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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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Arrietty
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Arrietty »

Been playing FFXIV: Shadowbringers. I am really enjoying this expansion so far for so many reasons. Everything about it feels top notch, from the characters, to the story, to the soundtrack, to changes to my favorite classes (Like Machinist). I am pretty far along in the story and I might not be too far from the home stretch. Hoping the game continues to stay great, because this might beat out Heavensward as my favorite expansion of the game.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Arrietty wrote: 4 years ago Been playing FFXIV: Shadowbringers. I am really enjoying this expansion so far for so many reasons. Everything about it feels top notch, from the characters, to the story, to the soundtrack, to changes to my favorite classes (Like Machinist). I am pretty far along in the story and I might not be too far from the home stretch. Hoping the game continues to stay great, because this might beat out Heavensward as my favorite expansion of the game.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Arrietty »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago
Arrietty wrote: 4 years ago Been playing FFXIV: Shadowbringers. I am really enjoying this expansion so far for so many reasons. Everything about it feels top notch, from the characters, to the story, to the soundtrack, to changes to my favorite classes (Like Machinist). I am pretty far along in the story and I might not be too far from the home stretch. Hoping the game continues to stay great, because this might beat out Heavensward as my favorite expansion of the game.
oh hi arrietty
oh small world hahahaha hey!

Also, started Dragon Quest Builders 2. Can't wait to unlock the multiplayer so me and my friends can play together! So far, I'm in the tutorial part of the game and it's a bit long. The game definitely feels like an improvement over the first game despite the pacing feeling a little worse so far. I LOVE that we have sprinting now and the performances on the Switch version is much better than the first game considering it's locked to 30fps with few drops. (The first game was uncapped to 60fps but drops so frequently and sometimes dips far below 30fps. So the frame pacing was pretty jarring)
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BurntTenda
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

I still don't enjoy Secret of Mana.
Something about it just doesn't mesh well with me.
Something goes here sometime.
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Bean
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

I think it's the combination of the iffy combat system and cut content for time bringing about constant backtracking. With the battle system, some enemies can be chained when you hit them, others will be invincible. There's never really any rhyme or reason behind it. I got through it over the weekend, and my thoughts are that of the two Square games that had content cut for time that I've played this summer, I'm stunned that Final Fantasy XV wound up being the genuinely fun one while Secret of Mana just happened.

And in the end, I managed to accidentally soft lock the game after delivering the last hit on the final boss by going into the menu to cast magic on the main dude again. My dudes were just stuck moving on the now silent battlefield. Had to go watch the ending on YT as a result.
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Re: What games are you plays?

Post by Awoo »

The main problem I had with Secret of Mana was the combat system. I'm so used to other games (like even Sword of Mana, which got it *way* better) where you can easily chain/combo attacks. Secret of Mana is, for me, hit something if you're lucky, run away, charge up, and repeat, ad-infinitum.
Shame the combat system sucks so much outside of magic, since it's a beautiful game and the soundtrack is amazing
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

I didn't even like the magic system since it would always hit no matter what as long as the characters or enemies were in range. Most boss fights later in the game came down to spamming spells just to quickly rack up the damage. Yeah, it just did nothing for me, and that's a shame. Game seemed like it should've been better than what it was.

Anyway, doing some co-op level runs with a friend in Super Mario Maker 2. Not recording them or anything as of yet, but going through and playing his stages is kind of funny since some pipe transitions will kill the player who pops out first unless they spin as the drops are larger than the camera can handle. These levels were built for one. Ha-ha.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Awoo wrote: The main problem I had with Secret of Mana was the combat system. I'm so used to other games (like even Sword of Mana, which got it *way* better) where you can easily chain/combo attacks. Secret of Mana is, for me, hit something if you're lucky, run away, charge up, and repeat, ad-infinitum.
Shame the combat system sucks so much outside of magic, since it's a beautiful game and the soundtrack is amazing
Bean wrote: I didn't even like the magic system since it would always hit no matter what as long as the characters or enemies were in range. Most boss fights later in the game came down to spamming spells just to quickly rack up the damage. Yeah, it just did nothing for me, and that's a shame. Game seemed like it should've been better than what it was.
Add me to the "can't get into Secret of Mana" party line like
This is exactly why I consider it the worst of the pre-World of Mana games lol

I'm sorry to people who enjoy this game a lot just... Secret of Evermore and Trials of Mana did it far better, I feel.

It kinda says something that Legend of Mana is kind of the same as Awoo described, but because of its more simplified, stable combat system, it rose to the top of my favorite games list.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

I liked Secret of Mana, but since I had played Trials of Mana beforehand (which in hindsight I probably shouldn't have done) I really struggled with Secret of Mana's worse menus and it took me until the very end of the game to really get used to it. Though I did like how your characters could equip any weapon type in the game.
Also, unrelated to the combat but the Mana fortress was so stressful since there isn't a single save point and because I was playing on a SNES when I played it I couldn't savestate. Luckily I beat it on my first try but there were a few close calls.

Speaking of Secret of Evermore, I tried it once on my phone way back when but I should probably give it an honest try since haha trying to play a snes action game on a phone.
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Re: What games are you?

Post by Awoo »

HatKid wrote: 4 years ago I liked Secret of Mana, but since I had played Trials of Mana beforehand (which in hindsight I probably shouldn't have done) I really struggled with Secret of Mana's worse menus and it took me until the very end of the game to really get used to it. Though I did like how your characters could equip any weapon type in the game.
Also, unrelated to the combat but the Mana fortress was so stressful since there isn't a single save point and because I was playing on a SNES when I played it I couldn't savestate. Luckily I beat it on my first try but there were a few close calls.

Speaking of Secret of Evermore, I tried it once on my phone way back when but I should probably give it an honest try since haha trying to play a snes action game on a phone.
Secret of Evermore is awesome! It can be tricky to get some things without a walkthrough, but it's definitely an experience and worth playing through blind at least once.
If you're looking for a game with some seriously great atmosphere and sound design, look no further. The characters are all interesting and memorable, the story is neat if a little convoluted, and it can be a bit rough during the first few parts, but, man, that game is great.

It might even fit a raocow LP honestly
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

Thanks for the recommendation! :D
Finished off Steins;Gate Elite. I think it's an alright version of S;G but I much prefer the original VN. I like the original's art style plus the gimmick of phone triggers basically isn't a thing in Elite. I get it, it would be hard to implement a system where you can just pull out your phone at any time with the anime scenes being a thing. A big reason I got S;GE was for Linear Bounded Phenogram tbh. I can't wait for Robotics;Notes Elite to get released in English next year. Should be great. and also Chaos;Head Noah getting localized at some point but supposedly there's licensing issues with the game's engine or something??? Idk
I went back to Persona 2: Tsumi after a while of doing other things. Progress has been slow since the game's in Japanese and I only know some katakana but I have been using resources to help me navigate menus and I'm not bothering with dialogue because I've played Innocent Sin before just not on PS1. Plus because I'm playing on a PS2 some of the game's menus lag a lot for some reason when they don't on a PS1.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BobisOnlyBob »

BobisOnlyBob wrote: 4 years ago Sekiro! Expect to hear more from me on this game in the next few weeks to a month!
Baba is You! Finally, finally done with this. Well, I beat the final final stage. I can't say much about this more than I did last time, but it bent my brain into pieces. Recommended.

Sekiro! "...in the next few weeks to a month!" well, I technically beat it on the 14th. It was very, very, very satisfying, and the final boss

of the normal route

, The

Sword Saint

is perhaps both the best and worst boss From Software has ever made. I had to dedicate a few solid multi-hour sessions to learning how to defeat them. Physically exhausting, left me shaking.

Sokobond! Needing a palate cleanser after Baba, I decided to push some molecules around. It's pretty good, but fairly short and straightforward. Nice sokoban rules that don't appear in Baba though, kinda like very complicated "pull" rules and clever use of intersections to bind/separate atoms, a lot like SpaceChem. Didn't do the extra puzzles, feel like I need to shift onto something wildly away from puzzles for a bit.
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KobaBeach
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by KobaBeach »

Finished two replays of Arc the Lad after a series of failed ones and burnouts. First off I did a normal playthrough where I got everyone beyond Lv40, then a second faster playthrough where I focused on only leveling up Arc (making him hit the max by default). Overall, had fun.

I tried doing a playthrough where I played in Japanese and translated the game as I went first off (originally out of concern that Working Designs pulled a Lunar, but after realizing they toned down their bullshit, I just went for the learning experience) but that wound up being too much for me. Still need some mental prep time first.

It's a very simple game. It's obvious that they were pressed for time, this being the 2nd RPG released on the PlayStation after King's Field.

If Arc II is any indication, their ambitions and ideas soared, so they had less time to work on the rest of the game. The game basically ends as the story starts to truly develop. It's mostly just prologue to set the plot, followed by a "collect the five elemental mcguffins" arc, then it ends after the plot twist is revealed. It can also be cleared in about 7 to 10 hours (15 for me due to grinding). Difficulty balancing is also off, the game non-verbally kind of encourages grinding with its simplistic experience charts (like for one level it's 1900, to the next it's 1950, then 2000 and so on) and slight difficulty spikes.

Story is not out of this world, but it's a very decent "humanity is ruining nature with its avarice" type plot with a bunch of likeable characters (Chongara does lean towards racist greedy merchant stereotype though so). Translation is also surprisingly well made despite Working Designs' somewhat amateurish writing. Some minor details were wrong but outside of that, from what I can tell, it's pretty solid, "Woolseyisms" aren't out of place, lines feel natural. They just feel like they break character a bit at times, like Chongara speaking in broken English (oof) or Kukuru sounding like an airhead at times (just makes her that much closer to Knuckles). They did tone down Tosh's animosity towards everyone so that's a plus, at least.

Sprite art is superb, really showed what the PS1 could do. Nothing Rayman or, heaven forbid, Sega Saturn level, but it's a noble effort. The 3D CG cutscenes just look awful nowadays. Cool train though, I love the trains in Arc 1&2, they're like mobile fortresses of steel, they're so cool.

Looking at it with the knowledge of what Arc II turned out to be, it stacks up pretty decently. It's jank and pretty meh due to being a first year PS1 game, but it's far from a bad SRPG. A pretty B rank one though. Arc II stacks up far better compared to say Fire Emblem, FF Tactics, Disgaea or Shining Force in terms of gameplay and story.

Apparently the same people who did this also did Front Mission which is wack, though I think the Front Mission team was absorbed into Square-Enix so they could still make the later FM games, and the Arc team was turned into Arc Entertainment and possibly absorbed into Sony Interactive Entertainment. Possibly turned into ForwardWorks, since they worked on Arc the Lad R (the SRPG gacha spinoff) but I have no idea. Some of them may have made it into Cattle Call (folks that helped with Opoona, the later Metal Max games, Legend of Legacy and Alliance Alive) since they worked on the PS2 games, Twilight of the Spirits and End of Darkness.

I never really tried sleuthing where devs ended up so don't take this as gospel.
I might as well continue Shining Force now. ⊂二二二( ^ω^)二⊃

Also I really like Arc the Lad because it has a funny name.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by BurntTenda »

I finally got to the Royal Orders quests in Dragon's Dogma, starting out with beating the Griffin.
I really liked having to fight my way toward the tower the Griffin fled to, and then having to get to the top while under attack.
At some point, two of my pawns had died without me realizing, but thankfully the one that I happened to give extra Blast Arrows to survived so I could use those to burn the Griffin's wings.
Something goes here sometime.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Been trying to 1cc Touhou 10 recently. I'm always so tantalizingly close, but either I make stupid mistakes on Aya/Sanae to where there's no point in continuing or I make it to Kanako and just flub it. Lost on her last card and lost a lot of motivation, haha.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Wound up going through Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 this week. It's a pretty all right beat-em-up game overall, but it's probably more fun if you're a fan of the whole MCU dealio, movies or comics, than anything. A couple levels were kind of annoying like with snipers or an iffy co-op camera, but there's enough variety in characters to still give it a decent enough rating.

Picked up Fire Emblem: Three Houses just a little bit ago, so that one could be next unless my sudden desire to play Mega Man-like games finally gets me to go through Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 already.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

I can't justify paying full price ($80 in Canada) for a beat-em-up in 2019. There's a reason the genre kinda died off or moved to cheaper prices on digital stores. Everyone realized that they're fun for a once-through romp with your friends and then you never really have a need to touch them again.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Switch exclusivity is temporary and the game is released on other platforms for cheaper later down the road, possibly only digitally. I have a theory for why it's Switch exclusive right -- I think it's mutually beneficial to both Marvel/the game devs and Nintendo. Nintendo can sell more Switch units to people who don't have one but will buy one so they can play the new superhero game, and Marvel can charge full price for the game since Switch is the only platform where it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in terms of the last-gen graphics you're getting on a full-priced game.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Bean »

Maybe. I think the main reason this game was made was just because Nintendo footed the bill, just like they did with Bayonetta.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Update on my Touhou 10 run: I've basically mastered stages 1-3 and can get through stage 5/Sanae very smoothly. Aya's still an absolute pain and I always lose like 3-4 lives on her; I hate how almost all of her cards are pure reaction with random bullets. Makes it impossible to learn. Ah well; I'll get it eventually.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Ashan »

Bean wrote: 4 years ago Maybe. I think the main reason this game was made was just because Nintendo footed the bill, just like they did with Bayonetta.
Oh really? I'll admit know nothing about either of these games so if that's the case it wouldn't surprise me. Pretty smart move tbh
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

Finally completed my 1cc run on Touhou 10's normal mode! Was a pretty good run up until Kanako, where I got sloppy. Still really happy that I beat it, though!
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

Nice job! The only Touhou I've managed to 1cc is the second one but that was not fun at all because of how luck based Marisa and Mima are. I've been trying to 1cc Touhou 8 but Reimu is a boss that exists and is maybe kind of a difficulty spike.

In SMT1, I got to the part where

we jump into the Heroine's mind to fight Arachne

. Last time I got stun locked into oblivion several times so I hope this playthrough brings me some better luck for this dungeon.
A while ago I beat the Ice Fortress in The Elder Scrolls: Arena and proceeded to Labyrinthian... where I encountered the regenerating trolls. Labyrinthian is a super maze and I haven't had the motivation to go through it.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by GenesisJames »

HatKid wrote: 4 years ago Nice job! The only Touhou I've managed to 1cc is the second one but that was not fun at all because of how luck based Marisa and Mima are. I've been trying to 1cc Touhou 8 but Reimu is a boss that exists and is maybe kind of a difficulty spike.
Thanks! I've 1cc'd Touhou 6, 7, 8, and now 10 on normal, and have beaten 8's Extra stage. I totally get you with Reimu; her attacks are kinda gimmicky compared to pretty much everything in the game up until that point. I think it's a fairly common consensus that Reimu's harder than Marisa here.

I've only played Touhou 1 from the PC98 games, but I've heard those horror stories from Touhou 2, what with the luck/randomness and the lack of a lot of features that make the later entries in the series feel much nicer to play.
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by Crow »

Started breath of the wild recently so that's gonna be my thing for, like, a few weeks at least
i've honestly never played a video game in my life
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Re: What games are you playing?

Post by HatKid »

GenesisJames wrote: 4 years ago Thanks! I've 1cc'd Touhou 6, 7, 8, and now 10 on normal, and have beaten 8's Extra stage. I totally get you with Reimu; her attacks are kinda gimmicky compared to pretty much everything in the game up until that point. I think it's a fairly common consensus that Reimu's harder than Marisa here.

I've only played Touhou 1 from the PC98 games, but I've heard those horror stories from Touhou 2, what with the luck/randomness and the lack of a lot of features that make the later entries in the series feel much nicer to play.
Yeah you don't really realize how nice focusing is until you can't do it. It makes 2 and 3 a lot more difficult because of that, epsecially 3 because there ends up being some tight bullet patterns due to the fact it's like TH9 but less fun. Also unlocking the extra stage in TH2 is so dumb. Like c'mon beat it with all three shot types? I'm not sure I'll ever go through the effort to get the extra stage.
--
I got Fallout 4 the other day while it was on sale for super cheap. It's a decent action game but kind of unfortunate that any kind of actual RPG element was pretty much removed. My computer kind of struggles with it even on the lowest settings so I haven't been playing it a lot.
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