I despise crafting systems in almost every single game I've played!
"Cool so I need three more steel whatsamawhosits and 4 slash gems to craft the steel sword of swording. OK, these goblin guys have a 3% chance of dropping steel, better get farming. OK I got 7 pieces of cat residue, 3 glowing mushrooms, 12 goblin ears, and a partridge in a pear tree, how much of this stuff should I hang on to? Some of it sells for a lot and is taking up room. OK I can craft this halberd of pretentiousness with it but I have no idea if any of my characters' builds will ever use it and I'd be wasting materials that could be used for repairs if I craft it. I will also need to level up my magic smithing skill to 65 and take the corresponding perk to craft it."
This gets much worse if the game's inventory has a size or encumbrance limit, which means I have to pull things in and out of storage (if I get one), go over to the crafting area, find out that I didn't have enough money or materials or whatever to craft the sword, which means I need to get my dungeon supplies back out and go kill things for loot.
Bonus points if the storage is not near the crafting area and I have to make multiple trips or nothing in the game tells you what is needed to craft what, forcing you to consult the wiki or GameFAQs.
Dungeons of Dreadmor and Terraria (though not an RPG) are the most prominent examples of what I'm referring to.
Etrian Odyssey is the only system I can recall that I found somewhat tolerable because all you have to do is sell everything you find to the vendor and they'll take care of it for you. Nothing more messy or cumbersome then that.
The bad part is chapter 4 itself, since the main story takes a backseat to comedy hijinks and b-plots which I suppose many people didn't find funny and/or interesting, myself included. I don't think it was _bad_ per se, but chapter 4 as a whole and the dungeon in chapter 7 were definitely the low points of the game, story and gameplay wise respectively.
As for crafting, I really couldn't say if I love it or hate it since some games do it so well and some games.. Not so well. At its best I think a good, fun crafting system that isn't too bloated (I'm thinking maybe something like the one in DQ8) can be one of the most fun ways to power up your characters. When it's full of bloat, like the crafting system in DA: Inquisition, it's just boring as shit.
But as long as all loot the game ever gives you isn't just crafting mats and the crafting is more of a side thing and you can finish the game just fine without messing around with it, I think I'd rather have a system like it in my RPGs than not.
I'm not really invested in the main plot tbh. Basically anytime Torna shows up be prepared to destroy them and then have your victory immediately retconned with an overly long annoying cutscene :P. They're a more obnoxious Zeke to me at this point, to put that in context. So the struggle for the Aigis is not really interesting to me (yet).
The better part for me is the careening journey through the world trying to get to the tree with Pyra, and I'm okay with largess in careening.
Idk. I had a positive combat experience on Mor Ardain too. That's part of it. But I also appreciated the comedic tone, even if many of the elements weren't particularly funny. Just the whimsy of it all, the ridiculous whimsy and trying to explain that to my sister who walked in on it lol.
Mor Ardain is a cool place, that's for sure. Actually one of my favorites, I think. That's why chapter 4 was "just" the low point and not a bad chapter lol.
Crafting is great when it's a main mechanic tightly connected to progression and combat. Examples: Atelier, Mana Khemia.
I played Atelier Sophie this year and it was great.
Crafting itself was basically a puzzle and everything from making attack/healing items to equipment was reliant on it and there were enough QoL things that it wasn't tedious.
Figuring out how to get the broken effects you wanted on the items you wanted through various crafting chains was extremely rewarding.
Making an AoE bomb with lots of uses that has an instant-death effect? Possible.
At the end I made it so that everyone had life-steal and a ton of bonus attack on the weapons, auto hp-regen, stat boosts, auto-revive and instand-death bombs (though not everyone could use them), etc.
Was literally unkillable unless everyone died in the same turn and it was amazing because it wasn't a difficulty setting or a cheap glitch or cheat, but because I was actively using the systems of the game and creating that 'broken-ness' myself.
Funny anecdote: there was one really strong optional post-game boss that essentially had a DPS check. He regenerated HP every turn and I wasn't able to outdamage him. But he also didn't really have any good AoE attacks so he wasn't able to kill my party either due to them auto-reviving all the time. Was an eternal stalemate, lol.
The BG1 LTTP thread reminds me: there's a mod that turns BG1 and BG2 and its expansion pack into one long game, right? Can I install other BG1/2 mods with it?
I've really enjoyed the dozens of hours I've spent playing BG2, but I've never finished it, nor have I played the first game. Could be fun to do a super playthrough and play through the whole shebang on one go. But I'd definitely like to have some other mods in the mix too.
Well thanks to a GOG sale, I got the Enhanced Editions of The Witcher 1 and 2, Deus Ex, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines for just $11.46. Not sure when the hell I'll get to them, but at least I got them.
Well thanks to a GOG sale, I got the Enhanced Editions of The Witcher 1 and 2, Deus Ex, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines for just $11.46. Not sure when the hell I'll get to them, but at least I got them.
Definitely put both Deus Ex and Vampire Bloodlines on the top of your list. Both are relatively short like 20-30 hours to complete each, but are amazing.
Vampire Bloodlines will need all the fan-patches installed before you move onto it though.
The BG1 LTTP thread reminds me: there's a mod that turns BG1 and BG2 and its expansion pack into one long game, right? Can I install other BG1/2 mods with it?
I've really enjoyed the dozens of hours I've spent playing BG2, but I've never finished it, nor have I played the first game. Could be fun to do a super playthrough and play through the whole shebang on one go. But I'd definitely like to have some other mods in the mix too.
It's called BG Trilogy, but it's not like it's strictly needed. You can just import your save into BG2 and it works the same as the mod as far as I remember. The key thing is BG1 being in the BG2 version of Infinity Engine, but I'm not sure if that's a big deal for you. I considered going BG Trilogy at some point, but eventually decided it wasn't worth it — I think there were some minor issues it introduced or something
It's called BG Trilogy It's not like it's strictly needed. You can just import your save into BG2 and it works the same as the mod as far as I remember. The key thing is BG1 being in the BG2 version of Infinity Engine, but I'm not sure if that's a big deal for you. I considered going BG Trilogy at some point, but eventually decided it wasn't worth it — I think there were some minor issues it introduced or something
Yup, found it earlier, thought it's called Enhanced Edition Trilogy for the EE versions. I know you can just import the save, but the idea of a continuous, HUMONGOUS, like 200-hour RPG where you go from nobody to pretty much a god (at least gameplay wise) is really appealing to me. Not sure if I'll ever actually finish it, but I want to give it a try.
Tbh, it was the end of Chapter 3 that had soured me on the game. That and sometimes the game design is needlessly convoluted: the combat generally benefits from the layers and I love the enhanced party play with player controlled combos, the quest and item systems don't at all, e.g. I'm glad I don't cook in Alrest--it requires a ridiculous amount of hard-to-source ingredients and all my whining about the quest design upthread.
But that retcon of the end-boss of chapter 3, my god, that was so god awful. And it had that annoying tendency of JRPG to have people "unable to move when they should and endlessly emoting" which will never not irritate me (e.g. Persona 5 palace "escape" scenes where people are huffing and puffing in place while each gets their reaction in in turn). Couple that with it being a supposedly heart-touching and tragic moment and it was just such a poorly designed sequence. There are better ways to handle that event.
Still, I was feeling fine about the game in chapter 2 and through the beginning of 3 and I am feeling fine through 4 and the start of 5 again, and my negativity has worn off from that ending.
Yup, found it earlier, thought it's called Enhanced Edition Trilogy for the EE versions. I know you can just import the save, but the idea of a continuous, HUMONGOUS, like 200-hour RPG where you go from nobody to pretty much a god (at least gameplay wise) is really appealing to me. Not sure if I'll ever actually finish it, but I want to give it a try.
Started my playthrough of EET, which is BG1 + Siege of Dragonspear + BG2 + ToB essentially combined into one massive game if someone didn't read my earlier posts. Also installed a bunch of other recommended mods with the big world project, mainly extra quests and such from what I could tell. Playing on normal despite the fact that I suck at RTwP RPGs, but so far so good, only had to restart a couple of encounters once because of an unnecessary death.
Enjoying it so far, though it's already easy to tell why people praise BG2 and, well.. Don't really praise BG1 lol. I might end up skipping BG1 and jumping to the start of BG2 at some point, but currently I'm planning on going through this whole goddamn thing.
Gonna be a grand adventure over the next few months probably. Excited to continue this tomorrow!
Baldur's Gate 1 gets a bum rap because it has a pretty grueling beginning, stick with it though there are some fantastic parts to the game. Durlags Tower is the best dungeon in the entire series.
Siege of Dragonspear is also really good and you'll miss out on that.
I'm actually pretty positively surprised by the dialogue writing so far. For some reason I always thought BG1 was 90% hard low-level DnD gameplay (so not incredibly interesting) and 10% dry, bland dialogue trees, but Imoen's ramblings have been hilarious so far and even the MC has gotten quite a few great dialogue options even during throwaway sidequests. Straight up being able to tell Imoen that she might become redundant if I'm trying to min-max my party has been my favorite so far.
There have been some pretty damn odd dialogue options too for your MC, stuff you'd imagine you'd hear from a pompous noble's mouth. Still, right now I don't really see why I wouldn't finish BG1 and SoD too.
The beginning of Baldur's Gate 1 is great because in the german version you could give the player character a voice with a serious dialect. Was very amusing when everyone else talked in standard german.
Yeah this game has really picked up for me; I had a good time with both chapters 5 and 6. Indol and Tantal made me care about things other than the journey and the Torna fights weren't so annoying as before, i.e. the cutscenes didn't turn victory into defeat and still managed to do what they wanted to do either by not letting me win or by having a mixed victorious bent to them. Still mostly care about getting Pyra to Elysium though tbc.
I was having fun with Morag. It took a bit to get her auto-cancels down, both with the whip swords and the katana, but I think I figured her out.
The cast has also grown on me as a whole and I really want to see where the story has just turned through.
Started my playthrough of EET, which is BG1 + Siege of Dragonspear + BG2 + ToB essentially combined into one massive game if someone didn't read my earlier posts. Also installed a bunch of other recommended mods with the big world project, mainly extra quests and such from what I could tell. Playing on normal despite the fact that I suck at RTwP RPGs, but so far so good, only had to restart a couple of encounters once because of an unnecessary death.
Enjoying it so far, though it's already easy to tell why people praise BG2 and, well.. Don't really praise BG1 lol. I might end up skipping BG1 and jumping to the start of BG2 at some point, but currently I'm planning on going through this whole goddamn thing.
Gonna be a grand adventure over the next few months probably. Excited to continue this tomorrow!
Have fun! Bg1 is decent and some of the stuff that was added with the expansion is really good. It's certainly good enoug for 1 playthrough.
SoD is going to be the low point, but it's not terrible. On the plus side, it makes the transtion from bg1 to 2 less jarring.
BG2 and ToB are the best parts, even if the later is pretty linear.
Recommend mods is the way to go. It should include Ascention (different final boss battle and minor chnages to ToB), improved A.I., more quests/ more npcs and restored content.
The other mods tend to be of lower quality or don't blend in very well and can also make the game buggy if you install too many of them. I don't mind most NPC mods, but some of them, such as saerileth and Chloe, are pretty terrible.
Alright, starting to see what people mean by the beginning of BG1 being hard, haha. I'm starting to get wrecked by everything I run across, even though I have a full party (PC, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Kagain and Neera) with some solid early-game items (found a list of stuff near Candlekeep on some forums and couldn't resist lol). I have a bunch of quests in my journal, time to start doing them I guess, a level or two would really help.
Recommend mods is the way to go. It should include Ascention (different final boss battle and minor chnages to ToB), improved A.I., more quests/ more npcs and restored content.
The other mods tend to be of lower quality or don't blend in very well and can also make the game buggy if you install too many of them. I don't mind most NPC mods, but some of them, such as saerileth and Chloe, are pretty terrible.
Hopefully Ascension isn't a huge deal, since it's the single mod that Big World Setup actually failed to install, and I'm not sure if I can install any more mods now that I'm some hours into the game already.
Hopefully Ascension isn't a huge deal, since it's the single mod that Big World Setup actually failed to install, and I'm not sure if I can install any more mods now that I'm some hours into the game already.
Installing more mods now can have very nasty side effects, espically for a such a big mod like ascention.
It's you first time playing BG, so skipping ascension isn't such a big deal, espically because the new final boss is really strong and the normal one should be enough of a challenge for a new player.
If you ever replay the game and want to see the "director's cut" version of the ending make sure that ascension works properly.
Installing more mods now can have very nasty side effects, espically for a such a big mod like ascention.
It's you first time playing BG, so skipping ascension isn't such a big deal, espically because the new final boss is really strong and the normal one should be enough of a challenge for a new player.
If you ever replay the game and want to see the "director's cut" version of the ending make sure that ascension works properly.
Got it, thanks. I've actually played a good amount of BG2 in the past, so I'm sure I'll replay it again at some point after this playthrough. I'll be sure to install the mod then.
e: also HOLY SHIT regular old Sleep is OP right now! I figured it'd work like it does in many JRPGs and the enemies would wake up after getting attacked, but NOPE. They just lay there, taking damage from every single attack.
Hopefully Ascension isn't a huge deal, since it's the single mod that Big World Setup actually failed to install, and I'm not sure if I can install any more mods now that I'm some hours into the game already.
Personally I suggest avoiding Ascension for your first time, especially if you are not that familiar with D&D's mechanics. In general I say avoid any mod but the bugfixes/resolution one (Which you don't need if you are playing the EE) for your first playthrough.
Almost done with the first part of Final Fantasy V. I'm playing the fan translated SNES version with a rom hack to have learning always equiped. This game is actually pretty hard especially compared to Chrono Trigger which I just played. I've had a lot of party wipes and some bosses I've had to try multiple times. I'm pretty sure it is because my party setup isn't that great but I'm sticking with it. Speaking of jobs I was very disappointed to see you can only equip 1 ability. I have 14 on one character and I can only pick 1? Not even 1 ability and 1 passive? Modern job systems are much better.
Also I do NOT miss old games and their lack of direction. I've got lost multiple times so far since I'm given little information. I got fed up once and just looked at a walkthrough.
FF5 is so good, it's pretty much the only Final Fantasy game aside from Tactics I feel like replaying over and over after seeing people talking about it.
I actually quite liked the difficulty balance, it and IV DS are pretty fun thanks to it. I especially liked how involved V requires you to be during battles, especially bosses. Keep playing and you'll realize why they limit your customization so much haha, by the end I was destroying everything in seconds without even looking up "OP" combinations, so good.
I still need to paly FF1,3 and 5, the latest one I want to play the most, because it's the most promissing to me.
Anyway, I played some more Pillars of Eternity.
I got the fortress and a few more party members. Not sure what party I will stick with, but I would like to finish all of thier character quests if possible.
FF5 is so good, it's pretty much the only Final Fantasy game aside from Tactics I feel like replaying over and over after seeing people talking about it.
On chapter 4 of Risen. It's really awesome. I'm glad I went for mage, too, because I feel like that ties in pretty nicely with the game's story. 3 more pieces of armor to get and I assume that'll be the end.
Still trying to decide if Elex is next, or if I'll go squeeze in Gothic 3 or something else. I'm really looking forward to Elex, but the game itself seems to be in a weird place. The most recent patch didn't even get patch notes, and it seems to be causing a fair bit of trouble for people...
One (positive) thing I will say about Xenoblade 2's questing design is the ability to stock levels. I'm running around leveling up affinities (which aren't all in sync with the main progression, even with story blades, which I'm mostly dealing with), trying to get the final form of Poppi so Tora has similar utility to Morag, and just cleaning up my notebook and tying up things I ostensibly agreed to do at some point and I've gone up all of one level (to the fish monster in Poppi's quest) because so much of my XP is stored in inns.
I wish you could similarly take levels off and put them into stock :P I kind of want to level up to kill those monkeys at the end of a certain blade quest but don't want to be too overleveled for the world tree. I've gotten it done to one monkey but the butt bash area of effect attack he does is too strong and seems to have a huge range. (I tried holding back and just healing Morag as she held it and it still got me and the dps).
But yeah, I used my xp bonuses on Gormott early on, feeling a bit underleveled for some of the sidequests and ever since then up until Morytha I felt a tad overleveled, which is why I started just stocking the XP.
It also is worth noting that I'm having more fun doing the laid back, slow going, field work atm. I also think cooking 2 output feels much more proportionate to the materials :P And it helps having agronomy lvl 2 and lvl 3 on some blades. Still, I think the quests are too convoluted for their own good. But there don't seem to be that many of them, at least or they're well gated by town level. IDK for someone complaining about them, I am still doing quite a few of them. I don't think that undercuts my criticism, but it does put it into perspective that there is still something I find worthwhile in pursuing them. It just isn't something I have a lot to say about: I kind of like leveling my blades.
...
Edit: They should remake FF5 tbh. I want to actually kill Exdeath at some point. Only ever got up to him as a kid.
I wish they kept doing "class-based, crystal-based" FF games. I know that is basically what BD was going for but I really don't like the aesthetics of those games. I'd have more fun with FF monsters and stuff :P. (I'm petty perhaps...)
Now I've gotten 89-hours clocked on Persona 5 and just getting into the seventh palace. The plot developments in-between the end of the sixth palace and the seventh palace basically made up for the lack of them in the previous sixty-hours.
Still enjoying the hell out of the game, and going feel empty when it's over, but will be a opportunity to move on to Shin Megami TenseiIV which I'm playing through slowly at the moment, and will probably get a bit of time to play a lot of it when I spend a weekend in Sydney this week.
I never ever ever said to myself "Man, this crafting system sure adds a lot to this game"
In fact, every time I hear the words "crafting system" my interest in a game drops by a considerable margin.
Two chapters left in Cold Steel. Just in time for CS2 to hit PC, not that I plan on playing the game before that godawful English voice acting gets patched away from the game.
Man, not having Ao and Zero in English is such a shitty thing. :\ Just knowing both duologies take place at the same time is enough to make me play the Crossbell arc right.friggin'.now.
Two chapters left in Cold Steel. Just in time for CS2 to hit PC, not that I plan on playing the game before that godawful English voice acting gets patched away from the game.
Man, not having Ao and Zero in English is such a shitty thing. :\ Just knowing both duologies take place at the same time is enough to make me play the Crossbell arc right.friggin'.now.
Perhaps you can elaborate further which character has awful voice acting (or did you mean generally?). Cold Steel I & II English voice acting was very well done, and the voice actors put a lot of work into it, especially Sean Chiplock.
I didn't care much for Millium's voice in Cold Steel I in the PS3, but she sounds a lot better in the PC version somehow, and had major improvement in Cold Steel II PS3.
Perhaps you can elaborate further which character has awful voice acting (or did you mean generally?). Cold Steel I & II English voice acting was very well done, and the voice actors put a lot of work into it, especially Sean Chiplock.
You see, I applied the Japanese voice acting patch, but stupidly didn't decide to nuke the PC version's new samples, so some scenes have mixed Japanese/English and some have only English.
And let me tell you, the quality shift between them is something else. Japanese voice actors tend to, you know, actually do some acting while voicing the characters, while everytime English parts come in, all I can think of is 'grownups trying to act like teenagers'.
Basically this:
I had the same issue with Persona 3/4 and Tales games, simply couldn't stand the English dubs in them. Maybe it's just the anime setting, as I had no issues with English VA in, say, FF12 or Digital Devli Saga (or, you know, Mass Effect/The Witcher).
Funny fact, despite being Polish myself, I can't stand Polish voice acting in Witcher :P
One of the things I do like about X1 and X2 is their use of decidedly fantastical world shapes.
X2 is built like a solar system, except it is an ocean, except it is the sky, and the planets are all alive and orbiting in some mix of following the current and purpose. For some other things: The divide between land mass and space ship is broken down; there is no need for space suits; there is this whole developed 'cycle of magical life forms.' Don't quite know where they're going with the 'original' world yet, but the modern world is great.
As we talked about above, I think there is value in fantasy actually adopting fantastical world shapes. Things like Middle Earth being flat until it wasn't. Fantasy gives us the opportunity to deny what we assume we know about the structure of the world and present it otherwise, drawing on myth and imagination and what people used to see the world as.
I really don't think loose snippets of english voices inbetween japanese voices are a good indication of the quality of a dub, lol.
English dub wins by default anyway, since it has the voiced NPC with the rrrrolling R ;)
Slightly miffed that I missed out on Koyasu tho, even if Mercer did a fantastic job.
Funnily enough I'm also playing through Berseria now and really like the english voices (except Velvet's flashback voice, but that one's not used often)
I think the English cast of the main characters in Berseria is well done, except Rokorou never quite landed for me personally.
Anyways I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 over the weekend, basically exhausted everything you can do in the game. It has some interesting combat and exploration mechanics, and some of the characters are fun (I liked Nia and Poppi for totally different reasons), too bad the story stuff is mostly corny shonen.
I'm now replaying Valkyria Chronicles in preparation for the new game, first time with the PC version. I adore almost everything about this game.
As to my thoughts on X2's plot so far (just starting chapter 9):
As to Torna:
Tbh I don't get why, if you want to save the world, you make a point of not killing people whose stated purpose is to destroy the world and who have, apparently, the means and will to do so as far as you know. It seems the stakes are high enough to just go through with it, no matter how pitiable you think the enemy is.
I get the idea of trying to succeed, in general, without killing people wherever possible, but whenever it turns to that in these things it just seems "These are the cool badguys (they look fabulous and are tragic figures) and we're secretly friends and the conflict between us is farce," i.e. it comes across as disrespecting the conflict between them. I mean, you'll both kill countless people but you just won't kill each other, perpetuating the conflict (where countless people are dying).
When "cool" evil twists over to evil, but really let's keep them around forever and love and cherish them because they're cool, it loses any edge it had.
This kind of trope works better within the confines of a different sort of competition with different stakes and ground rules than it does here imo.
I get not wanting to blow up the ship on Amalthus's command and be part of that whole firefight. I don't get that whole walking around with Jin part so much. Nor why he didn't blow you up himself when he could, just like he stabbed you in the beginning or like he had just almost done a chapter ago.
Idk, I've had a mixed relationship with Torna. The first couple Malos fights have really long and overdone cinematics attached, but since then things haven't been like that imo, with the cinematics flowing better from play.
I've liked some of the conversations between Malos and Jin, such as after the episode in the spoiler above. There was some nuance there, but I am not attached to the wider crowd.
Tbh my hopes have been elsewhere wrt badguys, but I'm thinking I'm going to be somewhat disappointed on that front in the end:
I started getting interested in Amalthus because of a) his past with Malos and the world-tree, b) his role in the order of the world, both spiritually and--intersected with that via the core crystal trade--politically, and c) his unclear aims. I like the idea of a guy who can bring havoc upon the world through his mistakes but through the passage of time and through the particularity of his station come to be basically the pope and then using that position to both a) be a spiritual father and b) carry forward the same twisted ambitions that brought about the disaster earlier in a more cautious and thought out way.
So far his past seems to be just cut from the same cloth again as that of Jin, which is a bit disappointing. I'm pretty sure they were telling me that he wants to be god when they were supposing that could be it earlier, which fits the cinematic I just watched I just hope there is more compelling about him beyond his facade, but don't think there will be.
As to the conflict between these camps:
I struggle to understand exactly what the conflict is: I can understand "Torna flies mechanical ships and treats its Titans right/nurtures baby titans" versus "Judicium/Praetorium-led modern world order uses titans as weapons and messes around with the life-cycles of blades, e.g. makes flesh-eaters and blade-eaters." What I don't understand is the further idea of "blades are equal in Torna, subjugated elsewhere." It seems to me that all the depictions of Torna have the same driver, blade; master/ward, weapon/servant/bodyguard/care-giver dynamic, just like they have in the modern world: Jin/Haze/Lora, Addam/Mythra being the examples. Is this just meant as rhetoric of the former? I don't think cherishing something versus chewing through it is, alone, setting it as equal. So I was a bit disappointed by that rhetoric tbh. It just came across as an empty cliche.
And this is kind of why Amalthus is more interesting. Jin has at his back some lost paradise of Addam that has a mixture of compelling and not compelling distinctions from the modern world, whereas Amalthus is set up as the embodiment of the inequity and vice of the interesting world you actually get to experience.
I think the second badguy plays into more interesting facets of the world-building, which is the main strength of the story-telling imo, as well as having potential for a more interesting history.
But yeah, my favorite part of the story is just traipsing around the world with the characters and experiencing it. I also like the whole chasing some illusory goal and salvation bent.
The love stories are fairly inorganic, imo--it is pretty much just love at first sight--but moving past that I think there are decent moments (and also lots of awkward stuff, like the existence of Mythra). Fated love goes well with the shape of the journey.
For whatever reason I've owned Pillars of Eternity since release and only just got around to playing it. I'm really enjoying it. I wish some of the maps were bigger, so I could do longer dungeon crawls, and the AI path finding can be really poor at times, but other than that it's caught my attention. It's all I'm playing at the moment.
Having a bit of insomnia, and didn't feel like playing any games... so I've spent the last couple of hours reorganizing all of my computer audio stuff. For a very long time, any time I wanted to use my MT-32 or SC-8820 with another machine, I'd have to pull them out and rewire everything. Since I moved all of my gaming stuff into one room a couple of years ago, I've been meaning to consolidate everything. I've had all of the equipment I need to do it, but I was just way too lazy. Now I finally have a setup where all I have to do is change a few switches to get MIDI and speaker out audio going to the right place for my X68000, PC98, and IBM PCs. The MSX is unforfunately on its own because I ran out of space on one of the switch boxes, but it's okay since MIDI support wasn't very prevalent in MSX games, and the ones that did (Xak 2, Illusion City) sound kind of bad compared to the FM. And I never really cared for stuff like MIDI-PAC where it just takes the FM note data and sends it to a MIDI device.
Yes, I'm trying to rationalize this with myself. I really wish I could have gotten it in there.
After I get this mess cleaned up, maybe I'll take a photo and post it in the Japanese retro computer thread or something. I'm pretty pleased right now. It's making me want to play some other games, but I need to focus on Risen first.
