well.  Granted it has some questionable selections, but at least it's there. 

[tiesto]

Still gotta get back to Yakuza 0.....

Tried plaing Streets of Rage 4 and man I just didn't like it, I didn't like the graphics they reminded me of flash games like Castle Crashers you'd see on newgrounds.com. I wish they did pixel art. I didn't like the music at all. And I didn't like the combat much either it felt like I needed to "git gud" which the old school games didnt feel like, at least on normal? I picked fat Axel and all the enemies flying all over the screen while his obese ass plods along, with no dash? Maybe its nostalgia but I liked Streets of Rage 1 and 2 much more than this (didn't play much of 3 back then).

Trying to get into FF14 since WoW classic is dying and Blizzard is full of perverts

spoiler (click to show/hide)

although I may get Diablo 2 resurrected, someday.

[close]

I feel bad for Vicarious Visions now being part of that company, they could have been making Tony Hawk 3+4, and instead they seem to do a GOOD remake of Diablo 2 and Blizzard shits itself right before its released. Lol crappy luck.

I found the movement speed to be a bit slow in SOR4, even when I used Blaze (my main for the other games in the series), but you get used to it. I didn't really find it too 'git good', aside from the final stage which is a bit of a gauntlet that goes on for a bit too long. Every enemy has a pattern or set of moves that works best against them, once you learn those the game becomes much more bearable (and don't be afraid to use your X+A attack when you come in a pinch). Agreed with the music, a lot of it didn't stand out or tried a bit too hard to fit in with modern EDM styles... this one in particular is classic SOR:

[Bebpo]

Replaying through Final Fantasy 1 again with the Pixel Remaster. About 2 hours in at Elfheim. Been too long since I played this so I have no idea what I'm doing and made a Fighter / Red Mage / White Mage / Black Mage party. Not sure if I like my RDM slot since they suck as magic but it's alright having a 2nd weaker tank that can do some cures and all support magics.

Note sure if I'll play FF2 again before jumping into the real meat FF3, but maybe.

These pixel remasters are really good but they also really do need a 2x or 3x battle speed toggle. Shame they didn't ship with one.

[Bebpo]

With FF Pixel Remaster if you just open cheat engine and load the process you can enable speed hack to change the game speed and it doesn't change the music speed   So that's basically all you need.

I'm playing at 2x speed and FF1 is glorious.

[Bebpo]

Also it's cool that they've completely rebalanced these versions. All three games have major rebalances to the point where they feel new and fresh. All the diehards seem to think these have been balanced for the better.

So:

+Ridiculously good soundtrack
+Great true widescreen support showing new content on the sides that didn't exist
+Newly balanced for better quality games
+Great sprites & effects
+Achievements
+Nice art gallery/beastiary/music player

-No extra content from previous re-releases
-Text is a bit wonky but you can adjust

FF4-FF6 gonna be amaaaaazing. Yeah I think I'm replaying all six this year.

[ZombieSupaStar]

Ive never played FF1-5, but the music does sound pretty nice, I hex edited my gameassembly.dll and now the judder seems almost gone (144 hz display) and I dont really mind the font so I left it alone.

I am excited to replay ff6 like this.

[Bebpo]

Man, you're in for a treat. FF4 has a really good story like FF6 even if a bit shorter & simpler and FF5 is an extremely fun game with the best job system.

[Akala]

pixels are even cheaper on GMG, they count toward bundle price on steam, etc. really like although there are a few things they did that are kinda wtf? I hope they patch in speed/font/vsync but we'll see I guess.

I jumped right in to 3, been wanting this for a long time. 

[ZombieSupaStar]

I played a little Yakuza 0 also, Majima-San was pleased.

I'm getting older and I got to get away from MMOs, or GAAS shit, I want finite stories that end OR sandboxy shit that you can play forever at your own pace (Rimworld / Dwarf Fortress, etc).

[Nintex]

Still making way through the Mass Effect trilogy. They did less work on ME3 but still an improvement over the original.

Just a far less creative game than Mass Effect 2.
When it comes to graphics I think the biggest difference is that ME2 mostly relied on baked lighting while in ME3 they start to play around more with indirect lighting.
The result is that while on paper it is technically more impressive (and back in the day looked better) it doesn't in this remaster. Because those old effects don't upscale as well as the detailed texture work of ME2 does.

[demi]

Tried out The Ascent - was introduced to a host of bugs before I could really even play, so I'm just going to wait for a patch or three before playing.

"Finished" Minecraft Dungeons - the "final" DLC was released this week so I finished that up. Fun game.

Shining Resonance Refrain - walmart brand Tales gameplay with plain jane relationship system



Going to play Ace Attorney since I got that from GameFly

[Don Rumata]

Can you play Ascent coop in local on PC? Really don't want to get another gamepass or a second copy for one game.

[thetylerrob]

It's got a couch co-op option on the main menu so I think you're good.

[ZombieSupaStar]

FF1:
Just gave the elf prince his MTN DEW so he'd wake up, up until this point I havent been auto battling or realizing that B is RUN!



Level 15 party at 2:30 time played so far, went fighter, thief, monk, and black mage.

[demi]

Any party is pretty viable in FF1, I think Warrior/Knight gets some healing when they get upgraded.

[Bebpo]

Wait, B is run? I've been trying to find the hold-to-run button this whole time and never found it. Good to know.

I just took out the Earth Crystal fiend last night and got to Mt. Gulg. Around lvl.25, 6-7 hours in or so. Good stuff.

[tiesto]

I've played through FF1 so many times and I don't think I've ever once used Thief... usually use 2 Fighters, Monk, and White Mage.

[Joe Molotov]

4 White Mage party or no balls

[Bebpo]

I've played through FF1 so many times and I don't think I've ever once used Thief... usually use 2 Fighters, Monk, and White Mage.

But BLM does crazy damage (with shitty max HP)

I got the class upgrades and am at the Sunken Shrine now. My Warrior/Fighter/Knight is crazy good for damage and HP/Def, WHM is good all party healer, RDM is ok physical attackers, weak magic user with some support help, BLM basically nukes everything constantly.

[Supermanisdead]

Neo TWEWY is really good. One of the best games I've played in a long time. I can't get enough of the combat system.

[Bebpo]

Beat FF1, even got all achievements. Never knew about that Warmech hidden boss or the dumb sliding puzzle but did both. Game is still super easy like I remember it being on the GBA remake, and especially coming from SaGa 1 it's extremely easy and player friendly in comparison.

But it's still fun, cool little journey, great music. Remake was awesome. Took about 10 hours to do everything using speedhack to speed it up a bit.

The game has enough interesting locations along the journey that I'm surprised they never did a fleshed full remake of the game FF3/4 DS style. Could easily be a 30-40 hour adventure. All the base stuff is great.

[Bebpo]

Also I am now ready to kill chaos thanks to this FF1 refresher. Looking forward to whenever that finally comes out.

FF14 Endwalker 2021
FF16 2022
FF Dudebro 2022?

Lotta new FF in the next year.

[Joe Molotov]

Played about 3 or 4 hours of TWEWY 2, it's dope af. Shoka-chan is my waifu.

[Uncle]

I've played through FF1 so many times and I don't think I've ever once used Thief... usually use 2 Fighters, Monk, and White Mage.

historically the thief class was broken and the least desirable of classes in NES FF1

there's no stealing so his advantage was supposed to be increased chance to run based on his higher luck, but instead run chance was bugged and based on the status of the character two positions lower (and then some other screwed up data for party members 3 and 4)

so the only advantage ended up being the ninja's broader set of gear and getting some low level black magic, which is not much of an advantage at all late game

some of this was rebalanced in the remakes but thief and black belt are still on the low end


IMO most fun party is fighter, red mage, white mage, black mage, magic is where all the fun utility comes from in the game

edit: I didn't even see bebpo's party above 

[Bebpo]

If I knew Thief class upgrade was Ninja I'd probably have gone Thief over Red Mage because Ninjas are always cool. Red Mage was kinda fun but for min-maxing endgame they're just too weak. They pretty much can't do any damage on bosses physical or magic so they're just there for support atk buff/haste/single unit heals/elixers.

For groups your BLM should be able to nuke everyone with one spell but if not RDM doing a weaker group spell is an ok backup. I like RDM in concept and how they look (hell I enjoy playing my RDM in FF14) but would've taken a 2nd high damage dealer for boss fights instead. My fighter with attack buff & haste was doing like 1,500 damage attacks on the final boss whereas BLM flare was like 450 and holy was like 250 and RDM was like 125.
 
But mostly Ninjas just look cool and I got two Sasuke Blades by the end that I couldn't use (can Ninjas dual-wield in FF1?)

[Uncle]

I'm not sure if they patched in dual wielding to later versions

dual wield was introduced in FF2 but as usual for the series was bugged, it animated properly but only calculated damage from the first weapon


on a different subject, FF3 is awesome and it's practically on the quality level of FF4 but with the prototype job system so you've got all these great options
 

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I'm real excited for FF3 when I get to it.

It's crazy how many bugs there were in these games. Like some aren't even minor and anyone could have spotted them like in FFL1/SaGa1 the Glass Sword which is supposed to break and be 1-time use doesn't break lol like even back then how did they miss this stuff.

[The Sceneman]

Been playing pretty much nothing but Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It's so good. Up to chapter 13 and about 50 hours on the clock (some idle time and I've done a lot of the side stuff)

Got Rise of the Tomb Raider and all the DLC for ten bucks so I'll play that next. I liked TR 2013 and never played the sequels in that TR trilogy. Unfortunately there are many cheevs tied to co-op but maybe I can find someone to boost with online

[team filler]

been playing candy crush 

[chronovore]

Nier Reincarnation is out on the USA store finally. I wanted to play this so badly that I almost created a Japanese iTunes account so I could install it.

Now it’s here, and it opens with a five minute sequence where the player needs to drag the character using virtual joysticks across a single horizontal landscape, and the only interactions are to initiate a title sequence by reading creators name is from runestones. It shifts to 3D and then restarts the credits sequence. At this point, it produces a button “auto“ so the player can just watch instead of have to hold the virtual controls.

The first instance the player has to interact with anybody is a dialogue tree which has two choices “…“ And “…“ Establishing that the player has no actual agency in their game despite already having lived this truth by dragging the control stick for five minutes straight just to get here.

I don’t know if I should delete it immediately, or hang out and hope that there is actually some gameplay at some point.

[Bebpo]

I haven't started it yet but I hear there's no gameplay and you auto-battle everything and it's insanely gacha $$$$$

People are really down on it compared to Nier Replicant & Nier Automata. The stories are ok, but apparently just like the small weapon stories in those games with some art/animations to them and the music is solid but not as much or as good as those two, but the gameplay just sucks unless you like gatcha grinding games.

I couldn't even make it 30 mins into Genshin Impact, gatcha gameplay is not for me. I don't even think I'll play Nier Reincarnation and will just check out the soundtrack instead.

[Nintex]

Been playing pretty much nothing but Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It's so good. Up to chapter 13 and about 50 hours on the clock (some idle time and I've done a lot of the side stuff)

Got Rise of the Tomb Raider and all the DLC for ten bucks so I'll play that next. I liked TR 2013 and never played the sequels in that TR trilogy. Unfortunately there are many cheevs tied to co-op but maybe I can find someone to boost with online

Rise is the best out of that series. Although I didn't quite get the hate for shadow it wasn't nearly as good.

[Svejk]

Been playing pretty much nothing but Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It's so good. Up to chapter 13 and about 50 hours on the clock (some idle time and I've done a lot of the side stuff)

Got Rise of the Tomb Raider and all the DLC for ten bucks so I'll play that next. I liked TR 2013 and never played the sequels in that TR trilogy. Unfortunately there are many cheevs tied to co-op but maybe I can find someone to boost with online

Rise is the best out of that series. Although I didn't quite get the hate for shadow it wasn't nearly as good.

Rise is definitely the best of the new trilogy.... it felt like it should've been the 3rd game, not the second.   Shadow was pretty good too, just not as climactic as Rise...  Granted, if you play Shadow, it's almost imperative that you play with all the dlc to make it actually feel like a complete game.  The combat in Shadow was underbaked compared to Rise, but the tomb raiding and puzzles were stepped up from prior installments. 

[tiesto]

Been playing pretty much nothing but Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It's so good. Up to chapter 13 and about 50 hours on the clock (some idle time and I've done a lot of the side stuff)

Got Rise of the Tomb Raider and all the DLC for ten bucks so I'll play that next. I liked TR 2013 and never played the sequels in that TR trilogy. Unfortunately there are many cheevs tied to co-op but maybe I can find someone to boost with online

I'm playing Yakuza as well. In the midst of chapter 5, but I spent so much time in that business running minigame. The minigames are so good, easily the best and most polished minigames I've ever played.
Absolutely loving the game still. The encounter rate when you're wandering the city is a tad high, that's my only complaint.

[chronovore]

Been playing pretty much nothing but Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It's so good. Up to chapter 13 and about 50 hours on the clock (some idle time and I've done a lot of the side stuff)

Got Rise of the Tomb Raider and all the DLC for ten bucks so I'll play that next. I liked TR 2013 and never played the sequels in that TR trilogy. Unfortunately there are many cheevs tied to co-op but maybe I can find someone to boost with online

Rise is the best out of that series. Although I didn't quite get the hate for shadow it wasn't nearly as good.

Rise is definitely the best of the new trilogy.... it felt like it should've been the 3rd game, not the second.   Shadow was pretty good too, just not as climactic as Rise...  Granted, if you play Shadow, it's almost imperative that you play with all the dlc to make it actually feel like a complete game.  The combat in Shadow was underbaked compared to Rise, but the tomb raiding and puzzles were stepped up from prior installments.

One of the sequels was made by Crystal Dynamics, the other was made by the Canadian studio that SE owns.

[Don Rumata]

Eidos Montreal, the Deus Ex MD people.

[Svejk]

Yeah, CD peaked the series with Rise.

[Pissy F Benny]

glad to see yakuza 7 getting more of the love it deserves, its the first must play game since botw imo

[Joe Molotov]

Unlocked Hard Mode in TWEWY 2 and also discovered that you can also temporarily lower your player LV to get better loot. Also got my 4th party member. According to the save screen, I'm at 3% completion. 

[Great Rumbler]

been playing candy crush 

Congrats on being 60 years old.

[team filler]

[team filler]

what cell phone games should I be playing?

[benjipwns]

AdVenture Communist

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Puzzle and Dragons

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Farm Heroes Saga

[close]

[close]

[bork]

Yeah, CD peaked the series with Rise.

I liked TR 2013 more than Rise, although I enjoyed Rise a fair bit.  Then I played Shadow and just quit after a few hours.  Maybe I should try it again.

[Bebpo]

Beat Final Fantasy Legends II / SaGa II DS Remake done in the style of FF4 DS where it's totally rebalanced into a hard game, but unlike FF4 where it's a fun challenge, this is just a badly designed/broken meh experience.

Didn't care for the story/scenarios/worlds/characters, battle system was eh, character growth was too much RNG for some classes and also really slow growth. Battles were kind of slow. Game is generally easy but you get back attacked and instantly wipe and the final bosses are some real annoying bullshit.

It sounds like SaGa 3 both in GB and DS versions (XP battle system & SaGA battle system) are much easier and more fun/player friendly. SaGa 2 is just one of the more brutal games in the franchise and I don't think it holds up very well. SaGa 1 at least is broken which makes it easy and somewhat fun.

Going to take a break before jumping into 3 for my SaGa mental health.