Lurker > agesboy

games absolutely don't have to be 100% solvable by definition; some games don't even have actual win or loss conditions

the goal of a game is entertainment or fulfilment in a broad sense, and the form that takes can be as different as any other form of media. linear narrative can be blended with variable gameplay just fine

also 500

adjl posted...

But it doesn't come to nothing. It forms part of the characters' development in the grander scheme of things. Arven would be a different person for having tried and failed to save the dog than if he had just given up from the outset, and that would be the focus of a story where the dog died (again, not exactly original, but a well-established idea for an emotionally evocative story). Again, you'd eventually succeed, victory just might not look like you thought it would, which in a lot of ways is a significantly more uplifting experience than everything just going well all the time.

One of my favorite anime is a perfect example of this- huge spoilers, it's Your Lie in April. The female lead dies in the last episode in an operation that could have succeeded and the resolution to the love story is bittersweet, but the main character is able to move on and live a much happier life than if he'd never met her at all.

adjl posted...

I don't think we need to count blatant sequel bait or otherwise unfinished stories in that.

golden sun dark dawn................................................

also speaking on tales of symphonia specifically on this discussion, I'm pretty certain there actually are alternate lines for winning unwinnable fights because they planned around ng+... and they're all 2-3 line throwaways where you lose anyways in cutscenes. they felt way more dissonant than if i'd just gotten the loss cutscene afterwards imo

i think if you metagame and beat a fight before you're supposed to (or on ng+), the reward should also be metagame-y like stat boosters or accessories. story concessions should be made if reasonable, but in a LOT of them, they're foundational

EchoBaz posted...

Oh yes, because god forbid women celebrities in japan have a life and do things that make them happy. Nope, can't have that! They exist to make the company look good, and sell merchandise, and for nothing else.

she was offering to take "silly pills" on stream for $250 donations while representing her agency

she was explicitly using her identity as a vtuber to arrange irl meetups for cash

it was preeeeeeeeetty bad and male vtubers have been canned for a LOT less

YoukaiSlayer posted...

It's like mount and blade warband's prophesy of pendor mod

also incredibly based

the only time I don't run pendor is when I'm trying out some other conversion mod

YoukaiSlayer posted...

calamity terraria

aw hell yes

i can't play vanilla anymore, calamity + magic storage is too good

I_Abibde posted...

The supply of VTubers appears to be bottomless. New ones keep appearing in my Reddit feed.

lol speaking of vtubers, the craziest dismissal just happened recently. she banged her manager, met fans irl in exchange for money, and did drugs on stream

https://twitter.com/idol_corp/status/1729591027323838844?t=DiH0yplSuc1-DYMPO-UpQg

YoukaiSlayer posted...

JP VNs tend to be a much more polished package but also often times only have like 3-5 meaningful choices in the entire game.

I feel like this is pushback from back when there were way too many fucking choices in games and we've reverted back to "ok which route do you wanna do". Kagetsu Tohya (Tsukihime sequel/fandisc), Clannad, and Steins;gate all had choice flowcharts that were so convoluted they looked like memes.

Kagetsu Tohya: https://imgur.com/tpku4nE (it's not that bad but it's a pretty ancient example)
Clannad: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Morlok8k/Clannad_VN_Flowcharts/master/Clannad_VN_Flowchart.png (this is mostly for seeing 100% of scenes, because there's a lot of minor variations on gags that reoccur throughout the route depending on what you select)
Steins;gate: https://imgur.com/a/evXE2 (this hurts my brain and I always used a strict guide for it)

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa was written by an actual swordsman (he came out of nowhere, did two masterpieces, and left forever) and is widely considered to have some of the best written combat out there because he actually knows what he's talking about. Main character's also actually a grown adult. I haven't gotten to it yet as it's a relatively recent English release, but it's probably next on my list. The other thing he did was Kikokugai - The Cyber Slayer which was a lot shorter and was like a test run for Muramasa

Fate/Stay Night has good combat but it has a LOT of slice of life filler between fights; Dies Irae feels a lot like it, but it cuts out like 80% of the filler and has more intense fights. It's edgy in a chuunibyou way (the villains are resurrected nazi magicians and everyone's powers involve monologuing in german, etc) but the fights are pretty fuckin cool. It has a demo on steam comprising the common route

Dies Irae, Muramasa, and Kikokugai are the main ones you'd want to check out if you want to limit filler and get to cool fight scenes. There's a couple that have really good combat but it takes literally dozens of hours to get to any combat so I'd assume you're not interested in those

EchoBaz posted...

I also don't like anything I've played from Spike Chunsoft either. I find their games pretty cringey. And from what I understand, they control most of the VN market.

That is a wildly inaccurate statement lol. They developed Danganronpa, Zero Escape, 428 which noone remembers, and have been publishing some of the science series (Steins;gate etc) IP for about six years now (I think mostly internationally; MAGES has always been the developer)

Nitroplus, KEY, Type-MOON, Alicesoft, 07th expansion, Aquaplus/Leaf are all a lot more prolific, and for the most part self publish afaik. Spike Chunsoft is more known for VN or anime adjacent games than VNs themselves

EchoBaz posted...

That said, anyone here read any of the 3d ones?

as someone who's read a couple hundred japanese visual novels, Ren'Py 3D visual novels made by westerners for westerners are just really bizarre to me

like the most popular one (that I don't think I can name because it's extremely close to a censor bypass, but it's 95% positive on steam) is about frat life, I don't go to visual novels for that

i go to visual novels for stuff like samurai in mecha dueling to the death

I've never heard anything bad about I'm In Love With The Villainess "going off the deep end", everyone I've seen who liked the earlier segments ends up liking the later bits just as much

Yeah Arifureta's pretty deep on the shameless side. Not as bad as Redo of Healer because Ackshually MC's A Nice Dude but it's targetted squarely at trashy isekai fans

Picked Blazblue Cross Tag Battle up for a bit and what a whacky ass game. This has to be the least balanced non-doujin fighting game in the past decade. No need to worry about touch of death combos being overpowered when everyone has one!

https://clips.twitch.tv/SlickBashfulTarsierBudStar

It's also sucked me back down into the RWBY hole. I last watched it when only season 1 was a thing, so there's a lot to catch up on.

also I've cried a million times if you count VNs

maybe a dozen times if you don't

wtf stop giving helpful answers adjl we're the shitty meme board

you can't change the ABV without changing the proof (by US standards idk overseas), so at best it was a typo, but I still think its just janky resolution on the pic. proof is the number you'd usually look at

its probably just the bad resolution, its ABV is 20% and the proof is 40 (which is just 2x ABV)

yeah, she's a one-topic-expert goofball with some self-confidence issues that she works through, I really like her

what the absolute hell did i just google

why does eggo even do liquids

Poorer than I'd like. My pre-college education was absolutely shit, and I was so far behind in college it was essentially what forced me to switch majors when I got to college level science major calculus. I put a lot of effort into it (daily study sessions lasting hours with two others a lot smarter than me) but I still did pretty horrendously.

AP didn't exist around here, and I still remember the last math class I tried to sign up for in high school getting cancelled because I was literally the only person in the school who signed up for it (the previous math class had like 4 people).

....how degenerate of me would it be to say the manga I'm looking forward to the most is called "I Was Reincarnated As The Scumbag From a Netorare Manga, But The Heroine is Coming On To Me"? Like it's pretty horny but it's also 90% cute. I've read ahead in the web novel and I cannot state how much I want to see a manga adaptation of this continue

Muscles posted...

Who?

what is even the point of saying this on post #28

you got more than enough context clues to figure this one out

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I feel like it would have become overwhelming.

I kinda feel that way about Nomura's art too. Some fights in FFXIV faithfully recreate his style in 3d, but it would be absolute overkill for the entire game to be designed that way. But for a one-off fight about Omega imitating human forms? Really fucking cool, since Omega's supposed to feel alien.

sooga is a precious baby and i will not tolerate slander

Dofus, Runescape, FFXIV, and Tales of Symphonia are all well beyond 1000 for me. Maybe WoW but I only really started in Legion.

SilentSeph posted...

Brave Frontier

i miss that game....

Omni Man is in Mortal Kombat 1, too, as of like today

BlackScythe0 posted...

Anyone who has played Morrowind will realize it is better than the other two games in every way except graphics

mods? because that is the only reason i care about skyrim

joemodda posted...

That's not controversial. The real controversial opinion is that Oblivion is just straight up better than Morrowind in every way

I don't think enough people exist still that like Morrowind over Oblivion or Skyrim for that to be a controversial opinion

Maybe PO

Sold my copy of Paper Mario TTYD to gamestop for like $20. Sure there's worse investment choices out there but man, it was SUCH a good game, I really should have kept it for sentimentality, especially since it was (accidentally on her part) the best gift my grandmother gave me

adjl posted...

I put off buying Lost Kingdoms 2 because it was pricier than most other games, but then it stopped being readily available and I never got to play it.

I own it and it felt like straight up improvements on the first game, but I'm not sure if I finished it. Probably mostly out of me sucking at finishing games (I stopped FFX when I got the airship, for example)

It's still absolutely worth playing by conventional means. Absolutely neat concept. I think both games even have randomizers now

Sunshine was the best, but 64 was fine. Dunno if I'd replay it unless I magically had NSO+ for free.

ryu ga gotoku = like a dragon, it's what the games have been called all along in japanese

the upcoming Infinite Wealth will be literally the only single mainline game without a number in the title (ishin, gaiden, and dead souls are sidestories/AU shit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Goz0PnhEg8 this counts right

DarkBuster22904 posted...

I have a near-mint, CiB copy of the original SNES Chrono Trigger. So probably that.

Jesus christ its price has skyrocketed since 2020, was $300 but it's now $750 with a high of $1000

pricecharting.com is what i used before, it seems relatively reliable

opened pokemon white is $60 which is exactly what I'd expect from a ninty game

Probably also Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn. I was floored at the prices when I checked a few years ago

adjl posted...

Plus the devs are fantastic

kovarex was pretty shitty a few years ago with the cancel culture drama though

especially when he started doubling down on shit

I'm still dabbling around in FFXI and DFO. Not hardcore playing them but they're both pretty entertaining still, and often overlooked

RVallant posted...

Gore Screaming Show.

i completely forgot that got an actual english release wtf

a horny rpg maker game taking place in both an isekai and the real world (main character swaps between them every day)

i'm fucked if its the former but i get to be a japanese schoolboy if its the latter

last season (that i played. probably a few years ago) i scored a mageblood card (more than enough to finance any realistic build) and i settled on a friend doing it for me at a 20% cost because i'm not subjecting myself to that shit

poe itself is fantastic but its systems suck

fuck yeah i hope he's broke afterwards

adjl posted...

Mostly, I just really don't enjoy trading the way PoE does it.

absolutely my biggest gripe with poe. give me a goddamn AH even if its flawed. i HATE haggling

Modern PoE is still fun for like exactly one league (until level 92-94). I can't imagine doing two leagues in a row tho

Ar Tonelico

it's a feature that you'd dive into party members' subconscious to get closer to them, but it usually involved uncomfortable truths they'd really hoped would never get spread. ar ciel/nosurge does this too. nosurge is especially hilarious/uncomfortable because spoilers she's a high schooler who's been isekai'd so she knows you're a filthy otaku ojjectifying her as a cute video game character, but she has to explicitly rely on you to become free

been delving back into Honeyworks' Love/Idol series stuff (they're movie videos about usually romance that all connect to each other) and they have simply only gotten better. and they finally gave a sort of resolution to my favorite character who was first introduced nearly a decade ago, god bless. you can watch like 8 videos in a row and it's a contiguous storyline with another 15 videos branching off

my old favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVaBgnkgcHM

ive played too many games that have "pincer attack" in them to get it wrong

https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1719745919011213714

I will be the first to admit that this is probably an extremely biased source, but there's video footage of the same thing happening from different angles on twitter, and I first saw this hours ago and there's no notes/it's still up. Which means not very much on elon's twitter but...

It falls in line with their recent hard crackdown on protests during wartime though. There's some other videos that are less straightforward as to whats going on but what you can make out just visually just looks... really bad

darkknight109 posted...

If Halo didn't interest you, there was almost no reason to buy an Xbox -

Hell, Halo interested me but I just found a copy on PC at walmart for like $10 at some point. Did 1 on console have custom/modded maps? I was too young and dumb and dialup to figure out more extensive conversion mods, but the PC client seemed to handle modded servers well.

Judgmenl posted...

It's also pretty crazy that Tales has been pretty dead relative since Xilia and I don't remember Arise being all that well received (I didn't even buy Arise after how much I disliked Berseria)

Arise was pretty decently received and it's getting an expansion in the like next month. The main issue with it was the horribly blatant cashgrab DLC practices it employed. A scrolling banner on the camp rest screen detailing all the DLC you haven't bought yet? Ingame? Plus the launch DLC being too good and the enemies felt like damage sponges without it. The game itself was fine but it smelt of executive meddling.