What are you playing?

[tiesto]

Up to the Point of No Return in Ys IX, finishing up the last few sidequests, getting the monsters/map completion/treasures I missed, and grinding for the 2000 Nox trophy before I tackle the final dungeon. Will probably try for every trophy except 'beat game on nightmare'.

Also been playing 3D World Switch from time to time. Beat the regular game, but now going back and doing the collectathon and postgame stuff.

[Rufus]

I can agree on the plot, but as closer to wrap up everything was pure bliss.

The epilogue was perfect, with Geralt nodding at the 4th wall as Regis say that they deserve a rest. Yes. Yes, you do.

edit: I see Puppy mentioned it already.

[Bebpo]

In the new GnG Switch, any idea what the difference is between the 4 difficulties besides the lowest one being instant spot revive? Do the other 3 just change the level layouts/damage/HP etc...?

[Supermanisdead]

Persona 5 Strikers is okay so far. It's a lot more like a normal RPG than a straight up musou game. Combat and everything in the dungeons is pretty fun, but the rest of the game is kind of dull. Without the time management and decision making of the original series, the structure of the game becomes shit. It's just your party (who kind of suck) all the time, endlessly repeating their buzzwords. This should have been a non-cannon spinoff with the cast of the last 3 persona games with minimal story. As a straight sequel to P5, it's really lacking.

[Bebpo]

Idk if I'm feeling the new Ghosts n' Goblins. I remember loving the ever fuck out of the PSP one (Ultimate) in 2006. Was challenging but played really well. I feel like this plays a lot worse and the stages from the start are more trolling.

The hardest part in the first stage was this stupid trolling platform moving over water that constantly changed its pattern so when you jumped and were committed it would change to a different pattern and you'd fall to your death. Took me like 5 lives to make the stupid jump. The rest of the stage was mostly fine.

[Bebpo]

Wait, wtf. This game runs like 20fps docked but in portable mode it's like 60fps smooth?

This has to be a glitch.

[Freyj]

Ok, finished Act 2. Yeah, that would have been kind of a weak place to end it. It's fine but so far the "story" of the game is pretty basic in an 8-bit/16-bit way but with modern gfx and great presentation. The characters and town vignettes are really great though.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The story itself is just sorta simple heroes get together and go fight the evil lord of darkness,
lose, then get back together and go fight the lord of darkness with the master sword. The end.
Fine, but very simple.

[close]

And they definitely left a lot unexplained for Act 3

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean the tockles things being from the opening cutscene to the end and the game never really does anything with them outside the little retro area.
Plus the whole Edwin's Lantern arc outside Gallopolis was really weird and basically a prelude to Act 3 dealing with it.

[close]

Looking forward to getting started on this arc. I read somewhere that the expected levels are like lvl.50 by the end of Act 2 and lvl.70 by the end of act 3. So you don't have to grind to 99?

Is it like there's an Act 3 w/ending (lvl.70~) -> post-post-game after (70-99 extra dungeons/secret super bosses)? Or is this all just Act 3?

Oh and getting that ultimate blade skill for the Hero was pretty worthless. It eats an insane amount of MP and somehow does less than Unbridled Blade? Is that because it's based on lvl/character stats whereas Unbridled Blade is based off Greatsword stats? For the end of Act 2, Jade was still doing the most damage with multifeet while on Oomphle. Was hitting about 1,000-1,100 damage per turn and Hero was doing like 600-800 damage.

Once your party is fully reassembled I would do the Electro Light Hallelujah trick with some Pep Pips/Pops to get to the high 60s at least, not sure if you’re on Draconian. Save before so you can reset for the Kings, etc. Some of the bosses after that point can be a little frustrating without the levels or well prepped resists.

If you mean Quadrablade it’s nice for clearing regular encounters but Unbridled / Swords Dance w/ the best 1H are way better options for bosses.

And I don’t think Act 2 is a good place to end but I’m not a big fan of the way Act 2 and 3 are structured.

[Bebpo]

You think dual-wielding two 1Hs are better than using a single greatsword? I've been using greatswords the whole game with the Hero.

The Hallelujah trick sucks because I hate the wait between casting that and defending over and over until pepped back up with Jade to do Electric Light Show...and then you get killer robots or the slimes get away. It's just tedious af time waster.

I feel like it's quicker to just save then electric light show and try to get all slime kills.

I'm playing on normal difficulty and the bit I read online said Act 3 finishes around lvl.70? Sounds like I probably shouldn't need to grind if I'm starting at 60 on normal? Idk, I'll give it a shot until I hit a wall.

*edit* just looked it up, on normal the recommended levels for the final boss of Act 3 are 70-75. Since I figure there's a lot of bosses to fight before then and levels to gain, probably ok without much grinding.

[Bebpo]

Ok, I started Act 3 in DQXI, wtf is this

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alternate route story is ok, but all my party members are lvl.30. Don't tell me I will need to level them all back from 30?

Also story-wise this is super annoying that the Hero can't remember the past and just like explain to people what is going on instead of little glimpses at the last minute to save his ass.

And Act 3 being about saving Veronica is laaaame. I thought it was a nice surprise when they killed her off in Act 2. Made Serena's stuff work better. This feels like FF doing a save Aerith route. Meh.

[close]

[demi]

Hallelujah is unnecessary, only worth using if you have a stockpile of Pep Pip/Pops, and you don't want to use Pep Pops unless you dont care to try to fight the secret boss

You can get upwards of 300,000 XP in one of the final dungeons with Electro Light alone - and you can farm Mini Medals + Pep Pips/Pops too

[Bebpo]

Man, I just don't have the skills & patience for rage-y games like Ghouls & Ghosts anymore.

Just spent an hour of retries to finally beat the second stage/zone boss which was a multi-phase boss and the hard part was the second phase so had to keep wasting a minute or two on the first phase over and over just to get another attempt on the second phase.

The gamespot review where the person rage quit and gave it like a 3/10, like it's not a 3/10 but I completely understand.

It sucks because there will be a really well designed challenging level that's satisfying to clear and it's like this game is great! and then when I hit a roadblock I wanna just delete the game because it's so frustrating after 45 mins attempting the same thing over and over.

I dunno if I'll clear it. Definitely regret having bought it though. Was hoping for something similar and accessible like the last one on psp. Instead this ditches everything from that game and is a throwback to the originals which I never liked.

[The Sceneman]

Big thing here is G&G was probably never good. Stupid hard shit with bad gameplay and terrible hit detection. I get theres tons of nostalgia around certain titles and its becuase its all was available, not because it was good.

[Bebpo]

Yeah idk, I am not skilled enough to say whether the old games were good or not. In general my memories of 8-bit/16-bit stuff are from when I was like 8 years old so 30 year memories ain't accurate. Like when I was a kid I loved TMNT1, Batman NES, Mega Man 4 & California Games lol.


That being said, this new one definitely is just hard af. Someone said that one of the hardcore 2d platformer streamers streamed the whole game yesterday and it took them 12 hours to beat the first run...which is only half the game because it's GnG. And if you no life it, these games are probably like an hour long, but it still took that dude 12 hours. Sure he was playing on the highest difficulty ("Legend") but in terms of accessibility the new one does a slight job imo of making it more accessible. The other difficulty levels add an extra +1 hit or +2 hit to armor and extra checkpoints and slightly fewer enemies in levels, but otherwise the levels are still the same, the bosses don't benefit from extra checkpoints or fewer enemies so even on the easiest difficulty the boss is still the same boss as the highest one except your armor can take 2 extra hits. Also the bosses are long multi-phase bosses. I'm not saying the easier difficulties aren't easier, but with a game where the levels/bosses are as hard as this is, there's really no difficulty that makes it a little easier for old foggies like myself. The double jump in Ultimate was a lot better for accessibility. I'm mostly just bitching because this game was not catered to me like Ultimate was, but that's fine, it's made for a different audience that digs the old games and wants something similar with better visuals and more content.

There is a "Page" difficulty where you are literally invincible, which is really only useful as a way to scout levels and practice them since there's zero challenge or fun in god mode only difficulty. Also Page ends at the end of the first run, so you can't access the second half shadow stages in it.

I'll probably end up beating it because I don't like to lose and will miserably bash my head against a wall for hours and hate myself until I win, but who knows if I'll enjoy it. I've cleared 3 stages so far and I generally liked them, despite frustrations, outside one boss which was tedious and bleh.

[Spieler1]

Big thing here is G&G was probably never good. Stupid hard shit with bad gameplay and terrible hit detection. I get theres tons of nostalgia around certain titles and its becuase its all was available, not because it was good.

They are alright. But they always have a feel of random to them, which makes them really not as good as Castlevania etc. I played these things way past their release dates.

[Bebpo]

Big thing here is G&G was probably never good. Stupid hard shit with bad gameplay and terrible hit detection. I get theres tons of nostalgia around certain titles and its becuase its all was available, not because it was good.

They are alright. But they always have a feel of random to them, which makes them really not as good as Castlevania etc. I played these things way past their release dates.

Yeah, GnG reminds me the most of Capcom's version of CV, but I find the classic CV games hard/challenging but fun and love stuff like Drac X. CV games feel hard with some tight spots like medusa heads on clock towers, but generally fair whereas GnG feels like a game made by trolls to piss off players.

[tiesto]

I never really mastered any of the G&G games myself... like the furthest I've ever made it was the second or third level and then called it quits. I don't mind the stiff controls but it seems to be one too many cheap deaths and constantly respawning enemies - I see Bebpo comparing it to CV, but for how rigid the early CV games are with your character's movement, the enemies are deliberately placed and they're all pretty surmountable once you know the enemy patterns and level layouts.

[Freyj]

Bebpo I definitely wouldn’t bother with Electro / Hallelujah until you have a stockpile of Pep items to try for at least a Liquid or King kill. You’ll get like 5 levels or more so you don’t have to do it very much but yeah manually waiting for Jade’s pep to trigger again is boring.

Also don’t worry about the levels thing and just keep moving the story forward, it’ll take care of itself.

Also also 2 1H is only really worth it once you get a very specific set of 1H swords. Even then Greatswords are still very viable.

[Nintex]

More Xenoblade.

About 45 hours in now, lvl 55 or so.
Ripped through the Mechon fortress like a knife through butter with the Shulk, Reyn, Dunban combo.

Then I found

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fiora. Pretty fucked up what happened to her. Organs removed and all that. Game gets dark sometimes 

And then it be like: "Riki eat yum yum fish!!!" 

[close]

[Bebpo]

Also also 2 1H is only really worth it once you get a very specific set of 1H swords. Even then Greatswords are still very viable.

I still don't really understand how dual wielding works in this game. Like if you do a standard attack you hit twice instead of once, ok that is obvious though I think the stats are on the 2nd weapon are cut in like 1/2.

But since you almost never are using standard attack, and your abilities still just hit once or whatever number of times, is the damage based on the combination attack power of the two weapons + default str stats? So if the two weapons attack power combined is higher than your best greatsword you'll do more damage?

The behind the scenes stats in this game are pretty confusing for strategic trying to min-max. Hell the bestiary doesn't even give any info about enemies besides their drops so I don't even know if elements are a thing in DQ. If you use fire spells/weapons against an ice enemies do you do more damaage? If you use ice attacks against an ice enemy do they have resistance to it? I...don't know.

I like the DQ series a lot for the story telling, music, old-school exploration, but for the meat of the gameplay it's just ok and not one of my favorite jrpg series.

[tiesto]

If you guys have ever heard of Streets of Rogue, I played a ZZT (ANSI-graphics game creation platform which was Tim Sweeney's first release) game by its developer last night called Burger Joint. It's considered one of the most iconic ZZT games - basically a sort of puzzle game where you're working in a 50's fast food joint, and you have to quickly take care of customers' issues (i.e. using napkins to wipe pee off a seat before a restaurant critic sits down). For a game with ansi graphics made by a high schooler in 1998, it's got its share of charm - a "Grease" style sing-along with the music beeping out on the PC Speaker was a high point of mine.

Link here if you're curious.
https://museumofzzt.com/play/b/burgerj.zip

[demi]

My clutch Timewyrm kill, it was about to go bad real quick.

https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/demi/video/126966698

[chronovore]

Ultimate Game Pass SUNSET OVERDRIVE so I’m playing it, and WHO THOUGHT ADDING TOWER DEFENSE to an action traversal game is a good idea?

Enjoying just about everything else, but not that. Jesus. Marketing-driven decision, I’d bet $10.

[Bebpo]

DQXI S - Got past all the intro stuff in Act 3 and to the final boss and the trials (did the first trial). Have like 20 new quests, the remaining 2 trials and everywhere to revisit I guess. Story-wise this is fine, but

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the whole erasing all the story stuff and character growth and arcs from act 2 by going back before that doesn't sit well with me.

[close]

The xp from the enemies in the first trial kinda sucked, don't think my party gained a level and almost no one got pepped. Is there a good place to grind where metal slimes tend to appear even without electro light? Party is still ~lvl.60 and guessing for the next 2 trials and final boss I'll need some levels (as well as optional boss fights in this chapter).

Though maybe I should just do the optional boss fights in the chapter, I hear there's like 15. How do I find them? Are they just at the end of these new quests? Or do I need to go back to every town and talk to people and find something new to do?

Also demi, did you forge the supreme sword of light and was it worth it? I just got the recipe from trial 1 and it looks like it's gonna be tough to forge at 5 star difficulty and a bunch of mats I don't have.

[Bebpo]

Ghosts N Goblins Resurrection - Cleared the first half of the game/first run before the remixed stages. Not gonna do a 2nd remixed run, will youtube it.

I feel like 70% of the level design/boss design is good and challenging but with patience can get through satisfyingly with hands sweating. Maybe even 80%, but that remaining 20% of just random bullshit spikes that you spend an hour on some tedious checkpoint is just not fun for me.

Also yeah you get "remixed" stages, but in terms of the stage count this game is really short. Like I gotta wonder how much actual budget/dev time this had because it's short af. I expected at least 1-2 more stages than were in the game, especially since the final stage is really tiny and mostly just the final boss.

For certain people this game will hit all the right notes and they'll love it, otherwise wouldn't really recommend, especially at the $30 price point. I'm surprised that most of the reviews from major sites gave it an 8/10. I think that's a bit high, I'd give it about a 6/10 personally though if I was a better gamer maybe a 7/10. I kind of have blind faith in Capcom games these days, but this doesn't feel up to their standards imo.

[demi]

DQXI S - Got past all the intro stuff in Act 3 and to the final boss and the trials (did the first trial). Have like 20 new quests, the remaining 2 trials and everywhere to revisit I guess. Story-wise this is fine, but

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the whole erasing all the story stuff and character growth and arcs from act 2 by going back before that doesn't sit well with me.

[close]

The xp from the enemies in the first trial kinda sucked, don't think my party gained a level and almost no one got pepped. Is there a good place to grind where metal slimes tend to appear even without electro light? Party is still ~lvl.60 and guessing for the next 2 trials and final boss I'll need some levels (as well as optional boss fights in this chapter).

Though maybe I should just do the optional boss fights in the chapter, I hear there's like 15. How do I find them? Are they just at the end of these new quests? Or do I need to go back to every town and talk to people and find something new to do?

Also demi, did you forge the supreme sword of light and was it worth it? I just got the recipe from trial 1 and it looks like it's gonna be tough to forge at 5 star difficulty and a bunch of mats I don't have.

The last trial is where Metal King Slimes can spawn, and where you can get 300,000 with Electro Light

Go to Nautica, do that quest, you will get an item that tells you where you can do side-content

Yes forge the Supreme Sword of Light its the best 1H sword. You can forge anything even if you fail, you just can rework it if you want +3 down the road

[Bebpo]

DQXI S - Got past all the intro stuff in Act 3 and to the final boss and the trials (did the first trial). Have like 20 new quests, the remaining 2 trials and everywhere to revisit I guess. Story-wise this is fine, but

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the whole erasing all the story stuff and character growth and arcs from act 2 by going back before that doesn't sit well with me.

[close]

The xp from the enemies in the first trial kinda sucked, don't think my party gained a level and almost no one got pepped. Is there a good place to grind where metal slimes tend to appear even without electro light? Party is still ~lvl.60 and guessing for the next 2 trials and final boss I'll need some levels (as well as optional boss fights in this chapter).

Though maybe I should just do the optional boss fights in the chapter, I hear there's like 15. How do I find them? Are they just at the end of these new quests? Or do I need to go back to every town and talk to people and find something new to do?

Also demi, did you forge the supreme sword of light and was it worth it? I just got the recipe from trial 1 and it looks like it's gonna be tough to forge at 5 star difficulty and a bunch of mats I don't have.

The last trial is where Metal King Slimes can spawn, and where you can get 300,000 with Electro Light

Go to Nautica, do that quest, you will get an item that tells you where you can do side-content

Yes forge the Supreme Sword of Light its the best 1H sword. You can forge anything even if you fail, you just can rework it if you want +3 down the road

Oh nice. Yeah  I was hoping for some direction on what I should be doing outside cleaning up quests and the remaining two trials. I'll start there.

Ok, I'll do the second trial so I can get to the 3rd one. I reaaaaaally don't like the turn action limit thing on the bosses. Hated that on the Angri-La challenges and it's annoying here. For the first trial I did it in 12 turns out of the 25 but I literally just didn't heal at all just had every attack attack attack and try to kill the boss in time because the turn limits stress me the fuck out. Not looking forward to the next one where I'll probably not be as overpowered and able to do that.

I thought if you fail the weapon stats are nerfed to being broken shit tho? The 4 star forging stuff at the end of act 2 was pretty tight so 5 star scares me.

[Freyj]

Another reason to try to get to 70, the extra Focus really helps hitting +3s on endgame gear.

[Bebpo]

So I did Nautica bit, which reminded me that it's slightly annoying there is no fast travel spot anywhere near the islands on the east side. The kalamari quest also made you go to that spot. Glad I didn't die on the boss since trekking there each time would suck.

It's funny how the conch thing is just text objectives. I thought there'd be like markers on the map or something. Is the Cobblestone quest just the rebuilding?

And yeah, metal slimes pay out good in this act. I'm just keeping Hero/Sylv/Jade regularly in my party and fighting normal monsters and when Sylv/Jade pep I bench them and when both are I save and do electro light and only reload if 2 enemies get away. Last fight 1 metal slime ran, but I still got 140k xp from the other two and got to 62. Will just keep doing electro light when those two get pepped and gain a level or two each time.

The bosses in Act 3 are pretty good fights. Only did the Nautica one and the Condor bird to save Derk but both were pretty legit battles and fun. Enjoying the start of this act. Still need to run around and collect all the new quests and pastwords. Probably do that first before the main new quests.

[Supermanisdead]

Ultimate Game Pass SUNSET OVERDRIVE so I’m playing it, and WHO THOUGHT ADDING TOWER DEFENSE to an action traversal game is a good idea?

Enjoying just about everything else, but not that. Jesus. Marketing-driven decision, I’d bet $10.

Yeah, I played it on GPU a few months ago too. Felt the same about tower defense. Thankfully there's not that many times you have to do it. Such a fun game, so unique.

[Bebpo]

DQXI S

While doing the monster fights in Gondolia got everyone pepped and have some pep pops now (3) and a quest I have is gonna give me another 4 for 7 total, so after Gondolia I saved and then did Hallelujah -> Pep pop -> Electro Light -> Dirge (sleep, though still missed 1) -> kill.

And holy shit



Gained 5 levels. From 63->68. And I hear electro light at 70+ spawns metal kings instead for even more xp. Will definitely be doing this each time my party naturally gets pepped while doing quests. With this kind of xp will hit like lvl.80s no problem while wrapping up act 3 stuff.

[Bebpo]

Also with Act 3 I gotta say this game has a fuck load of backtracking. Even in some of the 2d flashback areas. They really got a lot of re-use out of these dungeons/areas/towns.

I've been through the Cryptic Crypt like what 4 times? 5 times now for quests/trials/story/ultimate key unlocks

[demi]

Just modern game design baby

[Bebpo]

Just modern game design baby

 

Videogames had a good run

[Bebpo]

While there's good gameplay, material hunting & crafting, costumes and buffs in Act III, I'm kinda agreeing that story-wise the game would've been better off without it and all this side-content gameplay should've just been available at the final dungeon of Act II.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Going back and having the drama scenes play out for these characters over again because they don't remember going through this in Act II is just...boring.

The good Act III stuff are the towns/areas where it's not a bunch of cutscenes that are 90% the same stuff as Act II.

[close]

Also the last two sets of Wheel of Harma are a pain. Gonna come back after finishing everything up at higher levels for this. Also the pacing & style of this act is kinda burning me out, especially all the backtracking and story repetition and quests that take some time. I don't think I'm gonna bother with the 10-15 new quests for the most part until very last like Harma. I've done a couple and there were zzz. I'll just finish these sub-event stories at each area and do the rest of the retro bits and then either do those last or just do the final boss and be done.

[Bebpo]

DQXI S - Mostly done with Act 3. Feel like I need another 2 sessions to mop up the rest of the content and then 1 session for the remaining retro quests and that should be just about everything outside the casino locked high-end recipe/outfits/whip since after that day spent on the roulette quest I'm done with casino grinding for completion. At least the horse racing was super easy and took like 5 mins to get all the items.

I'd actually take my dislike of the story stuff in Act 3 further to the point where if I wasn't picky about missing out on story scenes I'd probably just skip all cutscenes at this point. I'm enjoying the endgame jrpg gameplay of beefing up in levels and getting/crafting all the ultimate weapons/armor and becoming unstoppable, but goddamn the story fucking sucks in Act 3.

And like Freyj said, the existence of Act 3 in this game contributes to Act 2's final dungeon/story/boss/ending feeling anti-climatic/lackluster and I think it makes the game journey a bit smaller feeling because it's 2/3rds the game. If all this gameplay was just available at the end of Act 2 and the final dungeon stuff was meatier and tougher it'd have been perfect. Act 3 was a bad idea imo and does bring the game down a bit. Between that and all the backtrackingggggg and repetition I'd say this is a great 9/10 jrpg but could've been a 10 for sure with some changes. DQ4-6 are still my favorite DQ games, though I'd put this over 8 and obviously 9. Still like 15-20 hours into the 3DS version of 7 and haven't played 1-3.

With Act 3

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It kinda just ruins all the interesting/good storytelling they did in Act 2 of the main game. The somber DQ stories like the Shrine Miko getting eaten by her son and it saves her son, Erik losing his memories, Serena dealing with her sisters death and moving on. DQ games are usually kinda melancholic as a franchise and Act 2 hit that, Act 3 is like this RETCON HAPPY MODE FOR EVERYONE and everyone in the party is shittier because they haven't had to deal with the same drama to overcome. I feel like I don't know my party members and my real party members were all left behind.

It's not like Act 2 was such a dark "world of darkness" that they had to do a retcon. I'd understand something like that in FF15 where it's like EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS DEAD, but this wasn't even as bad as the FF6 world of darkness and the world generally seemed to be ok after Act 2's ending.

And not only is Act 3 hanging out with a shittier version of your party members doing lame ass happy mode retcons of almost everyone event you did in Act 2, but you also have to sit through all these cutscenes that are pretty much the same storyline just slightly happier ending.

Gameplay-wise Act 3 is fine outside some of the backtracking/repetition
Story-wise Act 3 is a pretty big miss

[close]

[I'm a Puppy!]

Playing Age of Calamity.

It's fun. I'm typically not a fan of Mosuo games, but I really did enjoy Dragon Quest Warriors 2, until the end game (it just got to a point where it required co-op or online play).
BOTW being one of my top 10 games I obviously wanted the back story. So far it's been OK. I can see they're not going for dead serious with this yet (I mean it has a cute time travelling little egg guardian). But it's ok. I like the variety and it's obvious these people know how to make this kind of game. It just hasn't blown my socks off, and I sorta don't expect it to.

[Nintex]

These late game areas in Xenoblade

This is some straight up Metroid Prime vibes

[Bebpo]

DQXI S

Demi, so I was looking at what it takes to 1000/1000 this game since I'm pretty much doing everything anyhow. Looks like the only achievement I'll be missing is the all outfits one.

You seriously grinded the casino to get all the swimsuits and stuff?


I dunno even know why I'm doing everything. I'm already lvl.90+ party with pretty much the best weapons/armor/outfits on everyone. The Act 3 bosses I've been cleaning up are all a joke at these levels. Pretty sure I could take the Act 3 final boss no problem now. But it's just so easy to knock out all quests, forge all the endgame stuff (a bit of a grind for mats, but an easy stealing grind for serpent souls and stuff), I just keep doing everything. Definitely feels like a time waster. Just want to get all this done and beat the last boss and move on. There's no challenge left or real story or anything at this point. Just an OCD completion grind.

Almost done. ~75 hours save. Probably need another 5 hours + whatever the last few retro bits take.

[demi]

To get all suits you need to beat the super ultimate boss, which has Jade's last (and absolutely broken) armor/suit

[Bebpo]

To get all suits you need to beat the super ultimate boss, which has Jade's last (and absolutely broken) armor/suit

Ah, I didn't know there was a super boss beyond the Act 3 boss. Someone the main last boss of Act 3 is the games super ultimate boss. Looking it up I see there's two more for post-post-game. Are they tough?

I still feel like grinding the casino for the couple of outfits there would be the most time consuming part of going for 1000/1000. I'm also missing the puff-puff achievement but I could just faq that and do it pretty quick.




Wheel of Harma final trial took me like 30 mins of retries and was a pain in the fucking ass at my lvl.90 party. Got lucky, did Serena + Veronica mighty mighty burst on the last part and ONE OF THE ENEMIES SURVIVED and I had no MP so Serena just equipped a spear and did like 120 damage normal attack and it killed it.

Then I had to try to make vicious red slimes appear because I was out of goobricant and needed three for the Legate blade. Took way too long. But got them eventually.



That's the way to forge stuff.



Ok, now done with everything other than the retro quests now and grinding out a few more serpent souls for Rab & Sylvando's last glam outfits and stealing 10 medals from slots to finish the metal board (at 100 now) and forge the final metal stuff. Might get it all done and the final boss tomorrow.

[Potato]

Picked up Windbound for cheap.

Cool little indie survival/exploration game. Plays well, but damn it could do with some better explanation sometimes.

[demi]

Ah, I didn't know there was a super boss beyond the Act 3 boss. Someone the main last boss of Act 3 is the games super ultimate boss. Looking it up I see there's two more for post-post-game. Are they tough?

Honestly yes, the last few bosses are pretty tough. You can cheese many of them with Magic Burst + Elfin Elixirs + Pep Pops though.

Craft 8 Catholicon Ring +3s (100% prevent status)

Start battle all pepped -> Yggdragon's Blessing

Veronica -> Magic Burst

Anyone -> Elfin Elixir (available at Octagonia casino for 10000 tokens)

Anyone -> Pep Pop (available in Cobblestone for 200000 gold -> steal/drop Devilry Drinkers from Hula Hoopers at Manglegrove Whale Way Station for 30,000 a piece)

Anyone -> Gigaburst

Veronica (at any point) -> Magic Burst

Anyone -> Pep Pop (Yggdragon's Blessing)

repeat...

You can throw in Erik (Oomphle) -> Divide -> Double Down for great damage too

[Thirty-Ought-Six]

I was thinking Crystalotl would stand out, that was the hardest fight in the entire game for me. And memorable since I coasted through everything until then, and it wiped me out easily. But I think I got there around level 50.



I'm up to chapter 6 of Ys 8 right now. Great game, but you can definitely feel the tension between the old and new design.

The single-character sections are way more intense because you can actually be killed. But at the same time, I like all the characters. Not sure how to combine those feelings.

The biggest issue seems to be that it is nearly impossible to die with a party since you can infinitely revive if you want to. The side effect of that is you can't die even if you want to! I wanted to play the game using my own rules, but it doesn't work because I can't instantly restart a boss fight if one character dies. I could put the controller down and still have to wait a long time for the whole party to die and let me restart.

[Bebpo]

DQXI S - Just finished the retro quests. Nothing left to do in the game besides 3 super-bosses, 2 of which I can't access until I finish Act 3 anyhow.

Everyone is lvl.99 except goddamn Rab at lvl 94, Serena at 95, Jade/Sylvando at 97. It's kinda nuts how the leveling isn't curved? Like Rab fell a few levels behind around lvl.40s by wiping on like 2-3 bosses and he just...never caught up and somehow got even more behind!

I've got 3 pep pops, 8 pep pips, 2 elfen elixers. Might just pop those real quick and hit some electric light to finish maxing everyone at 99.

Game time is ~77 hours and I finished Act 2 around 65, so Act 3 was pretty short even doing everything. I hear the true ending is good, so looking forward to that. Might make up for most of Act 3 being mehhhhhh


Gonna eat dinner and then maybe give Overweening Pride boss fight one or two attempts and then will just finish the game and give the Hall of Rememberance boss rush one or two attempts and Timewyrm one or two attempts and call it good. I've never been into 100%-ing jrpgs completely, so if I can't clear these 3 super bosses, will just move on rather than grind out peps/elfens.

[Bebpo]

Ok, Overweening Pride down on first run. At first I thought I'm really not strategically setup for DQ superboss stuff as he killed most of my initial 4 including Hero, Sylvando & Erik. But I swapped them all out and left them dead and man, #8's Forbearance every turn + Serena casting "no instant kills at over 50% HP" on everyone  really saved my ass and kept everyone alive and slowly whittling the boss HP down with Kabloomes and Jade doing Pink Tornados.

Time to check out these new recipes and then on to the final boss.

[Bebpo]

Demi, since you just finished it can you answer these plot questions if you know them. I thought there'd be more story in Act 3. Feels like if you were playing the PS4/PC launch versions without the 2d retro area you'd be like wtf are these Tockle things in the intro FMV.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Why you kill Mordgedon in Act 3 he goes "you're not the only one that can go back in time mwahaha" ...this has like no further implication unless this is related to Timewyrm? Which wasn't even in the PS4/PC versions, so this line makes no sense.

2. Uhmmmm the game never explains the Tockle darkspawn that follows you around through time to free the Dark One and bring Eldwin Lantern down. Like it's a piece of the dark one as a Tockle but how did The Dark One become a Tockle and travel through time and bitchslap Mordgedon wtf. This was really underexplained.

[close]

True ending was better than Act 2 ending, yeah. Still not much more than a few hours true ending beyond where Act 2's story ends.

[demi]

Mordegon is talking about Calasmos, who I think hitched a ride with the Luminary without his knowing.

Calasmos swatted at Mordegon because he knew what happened in Act 2. No sword = no Lord of Shadow = no destroyed Lantern

As for why he is a tockle, I imagine it's something to do with when he was separated/imprisoned by Serenica & Co. but they don't really dive into it.

Calasmos is in the very beginning cutscene (the dark tockle that is wandering aimlessly)

---

That said they really don't dive too much into Calasmos, he's kind of the surprise "true villain" in typical DQ fashion


If you think that's confusing, the ending goes even further and pulls some weird Skyward Sword shit

[Bebpo]

Holy shit I beat End of Time on my first run along with all the Hall of Rememberance fights on the first run.

The double 2 boss fight on Floor 3 almost destroyed me so many times. Had tons of parts where everyone was under 2 different status effects and couldn't do anything. No.8 did a Kerplunk at some point and brought everyone back and barely squeezed by.

Also yeah, Veronica's Magic Burst is insane. That really helped on these fights doing 2300 damage across the board at the start to make lower HP fights.

Everything done except Timewyrm which I will try now and totally die. Do I automatically have Yggdragon's Blessing? I have like 3 pep pops and 1 elfin elixer. Probably not enough to cheese the whole thing.

Also I've literally just been spamming snap, crackle pop on everyone on these fights while Sylv heals with hustle dance and No. 8 uses forbearance. Super defensive and slow but it's been working barely.

[Bebpo]

Forgot to rest before going to fight Timewyrm. Had almost no MP on anyone, no one was pepped. Still lasted about 15 mins into his 2nd form haha. The first 2 phases don't seem bad, but it sounds like the 3rd combined phase is going to be horrible.

*edit* Yeah, got to the 3rd phase but without any pep pops left didn't stand a chance. Just like 6 attacks in a row or something wipes my team. I think I'm good at this point.

[chronovore]

Probably ending my obsession with RDR2/Online soon. Just too many times where it hangs on infinite load between modes or even between Moonshine Shack and the rest of Free Roam.

Nearly done with Sunset Overdrive I think. It’s fun and all, but the auto-traversal stuff gets fiddly and annoying when close quarters maneuvering is needed, sometimes during missions. Also: the "collect these items" missions have poor visibility of the needed items (possibly intentional) and bad messaging about when the item is already there, versus needing to be dropped by a final enemy (not intentional).

Risk of Rain 2 is $10 on sale in the US PS Store, so I grabbed that.

[Sho Nuff]

I found a secondhand Wii U for 30 dollars so I am playing Bayonetta 2 (which I got for 7 dollars). This game is fuckin awesome. Also the Wii U fuckin sucks, Nintendo clearly had no idea what it was doing with this.

Luckily I have a bunch of Wii shit from a huge Wii Binge from 2 years ago (I skipped that console ENTIRELY and caught up on it with 100-yen games) so I’m playing it through the old Wii Pro Controller.

[tiesto]

I found a secondhand Wii U for 30 dollars so I am playing Bayonetta 2 (which I got for 7 dollars). This game is fuckin awesome. Also the Wii U fuckin sucks, Nintendo clearly had no idea what it was doing with this.

Luckily I have a bunch of Wii shit from a huge Wii Binge from 2 years ago (I skipped that console ENTIRELY and caught up on it with 100-yen games) so I’m playing it through the old Wii Pro Controller.

Have you played Sin and Punishment 2 for Wii? It's a must, probably the smoothest use of pointer controls I've seen with the console, and a barrage of nonstop action and great boss fights. Probably my favorite game (along with original Xenoblade) on the system.

[tiesto]

I beat Ys IX, and then did a quick run through Boss Rush on easy mode to pick up some trophies. Loved the game, though the city is a bit of a bland setting you really become attached to the crew of the Dandelion bar by the end of it. Storytelling is a bit better than the rest of the series, and it's a bit more mature than your typical Ys/Trails story... lots of grey areas and even the villain's motivation is pretty neat.

Up to post game in Mario 3D world. I'll probably start Moon: RPG Remix Adventure this weekend.

[Nintex]

I found a secondhand Wii U for 30 dollars so I am playing Bayonetta 2 (which I got for 7 dollars). This game is fuckin awesome. Also the Wii U fuckin sucks, Nintendo clearly had no idea what it was doing with this.

Luckily I have a bunch of Wii shit from a huge Wii Binge from 2 years ago (I skipped that console ENTIRELY and caught up on it with 100-yen games) so I’m playing it through the old Wii Pro Controller.

Yeah it's a weird machine sort of like a Switch beta test. Iwata wanted to drop the GamePad and cancel it actually.

Has some great games like The Wind Waker remaster, Pikmin 3, DKC Tropical Freeze, Xenoblade X, Mario Kart 8 etc. . Third party wise not that exciting   

At this point Nintendo has ported about 80% of the library to Switch

[MMaRsu]

I found a secondhand Wii U for 30 dollars so I am playing Bayonetta 2 (which I got for 7 dollars). This game is fuckin awesome. Also the Wii U fuckin sucks, Nintendo clearly had no idea what it was doing with this.

Luckily I have a bunch of Wii shit from a huge Wii Binge from 2 years ago (I skipped that console ENTIRELY and caught up on it with 100-yen games) so I’m playing it through the old Wii Pro Controller.

30 dollars holy shit thats like a steal

[Joe Molotov]

Wii U's are still selling for like $200 on ebay.

[Nintex]

As I recall the Wii U also wasn't very durable.
A lot of them broke down after 3 - 5 years and in the EU and US Nintendo didn't sell GamePads seperately.
Plus GamePads were region locked I believe.

Cheap Ebay listings (30 - 50) are usually just for the console without anything else included.

[benjipwns]

The first hour (plus?) of the Outriders demo is an interesting choice, basically a walking simulator with tons of cutscenes. The tutorial part even suggests it's a cover shooter when it's not. I hit Esc and Space to skip so many cutscenes and conversations that I had to take a break when I finally got to the part with missions and quests.

[Nintex]

60 hours into Xenoblade now, lvl 67.

Mopping up the capital of the Mechonis. These are some amazing environments. Monolith makes the best worlds.
Story wise it's one revelation after the other this late in the game. It's mix of a lot of things but it works really well. 

I'm surprised how much effort has been put in this unique late game content that between the original and this remake about 5%(?) of the players will ever experience.

[Bebpo]

I beat Ys IX, and then did a quick run through Boss Rush on easy mode to pick up some trophies. Loved the game, though the city is a bit of a bland setting you really become attached to the crew of the Dandelion bar by the end of it. Storytelling is a bit better than the rest of the series, and it's a bit more mature than your typical Ys/Trails story... lots of grey areas and even the villain's motivation is pretty neat.

Up to post game in Mario 3D world. I'll probably start Moon: RPG Remix Adventure this weekend.

Glad you liked Ys IX! Yeah, the story was good and the cast was good. I'd never been interested or cared about the worldview/world building/setting in Ys before, but now I'm actually like interested in future Ys stories exploring some of the other locations like the Rome or whatever the Roman Empire's capital city is.

I hear the city/game runs really smooth on PS5 in PS4 BC mode. Kinda tempted to boot it up and try. Should mean future Ys games should run really well on PS5 hardware.