(shouting)

What games are you playing?

do you like them video games? what about those there romhacks? well pop on in here and talk about them then! what are you waiting for?!
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GenesisJames
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Finished Daemon X Machina! Pretty fun game; I enjoyed it. It has a sort of Xenoblade X-styled setting (sci-fi and mechs, hell yeah!) and way of setting up its characters. I think it would've benefited from a more "traditional" overworld/story progression like Xenoblade X had, though. The mission system is nice, but it makes the story and character beats a bit staggered.

The story itself is pretty interesting; I don't think it's nearly as confusing as a lot of reviewers are making it out to be. If you follow sci-fi at all, you'll grasp most of it. I like the characters a lot, too. Some might complain that there's too many, but I think most of them are pretty memorable, and it fits the whole mercenary deal where you and everyone else are just a number; you're no more important than anyone else. There's tons of funny interactions between them, though the more serious moments are downplayed a bit due to not devoting much time to certain characters' backstories. The voice acting is solid almost across the board in my opinion, and it really brought the characters to life. The gameplay is pretty deep and fun, with the bosses being a real highlight (I just wish there were more of them). It's cool how customizable they made the builds, all the way down to the aesthetics. I also really liked the music; the final boss (as hard as it was) has such a killer theme. The missions are fun, and while you largely do the same thing for a lot of them, the setting and situations that occur during each one make most of them feel different from each other. There are some that are bland and repetitive, though.

Performance-wise, it's much better than the first demo. Don't know how similar the second demo was to the final build, but it's pretty solid. Definitely dropped frames here and there, but most of them occur during loading screens or before/after the missions, so the worst doesn't occur during any fighting. Some areas can be kinda bad though (looking at you, forest areas). Haven't tried out the multiplayer, but I hear it's pretty good and performs well.

All in all, this was fun. Put about 20 hours into it, and I still have a few characters to recruit (recruited my favorite character Abyss though so I'm satisfied, haha). If you're a fan of mech games like Armored Core, you'll have a blast. If not, it's hit-or-miss if it'll convince you. The game made me want to dive deeper into the genre, but it's not for everybody. I hope it gets a sequel, and I hope it's told in a more traditional way (or make it episodic like the Bayonetta games). I feel this is good ground to build off of. I just hope they're not discouraged by sales or feedback, because they're working with a niche genre here.
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Bean
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Link's Awakening (Switch) was pretty good. Don't know if it's worth the full price, but it's a faithful remake that adds some new content to the mix, and most of it is also good. Yeah, that worked for a quick game to go through.
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The Hero Hartmut
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago time to rise and grind
That is indeed the way. It's just a damned shame, is all; Routine had the Sheer Force ability and an Adamant nature. Could've been beautiful.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Crow »

Been playing AI: The Somnium Files, new VN from the writer (I think?) of the zero escape games

The tone is not as bleak as those but the sci fi nonsense is there in full force, I'm liking it so far though
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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The Hero Hartmut
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

Got past the Castelia gym at the tragic cost of Mundane. Drudgery is now a Gigalith and MVP of the party, and I've since made a few new catches in the areas outside Nimbasa City:

Prosaic the Darumaka (M)
Lifeless the Yamask (F)
Unexciting the Solosis (F)
Stale the Petilil (F) (would have called her Milquetoast, but this sadly doesn't fit within the character limit)
Uninspired the Trubbish (M)

Boring and Drudgery have been boxed for now as I try to raise the newbies up. I've always been terrible at this part, so wish me luck...
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Nast »

Still playing Mario 3D World, up to World 5. Don't have that much new to add. My feeling that the gimmicks in each stage go underutilized still persists, but at least the difficulty's very slowly picking up. I can't help comparing the game to SMW and realizing how much slower and easy-going it is, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's basically relaxing comfort food.


Moreover, I was trying today some demos from SAGE 2019 (an annual Sonic fan-game online expo), mostly focusing on original games as none of the fan-games have caught my attention yet.

- Vertebreaker: This is being made by Headcannon, one of the developers behind Sonic Mania, so I had pretty high hopes going into it. It's in very early development so the demo is just a sample level. It's a speedy platformer where you use a grappling hook for movement and combat. The controls took me quite a while to get used to, they're not the most intuitive thing ever, doesn't help that I struggled to get it working on a controller that's not garbage. I did eventually get the hang of it though, and when I did I had a lot of fun. The movement feels very flexible, it's fun to fling yourself around and turn that momentum into running speed, and it's easy to slow down if need be. It's not at all beginner friendly but it's super rewarding to learn. Presentation's great too. Definitely looking forward to seeing this as a full game.

- Teak's Tall Tale: This one's a simple shooter platformer. I like the character designs and the general presentation is cute. The game is cute too. It's fun, controls alright, but there's nothing particularly interesting about it, at least based on this first level. Just jump a bit and shoot some dudes. It's pretty story-heavy actually, but the story about a bunch of frustrated musicians is pretty mundane, in a way it's refreshing for this kind of game but it's not super engaging. Overall I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the game, but so far it's not super intriguing.

- Brock Crocodile: Another platformer, this one mixes Sonic's multi-tiered level design with simple combat and exploration. It's an appealing premise and there's a lot to like outside of that, such as charismatic character designs, amusing writing with some great banter, and catchy music. Unfortunately it's brought down by confusing graphics and really awkward controls. The level design isn't built for Brock's top speed plus slow acceleration and instant deceleration, which leads to a lot of stopping and going. Also both your whip and gun attacks are super delayed, and the gun in particular is practically unusable. I think the game has the potential to be pretty neat, but the flaws it has are far from minor and I hope they can work them out.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by pholtos »

FF Adventures defeated.png
FF Adventures defeated.png (29.38 KiB) Viewed 4810 times
Well that was fast.

So this game has some fundamental flaws like monsters being immune to random weapons, often the strongest thing you've got. Also of note is having to constantly go into your inventory or equips to change your item/spell and weapon, depending on what you need, which happens a lot. A LOT. Inventory space is limited but you have to have mattocks for a majority of the game and keys for the entire game, and the mattocks are in stacks of 7 and keys in stacks of 4, and so you use them up a lot.
Also some of the bosses deal insane amounts of damage, like the kraken, which is very random and you have to constantly be in danger to hurt it, unless you spam fire. Though I did find a funny little thing while playing in that if you hold down a turbo button to constantly attack you have a lot of invincibility frames. That really helped for some boss fights.

So here's my updated rankings:
5/5: 6, 9
4/5: 5, X, X-2, XII, FFTA
3/5: 1, 2, MQ
2/5: 7, 8, FFA
1/5: 3, 4

I am going to TRY to get through the beginning of tactics and hopefully if I manage that I can actually complete the game. The beginning of tactics is not easy at all.
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Quadro
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Quadro »

I've been playing Bomberman Tournament and some Hoyle computer game. I've had them since I was a kid. As in, a really young kid.

And then I thought to myself. "I'm too young to be having a mid-life crisis. Right?"
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BurntTenda
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

I've beaten Control. What an amazing game. Somehow, the difficulty is frustratingly difficult and also very easy at the same time.

I'm also now playing FF8 for the first time.
The Junction system I find pretty easy to grasp, I've gotten 100 Curagas junctioned to Squall's HP before even going to Timber.
Triple Triad is way too fun.

I'm also giving FF3 DS another shot.
I definitely remember the battle pacing being way slower. Glad to see my memory was wrong. Maybe I'm just more patient.

I'm really on an RPG fix apparently.
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The Hero Hartmut
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

Managed to keep Unexciting alive long enough to evolve into Duosion, and, after Stale learned Giga Drain, I burned my Sun Stone to evolve her to Lilligant, as she'll learn Quiver Dance in just a few short levels. Turns out that Unexciting's Hidden Power type is Ice, which is actually pretty useful. Wasn't expecting to acquire Ice-type coverage until at least Driftveil City. For now, Unexciting has been boxed to allow Boring to get some EXP. Drudgery will get a chance later on.

I'm in a constant state of nervousness during the grinding process.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

BurntTenda wrote: 4 years ago I'm also now playing FF8 for the first time.
The Junction system I find pretty easy to grasp, I've gotten 100 Curagas junctioned to Squall's HP before even going to Timber.
Triple Triad is way too fun.
FF8 is so much fun to exploit, I love it.

I need to play FF3 DS tho~
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Re: What games are you playing? This!

Post by Awoo »

pholtos wrote: 4 years ago I am going to TRY to get through the beginning of tactics and hopefully if I manage that I can actually complete the game. The beginning of tactics is not easy at all.
Dorter is a notorious difficulty wall for many people. There's also a few points of no return that are pretty infamous, so be sure to have multiple save files since it can be fairly easy to lock yourself into unwinnable battles (Chapter 3's end being a rather infamous example).

Good luck!
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BurntTenda
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago I need to play FF3 DS tho~
It's pretty alright for the most part. I do wish the jobs were given at a better pace. And certain jobs just aren't really useable...
Although there were probably jobs that weren't viable in the original, too.
Other than the flaws of the job system, it's a solid game.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Nast »

Tried out the beta for Touhou Gouyoku Ibun, the new spinoff that's a sidescroller. I read before playing it myself that it was basically the fighting games' gameplay but much more simplified, and that's pretty much how I felt about it after watching some videos. I was expecting a proper platformer with sidescrolling levels so that was a bit of a bummer.

First time playing it I was terribly confused with the controls and general rules, but I guess that's to be expected since I don't know Japanese (I'm getting there though). There's only three buttons, for dashing/flying, attacking and using a spell. There's no jump button so dashing around is your only alternative. Maybe a jump would be redundant in this kind of game but I kinda miss having some finer control over my movement. The directional-based attacks do feel cool to use, but like with dashing I feel like I'm not fully in control of Reimu. Nearly all her attacks throw her in a direction, there's no way to attack while remaining stationary. This makes combat feel a bit unwieldy as you fling yourself into bullets and your attacks don't connect into each other very well. The spell is a simple Fantasy Seal type attack, but it consumes your health rather than bombs or something. You refill health by collecting oil, which spills out of grazed bullets. Grazing's weird by the way, seems like you can cancel whole strings of bullets but I haven't figured it out

So yeah, the gameplay is otherwise just like a story mode in one of the fighting games: the boss throws spellcards at you, you graze the bullets and attack the boss when they're red, deplete their health bar and they'll use another spellcard, repeat until they're die. There's no more straightforward combat inbetween spellcards so in that sense the streamlining of your controls is appreciated. The different format also allows the devs a bit more freedom, such as having a lot more space on screen due to the smaller sprites, and playing around with different terrains. Admittedly though that's very low-key in this beta.

On a quick note, the presentation is pretty neat. I love the sketchy portraits, the sprites and backgrounds are stylish if a bit rough-looking, and the music's sort of atmospheric if that makes sense. Visual effects are the typical Tasofro fare, not very impressive, kinda cheap-looking at times. Sound effects are simply reused from the fighting games which is lame.

So all-in-all, it's alright? It's not the action platformer I was hoping for, and that's totally fine, but what's weird to me is how similar it is to what the fighting games were already doing, like instead of being a new experimental thing they just extracted and isolated a portion of the fighters. To be honest, and I might be totally wrong on this, I get the feeling Tasofro just don't have the budget anymore to keep developing fighting games with tons of complex characters and detailed sprites, and this is their way to compromise. Again, I could be completely off base. I don't dislike the game anyway, I think it's kinda neat when you get the hang of it, and it's still in beta so it's possible that a lot will be tweaked.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

River City Girls is basically this generation's Double Dragon Neon in that it's a game that doesn't take itself seriously at all but is still a fun, solid beat-em-up all the same.
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The Hero Hartmut
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

Caught an Audino near Cold Storage, named it Lacklustre, it died almost immediately. I had one in a previous run that was a great support 'mon with dual screens, so that's a shame.

Ranks have since been increased with the addition of Dry the Ducklett and Tedious the Deerling. Dry came this close to death, living on 3 HP to a Rock Slide from a Drilbur in Driftveil gym. Stale the Lilligant was MVP in the match against Clay; Sleep Power meant no Hone Claws setup for the Excadrill.

Onwards to Chargestone Cave after work. I would be quite okay with getting a Joltik, but I'll see if I can finagle a Drilbur with whatever Repels I have to hand first.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

I finally moved on from just playing Triple Triad to move the story along.
The train sequence in Timber was super neat, even if they made it sound way more complicated than it really turned out to be.
It was a lot more fluid than I expected considering the how dumb the demonstration looked.
I missed the Angelo card, though
Sad times
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GenesisJames
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Finished Yakuza 0 a few hours ago. What a fuckin' trip, man. Been a while since I experienced a story that good in a game. Loved almost everything about it, from the personality, characters, setting, music, and even the sidequests. Nearly everything is memorable. It can get a bit repetitive with fight after fight of enemy grunts, but the gameplay's solid enough to where it never really gets boring. It was my introduction game, and I'm definitely hooked on the series now; gonna try to pick up the next few games in the timeline soon.
Finished Creature in the Well, too. Kind of a pinball-based hack-and-slash? It's hard to explain, but it was fun. They packed a lot of personality into that tiny little game. It's five hours long for 100% (at least, my run was) but it just flew by. Fast-paced and never really slogged. A bit same-y here and there, but enjoyable nonetheless. Hope they work on a sequel and expand the gameplay even more.
Also been having fun with Untitled Goose Game. It's one of those games where I find it best to play in-between other games; do a few tasks here and there, take a break to play something else, then get back to it. It's a nice and calm breath of fresh air.
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The Hero Hartmut
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

Well, Chargestone Cave was a bust. A goddamn Boldore was my only capture option. Picked it up anyway, named it Chore, and it's currently my designated Strength HM slave for now (unless anything untoward should happen to Drudgery).

Also, Prosaic died from a crit, Route 7 yielded Bland the Tranquill (currently being used exclusively for flight purposes), and new recruit Dull the Litwick is currently being trained up.
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KobaBeach
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Beat Sonic Advance as Sonic for like the fifth time?

Tried to get Emerald #7 as Tails but was a few rings short in the second run. Yeah I can actually do good in the Sonic Advance Mode 7 special stages. It's clearly from working with the SNES, it gave me supernatural abilities /s
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Nast »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago Beat Sonic Advance as Sonic for like the fifth time?

Tried to get Emerald #7 as Tails but was a few rings short in the second run. Yeah I can actually do good in the Sonic Advance Mode 7 special stages. It's clearly from working with the SNES, it gave me supernatural abilities /s
Aw man Sonic Advance is like, THE childhood game for me. What's your opinion of it?

Also, are you emulating it? I played it on actual hardware and the special stages are so much worse due to the GBA's stiff D-pad.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

NastCF wrote: 4 years ago Aw man Sonic Advance is like, THE childhood game for me. What's your opinion of it?

Also, are you emulating it? I played it on actual hardware and the special stages are so much worse due to the GBA's stiff D-pad.
oh worm

it was the first game i ever actually owned?

dimps' level design in it is pretty jank (cosmic angel was just kicking my ass repeatedly with spikes everywhere, egg rocket was too long), but i still have nostalgic memories of it and the other two. if i can handle sonic 1 i can handle almost anything.

and yeah i'm emulating it. i dont think my gba sp has batteries.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Nast »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago dimps' level design in it is pretty jank (cosmic angel was just kicking my ass repeatedly with spikes everywhere, egg rocket was too long), but i still have nostalgic memories of it and the other two. if i can handle sonic 1 i can handle almost anything.
Yeah it is jank, aside from your examples there's also the abundance of bottomless pits which is par for the course with Dimps. But I do think it has the better level design out of the Advance trilogy, especially as they started to get a lot more automated in the later games.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by The Hero Hartmut »

I am so mad. Unexciting the Duosion was killed by a trainer's Gothorita in the obligatory Ghost tower. She was brought down to half health and had gotten confused. I tried to have her use Recover, with the hope of healing off ny damage provided. The Gothorita used Faint Attack, critted with it, and brought Unexciting down to 1 HP. "Oh my god, please do not hit yourself," came my plea, which fell on deaf ears.

Also lost Boring the Dewott (so close to evolution...) and Uninspired the Trubbish, too. On top of that, it seems that I'm only finding duplicate catches from here; I've since acquired two Frillish (Arid and Pallid) and another Scraggy (Pedestrian). Even picked up a Gurdurr (Wearisome; now a Conkeldurr) to take the place of the long-lost Routine. Still, I'll keep the Larvesta egg close for now.

May hold off on using the Dusk Stone I found to evolve Dull the Lampent until it learns Shadow Ball (as I don't recall if I'll find the TM for it anytime soon).
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

I started Ys 1 the other day. Been liking it so far! Because I've played Origin beforehand I know that

Feena and Reah are the goddesses

but still, it's kinda obvious that those two are 'different' in a way. I like the PC-88 ost and I like that you can switch between three different OSTs in the Chronicles version of Ys 1&2.
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