What game are you playing?

[Valter]

Making my way through Xenoblade Chronicles X. Love the Xeno metaseries (Xenoblade 2 is the best JRPG ever made imo), but always put this one off because I heard it had little to no story and was just purely gameplay, so I figured I'd just get bored without an interesting narrative to push me forward.

Boy was I wrong.

This game is so addicting. Like addicting enough that I think about it nearly all the time while I'm at work. How will I build my character? What's the best party composition? What missions will I do next? Should I expand the map by planting more probes before moving on with the main quest? Maybe I'll explore a bit and find actual worthwhile items (unlike Bad Breath of the Wild).

The soundtrack is stuck in my head too. The boss battle theme in particular is living rent free in my head right now.

Uncontrollable - Xenoblade Chronicles X OST

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I've heard this game has incredible sense of exploration in a huge, breathing world, akin to a good MMORPG but offline. Would you concuur?

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

Making my way through Xenoblade Chronicles X. Love the Xeno metaseries (Xenoblade 2 is the best JRPG ever made imo), but always put this one off because I heard it had little to no story and was just purely gameplay, so I figured I'd just get bored without an interesting narrative to push me forward.

Boy was I wrong.

This game is so addicting. Like addicting enough that I think about it nearly all the time while I'm at work. How will I build my character? What's the best party composition? What missions will I do next? Should I expand the map by planting more probes before moving on with the main quest? Maybe I'll explore a bit and find actual worthwhile items (unlike Bad Breath of the Wild).

The soundtrack is stuck in my head too. The boss battle theme in particular is living rent free in my head right now.

Uncontrollable - Xenoblade Chronicles X OST

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

I've heard this game has incredible sense of exploration in a huge, breathing world, akin to a good MMORPG but offline. Would you concuur?

Yes. I've barely left the first area, and there's like 5 more landmasses that I haven't even reached yet. It also has that MMO vibe where you can venture out and end up in a high-level zone you aren't ready for. You can also encounter huge monsters that are dozens of levels higher than you just casually roaming around even low-level places. I haven't even unlocked the Skells yet (the big robot on the cover).

There was just a huge twist in the story there that actually managed to catch me off-guard. It was a "whoa, no way" moment.

I honestly think Monolith Soft are the kings of the genre right now. Just a shame they are stuck on Nintendo hardware.

[Brother Michael]

How would u rate the combat and UI? Also is the story "modern" or?

I played through it solo up until Knights of the Eternal Throne as the Sith Warrior. Honestly some of the best Star Was storytelling there has ever been. The Sith Warrior story in particular felt like a Shakespearean play.

No idea where the story went after Eternal Throne, but that expansion had a solid ending to the overarching narrative.

And, yeah, like @rusty_shackleford said, it's pretty much a WoW clone.

How is the Light side portrayed? Torn between Sith and Jedi. Read also that the imperial agent is bond-esque story and interested in that

Idk about light side but dark side is pretty much perfect

[Mortadela_Viva]

Making my way through Xenoblade Chronicles X. Love the Xeno metaseries (Xenoblade 2 is the best JRPG ever made imo), but always put this one off because I heard it had little to no story and was just purely gameplay, so I figured I'd just get bored without an interesting narrative to push me forward.

Boy was I wrong.

This game is so addicting. Like addicting enough that I think about it nearly all the time while I'm at work. How will I build my character? What's the best party composition? What missions will I do next? Should I expand the map by planting more probes before moving on with the main quest? Maybe I'll explore a bit and find actual worthwhile items (unlike Bad Breath of the Wild).

The soundtrack is stuck in my head too. The boss battle theme in particular is living rent free in my head right now.

Uncontrollable - Xenoblade Chronicles X OST

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

I've heard this game has incredible sense of exploration in a huge, breathing world, akin to a good MMORPG but offline. Would you concuur?

Yes. I've barely left the first area, and there's like 5 more landmasses that I haven't even reached yet. It also has that MMO vibe where you can venture out and end up in a high-level zone you aren't ready for. You can also encounter huge monsters that are dozens of levels higher than you just casually roaming around even low-level places. I haven't even unlocked the Skells yet (the big robot on the cover).

There was just a huge twist in the story there that actually managed to catch me off-guard. It was a "whoa, no way" moment.

I honestly think Monolith Soft are the kings of the genre right now. Just a shame they are stuck on Nintendo hardware.

This made me interested in playing it, I remember playing XC Definite Edition and I kinda enjoyed it all the way through, then I tried 2 and dropped it after a few hours, and 3 I didn't play more than 1 hour.

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I've heard this game has incredible sense of exploration in a huge, breathing world, akin to a good MMORPG but offline. Would you concuur?

Yes. I've barely left the first area, and there's like 5 more landmasses that I haven't even reached yet. It also has that MMO vibe where you can venture out and end up in a high-level zone you aren't ready for. You can also encounter huge monsters that are dozens of levels higher than you just casually roaming around even low-level places. I haven't even unlocked the Skells yet (the big robot on the cover).

There was just a huge twist in the story there that actually managed to catch me off-guard. It was a "whoa, no way" moment.

I honestly think Monolith Soft are the kings of the genre right now. Just a shame they are stuck on Nintendo hardware.

This made me interested in playing it, I remember playing XC Definite Edition and I kinda enjoyed it all the way through, then I tried 2 and dropped it after a few hours, and 3 I didn't play more than 1 hour.

I'm still surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. I actually nearly quit during the tutorial, but if you can persevere through it, the world opens up and you can go out and do things in any order you want.

HIGHLY recommend that you give 2 another chance. It's the best imo.

3 was good, but not great. I've yet to play the Future Redeemed DLC for it which I've heard is better than the base game.

[rusty_shackleford]

I did not care for xenoblades because it is turboweebery

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I did not care for xenoblades because it is turboweebery

If you can look past the Japanese stuff (I personally like it), the gameplay itself is phenomenal. The combat is a like a dance. It's got a rhythm to it, it's fluid and feels great, and the more arts (abilities) you unlock with the corresponding weapons the more options open up on how you want to play (DPS, tank, healer, a mix etc.) Positioning is also important. Some arts deal more damage or inflict various debuffs when hitting enemies from behind for example.

[rusty_shackleford]

I did not care for xenoblades because it is turboweebery

If you can look past the Japanese stuff (I personally like it), the gameplay itself is phenomenal. The combat is a like a dance. It's got a rhythm to it, it's fluid and feels great, and the more arts (abilities) you unlock with the corresponding weapons the more options open up on how you want to play (DPS, tank, healer, a mix etc.) Positioning is also important. Some arts deal more damage or inflict various debuffs when hitting enemies from behind for example.

Japanese "humor"

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I did not care for xenoblades because it is turboweebery

If you can look past the Japanese stuff (I personally like it), the gameplay itself is phenomenal. The combat is a like a dance. It's got a rhythm to it, it's fluid and feels great, and the more arts (abilities) you unlock with the corresponding weapons the more options open up on how you want to play (DPS, tank, healer, a mix etc.) Positioning is also important. Some arts deal more damage or inflict various debuffs when hitting enemies from behind for example.

Japanese "humor"

Like I said, man. Just ignore it. I find it charming, but to each their own.

Regarding that particular scene, it's from an optional side quest that was genuinely kind of funny.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

2 has amazing environments. It's Granblue Fantasy's world of floating sky islands, but with colossi instead. I was not a fan of how generic moebloby the character models were, and how that aesthetic wound up getting backported to 1 in the rerelease. Fortunately 3 has better looking faces.

The first half of 1's plot is very engaging and I would strongly recommend playing it for that (as well as the great environment art, and the English dub).

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

How would u rate the combat and UI? Also is the story "modern" or?

I played through it solo up until Knights of the Eternal Throne as the Sith Warrior. Honestly some of the best Star Was storytelling there has ever been. The Sith Warrior story in particular felt like a Shakespearean play.

No idea where the story went after Eternal Throne, but that expansion had a solid ending to the overarching narrative.

And, yeah, like @rusty_shackleford said, it's pretty much a WoW clone.

How is the Light side portrayed? Torn between Sith and Jedi. Read also that the imperial agent is bond-esque story and interested in that

I recommend going either Jedi or Sith because the expansions have you fighting ridiculously overpowered force-users and it's kind of hard to imagine a non force-sensitive individual being able to contend with that. (Although, I just remembered there is an explanation for it, but can't share the details because it's major spoilers).

What's cool is that even if you go a Jedi, you can turn to the dark side, and even vice-versa (Sith to light side). I started off as the hardcore killing machine Sith Warrior, but gradually stepped towards the light and eventually became the good guy. Classic redemption story.

Edit:

Go Jedi Knight or Sith Warrior.

[flecktarn]

Well, finished Fallout Sonora today. My initial impressions remained pretty much the same till the end: a very enjoyable Fallout game, amazing work for a small group of modders (with Black Designer doing most of the work). I think it's the best of the large classic conversions (Resurrection, Nevada...). There's plenty of reactivity and the moral greyness of the choices and factions was done pretty well. The dialogue had moments of awkwardness, and I'm not sure if it's due to the original writing or the translation. Sometimes you had the choice to respond with what sounded to me as either a sissy **** or as a needlessly aggressive *******--might be that the nuances are lost when going from Russian to English. Some of the persuasion dialogue options seemed quite weak and, well, unpersuasive, amateurish even. But it's far from the worst dialogue I've seen in a game (or especially a mod). There are some minor bugs, experienced some crashes, but nothing too serious. The Dayglow expansion area was interesting: I liked that you had to travel there with minimal gear, since by the time you'd most likely take up the DLC, you'd be kited out in endgame gear, so this extended the challenge in a good way. The traveling inside Dayglow felt immersive at first, but became tiresome real fast when you had to go back and forth for quests between the two settled hubs - even with the monorail fixed, it was a whole lot of running here and there while listening to YouTube in the background. I found myself very quickly wanting an Iron Tower teleport-from-dialogue-to-the-location-feature or some kind of quick-travel from the map possibility. The world is quite well fleshed-out and slots in nicely with the classic Fallout lore. You'll appreciate the cameos and references if you're into that. I really liked that they stayed away from the whacky vaults-as-social-experiments nonsense (at least as far as I could tell). Given the multitude of options for solving quests, I was a bit surprised that you couldn't broker some kind of deal/truce/peace with the two large factions at the end (beyond destroying them both), with the game forcing you to chose one, and basically annihilate the other. Anyway, if you're a classic Fallout fan, you really should play Sonora. Possibly the best Fallout game since New Vegas or Fallout 2.

[Tangerine]

I did not care for xenoblades because it is turboweebery

If you can look past the Japanese stuff (I personally like it), the gameplay itself is phenomenal. The combat is a like a dance. It's got a rhythm to it, it's fluid and feels great, and the more arts (abilities) you unlock with the corresponding weapons the more options open up on how you want to play (DPS, tank, healer, a mix etc.) Positioning is also important. Some arts deal more damage or inflict various debuffs when hitting enemies from behind for example.

Japanese "humor"

**** like this is why I haven't played many JRPGs since the PS2.

[rusty_shackleford]

If you can look past the Japanese stuff (I personally like it), the gameplay itself is phenomenal. The combat is a like a dance. It's got a rhythm to it, it's fluid and feels great, and the more arts (abilities) you unlock with the corresponding weapons the more options open up on how you want to play (DPS, tank, healer, a mix etc.) Positioning is also important. Some arts deal more damage or inflict various debuffs when hitting enemies from behind for example.

Japanese "humor"

**** like this is why I haven't played many JRPGs since the PS2.

Other than the titles meant to not specifically appeal to the domestic audience, JRPGs are nigh unplayable unless you're a weeb(and presumably, otaku)
Expedition 33 being a massive success was only a blindside to those that were so deeply seeped in the JRPG/anime culture that they couldn't understand how offputting it is to many people.

[W1llus]

Just started Mechanicus 2 and noticed™ some odd changes. The female mechanicus characters from the last game (Khepra and Captrix respectively) no longer have boob plates anymore. Quartermaster Rho is now a "they" instead of a dude like in the first game (unless I'm misremembering). One of the new tech priests on the forge worlds council in this game sounds black.

[Cedric]

I'm playing 1994 UFO: Enemy Unknown. I've got 1000s of hours in it from way back but now I'm going through X-Com Files, a megamod. It takes around 600 hours to complete - not a problem, I love X-Com.

After this I'll play X-Piratez which is also going to take that long. I love X-Com.

[Mortadela_Viva]

I'm playing Final Fantasy IX, the first 3 hours were already better than the entirety of Final Fantasy VIII

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm playing Final Fantasy IX, the first 3 hours were already better than the entirety of Final Fantasy VIII

Bingo.

The fun of the PS1 FFs is frontloaded, when you are being swept through new crazy artbook fantasy backdrops which then promptly explode. But for FF7, this only happens with the dieselpunk dystopia in the first 5 hours of disc 1. Then you spend the rest of the game meandering around a not so interesting world with there not being strong plot momentum.

FF9 has you constantly discovering crazy cool looking cities which then promptly explode for the first 2 discs and first few hours of disc 3. You then get into the same meandering issue as FF7, but fortunately you are most of the way through the game by that point and mind as well finish.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

FF9 also much better juggles its large cast than FF7. FF7 is really just Cloud/Barret/Tifa/Aerith. The rest of the party members barely exist. Whereas in FF9, almost everyone exists for most of the story. Only a couple characters drop out of relevancy later on.

[methoxetamine]

Final Fantasy IX is the greatest video game ever created

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I liked VIII more than IX.

[rusty_shackleford]

Final Fantasy IX is the greatest video game ever created

It's because it's American

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Final Fantasy IX is the greatest video game ever created

It's because it's American

It was produced in Hawaii but is culturally Japanese.

FF15 and FF16 are the most American. Western AAA styled open world, graphics, and action combat. FF15 is about four bros going on a long car ride across the land and stopping by americana diners and gas stations. 16 has the American pop culture sensibilities with the sexgorefest and swearing.

[rusty_shackleford]

Final Fantasy IX is the greatest video game ever created

It's because it's American

It was produced in Hawaii

Agreed!

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

2 has amazing environments. It's Granblue Fantasy's world of floating sky islands, but with colossi instead. I was not a fan of how generic moebloby the character models were, and how that aesthetic wound up getting backported to 1 in the rerelease. Fortunately 3 has better looking faces.

The first half of 1's plot is very engaging and I would strongly recommend playing it for that (as well as the great environment art, and the English dub).

Did you play X, bro? If so, what did you think? No spoilers of course.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

2 has amazing environments. It's Granblue Fantasy's world of floating sky islands, but with colossi instead. I was not a fan of how generic moebloby the character models were, and how that aesthetic wound up getting backported to 1 in the rerelease. Fortunately 3 has better looking faces.

The first half of 1's plot is very engaging and I would strongly recommend playing it for that (as well as the great environment art, and the English dub).

Did you play X, bro? If so, what did you think? No spoilers of course.

No. It's been on my list of games to get around to. I have a few of Sawano's tracks on my playlist.

[stormvermin]

Bought Pluto after almost a month of barely playing any vidya due to burnout from too much Crimson Desert and Two Worlds 2. I've only played the tutorial so I don't know what I'm doing yet and don't have any real insights, but I like the way it looks and I'll probably install it on my laptop as a time killer.

[Algol]

Was playing The Dark Mod (Thief clone in Doom 3 engine) but uninstalled today. Nothing enthralls me anymore.

[rusty_shackleford]

King's Field

King's Field_001.webp

[Tweed]

King's Field

2