RPG Community |OT| Take the Epoch to a New Era

Luminaire · Mar 10, 2019

iceblade said:
Thank you both - I really appreciate it :D. Going to give DQ 11 a try then. The both of you have really sold me on it, and hopefully it'll be a really fun and memorable game :D

I think you'll like it, it's very solid. The enemy designs are wonderful. My favorite is Platypunk.

Again, I'd change to classic combat camera and perhaps turn the music down to 6-7. It can be a little loud in scenes and I found that setting to be perfect.

iceblade · Mar 10, 2019

Luminaire said:
I think you'll like it, it's very solid. The enemy designs are wonderful. My favorite is Platypunk.

Again, I'd change to classic combat camera and perhaps turn the music down to 6-7. It can be a little loud in scenes and I found that setting to be perfect.

Thanks - will do :D. One last silly question, if I may. Did Pokemon pull the "a wild [Pokemon] appears" from Dragon Quest by any chance? Your image is making me think it might be a possibility...

HosannaExcelsis · Mar 10, 2019

iceblade said:
Thanks - will do :D. One last silly question, if I may. Did Pokemon pull the "a wild [Pokemon] appears" from Dragon Quest by any chance? Your image is making me think it might be a possibility...

Yes, basically. One of the first things you see in the original Dragon Quest is this famous line:

MoonFrog · Mar 10, 2019

Slimes and Platypunks both are cute.

Luminaire · Mar 10, 2019

Played more Ayesha! Put in a pretty long session and got a ton of stuff done. This was just the first part of it. The second I'll post later as it was pretty hilarious.

I got a few new books so now I can poorly make garbage until I find better garbage to combine. Afterwards, I did some exploring and opened up new paths. But first...

I decided it would be fun to throw explosives at stray dogs out in the woods.

After blowing up half the forest with high explosives, I felt confident. There are some enemies on a hill I couldn't beat before, so I figured I'd give them a shot again. Even with high powered explosives, they wiped my party and I lost a day. I'm gonna need a bigger bomb. I made a note to make the biggest god damn bomb I can later and make especially sure I get firey revenge on the monsters on the hill. After licking my wounds, I went back to town to make some more bombs and healing items.

I went back to town and ran into Wilbell again. She wants help on becoming the greatest witch ever. Additionally, Marietta accused Ayesha of having the same taste as Harry when it comes to items. This seemed like a harsh insult, jugding by Ayesha's reaction. I then nabbed a new book to make items with.

Why must this recipe elude me so...

Out gathering again, only to step on something - or someone - twice. Turns out this idiot forgot to bring food on his journey and figured someone would drop by. Unfortunately he picked a random ass field out in the middle of nowhere, so it took three days for anyone to find him. Amusingly enough, two people were just thirty feet away and still no one helped him.

I then finished up a few areas and fought some more enemies. I managed to get a lot of meat, bone, and fur, so I can hopefully start making some armor now. Regina's hitting harder and Wilbell is learning more spells. Her MP is climbing up pretty high. Ayesha's MP is currently useless. Hopefully I get some skills soon. Wilbell is still pretty fragile, so I have to guard her. Ayesha isn't exactly all that resilient either, so Regina often takes the brunt of the damage.

Once I make some better weapons, armor, and explosives, those monsters on the hill will rue the day they decided to defend themselves against my assault.

texhnolyze · Mar 11, 2019

Hi folks, it's been a while. I kinda missed this thread since the low activity last year, but now it's way more active and looks like I missed this 'Blitz' thing which is a shame.

Anyway, Caligula Effect is releasing in a couple of days. For those who've played it, how is it? I've heard mixed things about the game.

Arulan · Mar 11, 2019

I decided to pick up Diablo given the recent GOG release. It's still a very enjoyable ARPG after all these years. The music, art design, and writing goes a long way to setting the mood in this original release. The way the Butcher is portrayed by the villagers sets the tone perfectly for the moment you first meet him.

Given the upcoming VtM announcement by Paradox, I thought I should play this. No, it's not Bloodlines, but I haven't played Redemption in ages. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I remember. Funny enough, it's a lot more like the aforementioned Diablo than Bloodlines. The story, although linear, is pretty entertaining. One of the most interesting things about it is seeing the world at different times in history.

I'll be at PAX East this year. I hope to see a lot of great RPGs, and my favorite part -- speak to the developers about them.

Sinatar · Mar 11, 2019

Redemption is almost a really fun game but the absolutely god awful AI for your followers just murders that game. You spend *so* much time individually babysitting your party through each and every door because they're too damn stupid to navigate even the most rudimentary environments.

Arulan · Mar 11, 2019

Colony Ship is certainly going to be a nice visual upgrade over The Age of Decadence.

Sinatar said:
Redemption is almost a really fun game but the absolutely god awful AI for your followers just murders that game. You spend *so* much time individually babysitting your party through each and every door because they're too damn stupid to navigate even the most rudimentary environments.

Ah yes, the pathfinding. I can't really disagree there.

Luminaire · Mar 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
Hi folks, it's been a while. I kinda missed this thread since the low activity last year, but now it's way more active and looks like I missed this 'Blitz' thing which is a shame.

Anyway, Caligula Effect is releasing in a couple of days. For those who've played it, how is it? I've heard mixed things about the game.

You can still join the blitz if you want, just a little less time than everyone else.

As for Caligula, I've heard mixed things as well but my copy should be here today so I can try it out. It seems interesting.

texhnolyze · Mar 12, 2019

Luminaire said:
You can still join the blitz if you want, just a little less time than everyone else.

As for Caligula, I've heard mixed things as well but my copy should be here today so I can try it out. It seems interesting.

I found some reviews (didn't expect people would review it), and... it's not great.

https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-caligula-effect-overdose-545210.phtml
https://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/caligula-effect-overdose-review
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/03/06/the-caligula-effect-overdose-ps4-review
https://www.rpgsite.net/review/8321-the-caligula-effect-overdose-review

Luminaire · Mar 12, 2019

texhnolyze said:
I found some reviews (didn't expect people would review it), and... it's not great.

https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-caligula-effect-overdose-545210.phtml
https://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/caligula-effect-overdose-review
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/03/06/the-caligula-effect-overdose-ps4-review
https://www.rpgsite.net/review/8321-the-caligula-effect-overdose-review

I've been getting some impressions from a friend in the discord and they're positive on it, though they have a lot of caveats. It seems interesting enough that I'll give it a shot. Reviews for JRPGs tend to always be off the mark for me, especially more middling ones. Once I get around to the game, I can share some thoughts if you're still interested by then.

MoonFrog · Mar 12, 2019

Well, I actually started in on Blitz tonight by picking MT1 up again. I didn't really make any progress but I got back into things and made two delves through Daedalus.

The first was a successful delve: I got back to floor 1, had a bit of a disaster and exhausted Yumiko's MP, but managed to claw my way back to floor 8--barely: Yumiko had 1 hp left the last couple of floors!

The second delve ended in a wipe against some dryads on floor 1. I got distracted while auto battle was on :( .

Going to try and actually kill Minotaur in the next couple of days!

ilium · Mar 13, 2019

Can anyone point me to a decent Phantasy Star lore compendium/timeline/interpretation? I'm especially interested in connections between PS I-IV and Phantasy Star Online. I only found this site for PSO so far. As far as I understand it, the pioneer project of PSO began at the end of PS IV, but I want to know more, as I have never played the old Phantasy Star games (I know, I know...)

Novel Mike · Mar 13, 2019

ilium said:
Can anyone point me to a decent Phantasy Star lore compendium/timeline/interpretation? I'm especially interested in connections between PS I-IV and Phantasy Star Online. I only found this site for PSO so far. As far as I understand it, the pioneer project of PSO began at the end of PS IV, but I want to know more, as I have never played the old Phantasy Star games (I know, I know...)

The Pioneer Project of PSO has no relation to Phantasy Star IV nor really any of the other games in the series. The people of the Pioneer Project come from a planet know as Coral which has no relation to the people or events of the original series (which takes place in the Algo/Algol Solar System)

The main connect between the original games and Phantasy Star Online (outside of specific throwbacks to the older games) is Dark Falz(Force). Going to spoiler tag this just in case but major PSO/Phantasy Star 2/3 spoilers below...

So Dark Force is a recurring evil in the original series, during the events of Phantasy Star 2 the Planet of Parma is destroyed. Several large colony sized ships manage to escape the planet before its wiped out. In Phantasy Star 3 the whole game takes place on one of these ships (although you as the player don't know it at the time) and it shows that Dark Force can exist outside of Algo.

In PSO, Dark Force was locked away on an ancient space ship on Ragol. Now as I said, several large colony sized ships manged to escape from Parma, one of them has a Dark Force on it that you encounter in Phantasy Star 3. It is then theorized that the Ancient Civilization you encounter on Ragol in PSO is one of those ships and Dark Force was locked away inside of it when the residents were not able to destroy it. During the events of PSO, Dark Force is released and thats how that story starts.

Granted thats never directly stated as far as I'm aware. Maybe someone more familiar with the events in the PSO series can tie it together better or maybe they've said something in interviews but its a fairly loose connection as far as whats actually stated in the games.

Beary · Mar 13, 2019

I tried to get into Fallout 1 (haven't played any of the Fallout games before) for the last couple of days, but although there is some cool stuff in it, I am not enjoying it all that much. So let's talk about the things I liked:

+ It runs on Windows 10 without any problems.

+ A lot of freedom in exploring the world and doing things "out of order". So after the first sidequest with the Scorpions I decided to get better weapons in the next town. Sadly I couldn't find it, but lucky for me I accidentally finished the first main quest by hiding in the sewers from some enemies.

+ The world feels kind of real. For example during a random encounter on the world map two monster types fought each other instead of chasing me like real animals probably would. You can also try different solutions in the world and they mostly work. I feel like my character is some kind of con man who is failing upwards and that is kind of cool.

And now to the negatives:
- It took me a long time to get the controls because there are no tutorials at all. I probably should have read the manual beforehand, but I am so used to just jumping in and figuring stuff out on the way or at least getting a rudimentary tutorial that I didn't think of it. I kind of get them now but I still can't reliably climb a ladder without looking at it first or use my inventory on my surroundings. The inventory is also pretty terrible by itself.

- Combat is pretty boring, but luckily you can avoid most fights. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass later, because at the moment I'm getting one hit koed by almost everyone... Also I don't know if hitting body parts is actually helping me or not.

- I mostly have no idea what I can interact with or what some things are supposed to be, especially at night. Is that a door or is that a window? Is that just a peasant or a person I can interact with in a meaningful way? At times I was squinting at the screen because I couldn't make out what things were supposed to be or if there was something hidden behind the camera angle. I'm also feeling like I am missing a lot of sidequests because exploration feels like a chore for me here.

So long story short: I like the ideas and the systems in the game, but I don't like actually playing it. Maybe I will still finish it as I think I am already pretty far missing only one location on the world map...

ilium · Mar 13, 2019

Novel Mike said:
The Pioneer Project of PSO has no relation to Phantasy Star IV nor really any of the other games in the series. The people of the Pioneer Project come from a planet know as Coral which has no relation to the people or events of the original series (which takes place in the Algo/Algol Solar System)

The main connect between the original games and Phantasy Star Online (outside of specific throwbacks to the older games) is Dark Falz(Force). Going to spoiler tag this just in case but major PSO/Phantasy Star 2/3 spoilers below...

So Dark Force is a recurring evil in the original series, during the events of Phantasy Star 2 the Planet of Parma is destroyed. Several large colony sized ships manage to escape the planet before its wiped out. In Phantasy Star 3 the whole game takes place on one of these ships (although you as the player don't know it at the time) and it shows that Dark Force can exist outside of Algo.

In PSO, Dark Force was locked away on an ancient space ship on Ragol. Now as I said, several large colony sized ships manged to escape from Parma, one of them has a Dark Force on it that you encounter in Phantasy Star 3. It is then theorized that the Ancient Civilization you encounter on Ragol in PSO is one of those ships and Dark Force was locked away inside of it when the residents were not able to destroy it. During the events of PSO, Dark Force is released and thats how that story starts.

Granted thats never directly stated as far as I'm aware. Maybe someone more familiar with the events in the PSO series can tie it together better or maybe they've said something in interviews but its a fairly loose connection as far as whats actually stated in the games.

Have you played Phantasy Star Zero? Apparently there is a bonus mission at the end explaining that Pioneer 1 and 2 departed from Coral before Mother went haywire. And according to phantasystardynasty.com the planet and moon in Zero are actually Coral and Arca, and the game takes place after the "Big Blank" i.e. the planetwide pollution that forced everyone who did not go to Ragol underground.
I just ordered a copy, so I guess I'll find out..

Novel Mike · Mar 13, 2019

ilium said:
Have you played Phantasy Star Zero? Apparently there is a bonus mission at the end explaining that Pioneer 1 and 2 departed from Coral before Mother went haywire. And according to phantasystardynasty.com the planet and moon in Zero are actually Coral and Arca.
I just ordered a copy, so I guess I'll find out..

No I hard checked out from the modern Phantasy Star games after Universe. Either way though that doesn't change the very loose connection to the original series.

peppersky · Mar 13, 2019

I just started playing Final Fantasy X and man, this game is whack. But I'm also kinda really into it. I could see this weirdness getting old but there was already so much weird and baffling stuff going on in the first hour, it's pretty amazing. Almost seems like something you'd want to play with friends just to enjoy how weird and kinda inept it is. I really have no idea what is happening, who I am or where I even am. You are really just thrown into it without any introduction to anything at all. I've only played an hour so far but so much stuff has already happened:
We have the weird framing device of Tidus telling a story, we have flashbacks within that story he is telling, we have the starchild from Mass Effect 3 who seemingly has powers time, literal time travel, we've had a giant floating water ball destroying cities, we've had what I presume is Blitzball, we've had underwater battles, some weird guys in gimp suits screaming simlish at me, liberal use of pre-rendered cutscenes, bad lipsyncing and some really wonky looking animations.
But besides it being pretty whack, the presentation seems pretty great for a game from 200, the battle system seems cool and the sphere grid looks like a lot of fun. Really looking forward to playing more of it.

Deleted member 4090 · Mar 13, 2019

I played through Langrisser 2 after enjoying the remake demo a ton. My previous experience with the series was just Warsong and Der Langrisser. I loved it for like the first 2/3rds, but the game is way too damn repetitive, and doesn't do anything to keep the game interesting in the last third. The meteor spam starts at the halfway point and never stops. Almost all of the gameplay changes in the remakes feel totally justified, especially switching to a more Fire Emblem-ish system of reduced experience gain against lower level targets The lack of that contributes to the basic puzzle of maximizing experience gain by killing commanders last being almost trivial in the first few Langrisser releases.

The game deserves a lot of credit for being one of the first SRPGs that allow the player to fully turn off battle animations, I think.

Luminaire · Mar 13, 2019

Part two of the earlier session.

I went back to Riesengang on my way to the ruins I started at. The boss approached and informed the two that the miners were preparing to have a party. A murder party.

It would seem the slags in the area ruin all their mining and exploration operations. So, crews have to be sent in to exterminate the slags. It's a grim job but they convince themselves to make a game of it - or more likely a contest. Whoever wipes out the most gets some cash and a special prize: booze.

The slags are pretty cute. At least, at this stage. Ayesha had concerns about blowing them sky-high, but Regina convinced her its a necessary thing to keep the business going. There was also some talk about unchecked slags causing issues, so Ayesha let her reservations go and the bombs fly.

Back to whackin' flying enemies with blunt objects. Additionally, I found something that appears to be the remains on a giant slag that was left unchecked. Who knows what havoc it caused. Naturally, Regina wanted to mine the corpse and sell what she could find, but its skin (shell?) proved unbreakable. I also got some new abilities, but I'm not sure how to activate them yet.

After clearing out the area, the pair placed first in the extermination contest. I also realized the slags got tougher the deeper in I went, so I may have spent one too many bombs at the start. Regardless, Regina gets her booze and coughed up the money to Ayesha for her troubles. After being told by her boss she'll never find a husband, she said she'll claim Ayesha as her bride.

I met this whackjob Runan again. He's...peculiar. After listening to his song in Riesengang, I ditched him and went to my goal: the ruins.

On my way back to the ruins where I first started, I had to cross through some newer sections of older areas. It seemed a fine time to partake in chemical warfare. Seems like a fair response to that fruit hamster throwing apples at me some months back.

After reaching the ruins, I spent some time gathering and poking around to complete some tasks.

I encountered Marion again, and her bodyguard Linca. She informed Ayesha that she'd been waiting a while. Looking at the calendar, I think I last saw her 2-3 months ago. Whoops. Marion wanted a pet fruit hamster, despite them being assholes who steal things and throw garbage at people. Marion asked about the grave, and learned about Ayesha's missing sister.

With a fond farewell, the two left and promised to give Ayesha any information they find out about the ruin. With my (late) job done, I left the ruins and went back to Riesengang, but not before pissing off every enemy on the way out.

Thankfully, I have three workshops so I'm never too far away from making useless garbage to put explosives into and throw at enemies. I'm looking forward to putting in some more time now that I'm done with my replay of DMC1.

Thuddert · Mar 13, 2019

Quick update on DQ4:

Defeated Leon
Defeated Baalzack
Got the party together
Searching for pieces of Zenithian armor

ara · Mar 14, 2019

Beary said:
I tried to get into Fallout 1 (haven't played any of the Fallout games before) for the last couple of days, but although there is some cool stuff in it, I am not enjoying it all that much. So let's talk about the things I liked:

+ It runs on Windows 10 without any problems.

+ A lot of freedom in exploring the world and doing things "out of order". So after the first sidequest with the Scorpions I decided to get better weapons in the next town. Sadly I couldn't find it, but lucky for me I accidentally finished the first main quest by hiding in the sewers from some enemies.

+ The world feels kind of real. For example during a random encounter on the world map two monster types fought each other instead of chasing me like real animals probably would. You can also try different solutions in the world and they mostly work. I feel like my character is some kind of con man who is failing upwards and that is kind of cool.

And now to the negatives:
- It took me a long time to get the controls because there are no tutorials at all. I probably should have read the manual beforehand, but I am so used to just jumping in and figuring stuff out on the way or at least getting a rudimentary tutorial that I didn't think of it. I kind of get them now but I still can't reliably climb a ladder without looking at it first or use my inventory on my surroundings. The inventory is also pretty terrible by itself.

- Combat is pretty boring, but luckily you can avoid most fights. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass later, because at the moment I'm getting one hit koed by almost everyone... Also I don't know if hitting body parts is actually helping me or not.

- I mostly have no idea what I can interact with or what some things are supposed to be, especially at night. Is that a door or is that a window? Is that just a peasant or a person I can interact with in a meaningful way? At times I was squinting at the screen because I couldn't make out what things were supposed to be or if there was something hidden behind the camera angle. I'm also feeling like I am missing a lot of sidequests because exploration feels like a chore for me here.

So long story short: I like the ideas and the systems in the game, but I don't like actually playing it. Maybe I will still finish it as I think I am already pretty far missing only one location on the world map...

While Fallout 2 doesn't really do much to fix your negatives (that I can remember at least), I hope your experience with F1 won't deter you from trying the sequel some day. It's a much, MUCH better game than the first in my opinion, with utterly delightful writing in particular.

Beary · Mar 14, 2019

ara said:
While Fallout 2 doesn't really do much to fix your negatives (that I can remember at least), I hope your experience with F1 won't deter you from trying the sequel some day. It's a much, MUCH better game than the first in my opinion, with utterly delightful writing in particular.

I feel like such an idiot right now, but I fixed a lot of my visibility problems by turning screen brightness up to the maximum. Being able to actually see things is such a game changer, haha. I'm enjoying the game a lot more now and I think I will try out the sequel someday. Knowing the controls and which options I should fiddle with beforehand should make that one a much smoother experience.

Novel Mike · Mar 14, 2019

Alright so I've actually been playing several games. From the last post I made I finished Divinity Original Sin. It was a good game but the second half wasn't nearly as good as the first half. I was originally going to do a more in depth post about it but I had computer trouble right as I was finishing it so instead I'm just going to do a quick list of what I Liked, What could've been better, and things I Disliked.

Liked:
- The Opening Area of Cyseal. Interesting areas to explore, lots of variety.
- The Start of the story. Having the story be about a murder mystery was a great way to bring me in and it played out rather well.
- The way the side quests connected with the main quests. In most games with a lot of quests the side quests can tend to feel... unimportant to the overall narrative and I was very surprised to see just how almost all of the side quests tie into the greater plot in one way or another. Made them feel worth doing but for gameplay rewards but also to get extra story/lore.
- The Combat. The combat in general is pretty great with various abilities and the way environmental effects work was great. Was almost always rewarded for experimenting with different abilities and effects.

Could've Been Better:
- The main plotline. After a strong start in Cyseal the rest of the main plot could've been a lot interesting. I was rather disappointed that it largely devolved into a rather typical 'stop this world ending evil' thing with your characters being the 'chosen' and the only ones who can stop it. It wasn't bad but again after a more interesting and strong start I was hoping for something more original.
- The Crafting System. I loved how many different things you could create but learning things from books or just experimenting got tedious after awhile and I ended up just looking up a guide on various things. I tried to spend a lot of time messing with it just to see what it offered and by I ended up coming away feeling it just really wasn't worth the effort I put into it. You really don't need money most of the time and you'll almost always get the best gear from enemies.
- The Second Main Character. I actually really liked the second main character at first but as time went on I got kinda bored with it. It being entirely based off of an AI that either will follow a specific archetype or just agree with whatever your other main character says was kinda boring. Granted I get that its meant to replace the second player of the co-op but I would've liked if the character could've been more fleshed out.

Disliked:
- The very uneven difficulty. The game starts off moderately challenging and ramps up towards the end of the first area but after that its an uneven mess. Most normal encounters aren't that difficult but there will be spikes where you are fighting much harder enemies and will just get stomped before you can even act. Then other times you'll just breeze by both normal encounters and boss battles even when you are under leveled.
- The later areas. You start in Cyseal a port city with beaches, wilderness, forests, crypts, ect. The second area is almost all snow covered areas, the third area is a large forest and the fourth area is... also a large forest. While each area does have some unique aspects to it such as the third area having this desert area and mines a majority of these latter two areas are large forest areas. I was just hoping for something a bit different to look at.
- To many options in combat. An odd complain to make really but by halfway through the game I had dozens of on use items to use battle be it magic scrolls, grenades, various arrow types, ect. While they offered a lot of utility most of them I rarely if ever needed to use and at times many were just not nearly as useful as my characters normal abilities. Scrolls in particular never seemed to be needed, I maybe used two or three my entire playthrough. I like that the game had a lot of ways to explore its combat system but the enemies and encounter design didn't really take advantage of the amount of tools at the players disposal.
- The walking speed. You can learn spells that increase walking speed and there is fast travel to various points on the map but the normal games walking speed is so slow and you have to backtrack quite a bit at times and while the fast travel helps you still spend far more time just walking around getting from place to place then in combat, questing, or anything else. I literally was looking for a run button in the configuration because it felt odd how slow the default walking speed is.

So with all that said, I really did enjoy my time with the game but it certainly peaked in the first arc and the rest just wasn't nearly as exciting or interesting. Not a bad game by any means and I'd encourage anyone to give the game a shot but there are things that could've been done a lot better. I'm hoping when I eventually get to the sequel its made some improvements in these aspects.

So while my computer was acting up I pulled out my PS3 and was looking for something to play and I had been meaning to replay Suikoden for awhile and so I did that. I've never finished the second game but I wanted to get save data to carry over to the second game for whenever I decide to tackle that so I ended up replaying it and ran through it in just a few days. Still a fun game that I enjoy quite a bit but my god does the translation have a ton of minor issues. Theirs nothing huge but like every other sentence has some sort of spelling error and a lot of the text just reads like something thrown into google translate. It majorly needed someone to have a few more editing passes at the script. Didn't bother me that much but I certainly noticed it a lot more now then I ever did when I first played the game like a decade ago.

I got through Suikoden and decided to jump into my next blitz game, Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4 for short). Not very far yet (middle of chapter 1) and while I had played the game before I never got into it very seriously because the fan translation I played at the time was largely unfinished but now the current one is much more complete and very well done. I'm loving the story and the political aspects going on. It's pretty simple to follow so far despite how many characters are being introduced early on.

I also really like the scale with each chapter taking place in large sections of these countries compared to other FE games I've played where you'll just have a battlefield in a relatively smaller section of each country you are seeing major areas of each country right from the get go and they are accurate to the larger world map you are shown in the games introduction. This extends to the battles themselves, unlike previous FE games each chapter is much longer (the prologue took me over 2 hours to finish for example) and while the pacing of the game is certainly slower compared to other more modern FE games with how many units are around and how slowly the attack animations are I'm really enjoying it so far.

I love the art style and the unique aspect the game presents such as each character having their own pool of money (instead of a collectively like other games) and you not being able to trade items between characters or switch them in a convoy (you have a convoy but its character specific, you aren't sharing between characters as far as I can tell). I'm still early so we'll see if some of these things will bother me later on but really enjoying it so far. It helps that I'm abusing save states which I have no problem with considering how long it would take to replay chapters if I died.

MoonFrog · Mar 15, 2019

Caught Cerberus and fused some strong demons: Nekomata and Siren. Killed Minotaur with this crew. I explored with the elevator but it hasn't filled in all the seeming gaps in Daedalus. The one gap I did fill in led to a strange demon worth lots of experience points that respawns in that room and a room full of trash. There has got to be something in the trash room but it didn't seem I could pick anything up as of yet at least.

In any case, I stopped there for the night. Curious what happens next. Still need to get out of Daedalus.

ilium · Mar 15, 2019

I totally forgot to post the hypest trailer ever produced when talking about Phantasy Star, so that's what I'm going to do now:

"The gaming revolution comes in the year 2000. The door to the future. The door to freedom."

You just have to adore that late 90s techno-optimism.

Gevin · Mar 15, 2019

As an update, I finished the story on Final Fantasy V Advance and I'll be moving forwards with the postgame dungeon.

Taborcarn · Mar 15, 2019

I finished up Route E for Nier Automata the other day. Really anything that I can say about it would be spoilers, so I'll just leave it and say I really enjoyed the experience even though it's a mishmash of game styles I don't normally play. And as my final choice I decided to help others at the expense of my own data.

Now I'm about 4 hours into Earthbound, and it's just as charming as Mother so far. I got corrected for naming my character Ness in the first game since that was wrong, so I fixed the error this time but for some reason there wasn't quite enough room.

Ah well, Ninte has had some adventures already, and is currently trying to find Ana the psychic girl.

ara · Mar 15, 2019

Finally done with the Disney worlds in KH3. After the initial excitement wore off, the Disney worlds really did turn out to be a huge pile of boring shit. Well, the worlds themselves were actually really great for the most part, but everything that happened in them I really didn't care about. Nothing new to the series, but unlike with KH2(FM+), the game is so easy even on Proud the otherwise really fun gameplay couldn't even save them.

Rating this game when all's done is gonna be hard. Is it a 7 or is it a 10? Where is it on my GOTY list, if anywhere? It's been such an inconsistent experience, though for that alone I can definitely say it's far below KH2 for me.

Arulan · Mar 15, 2019

I finished Diablo a few days ago. I'd forgotten that in multiplayer there is friendly-fire with spells and ranged attacks. I feared dying to my friend's Sorcerer almost as much as the enemies themselves. I did find a Constricting Ring (MAX all resists; Lose 1.25 HP/s) though, and decided to make that a part of my Warrior's build going forward. This basically meant using health potions all the time, and prioritizing +health items. Diablo hit a lot harder than I remember, and had to use health potions every ~3s. This game didn't have a Hardcore mode, but I decided to play it as if it did. I didn't die!

detective_miller · Mar 15, 2019

"Justice and war seldom keep company. In the heat of battle, all are criminals and all are innocent. Only later does the victor decide which is which."

I have now made some decent progress in the next game on my list: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together .
Made it into to chapter 3 and am following the Neutral path. The Chaos path seemed more like the "correct" choice to me, but looking online the neutral path was recommended as the best path choice for a first play-through. In true SMT fashion, the Law path seems to be the path of morally deranged fanatics.

The game is clearly way more balanced than Final Fantasy Tactics: nothing as insanely unbalanced as calculators, but I never go anywhere without some archers. Ninjas seem a bit disappointing so far, but I maybe just need to beef them up a bit.

Not a huge fan of trying to save suicidal guest NPCs with no regard for their own safety though. And one-on-one battles just do not work well in these type of strategy games, as it quickly becomes a tedious series of "whack-whack-heal-repeat" with very little actual strategy.

The story has been very interesting so far though, and I love the style of the localization. I am very curious to see how differently things play out when following other paths after I beat the game.

Beary said:
And now to the negatives:
- It took me a long time to get the controls because there are no tutorials at all. I probably should have read the manual beforehand, but I am so used to just jumping in and figuring stuff out on the way or at least getting a rudimentary tutorial that I didn't think of it. I kind of get them now but I still can't reliably climb a ladder without looking at it first or use my inventory on my surroundings. The inventory is also pretty terrible by itself.

- Combat is pretty boring, but luckily you can avoid most fights. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass later, because at the moment I'm getting one hit koed by almost everyone... Also I don't know if hitting body parts is actually helping me or not.

- I mostly have no idea what I can interact with or what some things are supposed to be, especially at night. Is that a door or is that a window? Is that just a peasant or a person I can interact with in a meaningful way? At times I was squinting at the screen because I couldn't make out what things were supposed to be or if there was something hidden behind the camera angle. I'm also feeling like I am missing a lot of sidequests because exploration feels like a chore for me here.

Sounds like you are having a lot of the same issues I was having initially with the UI and figuring out how to interact with objects in the world (also opted not to read the manual, and instead randomly pressed buttons/clicked parts of the screeen until I vaguely made sense of what did what). You do get used to how some of inventory management after a while, but I was still struggling with opening doors and climbing ladders through the end of the game. :P

As for hitting body parts in combat, I found that shooting everything in the eyeballs was pretty effective, as it destroys their accuracy, so they are not able to hit you. Getting some decent armor is also something that will help your survivability immensely.

Disclaimer · Mar 15, 2019

Always fun to hear impressions of Tactics Ogre. Glad you're enjoying it!

detective_miller said:
I have now made some decent progress in the next game on my list: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together .
Made it into to chapter 3 and am following the Neutral path. The Chaos path seemed more like the "correct" choice to me, but looking online the neutral path was recommended as the best path choice for a first play-through. In true SMT fashion, the Law path seems to be the path of morally deranged fanatics.

Huh... interesting advice. Neutral is actually the path I would least recommend for a first playthrough, but of course there's no wrong way to play, since everything is achievable in one playthrough with the wonderful WORLD system.

Lawful has the most unique recruits by far, and so is often the path recommended first for early acquirement of them. Neutral has the fewest unique recruits by a pretty stark degree.

Neutral also doesn't have access to a lot of postgame content, which makes it bad for a singular experience (Lawful is most complete in this regard), but perfectly fine — even good — if the player intends to go back and do the other routes via WORLD.

detective_miller · Mar 15, 2019

Disclaimer said:
Huh... interesting advice. Neutral is actually the path I would least recommend for a first playthrough, but of course there's no wrong way to play, since everything is achievable in one playthrough with the wonderful WORLD system.

Lawful has the most unique recruits by far, and so is often the path recommended first for early acquirement of them. Neutral has the fewest unique recruits by a pretty stark degree.

Neutral also doesn't have access to a lot of postgame content, which makes it bad for a singular experience (Lawful is most complete in this regard), but perfectly fine — even good — if the player intends to go back and do the other routes via WORLD.

I think the fact that neutral has fewer recruitable characters and is a bit shorter than the others are the reasons it was recommended in the listing I read. With the world system, going through the less dense path first would allow for a more natural progression towards the post-game content with the more beefy paths at the end. Will have to see if I start feeling burnt out by then though, if the post game is mainly dungeon crawling or grindy then I might give it a pass.

Interesting to hear that there are even more characters to recruit in the Law path though. I already feel like I have so many to pick from, and I am quite attached to the generic members I picked up at the beginning of the game. Canopus is my MVP though (please don´t ever die/leave).

Disclaimer · Mar 15, 2019

detective_miller said:
I think the fact that neutral has fewer recruitable characters and is a bit shorter than the others are the reasons it was recommended in the listing I read. With the world system, going through the less dense path first would allow for a more natural progression towards the post-game content with the more beefy paths at the end. Will have to see if I start feeling burnt out by then though, if the post game is mainly dungeon crawling or grindy then I might give it a pass.

Interesting to hear that there are even more characters to recruit in the Law path though. I already feel like I have so many to pick from, and I am quite attached to the generic members I picked up at the beginning of the game. Canopus is my MVP though (please don´t ever die/leave).

Yeah, Neutral first can be good, but in the sense of getting it over with before the real courses, lol. Lawful and Chaotic are a lot better, and the former especially features waaaaaay more recruitable unique characters. Some of their recruitments can be a bit obtuse, though, so I'd kind of encourage a guide for a Lawful run.

Good to hear you have a healthy appreciation for our lord and savior Canopus! He's the best.

iceblade · Mar 15, 2019

I started Dragon Quest 11 yesterday and after playing for about an hour yesterday I wasn't really swung either way. I played some more today, though, and I've realized that there's something about it that's hard to describe - it somehow feels comforting and relaxing, like resting your head on your pillow after a long day. All of a sudden I'm wanting to play more and see how things play out, and just as well as the story is pulling me in:

I wasn't expecting the plot twist of the king thinking the Luminary is a scumbag, and the whole run-from-the-guards-then-the-dragon bit was really funny :D.

I get the feeling this is going to be a long and fun journey, and I definitely want to see what happens next. Thanks again for the help and recommendations, Luminaire and MoonFrog :D

Beary · Mar 15, 2019

detective_miller said:
Sounds like you are having a lot of the same issues I was having initially with the UI and figuring out how to interact with objects in the world (also opted not to read the manual, and instead randomly pressed buttons/clicked parts of the screeen until I vaguely made sense of what did what). You do get used to how some of inventory management after a while, but I was still struggling with opening doors and climbing ladders through the end of the game. :P

As for hitting body parts in combat, I found that shooting everything in the eyeballs was pretty effective, as it destroys their accuracy, so they are not able to hit you. Getting some decent armor is also something that will help your survivability immensely.

I have finished the game and I think I have the controls mastered about 95% by now (we also made some other pretty similar experiences). Once I was trying to climb some stairs by moving onto them but that didn't work at all. So I changed to the "use cursor" and now my character just climbed up the side like some weirdo. I guess there were no stairs in the vault and he didn't know how to use this outdated technology...

The main skills I used were bluffing and if that doesn't work running away like some kind of psychotic version of Usopp from One Piece. I only had one battle where I actually had to fight and I promptly lost the only companion that I got. :( After that I never fought again and only relied on my great legs which led to the best moments in the game for me.

So I tried to infiltrate the military base with my church robes. I was only level 6 or 7 and my equipment wasn't all that great except an alien raygun I found. I couldn't figure out how to deactivate the forcefield on the doors so I reloaded and let the mutants take me to their leader who immediatly saw through my disguise. I wouldn't give up the location of my vault so he tried to punch me to death. I then used my ultimate skill: Taking a step to the side and running like hell. He didn't expect that and was so disappointed in himself that he went home because he obviously wasn't fit to work that day. After activating the selfdestruct I learned that I could walk through the forcefields for the cost of some health and I could have done this the proper way but doing it like this was a lot more entertaining.

After defeating the master by talking I ran away again, but this time there were a lot more monsters to avoid. So I used my best dribbling skills, danced around a pillar like a professional athlete and then got stuck in front of a bookcase while super mutants and other monstrosities were breathing down my neck. I finally found the secret switch and escaped. The ending was pretty great and unexpected too. And the moral of the story is: Never skip leg day!

After being a bit lukewarm about it in the beginning, I enjoyed Fallout a lot more than I expected, especially after getting used to the controls and fixing my setup. I loved the freedom and the emergent storytelling that it enables. I probably skipped a lot and there were still places to explore, but I'm pretty happy with my playthough as is. So on to the next game!

Luminaire · Mar 16, 2019

Novel Mike said:
--DOS1 stuff--

DOS1 is such a great game for the first half. Cyseal feels great, everything is so connected and feels just close enough yet just far away to feel familiar yet foreign. I agree that it loses a lot of that in the second half, especially with that nightmare of a desert. I don't know who pissed off the dev team to make you suffer that. The story gets frustratingly simple and falls into eye-roll territory. I never once cared about the 'big bad' plot in the background, or the love triangle, or the... godbox...

Still, it's a fantastic game that is full of so many chances to do your own thing, tell your own story, and just have fun. By the end of the game, my friend and I were ending fights before they even began by calling down giant AOE storms out of combat to start off a battle. We had more fun being Bad People but not villains, and valuing the lives of animals over humans. We ransacked and stole as much as we could, only to sweet talk vendors and sell them back the stuff we stole. My entire characters narrative arc was that she accidentally killed that chicken in Cyseal, and lost the gift of gab (e.g. I forgot to take Pet Pal so my friend did), and she was riddled with guilt ever since.

DOS2 is wonderful and has a much better story so far with bigger setpieces and personal character arcs that are fun and creative. I think you'll enjoy it quite a bit, especially when you start speccing into weird builds that actually work. My biggest complaint with DOS1 was that you couldn't really be a tank. In 2, they give you so many options and its a blast. Reanimating bloated corpses to act as remote bombs, convincing people to join you in combat against their friends, tearing down shields and littering enemies with horrific status effects, and more. If you can ever play either game in co-op, I recommend it wholly. While it's slower than most co-op experiences, sitting with your friends on discord/voice and talking out your strategies together is quite fun.

Gevin said:
As an update, I finished the story on Final Fantasy V Advance and I'll be moving forwards with the postgame dungeon.

Woo! I never touched any of the Omega stuff myself, but I hear its quite tough.

Taborcarn said:
I finished up Route E for Nier Automata the other day. Really anything that I can say about it would be spoilers, so I'll just leave it and say I really enjoyed the experience even though it's a mishmash of game styles I don't normally play. And as my final choice I decided to help others at the expense of my own data.

From the moment I started route C, I was frankly in awe. I loved everything from the start to the end, and found myself very choked up by the credits. I'm glad you liked it! It's one of my favorite games ever, and thats been a hard list to crack into.

ara said:
Finally done with the Disney worlds in KH3. After the initial excitement wore off, the Disney worlds really did turn out to be a huge pile of boring shit. Well, the worlds themselves were actually really great for the most part, but everything that happened in them I really didn't care about. Nothing new to the series, but unlike with KH2(FM+), the game is so easy even on Proud the otherwise really fun gameplay couldn't even save them.

Rating this game when all's done is gonna be hard. Is it a 7 or is it a 10? Where is it on my GOTY list, if anywhere? It's been such an inconsistent experience, though for that alone I can definitely say it's far below KH2 for me.

I'm torn on KH3 as well. It's very good, but... very easy. I'm one of those who like the original stuff more than the Disney stuff, but I do appreciate the Disney stuff. It just often felt like it contributed nothing to the story other than road blocks. I'm pretty glad I wasn't incredibly hyped for the game, as I may have been disappointed. I think it met my expectations, overall. I'm not sure if its gonna make my top ten list this year. I hope it lived up to others expectations, though.

iceblade said:
I started Dragon Quest 11 yesterday and after playing for about an hour yesterday I wasn't really swung either way. I played some more today, though, and I've realized that there's something about it that's hard to describe - it somehow feels comforting and relaxing, like resting your head on your pillow after a long day. All of a sudden I'm wanting to play more and see how things play out, and just as well as the story is pulling me in:

I wasn't expecting the plot twist of the king thinking the Luminary is a scumbag, and the whole run-from-the-guards-then-the-dragon bit was really funny :D.

I get the feeling this is going to be a long and fun journey, and I definitely want to see what happens next. Thanks again for the help and recommendations, Luminaire and MoonFrog :D

Yay! It's a very good game. I've heard a lot of people describe it as you have, but more "comfort food". I'm not sure if I get that feeling, but its a fun ride through and through. The level of detail in the world is wonderful, and the enemies shine. I hope you'll give us updates as you go along!

Gevin · Mar 16, 2019

Finished Final Fantasy V Advance, game #2 on my blitz.

Hadn´t played this one in several years and didn´t remember much save for some OP combos.

I had an awesome time, it was way better than I remembered. The job system is amazing, there´s a lot of possibilities which almost all the jobs being viable and some really fun cheeses and combos for when you don´t wanna try hard. The story is OK (I don´t think any FF has a great story) and some of the comedy moments were gold

Also this time I did the post game dungeon (and basically all content), which was pretty hard and it required some level grinding at a few parts. I managed to beat the hardest optional boss (Neo Shinryu) with only 1 character alive:

And also the boss rush, which was cake compared to Neo Shinryu:

Overall it was a lot of fun, maybe next blitz I replay 6 (contrary to popular opinion, 6 is one of my most disliked FF). Have some random screenshots as a bonus:

I´ll continue with the blitz once my internet problems are solved.

Luminaire · Mar 17, 2019

I finished up Death end re;Quest, so after putting that away I wanted to play something more charming and lighthearted.

So, more Ayesha~
I put in a couple hours today and burned through two and a half months. Much of it was spent gathering stuff and fighting enemies.

I went through and refilled my basket with some attack items. I noticed Ayesha's notes on the side. The first thing that came to mind when creating some terrible chemical is if she can throw it at an enemy. I also ran into a new friend, Nanaca, and her brother. They herd cattle. On my way through the ruins, I ran into them again, only to find parts of the ruin collapsed. Juris managed to push a slab aside and get everyone out, which also opened up a large section of the ruins to explore.

I did some exploring and found tons of materials, fought tons of enemies, and leveled up a few times. The ruins are huge. Apparently they're a tunnel or waterway from a civilization from long ago. I actually appreciate not having a map in this game. It feels a little more exploratory. I did find a poster regarding the slags, who seem to be in many ruins.

Upon returning to the main city, both Harry and Marion decided to give me investigations. Harry's was a nearby ruin called the Glass Factory. Marion's is about a small village that had all its inhabitants disappear overnight. After terrifying Ayesha with musings that it could be a serial killer, she then linked it to Nio's disappearance. Harry gave me 500 cole which is nothing. Marion, on the other hand, let me borrow Linca. Or, more accurately, she assigned Linca as a bodyguard for Ayesha.

On my way back through town, I ran into a shady ass dude trying to hustle me for some hairpin. Marietta stepped in and chased him away, only to tell Ayesha to be more stern and not get pushed over by aggressive people. I managed to find the bakery, which had a number of healing items and new books for me to read. One of them also had to elusive Veggie Soup recipe that has been sitting in my log since April (it's December now in game.)

I went to go check out the new area that opened up, a giant ruin made of glass. I figured I'd try out Linca and see what she can do, so I gave Regina a break since I still need someone with magic/AOEs. Regina might be tired of getting hammer by enemies, so she could use a rest. Of course, she came to the dungeon anyways because she can't pass up a ruin.

Linca is pretty awesome. She uses a giant broadsword that she drags along the ground. It sparks whenever she moves, and she often gets extra damage for her back attacks and short-range attacks. Her abilities have a huge AOE range too, including one that hits all enemies and slaps a few status effects on them. Her HP and MP seem low, but her physical resistance (defense) is good enough to tank hits pretty well. I'll need to work on some equipment for her to boost her HP/MP.

Regina seemed thrilled to hit up the Glass Factory. Ayesha came here to find clues regarding her sisters disappearance at the other ruin, which worked out in her favor. She managed to catch a glimpse of her sister, giving her some much needed hope to keep pushing forward.

Linca is awesome.

I finished up the factory and left with a full basket, a bunch of levels, and a lot of unidentified equipment I'll need to research.

Before calling it a night, I got roped into this contest again. I didn't have anything particularly fancy, so I once again needed to count on the failures of my competitors. I should note that Harry is the host, a contestant, and a judge. This is a massive conflict of interest! In the end, I barely managed to win somehow. I really wasn't expecting it, so it was a nice surprise. Tons of cash and some armor identification materials~ Now I can buy more books and clean out my friends bazaar shops.

I've figured out how to use my new skills that require two AC bars. Unfortunately, fights don't last long enough for me to see the full effects. Regina has a timed delay bomb that never went off due to the enemies dying too fast. it sounds like those dragons on the hill will be perfect subjects to test that out on. I'm waiting to take them on until I can make a bigger, better bomb. The fiery judgement of a simple apothecary will soon come their way.

ara · Mar 17, 2019

Well, finally finished KH3. Might as well post my thoughts here since I already posted something earlier.. Also because I can't find the OT lol. It's a game I've waited for quite a while and a sequel to one of my all-time favorites, KH2FM+, so if I were to write out all my thoughts this post would end up being way too long. So here's a quick pros/cons list and a summary of my feelings.

Good:
- Gameplay. It's much looser and sort of sloppier than KH2FM+, but it's the most fun I've had with a KH game so far, and one of the most fun action games I've ever played. Gliding around, hitting and dodging and shooting off wild magic and party attacks is just fucking fun.
- Visuals. The game's a goddamn stunner.
- The Disney worlds. The levels themselves, that is. They were big and beautiful and varied and I loved exploring them.

Bad:
- Story. I didn't have high expectations after DDD more or less ruined the whole thing for me, but I expected a fun shitshow or something. Nope. It was just boring. Nothing interesting seemed to ever happen and it was hard to follow and convoluted but not in the fun way KH2 was. Also Kairi is lost AGAIN? Fuck off, for real. That's so stupid.
- Difficulty/balancing. I always thought Standard was a nice, even challenge for me in KH1 and 2. I had zero difficulty with this game on Proud, and even had the No Exp ability on for long amounts of time. Enough said.

Here and there:
- Dialogue. On one hand, it actually had some quite fun self-aware dialogue, and shit like Donald's sassy quips were certainly a highlight. Solid humor. On the other hand, they reaaaallly doubled down on the heart/light/darkness/friendship/etc. fluff in what felt like every single conversation between original characters, to the point that it felt like nobody was actually saying anything. It was so strange.
- Cutscenes. Beautiful and fun to watch for the most part, but fuck if they weren't weirdly paced. I can't remember KH2 having this many straight up pauses all the time.

I really enjoyed playing it, and sitting right now on the The End screen with that gloomy ass piano music, I definitely feel sad it's finally over. But it was also very disappointing. Story-wise it was worse than I expected, the last hours were nowhere near as good as I had hoped from the impressions (where the hell was my epic final level à la TWTNW? Did we SERIOUSLY just get boring corridors with boss fights, a beautiful town where you spend like 2 minutes doing nothing and then a boss fight and the awful Final World sequence where you collect Soras and listen to nonsense dialogue??) and, like mentioned, the game was just too easy. A lot of it just felt.. Unfinished.

Overall it's probably somewhere closer to KH1 than 2 for me, probably a solid 7.5 or 8 or something, but nowhere near the GOAT KH2FM+. It'll likely end up on my GOTY list for 2019, but somewhere lower than I had initially hoped.

Now I'll move on to YS 8 and Sekiro (next week). Might restart Persona 5 sometime soon too, depending on what's going on with the possible remaster.

Iva Demilcol · Mar 18, 2019

After hitting the 25 hours mark I think it's time for an update of my playthrough of KHII Final Mix:

It's time to talk about the "Disney stuff" I mentioned in my previous post.

After leaving Twilight Town the story progression kind of stopped and it was time to explore the different Disney Worlds. I think I've visited all of them, unless there's another Fantasia one at the end like in the first Kingdom Hearts.

Land of the Dragons
Beast's Castle
Olympus
Disney Castle
Timeless River
Atlantica
Port Royal
Agrabah
Halloween Town
Pride Lands
Space Paranoids
100 Acre Wood

In general the levels/worlds in KHII are bigger and emptier than in the previous games. The advantage of that though is that battles against the heartless and nobodies are crazier and faster and quite fun too. In total 6 worlds from the previous games come back: Olympus, Atlantica, Agrabah, Halloween Town, 100 Acre Wood and Hollow Bastion "come back" is a way of saying it: the worlds are actually quite different than their previous incarcations, still, some of them are better in the previous games: Olympus is definitively better since it's an actual level this time, Agrabah is less confussing and annoying than in KHI, but Halloween Town was way more interesting and fun to play in KHI while the best version of Atlantica is from Chain of Memories imo.

One of the main highlights of the entire game so far has actually been a Disney world: Timeless River since you basically play in a 30s version of the Disney cartoons. As for the rest of the game I just passed the point where you have to go back to all the Disney worlds... at the beginning I wasn't looking forward to it but most levels inlude a twist that helps to keep them fresh, and fun bosses to fight; some worlds go from unremarkably boring or underwhelming to actually being fun in the second visit (Land of Dragons, Port Royal)

As for the bosses, I'm surprised they are basically walking puzzles you have to solve before they wipe the floor with you. The toughest ones so far have been Zexious and Xaldin, one of them was entirely optional while the second was mandatory and so annoying I had to receive help from certain mouse to being able to beat him. Reaction commands were a mistake: the timing to execute them is so short that you can activate limits or your special forms rather than just using reaction commands effectively, I'm thinking seriously about deactivating the instant limits option, but that would lead me to barely using them because the combat is so fast and navigating the menus is so slow; it's the same problem I had with Chain of Memories, but at least with Chain of Memories I could control my deck effectively, while in KHII there aren't options that allow me to make use of all the systems more effectively, a little bit more of planning was needed when making the UI imo (i understand that this is a ps2 game but I've played character action games that are more forgiving than KHII). That being said though, the battles are on the easy end of the spectrum for JRPGs so my issues with the combat system are just annoyances that don't ruin the game, still I wonder if they improved the controls for KHIII, I guess we'll see.

With 27 hours of playing time, I think I'll beat all Disney worlds this week and I'm looking forward to visiting that huge area that seems to lie beneath the other worlds, I imagine that's the place where the endgame will take place.

Oh, I almost forgot: the musou-like sections in this game are awesome.

Custódio · Mar 18, 2019

Beary said:
I tried to get into Fallout 1 (haven't played any of the Fallout games before) for the last couple of days, but although there is some cool stuff in it, I am not enjoying it all that much. So let's talk about the things I liked:

+ It runs on Windows 10 without any problems.

+ A lot of freedom in exploring the world and doing things "out of order". So after the first sidequest with the Scorpions I decided to get better weapons in the next town. Sadly I couldn't find it, but lucky for me I accidentally finished the first main quest by hiding in the sewers from some enemies.

+ The world feels kind of real. For example during a random encounter on the world map two monster types fought each other instead of chasing me like real animals probably would. You can also try different solutions in the world and they mostly work. I feel like my character is some kind of con man who is failing upwards and that is kind of cool.

And now to the negatives:
- It took me a long time to get the controls because there are no tutorials at all. I probably should have read the manual beforehand, but I am so used to just jumping in and figuring stuff out on the way or at least getting a rudimentary tutorial that I didn't think of it. I kind of get them now but I still can't reliably climb a ladder without looking at it first or use my inventory on my surroundings. The inventory is also pretty terrible by itself.

- Combat is pretty boring, but luckily you can avoid most fights. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass later, because at the moment I'm getting one hit koed by almost everyone... Also I don't know if hitting body parts is actually helping me or not.

- I mostly have no idea what I can interact with or what some things are supposed to be, especially at night. Is that a door or is that a window? Is that just a peasant or a person I can interact with in a meaningful way? At times I was squinting at the screen because I couldn't make out what things were supposed to be or if there was something hidden behind the camera angle. I'm also feeling like I am missing a lot of sidequests because exploration feels like a chore for me here.

So long story short: I like the ideas and the systems in the game, but I don't like actually playing it. Maybe I will still finish it as I think I am already pretty far missing only one location on the world map...

I know this late, but if you didn't realize it yet, you can highlight things that you pick up by holding a button (probably ALT, but I'm not really sure). But mostly yes, this game is from an era where you really, really had to read the manual. I'm a little biased because I live everything about these two games, even the combat. They are just amazing. Those games really could a remaster like the Baldur's Gate games had.

Beary · Mar 18, 2019

Custódio said:
I know this late, but if you didn't realize it yet, you can highlight things that you pick up by holding a button (probably ALT, but I'm not really sure). But mostly yes, this game is from an era where you really, really had to read the manual. I'm a little biased because I live everything about these two games, even the combat. They are just amazing. Those games really could a remaster like the Baldur's Gate games had.

Thanks! I beat the first game some days ago, but this is really good to know for when I play the second one. Back in the day manuals were such an integral part of videogames to me. I would even read them for simple games just to get an as complete experience as possible. Nowadays I can't even remember the last game I bought that had one.

MoonFrog · Mar 18, 2019

Ah! Need to keep up with this thread better. Been pretty bad at reading much of it lately.

Got a little further in MT1 over the weekend; killed Medusa and got a flying city! Wasn't expecting to be able to move the city and it is nice to have confirmation that I can indeed save some place other than Micon.

Luminaire · Mar 21, 2019

Iva Demilcol said:
Oh, I almost forgot: the musou-like sections in this game are awesome.

Looking forward to your thoughts on everything at the end of the game. For me, at least, that's where the games stupid story (that I love) seems to shine.

Also, a Kingdom Hearts Warriors could be fun...

Iva Demilcol · Mar 22, 2019

Luminaire said:
Looking forward to your thoughts on everything at the end of the game. For me, at least, that's where the games stupid story (that I love) seems to shine.

Also, a Kingdom Hearts Warriors could be fun...

I'm ready for the wild ride!

And a Kingdom Hearts Musou would actually be great, they have the characters and the mindless mobs.

Hire me, Square.

Absentmindedprof · Mar 23, 2019

Well I wrapped up my first blitz game last night while watching the NCAA tournament. Phantasy Star was a great early RPG and I wish it was as well regarded as the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. One thing I find interesting is that it is more clearly influenced by the Wizardry games then the other two. I also found the blobber style dungeon crawling very addictive. I'd often fill out the whole map of a dungeon, even if I'd already gotten the main quest item. I probably wouldn't have finished the game if it wasn't for the Ages mode, because it became very difficult at the end, and I'm sure that originally involved tons of grinding to complete the last dungeon. Hopefully Sega will put out a Sega Ages version of Phantasy Star II, because if would like to continue playing through the series on my Switch.

MoonFrog · Mar 23, 2019

Congrats! Yeah I liked PS1. Good game.

IsaOfTheWorlds · Mar 23, 2019

A bit late to the party on this one, but seeing as I've played a good bit of the major CRPG scene I could find (BG, NWN, IWD, DoS, PoE, Tyranny), I was looking at Tower of Time as the next big game on my to-do list. Anyone familiar wanna talk me out of it or into it?