Lurker > Xiahou_Shake

This situation is totally nuts. Waiting for better information to come in through the weekend but this feels like it could be a real turning point.

The diversified taste in that last one was pretty darn impressive! You can tell Sakurai legit loves video games, and that's really nice to see.

Aww yeah, Joshua's hat is the best.

Should've said so earlier, but this topic is hugely entertaining to read. It's actually tempting me to play some of the games I've missed as well, but I do still have Ashen Wolves and Golden Deer left on my return to Three Houses, and I don't even feel too good about getting those done before Engage! Three Houses is just too honkin' huge, for better AND worse.

I also only relatively recently discovered that starting with FE7 as my first and getting the bad advice of 20/20 being the only way, followed by playing PoR next which is one of the only legit 20/20 games completely warped my perception of promotions. I even played through Awakening with that mindset and thinking on it now, it probably ruined the class system for me!

I haven't played FEW1 myself but from what I've seen the "fanservice" feels pretty limited to the same three games IS was pushing unbelievably hard in everything else at that time. (Shadow Dragon, Awakening and Fates) So I'm not sure there's too much to be said for wider series fanservice there.

New Pokemon Snap legit feels like a miracle game, absolutely agree that it's far better than even felt possible at the time of its announcement. I'd honestly go so far as to say it may be the best thing that Pokemon franchise has ever produced, at least insofar as it sells that this is an amazing world full of amazing, personality-packed creatures. While it's not exactly a fair comparison, if the mainline games had even one tenth the beauty, care and flavor of this game I'd say they would deserve their massive success a good bit more.

Not at all beyond the fact that James Cameron has a proven record of popping out absolutely legendary sequels that nobody should have had reason to think would be as good as they are. Not personally betting that this is going to be one of those cases, though.

Bayo 3 - can hardly believe it's coming out, and the gameplay breakdown makes it seem like it has a chance of actually being really good! Also very interested in Scorn and am looking forward to both Plague Tale and Village DLC.

7.5/10

Feels a bit overlong and also less focused due to how it's split into "arcs" but there's a lot of really great and memorable characters and moments in there. I also don't think I'd call the story the main attraction here since the game as a full package is just straight up beautiful, but it definitely does its job well enough.

I'm not sure I've ever wanted an expansion pack for a game more than I want one for Hades. As everyone already said, it's "perfect" in almost every way that really matters, but it feels entirely too finite in ways that hurt it as a game in its genre. An expansion that greatly increases build variety and adds more bosses and general run variety would go far towards making it a legit all-timer for me.

I honestly don't think the old anime or the movies are bad, they're just missing a ton of stuff and are of mixed quality generally. The movies especially have a few moments of "oh, this is what an actually good Bersek adaptation looks like."

The biggest problem with the old anime is that it's almost literally a commercial for the manga and has the most abrupt, insulting "cliffhanger" of an ending that I've probably ever seen.

Manga is the only way to go, there's legitimately no valid substitutes. You can watch the old anime and the movies afterward for curiosity's sake but they absolutely do not serve as a replacement. The newer anime is straight trash and shouldn't be watched at all.

Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie since 2005 so I'm pretty hopeful for this. Andor as a character could be a vehicle to some themes the Star Wars universe has desperately needed to explore, I'm basically just waiting to see if there's enough of a lack of corporate fuckery in this show to let them tell that story.

I'd honestly consider it for how many songs it has if was on PC but OH WELL.

Nanis23 posted...

Holy fucking shit the pricing of Final Bar Line

Welcome to rhythm game tax

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

I might be talking out of my ass with this, but would the disk drive being detachable affect the speed/usability of it at all? Feels like something that would be less ideal for disk users than a disk drive being built into the console. If not then whatever, sure go for it.

Nothing has actually run off the game disc since the PS3 - ever since the PS4, the full game installs and runs off your HDD/SSD and the disc in the tray is just a "key" to start it up. (Basically, digital and physical games have been completely identical in terms of function since the last generation)

The disk drive on the current model looks like a total afterthought - this seems like a nice way to have playing physical games as an option without ruining the design of the console or creating an extra SKU for people who don't care. I'd imagine it's much better that way from a production standpoint, too.

I enjoyed this movie! Definitely not the best but it's a fun watch IMO. I've got an incredibly high tolerance for cheese, corn, ham and general low budgetry so I can definitely understand this not being a hit for most people.

Is there a general consensus on dub quality in the Trails games? I'm not far enough in the series yet to even have full voice acting yet but I'm totally unsure of what language I should go with when I get there.

Yes

Past characters as equipment/stands/powerups or whatever doesn't actually sound terrible. Closer to mobile game territory than I'd like it to get but if this was supposed to be the big anniversary game then whatever, I can deal.

That's a damn good price for a damn good game. Might have to jump on this - thanks for looking out!

Finally beat it! Clocked in at around 132 hours. Game is huge and there's still a ton of stuff for me to do postgame.

Opinions: Overall I feel pretty comfortable saying 3 > 1 > 2 as full packages, though gameplay goes 3 > 2 > 1 and even though I have 3 on top for the full package there are parts where it falls way short of the other two. The plot kind of just fizzles after the start of chapter 6 and the story being almost totally bereft of big surprises really hurts it.

I'm know people hate on Isurd's voice and it's definitely not great but I'm going to say Ghondor has the worst VA in the game since she's the only one who actively flubs lines (including pretty important ones!) with such frequency that it makes me take note of it. Stands out even more because the English VA in this game is generally really good!

Bollocks to no PC release, Vanillaware is so obnoxiously stubborn and mouse control would be godly for this game.

MacArrowny posted...

How is this game anyway? I've heard the gameplay is kinda like 13 Sentinels?

It's pretty fun! It's like 13 Sentinels in that it's an RTS, but in terms of game flow it's much more similar to something like Starcraft since you're creating, grouping and managing larger amounts of units and doing some base/resource management. Imagine the core tenets there but on a 2D field and that's basically GrimGrimoire.

https://twitter.com/avvvani/status/1566558635534483456

I'm excited to (eventually) have this playable on PC but yeah $70 for this is pretty ridiculous.

XC2 feels like the Dark Souls 2 of the series - really weird with a lot of bizarre choices and weaker than either 1 or 3 at the things the series prides itself on, but with enough unique charm that I can definitely understand it having its fans.

Playing Utawarerumono completely immunized me against Sky's slow period - just beat FC as my intro to the series and had a really nice time. Can't wait to play SC.

That'll have to wait though, since my answer to this topic is I expect I'll be playing XC3 for another month at this rate. Game is huge.

Guess this is the general topic for both Kickstarters?

https://soundcloud.com/armed-fantasia/when-fate-triggers-you

I haven't played any of the Wild Arms games but this song is HOT. Maybe need to check this series out if they have the same composer.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

okay yeah all these fights got significantly easier after unlocking signifier

buff city

Signifier might be one of the most broken supports I've seen in a JRPG, just truly insane how much power they grant the party for no work.

4/10 sounds about right.

Was pretty cool until, uh, it wasn't. Anyone who played knows exactly when that was.

That (almost) guarantees that this will be a much more approachable game than Nioh, at least. The Ki Pulse system combined with stance changing is completely incredible but it's a total brick wall of execution that a lot of people don't get over until they're almost done with the game.

MacArrowny posted...

Why Nioh 2 instead of their magnum opus, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin?

I haven't played it yet! Waiting for the Steam release after all the expansions are out. Hopes aren't as high for that as for this, but I am legitimately excited to play it.

Hell yes dude I need this NOW

The glowing core thingy looks like a much-expanded version of the Burst Counter from Nioh 2, only appropriately made much more flowy as befits the Wuxia setting. Not sure what the significance of it is showing up on the main character as well, though. Team Ninja basically has a blank check from me for ARPGs after how ridiculously deep Nioh 2 was, so I can't wait to see what they've done here.

Movies easily with TV and books following with increasingly large gaps. I really don't give any active time to music at all but I feel like it'd be a positive change to set more time aside for that.

So the additional story dlc they're doing at the end of the season pass is absolutely, 100% going to be about the Founders of the City, right? Way too much tantalizing stuff going on in there especially between Clone Shulk and (early ch. 6 theory of mine) if alt. Mio and Noah's kid turns out to be the founder of House Vandham.

I haven't touched Bonus EXP since the tutorial for it - do heroes not just snap to your party's level? Seems like if they join a level or two behind they always jump right into lockstep with the rest of the party after sitting on the bench for a while. Never even considered that you could use Bonus EXP on them!

I've been, to put it one way, thinking about gender a lot lately. Like, every day. That was a super cool write up, thanks so much for sharing that story!

The lack of an in-game encyclopedia of any kind is so damn painful when you're just missing one item on four different levels of a gem. Even Google is barely any help for a lot of them which I guess isn't too surprising because honestly who can be bothered to find out where the Spindly Fuckstick you need is in this massive game world with zero clues.

I thought D4 was great at least, but that's the last one I played. The changes in 6 sound really, really bad just to hear them summarized.

Soulhacker seems really cool, but am I wrong for feeling like it's coming way, way too late in the game to want to bother with? I'm inclined to just pick up Soul Hack via Nopon Coins and just save all of this for post game. Feels kinda bad with how much they obviously put into this system but dude, I'm 76 hours into this game and haven't made any story progress as is despite playing literally all day today!

Zeke is a top three party member (or Driver, at least) in XC2 but that's not saying too much when the two below him are actively bad. (Nia and Morag are above, ofc)

I'm still in chapter 5 but I'm pretty prepared to say this is the best party in the series if they keep handing out the kind of characterization they've been doing thus far. XC1's highs are REALLY high but its party has legit clunkers like Sharla and entertaining/memorable but extremely one-note characters like Reyn. Also you have stuff like Melia, one of the best characters, being flat out tossed aside and neglected before her arc even really feels fulfilled.

This party by contrast doesn't really feel like it has any dead weight and is totally killing it with character moments even without any heart-to-heart equivalent. (Sena feels the closest to a weak link at this point in the game but just as I was starting to think that the game started building up some stuff for her, so there we go!)

I live in California so I have this and really, really don't want it. I'd happily take the opposite.

Man I've been thinking a lot about the world design (like, level pacing/enemy placement) and the general leveling curve in this game and I'm kinda stuck on what exactly happened. Almost everyone I talk to has the same problem of being way overleveled so "exploration" kinda just ends up being running unopposed through vast swathes of land and occasionally sniping a UM it feels like you should have beat up a long time ago.

I'm feeling this too even without ever touching Bonus EXP so now I'm starting to wonder if the Overkill system is some kind of afterthought that completely fucked the balance of this game. I'm in Chapter 5 now so I feel like it's way too late, but I'm going to shut it off too and see if things even up at all. Even if they do, I feel like the balance of the game being dependent on your players hearing from other players "hey, don't touch bonus exp and be sure to turn off overkill if you want this game's progression to have anything resembling decent balance" isn't a great state of affairs!

I've had a Stalker bring an at-level boss from over 50% life to overkill in a single use of Rapid Shot in the middle of a chain attack, so I won't hear any slander even if they do need to get the bleed online to make that kind of zaniness happen. (I do recognize that Incursors can pull the same thing off without needing a debuff, but feh)

Also I'm curious, why is Ogre ranked so high? That's a class that feels like gives most of its value away to other classes via its master arts and skills. I'd expect FMJ to take one of the higher spots with how much it ramps. (Though I suppose I'll note that I haven't seen the dps classes past Incursor yet and based on Incursor I imagine there could be some truly wild stuff there.)

Holy cow, I disagree with literally everything in your post! That's pretty amazing. To each their own, but I think Nioh 2 is actually better than many of From's own offerings and has vastly better level design than Nioh 1. (You can tell because a lot of the worst levels are side quests copied from Nioh 1!) Then there's the gameplay itself which totally blows Nioh 1 out of the water with all the Yokai/burst counter shenanigans, but I feel like that goes without saying.

Nioh 2 is everything Nioh 1 was but better and much more. It's as much of a straight upgrade as really exists in gaming. I legit don't see an argument here unless you simp for William for some reason or really, really like boring Living Weapon spam.

I'd say that strictly deterministic games like War or pure luck games like Chutes and Ladders etc are still games, though they're more "amusements" you participate in to kill time rather than anything especially engaging or IMO interesting. Something like Ludo with extremely limited player input is one step above that, but I'd say puzzle games like Ghost Trick are absolutely full fledged games - I think of them as a game you're playing against the creator.

Can anyone tell me exactly what "counts" as time passing as far as buffs/debuffs are concerned during a chain attack? Not sure it completely matters since it seems like No Love Lost and/or Overfall will always fall off during an Ouroboros Order even if you apply it RIGHT before it starts, but it drives me up the wall to see all that potential damage not being hit. D: