What are you playing?

[Mr Gilhaney]

Psychonauts 2 is cumpoggers

Yeah, played through the opening. Was great. Nice budget on it.

Can still see double fine isn't big budget with the graphics, but the art style nails it anyway. So much fun and variety to every level, I fucking love it. Just did the hairdresser level and my god... Very cummy

[naff]

Been listening to the FF7r Yuffie ost. They did such an incredible job taking Yuffie's theme song and working it into all these tracks. Especially the battle song. Totally impressed. Plus Ninjas are the best.

That being said I looked up some wiki stuff and uhhhh so they're really incorporating Dirge of Cerebus's plot into FF7 remake's storyline? To be fair I never made it more than 30 mins into that game on PS2 because it was shit, so I have no idea the story quality of Dirge, but the character designs are fucking terrible in that game and it just seemed pretty shitty all around. Would rather they remake parts of Crisis Core in remake's storyline through playable flashbacks than Dirge.

Then again re: Crisis Core

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Since Zach doesn't die now in this now multiverse FF7r, you wouldn't get the best part of CC anyhow, so maybe we don't need CC flashbacks

[close]

Also in terms of FF7r's plot for pt.2/pt.3

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I feel like it's 50/50 whether instead of Sepiroth killing Aerith, Zach pushes her aside and gets killed instead in this timeline because that seems very Zach and lets Aerith survive in this version,

or they keep both alive so there can be a Zach x Aerith and Cloud x Tifa pairing. Otherwise gonna get awkward love triangle with Cloud/Aerith/Tifa at the end.

[close]

With the route they've taken anything is now possible!

I only just finished the last few chapters as I got bored in the Shinra building. Funny how much a simple change of setting can fuck with enjoyment.

Re; final chapters

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I didn't really mind The Whispers that much in concept, kind of ties in with the planet creating the ruby, jade, emerald weapons etc in the previous games. though it is a very forced plot device to enable them to change things, and the design of the whispers feels incongruant with everything else. the weapon designs were really sick, would've loved for some organic mecha monsters instead of these weird spirit things. i wasn't really enjoying the combat at the end either, more spamming the most powerful avenues i had that allowed me to finish things as quickly as possible. i did really enjoy the fight with rufus though, beat him first go around but it was a slog and he had me on the ropes multiple times.

with the way they've gone about you combatting destiny and "the planets wish" which seems to align with sephiroth somehow and his dream of defying destiny they can really just go ham with the rest of the games story changes

[close]

[Bebpo]

Played the first couple worlds of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - Seems ok. Idk, something feels missing compared to the better Ratchet games. Just feels kinda shallow and had to up the difficulty because it's easy to spam weapons and have no issue at the start. Also kinda surprised how fast you get the weapons. Looks real nice though.

Got a few missions into Avengers: War for Wakanda something about this game just always turns me off. It looks really nice and I enjoy Black Panther in story and combat is decent, but I think it's that this missions go on so fucking long because they're MMO dungeons essentially. It's so repetitive and tiring and then you always get to some stupid part where you have to base defend 3 spots and it's a real pain in the ass in SP because everything is built for MP. Also can't advance dialogue for the same reason. /sigh, idk why I keep playing these campaigns. I guess because I like the IP and the graphics are really good. Maybe the game will die soon and they'll stop making new campaign content and I don't have to waste time playing them.

[Bebpo]

Needed more Final Fantasy in my life, so started the FFII Pixel Remaster. Haven't played FF2 since the GBA 1+2 but have been playing a lot of SaGa so this makes sense. I like that I'm already questioning party & character builds an hour+ in, the free-form character build style is still interesting today. And the music is so good in this damn.

I think I want to get through II & III before the end of September when the next Trails of 100 hour import rpg comes out. Since FFII is short and since I'll probably get addicted to FFIII when I play it since it'll be my first time and exciting, definitely possible.

[Bebpo]

Which reminds me I can't believe we're a month away from Calvard Trails game #1 (9/30/21 in Japan). Been stuck in Erebonia since 2013. This has been a long time coming. Hope it's good.

[tiesto]

So jealous, I don't think we will be getting Kuro no Kiseki till 2024...

[Mr Gilhaney]

this fucking cook off level in psychonauts. the way everything from onion to bread is cheering for you to slice it up and cook it and shit.... something unpleasant about it. but yet amazing

[Joe Molotov]

this fucking cook off level in psychonauts. the way everything from onion to bread is cheering for you to slice it up and cook it and shit.... something unpleasant about it. but yet amazing


(Image removed from quote.)

[Bebpo]

So jealous, I don't think we will be getting Kuro no Kiseki till 2024...

I've always been surprised with how into jrpgs and older imports you are that you haven't tried picking up Japanese.

Then again, outside Kiseki, pretty much every other jrpg gets day 1 global release these days, so definitely not needed as much. Even SMTV is day 1 now.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Suikoden 1 and 2
Finally got around to replaying these. It is really astounding how far Konami has fallen. Both of these were magic. Suikoden 1 was awesome in that it embraced its simplicity. 2 was better in every sense. However, it is sorta funny how it's totally a game of it's time in that it doesn't respect the players time quite often. The amount of times I had to go back through that damned forest by that one city, I totally lost count. Interested in possibly playing 3-5, but I've not heard good things. Thoughts?

Soul Blazer/Illusion of gaia trying to play the Terranigma trilogy and obviously started here. Honestly, so far I actually prefer Soul Blazer to Illusion of Gaia even though its a lot more "primitive". Also Soul Blazer has the award for the most surprising tonal shift in a game, in any game in recent memory. I went through Soul Blazer rather quickly. Illusion of Gaia is taking a little bit longer as it just isn't as fast. Interested to see what the big deal about Terranigma is.

13 Sentinels: Tsundere group happy dance! I'm on the last battle. Lots of thoughts.

 

[porkbun]

My gaming situation is kind of fucked right now so I've been going through some of the stuff I have in storage.  PS2 looks like absolute ass with AV cables.  I couldn't play it for more than a night.  OG Xbox looks a lot better and I had fun playing Mercenaries, Burnout Revenge, Soul Calibur II, and FIFA.

I don't have any disc games for my Wii (and finding any used ones seems to be hella expensive) but the games I downloaded on the virtual console still work.  Star Soldier R is still amazing and really addictive.

I have one of those 10000 games on a stick Chinese bootleg "systems" coming from Amazon tomorrow, let's see if it blows up my TV or not.

[Bebpo]

Suikoden 1 and 2
Finally got around to replaying these. It is really astounding how far Konami has fallen. Both of these were magic. Suikoden 1 was awesome in that it embraced its simplicity. 2 was better in every sense. However, it is sorta funny how it's totally a game of it's time in that it doesn't respect the players time quite often. The amount of times I had to go back through that damned forest by that one city, I totally lost count. Interested in possibly playing 3-5, but I've not heard good things. Thoughts?

Soul Blazer/Illusion of gaia trying to play the Terranigma trilogy and obviously started here. Honestly, so far I actually prefer Soul Blazer to Illusion of Gaia even though its a lot more "primitive". Also Soul Blazer has the award for the most surprising tonal shift in a game, in any game in recent memory. I went through Soul Blazer rather quickly. Illusion of Gaia is taking a little bit longer as it just isn't as fast. Interested to see what the big deal about Terranigma is.

13 Sentinels: Tsundere group happy dance! I'm on the last battle. Lots of thoughts.

Yeah, Suikoden I & II represent the height of PS1 era Konami. Even better than MGS1 imo.

[Bebpo]

Damn, these old FF games are addictive. I'm like halfway through FFII already 

Especially if you boost the gamespeed to 2x the pacing is just insanely fast and you're always making progress. Can't wait for FFIII! At this rate I'll finish FFII by the weekend and start III next week.

I like how FFII is like baby SaGa. Stat growth but the growth is so fast you just are insanely OP all the time in everything you want. Really fun. Like I picked up a Mace/Club that had higher ATK than my axes for my dual-axe guy who had axes at lvl.5 and mace/club at lvl.1. Put it on one of his hands and by the end of the dungeon Mace/Club is lvl.5, Axe lvl.6, so basically can catch up in weapon proficiency in anything within a dungeon.

My black mage is running around almost naked since armor/shields/weapons reduce magic damage output, so instead I have her learning unarmed martial arts and she does crazy good damage with it. Like what is even the point of having weapons, unarmed hits just as hard and it goes through DEF...

[tiesto]

So jealous, I don't think we will be getting Kuro no Kiseki till 2024...

I've always been surprised with how into jrpgs and older imports you are that you haven't tried picking up Japanese.

Then again, outside Kiseki, pretty much every other jrpg gets day 1 global release these days, so definitely not needed as much. Even SMTV is day 1 now.

I've tried learning on my own back in HS, and took a few semesters worth in college (where I got A-'s)... I still know the whole kana and ~100 kanji by heart, and some words/phrases.. My job at least gives me a bit of a chance to practice Japanese with native speakers (and likewise, I've helped them with their English and taught them phrases), and I've played through some NES/SNES RPGs in Japanese... I joke with my coworkers and bosses that I know "video game Japanese"... words like "equip" and "magic", but not something like how to ask for the check at a restaurant or how to find X subway station. But yeah, something like a Kiseki game, where the story is the principal focus and there's a SHITLOAD of text, would be far too draining for me to even attempt to play in Japanese.

Suikoden 1 and 2
Finally got around to replaying these. It is really astounding how far Konami has fallen. Both of these were magic. Suikoden 1 was awesome in that it embraced its simplicity. 2 was better in every sense. However, it is sorta funny how it's totally a game of it's time in that it doesn't respect the players time quite often. The amount of times I had to go back through that damned forest by that one city, I totally lost count. Interested in possibly playing 3-5, but I've not heard good things. Thoughts?

Soul Blazer/Illusion of gaia trying to play the Terranigma trilogy and obviously started here. Honestly, so far I actually prefer Soul Blazer to Illusion of Gaia even though its a lot more "primitive". Also Soul Blazer has the award for the most surprising tonal shift in a game, in any game in recent memory. I went through Soul Blazer rather quickly. Illusion of Gaia is taking a little bit longer as it just isn't as fast. Interested to see what the big deal about Terranigma is.

13 Sentinels: Tsundere group happy dance! I'm on the last battle. Lots of thoughts.

2 is by far the highlight of the Suikoden series, and one of my favorite alltime RPGs. 3 through 5 I didn't like as much. 3 had farrrrr too much backtracking and the rudimentary 3D is imo a downgrade from the gorgeous spritework of 2. Suikoden 4 was a dumpster fire of a game, with horrible character models/animation, almost zero difficulty (aside from a difficult and fun final boss), bland tiny lifeless dungeons, and a godawful 'overworld' where you sail in a slow ship and get hit with constant random encounters. Suikoden 5 is the series correcting itself a bit... the graphics are still a bit bland but the story is interesting and has its share of twists and turns, load times unfortunately SUCK ASS though. Believe it or not, I quite like Tierkreis, even though it's a bit more 'kiddy' and simplistic compared to the other games, probably due to it being for the DS. I still thought it had some nice prerendered backgrounds, interesting environments, and a decent storyline about multiple parallel worlds collapsing in to one singularity.

Konami was fucking GODLY from the MSX -> NES -> SNES -> PS1 days. They fell off in the latter days of PS2 - after MGS3 and SH3 a lot of their games seemed to have a noticeable decline in budget and care...

I prefer Soul Blazer to Gaia, while Gaia is more story-driven, I prefer the more simplistic, action based combat of Soul Blazer, as well as the soundtrack (lotta SNES slapbass!) and seeing how the towns gradually build up as you explore the dungeons and defeat enemies that that game has. The vampire fight in Gaia kinda kills the pacing for me as it's more challenging than like every other boss. Terranigma, however, is a masterpiece...

[tiesto]

Beat Yak 7 last night, gonna try and beat the first postgame dungeon (probably not gonna do the second due to not wanting to grind so much) tonight.
Then it's on to Legend of Oasis on Saturn.

Also played a bit of IRON TANK for NES, I really liked it as a kid but it doesn't hold up much. Your tank moves and fires too slow, making it almost impossible to avoid shots. Smoother control like in a game like Konami's fantastic Jackal would make this much better since it has some cool things - like the multiple routes through the game.

And finally played the Arise demo. Battle system seems pretty fun and less chaotic than Berseria's super spammy button mashing combat with tons of needless and confusing 'systems'. The environments (PS5 version) looked pretty nice with vivid colors too. The skits... well the characters didn't really seem to have much in the way of personality so far, and characters are usually what makes or breaks a Tales game for me. Rita 

[Bebpo]

Heading to Mysidia in FF2 Pixel, so maybe around 60-70% in.

My initial enjoyment of this game has been waning. I think FF2's story and password/dialogue system is underrated and the SaGa character growth system is fun.

But the battle balance is fucking awful. Magic levels too slow and is useless, enemies spam status effects and stun lock you to death. The Pixel Remaster version makes it even worse because apparently there is a bug and enemy status effects have 100% hit accuracy. It'll show an attack is whiffed and misses 2 of your 4 characters but then all 4 characters will get the status effect. WHOOPS.

Around midway I discovered that just punching things unarmed is insanely OP because it ignores DEF so I'm literally just running a party of 4 punching monks using hi-potions (which heal better than cure magic!) and it's working so far. Takes down every boss in about 2 rounds.

This game would be a lot better if they did a full re-balance that simply ignored the original game balance and made a new game balance.

[Bebpo]

Actually, got some help and figured out the real secret to enjoying FF2. At the Cyclone now and gonna sleep. Might finish it next time I play.

The evasion modifier is the key stat in the game. Grind that up so almost everything misses and you don't have to worry about getting ambushed and everyone turned into stone or stunned or instant death'd and party wipes before you can even have a turn. I turned on the game speed to 25x and auto-battle defended a bunch of times with blink spell on and grinded real quick. You get like 1 point up every 100 times an enemy targets you.

Game balance is definitely awful in that you really need to do stuff like this just to enjoy the game without getting status effected every other second in a frustrating and annoying experience.

Also there's two broken swords that break using the same status effect issue, the sleep sword, which is missable and puts all enemies including all bosses to sleep 100% on connect lol (I missed this one), and the curse sword which halves the enemies stats including defense on connect. So I'm using the later on bosses and that basically takes them all out.

Having fun now, but only because I'm breaking it. Game balance is just real bad in FF2.

I still think the story is surprisingly good. A full 3d remake of FF2 probably would've done well in certain grim dark time periods of gaming. The body count is really high and everyone is always dead. Reminds me of FF15's latter stuff.

[Coffee Dog]

Psychonauts 2 comes off as a direct to dvd sequel to me. While I appreciate it not beat for beat repeating the last game, the plot setup is just a total miss for me - the idea of going inside of the minds of a formerly close group of people is really cool on paper, seeing how they view each other, their differences in viewpoint/ideaology/etc but the game isn't really interested in contrasting them that way, or at least holding the player's nose there long enough for them to sink in. The characters mental states arise from the same few events, but the player already has a pretty complete understanding of those events before and after they enter the person's mind, so it comes off as formulaic/predictable. This is further rubbed in by like half the levels being totally generic platforming levels that are divorced from the mental world themeing. (What exactly does a mailroom have to do with the mental state of that character? What stops this totally generic mailroom from just being a level in Mario or little big planet? The clunky exposition dumps?) my two favorite levels are the minds of the people who were "farthest gone", so as it stands it really could have done with more variety like the insane asylum added to the last one. Also, cutting confusion and invisibility? Clairvoyance is fun and all but the new powers leave something to be desired.

It's still a really good time because the production values are very high (the score is incredible) and the moment to moment writing is still funny. It's a comedy and I was laughing the whole way through. I just think that the more ambitious/dramatic concept kept it from surpassing the first in terms of keeping me surprised and engaged for the duration.

[HardcoreRetro]

I've only played the first 3 stages. My biggest problem so far has been that the writing has lost some of it's edge. The first game got pretty dark at times.

Why even put that trigger warning at the start if you don't have the balls to actually deal with any of it. (Maybe the later levels do it better?)

[Coffee Dog]

I don't really know what justifies the trigger warning. the mental problems on display are both more subtle than the first game (which had like split personalities/paranoia/bipolar) and are treated with a lot of care and respect. There's nothing to really get upset or triggered at?

And one more thing: whoever the fuck thought that in a comedy game, they needed to have Raz rattle off puzzle solutions over the jokes that are being told in the background,just because I didn't instantly solve the room, needs to actually play the damn game because there is not one time that didn't take me out of it.

[Mr Gilhaney]

I did love the first one, but so far this has beaten it for me. Easily. The humor does it for me still, love the writing in general, and the levels so far. On top of that the core gameplay also feels improved. GOTY stuff for me.

[demi]

Finished Neo TWEWY

What a piece of shit sequel. Glad this shit bombed. lmao

[tiesto]

Beat Yak 7 last night and finished the Final Millennium Tower. Tried the True tower, realized it's more of the same except I need to grind for 6 hours more to max out my job level to even stand a chance against the first enemies in there, and was like no thanks...

Also played a bit more of Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX. Finally beat the one stupid level (Blackwoods) that was eluding me, then the rest of the game was a lot easier, especially after I'm getting better at the controls. The game certainly looks pretty but it's trash, especially with its framerate stutter and no time taken for control/physics/hit-detection improvements. You always seem to jump a BIT too far so every jump you have to press back a bit, enemies can kill you when you're no where near them... the original from '86 wasn't nearly as tight as the original Mario so I don't understand why the dev team didn't tweak it... but I guess if they did, the game would be a cakewalk. Shame, since I do like Alex Kidd and think the franchise has neat levels and ideas, but aside from the ~25 minute long Shinobi World, the games are a bit too jank to recommend this day and age.

[Bebpo]

Finished Neo TWEWY

What a piece of shit sequel. Glad this shit bombed. lmao

 :'(

Why is this game dozens of hours when the first game is short & tightly paced.

[Bebpo]

Got to the final dungeon in FF2 this morning. Goddamn this game is SO BROKEN.

Status effects both last until the end of battle AND stack.

My routine is literally

Char 1 - Cast all party blink raise evasion
Char 2 - Cast all party haste raise hits
Char 3 - Cast all party berserk raise attack

Repeat 2-3 turns, then on turn 4 everyone just attacks with their equipped weapon and does like 4,000 damage each.


I like FF2, but jesus christ is it a broken mess of gameplay design. It's no wonder this spawned SaGa 1 as the spiritual successor a year or so later. SaGa 1 is broken as shit too and also full of bugs! (but also pretty fun). SaGa game design, at least early on, just seems to be good ideas and LOL BALANCE.

I mean FF2's Sleep Sword 100% sleeping every enemy including all bosses and the final boss every turn is just a precursor to SaGa 1's Glass Sword not breaking and Chainsaw 1-hit killing the final boss because the programmer got the stats backwards.

Anyhow, gonna go kill some Emperor now. Then maybe work on cheevos.

[Bebpo]

Beat FF2.
Cool game outside everything broken and middle of the line slightly annoying dungeons.

Will clear up Ratchet PS5, Psychonauts, Avengers Wakanda first and then dive into FF3 Pixel. Will probably try to fit FF4 Pixel replay in at some point in October/November before FF14 Endwalker since Endwalker is heavily inspired by FF4 and it'll be good to get a refresher.

[demi]

Finished Neo TWEWY

What a piece of shit sequel. Glad this shit bombed. lmao

 :'(

Why is this game dozens of hours when the first game is short & tightly paced.

Theres so much I can go on about the game, but yes the pacing is god fucking awful.

The main gimmick with the game is that the lead has time travel powers. So when shit goes south (EVERY FUCKING DAY) he goes back in time and you have to revisit shit to fix the timeline. Every fucking day, like DUDE

[Rufus]

I did love the first one, but so far this has beaten it for me. Easily. The humor does it for me still, love the writing in general, and the levels so far. On top of that the core gameplay also feels improved. GOTY stuff for me.

I'm liking it so much I'm collecting all the figments just to stretch the experience out.

[tiesto]

Finished Neo TWEWY

What a piece of shit sequel. Glad this shit bombed. lmao

 :'(

Why is this game dozens of hours when the first game is short & tightly paced.

Because modern day rpg fans blow a gasket if a game is anything less than 100 hours and chock full of overly large bland maps, repetitive sidequests, and overdesigned confusing "systems".

[The Sceneman]

Yeah I saw a thread on Gamefaqs of someone not wanting to buy Xenoblade if it didn't have "replayability". Dude its a 100 hour game lol

Nationwide lockdown means many games is being played here

Going Under - finished the main game. Incredible world building and narrative, basically the top of the gaming storytelling echelon. Actually funny jokes, no memes. The game itself is not so good in the second half as they throw too many enemies into crowded rooms, and at points its impossible not to take damage. Game coulda used more finessing with the arena design and i-frames. Still solid 8/10 overall. I've tried the "imposter" mode which was added as a title update and is meant to be a true "roguelike". Yeah the game is kinda impossible when played like this. Even with insane luck with good skill drops I still got succubus spawn spammed on floor 8 and died a cheap death. Might just turn on the cheats and knock out the cheevos so I can forget about this

Spelunky 2 - stoked this arrived on Switch so purchased immediately. More of the same but more of the same of a 10/10 game is a good thing. They really made this shit harder than the original just to flex on veterans of Spelunky 1. Like, I got all achievements in Spelunky 1 and that was so damn hard and this game is just totally kicking my ass. I can't imagine how new players would find this. Next to impossible? Anyway gonna keep playing this for years most likely

Yakuza Like A Dragon - picking away at the postgame while playing other things. Just gotta get a little more charisma then all personality ststs are maxed and I can complete all the substories. Then its grinding bums in the dungeon for exp lol.

Tetris 99 - the daily challenges keep me coming back, daily, haha

Joe & Mac (SNES) - Gave this a whirl on the switch SNES thing. this is pretty funny. Nice chunky sprites and depraved dino bosses. I remembered liking the arcade game as a kid. This seems pertty easy? Might see if I can complete it

[Mr Gilhaney]

I did love the first one, but so far this has beaten it for me. Easily. The humor does it for me still, love the writing in general, and the levels so far. On top of that the core gameplay also feels improved. GOTY stuff for me.

I'm liking it so much I'm collecting all the figments just to stretch the experience out.

Yeah I am doing the same, and I usually dont give a fuck about collecting stuff.

[Rufus]

Hot tip: the storage room in Cardiology? Look up.

[tiesto]

Yakuza Like A Dragon - picking away at the postgame while playing other things. Just gotta get a little more charisma then all personality ststs are maxed and I can complete all the substories. Then its grinding bums in the dungeon for exp lol.

If you've been collecting a lot of rings in Dragon Kart, you can purchase a manual to raise all your stats for 2500 rings... Charisma was like the last one I needed too and buying the manual at the kart racing put me over the edge (I think you can also purchase a manual for it at the batting cages).

[demi]

Just do Sotenbori laps, you can find personality books for everything that way

[I'm a Puppy!]

13 Sentinels Really I think it's a good game, but WAAYYY overhyped. It's good. Not GOTY, or mind blowing like a lot of the hype would lead you to believe. But it is a fun game worthy of attention. Really it's more like 90% visual novel than actual game. The tower defense things were good but not really terribly compelling. Like all VNs the pacing was an issue, further exacerabated by the attempt of vanillaware to make this a tower defense game too. You'd be like "Oooh! I can't wait to find out what happened!" Then the game would be like "Nope. Go do tower defense!" then you'd be in the groove on tower defense just to have it stop and the game decide you need to walk around and click 'x' some more to move the VN part forward. Really if they wanted to make a really pretty VN they should have just done it.  Further, because the tower defense graphics were so primitive (different kinds of blobs for enemies and character portraits as your mechs) they really lacked any "punch". Why would I care that 30% of the city might be burned down? It looks the same if .3% of the city got burned down.

While it had some interesting twists, it was sorta too in love with being like 'AHA! Here's another twist!!" Instead of making something of cohesion it felt like every Anime twist was put into one game (even the gender swap one). Further, it really tries to sell itself as a love story, but god, if THIS is what Japan thinks of romance, no wonder they have a marriage crisis/baby shortage. The romance parts were terrible, there was no reason for any character to fall in love with another character outside of the fact that the writers were like "You're supposed to be together". Say what you will about FFVIII there's an argument to be made that Squall falls for Riona because she brings him out of his shell a bit. Hell, Stardew Valley, Rune Factory and Harvest Moon have more believable romances than 13 Sentinels,  Normally this would be a non-issue or a minor complaint but towards the end the game really REALLY pushes itself as a romance story and because all of that it really ends on a flat note. Lastly, I think 13 characters is a bit too much for a player to focus on. While I might have a lot of complaints I really did enjoy it and would play a sequel, but I'd hope they'd go more with a Persona route of just 4-6 people to focus on. Too often I'd like "Fukiyama? Which girl was that one?". Still, one of Vanillaware's better attempts, and if they focused less on "AHA! A TWIST!", cut their scope a bit and focused more on expanding what works they could have a persona-tier series on their hands.

[paprikastaude]

I'm also playing and can't stop yawning at a full high school cast Great atmosphere, but I can't take Japanese prodigy gangs anymore these days.

[HardcoreRetro]

Like all VNs the pacing was an issue

That's the best part of VNs. Having like a Tolstoy's War and Peace ammount of reading for what's basically a mediocre YA novel.

[Bebpo]

Ehhhhhh, I like the structure and way 13 Sentinels is told. Lots of twists but it keeps it interesting and it's fun trying to put it all together. It's a beautiful looking game that tells an interesting sci-fi story with a good cast. A++

If you don't like anime or persona-style casts, then ymmv.

Ratchet PS5 - I'm on the Mad Max sandbox world and is it just me or are the worlds in this one kind of middle-tier for Ratchet & Clank? I'm 100%-ing each world as I go like I usually do in these games, and after the first one being pretty good other than small & short (Blade Runner), the second swamp world was tedious AF to get around and 100% with the deadly swamp and needing snail and birds and shit. Worst was when I spent 20 mins bashing my head against a wall trying to get the purple things on top of buildings with the bird and the bird keeps dying and starts me somewhere far away from anything and then I look it up and at 45 purple things you get fireball to shoot them, something the game doesn't tell you at all.  3rd world is a battle arena with some tedious challenges yawwwwn, 4th world is now a giant fucking desert to waste tons of time if you're not using a guide trying to find every collectible thing.

All the worlds look insane. Best gfx ever. Pixar movie in motion.

But between tedious worlds for 100%-ing and the weapons so far being really plain and uninteresting for R&C (i.e. Mr. Fungi is Mr. Zurkon except he doesn't talk shit about murdering everyone so huge downgrade), the gameplay really isn't feeling like top-tier R&C to me so far. This is a good comfort gaming series, but there are good designed games and meh designed games in the franchise and so far this is riding closer to the meh games with a very nice looking coat of paint.

Not sure if I'm disappointed so far. The graphics go a long way and I like the pocket dimensions. There's good gameplay bits in every world so far and the characters are enjoyable. Just could be better worlds/guns...

[Bebpo]

Actually, finished up the mad max world and found everything without a guide so I guess it was fine. One thing I really do like in Ratchet PS5 besides it just looking amazing is some of the large scale battles seem way bigger than anything in Ratchet before. It's just total chaos with tons of enemies on screen at once and all kinds of visual effects going on and is pretty amazing and epic and fun.

At the Dead Space world now and now this one seems pretty cool. Visually it's omfg amazing and maybe the best thing I've seen graphically & art design in a videogame, but the concept of world switching is fun and dead planet mining ruins is a cool setting to platform and fight through.

[tiesto]

Yeah, PS5 Ratchet was my first Ratchet and it was okay... some great visuals but the repetitive boss encounters and 'childish' story weren't really winning me over. The open world desert was probably the least interesting area for me (and the swamp with the horrible bird controls), I preferred the more tighter, platforming and puzzle-platforming focused levels. The 'dark' mine area looks absolutely amazing from a graphical standpoint, probably my favorite in the game.

[Bebpo]

It is surprising the flying controls there are so shit considering it's not like they haven't had decades of experience with flying control mini-games in Ratchet.

[HardcoreRetro]

I don't really know what justifies the trigger warning. the mental problems on display are both more subtle than the first game (which had like split personalities/paranoia/bipolar) and are treated with a lot of care and respect. There's nothing to really get upset or triggered at?

Bob's Bottles level got the closest to how dark the first one could get. This together with the Psy-King's level were the high points of the game to me.

[Mr. Nobody]

35 hours into Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 after putting my playthrough last year on ice and I can't wait to wrap this shit up. Gorgeous game, but partway into act 2 the gameplay really exhausts everything it has to offer.

Last year I would've begged for a better lock-on, now I hardly use it if more than 4 enemies are after me. Literally a fucking mess targeting who you want.

[Pissy F Benny]

I hit a brick wall with it in act 2 as well, all the missions seem too last longer than they should. Say what you will about ubisoft but they've nailed the gameplay loop with assassins creed, no missions or side quests drag in any of them (imo), unlike ghosts

[Svejk]

Hoping to finish up Iki Island this weekend.  Game is gorgeous and tight, but still shallow in certain aspects that do make it boring from time to time.  I still need to try Legends though.

I hit a point yesterday while trying to figure out my gaming schedule (yes, I have to do that cuz I only play on weekends mostly ) and I think I'm gonna say fuck it and finally jump into Cyberpunk 2077.  I'm honestly tired of waiting for the next gen patch.. Supposedly the PS5 BC version has been fine anyway.  And now with more games I want to play being pushed to next year, I'm thinking this is my window to finally play it.   Come Jan.-Feb. with Elden Ring, Horizon 2 and Saints Row... and maybe even BOTW2, ain't nobody gonna have time for CP then!  I know I won't! 

[tiesto]

Been playing a bunch of Legend of Oasis, nearing the end, now I'm up to the part where I'm sweeping through the game collecting what I missed. Game is pretty puzzle oriented, it's reminiscent of Alundra but not as polished... graphics are lovely, vivid 2D, the music, well it's not my favorite Koshiro soundtrack... but it gets the job done. Don't hear this game mentioned that much for whatever reason, but it's a fun playthrough.

I picked up a repro of the English translation of Treasure Hunter G so I might play that next. I played through it a while ago and LOVED it, but haven't played in so long so I wanna do a replay. My other options on the table are a replay of Panzer Dragoon Saga, playing Shining the Holy Ark for the first time, or finally giving Hollow Knight a shot. I'll admit I don't like the Hollow Knight art style and the challenge level worries me slightly, but I hear so much praise. Any thoughts what I should play next?

[Svejk]

Been playing a bunch of Legend of Oasis, nearing the end, now I'm up to the part where I'm sweeping through the game collecting what I missed. Game is pretty puzzle oriented, it's reminiscent of Alundra but not as polished... graphics are lovely, vivid 2D, the music, well it's not my favorite Koshiro soundtrack... but it gets the job done. Don't hear this game mentioned that much for whatever reason, but it's a fun playthrough.

I picked up a repro of the English translation of Treasure Hunter G so I might play that next. I played through it a while ago and LOVED it, but haven't played in so long so I wanna do a replay. My other options on the table are a replay of Panzer Dragoon Saga, playing Shining the Holy Ark for the first time, or finally giving Hollow Knight a shot. I'll admit I don't like the Hollow Knight art style and the challenge level worries me slightly, but I hear so much praise. Any thoughts what I should play next?

I'd say try HK off the bat and see if it clicks for you.. if it does, you'll probably be in for a treat.  If not, you can go ahead and scratch that off the list.  I tried countless times and it never did for me... But it has for a lot of folk.

[The Sceneman]

Hollow Knight really grew on me. I didn't like it initially but once it gets going it really gets going. I also didn't like the art initially but that's another aspect that I grew to like over time.

[Bebpo]

Mining planet in Ratchet was great! Junk planet was fine, short and the on-rails giant robo scripted scene felt very old school GoW that’s missing from the new GoW.

Also last night I realized I have audio sync issues with my new LG on PS5. The lip-synch in dialogue has felt like a dub. Just slightly off. After much testing, seems the issue is having the PS5 encode the game’s PCM audio into Dolby Digital or DTS before outputting it is introducing a micro lag to the audio.

The problem is that PS5 only has one HDMI out and no optical out so I have to send it to the TV and then from the TV to receiver in optical SPDIF because my receiver is too old and Arc won’t send HDMI out to the receiver so I have to go digital out from the TV. And I can’t go PS5 -> Reciever -> TV because the receiver isn’t HDMI 2.1 and can’t pass through 4k/120hz signal.

Basically if I turn it to PCM output on PS5 it’s sync but stereo, so I’ll just live with the slight off-sync for now. It’s not noticeable outside dialogue cutscenes.

The Onkyo receiver that has perfect 4k/120hz pass through is supposed to be out for consumers next month, so hopefully I can grab one and get back to lossless 5.1 PCM game audio with no lag.

[zomgee]

I'm almost done with Psychonauts 2 and it has been a joy.

[Bebpo]

Beat Ratchet

Hit a glitch where I got a piece of armor from a pocket dimension and then died before leaving the dimension, when it reloaded me at the checkpoint it acted like I hadn't acquired the armor but the armor was gone. So it totally fucked my 100% and it was also the XP+20% buff piece, so I was stuck with XP+10%.

Otherwise, it's a good popcorn entertainment game that looks incredible. I thought the best part was the middle section. The beginning of the game is kind of weak with a short tutorial world, a terrible swamp, a boring paced desert, a battle arena. But then the middle planets are all pretty good stuff. Towards the end the revisiting planets and nothing but non-stop combat is kind of zzz, but the prison planet is good so I wouldn't say the end is weak, just the middle is the strongest.

I think my biggest issue with the game and why it's nothing but popcorn entertainment is this has to be the easiest Ratchet & Clank game ever made by a good amount. The weapons are pretty good with a lot of damage over time units you can set and between the speed shoes and the insanely huge i-frame dash that is like wtf way too much you have so much firepower and mobility combat is a joke.

The game even gives you infinite health & ammo options in the cheat menu before you finish the game wtf, not that I used those but still lol

Same with the platforming. Between the speed shoes and dash you have really good distance mobility but the platforming never requires any of it. It's all really simple platforming as if you didn't have these really good platforming abilities to do more complex and challenging platforming. It's fun but kind of boring in the platforming.

Also I turned on the damage numbers cheat and never went back. I think seeing how much damage stuff does is never a bad thing, helps you play more efficient.


And story-wise it was fine, but uh shouldn't the finally battle have been

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nefarious starting his dimension conquest by going to the Lombax home planet to take it over and Ratchet & Rivet have to stop it and save the Lombaxes? I mean it felt like the story set that up for the whole thing and then it didn't happen. I guess they just are afraid of showing that dimension yet and are saving it for more sequels.

[close]

Also some of the weapons take forever to lvl up. Ricochet is colorful and has its uses but holy hell is it slow and takes forever to level. Some with the bombadier bomb.

Solid 3/4 star game

*edit* just finished the credits and my save says 100% wtf

[Bebpo]

Also the Glitch tank sections were pretty bad.

[Bebpo]

Also, damn the Platinum trophy is really easy in this. No NG+ or high difficulty or lvl.10 grind weapons stuff. Cleared up a couple just now and only missing 1 with the bear collectibles. Will grab those and get probably my 3rd or 4th platinum in lifetime of PS games. Pretty rare for stuff to be this easy to Platinum/100% cheevo.

And grinding out a bit with the Rhino the cameos are greaaat. Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper in PS5 graphics is pretty awesome. The horizon mechs are cool.

[MMaRsu]

Playing Hades lately.. Over 30 runs but no victory yet. Hades is a bastard. Had a great run yesterday with the spear, ice attack, slowing enemies down, fast attack and three spear attack.. sadly no victory yet but its getting easier each time

[tiesto]

Also, damn the Platinum trophy is really easy in this. No NG+ or high difficulty or lvl.10 grind weapons stuff. Cleared up a couple just now and only missing 1 with the bear collectibles. Will grab those and get probably my 3rd or 4th platinum in lifetime of PS games. Pretty rare for stuff to be this easy to Platinum/100% cheevo.

And grinding out a bit with the Rhino the cameos are greaaat. Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper in PS5 graphics is pretty awesome. The horizon mechs are cool.

Yeah, the only trophy that was really any annoying to get was the one where you had to level up the reflector gun to level 5 and then reflect 10 shots... not tough, just took a while.

[Svejk]

Cyberpunk...   
This game has immersion like no other.  I can't believe I brought myself to start it, but it's as big, bold and beautiful as I've imagined... So far.   There's a lot to take in... Trying to decide on what to upgrade (perks), there's just so much to choose, I still have no idea which direction to veer towards.  The amount of loot too... It's almost distracting.. . So much.. stuff!! Surely there's a place to sell things?  I've only done that first deck mission for Dex.  I'm almost overwhelmed on what to do next.

[Don Rumata]

I'm wondering if i should just bite the bullet and play it on my 1060, or wait (probably well into next year) to see if the GPU market finally normalizes.
Seems like quite the demanding game, that makes a good use of RT (and DLSS?).

I know i'll cave in for RE8 anyway, not worth it to wait so long when the demo looked and ran fine on my machine.

[Svejk]

I'm wondering if i should just bite the bullet and play it on my 1060, or wait (probably well into next year) to see if the GPU market finally normalizes.
Seems like quite the demanding game, that makes a good use of RT (and DLSS?).

I know i'll cave in for RE8 anyway, not worth it to wait so long when the demo looked and ran fine on my machine.

Yeah, I couldn't take the waiting any longer.  With the next-gen patch not even guaranteed this year still, I needed to use the current window of non-big hitters/no show holiday time to play what they have.  Come next year, gonna be packed with so many choice nugz, I'll never get to it if I don't do it now.
If you got nothing to really dive into, I'd say go for CP too... It's been pretty damn solid from what I've witnessed so far.  Granted with all the whiners online about "broken/glitchy" games, I played 150 hours of launch Skyrim on PS3 and about 150 hours of Witcher 3 on PS4 since launch too.... Ran across one glitch in Skyrim, but other than that, I've had relatively smooth playthroughs on both.  It's like the news...  There's so much good out there, but yet, the only things reported are the bad things.   

[Bebpo]

Thinking about it the next day, outside of graphics, which are always great in modern Ratchet games, I'd say Rifts Apart was about mid-tier Ratchet from the ones I've played. It was very solid overall, but the better ones were a lot better experiences. The portal mechanics were cool but felt a bit underused and I wish they did more with the tech than some pocket dimensions and a few set pieces. Only 1-2 worlds did interesting things with them. Though I did enjoy how they incorporated the portal mechanics into the Rhino this time around.

At this point, after 8 games, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for Insomniac to try to shake up the formula a bit.

Also replaying in Challenge mode, the opening of the game is faaaaaar beyond the rest of the game graphically. Very God of War III opening here. R&C does give a bit of that GoW visual extravagance flavor.

Also, damn the Platinum trophy is really easy in this. No NG+ or high difficulty or lvl.10 grind weapons stuff. Cleared up a couple just now and only missing 1 with the bear collectibles. Will grab those and get probably my 3rd or 4th platinum in lifetime of PS games. Pretty rare for stuff to be this easy to Platinum/100% cheevo.

And grinding out a bit with the Rhino the cameos are greaaat. Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper in PS5 graphics is pretty awesome. The horizon mechs are cool.

Yeah, the only trophy that was really any annoying to get was the one where you had to level up the reflector gun to level 5 and then reflect 10 shots... not tough, just took a while.

When I play Ratchet games I constantly switch between weapons and stop using them once max lvl to try to level them all to max. It honestly...isn't a good idea as it made the combat a lot less fun in the endgame when I wasn't using any of my best weapons because they were all maxed and I wanted the xp to go to weaker weapons.

But anyhow I had shield reflector at lvl.4.5 and just did one battle arena with infinite ammo and it go to lvl.5 midway so that was fine. Reflecting the bullets back was a bit of a pain in the ass but did a battle arena twice and reflected stuff and got it. Took about 20 mins.

I was missing that one, the jukebox hidden trophy I had to look up, and the grind rail tricks because I had no idea you could even do grind rail tricks. Plus the bears, which I'll grab today.

[Bebpo]

Ok, got the Platinum in Ratchet. Actually only my 2nd Playstation Platinum with the first being Astrobot PS5. PS5 trophies seem easier than prior gens. Played like 5-10 PS5 games and already 2 plats, whereas like hundreds of PS4/PS3 games and 0 plats.