What game are you playing?

[Oyster Sauce]

Dropping Spirit Tracks at the final boss. The controls are too ******. It made a Roguey out of me.

Have you tried playing it with the D-Pad hack? It binds all touch controls to various buttons.

Not sure if your save is going to be compatible with a hacked rom, though I fail to see why it wouldn't.

I simply cheated with save states

[methoxetamine]

I've been thinking about playing ff4 recently, should I play the remake or the original?

It was actually my first time playing it. I chose the jp snes version with unofficial English patch, the snes version we got was a very dumbed down because they thought gaijin were *******. The DS remakes of 3 and 4 are apparently notorious for being quite hard (at least for FF mainline games), I've heard good things about them though. I will probably end up playing them at some point

Patching the English version to play like the original is a better choice from what I've seen. That the fan translation patch was made early on and wasn't very good, and more of a rewrite for many parts.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2337/

Ah yeah I didn't do too much research into which version was the best before playing, but this is the one I played

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2623/

[Kalarion]

I've been thinking about playing ff4 recently, should I play the remake or the original?

The remake is fine, it's balanced differently due to the (then-)limitation of the 3DS only being able to display 3 monsters in a single fight. I wouldn't say it's technically harder... each individual mob is significantly stronger than its original counterpart, but there are like half of them per fight compared to original. Your increased action economy more than makes up for their power increase in the balance. I didn't like the pixelish 3D graphics (because I just don't like that style), but for what they were they were pretty good. It also gives some additional cutscenes that bridge a couple of storyline gaps from the original game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

After having played HSR for nearly three months straight, I have warmed up to Mihoyo. I noticed that Mavuika with her motorcycle mount was on banner, so I decided to reinstall Genshin Impact and give it a third shot. In wake of the Nod Krai announcement, I have put HSR story progression on hold to beat Natlan's base story and get the primogem bonus before the next expansion drops.

► Show Spoiler

Right away I noticed that they tidied up the presentation of the UI and the menus a little. There is this new party screen with backgrounds that change depending on which region you are in. I do not recall seeing that before.





It would be nice if the free 5 star character picker comes back soon and some men are added to it. I was told that Dilluc was apparently useless and to get Keqing instead, and the only playable man I have is Kaeya who is also terrible. If no one new is added then I'll probably pick Jean. I don't want to be condemned to having to use Barbara or Yaoyao as my healer. Actually, maybe I'll just stick with Yaoyao, since I can swap to her, press her skill to throw out the healing pet, and then swap right back to Mavuika and continue fighting. Whereas with Jean my understanding is that you have to spend time fighting as her to build up her energy so she can use her healing ultimate.


I stand by my opinion that slooowly walking across the huge world, slooowly climbing up cliffs, slooowly swimming across lakes, slooowly gliding, etc, feels really bad and is a major turnoff. I also browsed through the gallery of all of the playable characters released, and there are only six characters that look cool: Ayato, Eula, Neuvillete, Arlecchino, Mavuika, and Ifa. I'd lean towards Ayato and Ifa since they are the only cool guys. Unfortunately, all of them except Ifa are "main DPS" so once you have one there is no point having the others. Mavuika has the motorcycle mount and is the one available right now, so I guess that's what I get.

I blew my stockpile of primogems that I had amassed since 2020 which I had never used to roll for a character before. Unfortunately, I lost the 50/50 to some shlocky maid girl named Mizuki, and then ran out of easily acquired primogems from doing the first few abyss tiers, doing the events, etc. So I whipped out my phone and my wallet, installed the game via the Samsung Galaxy App store, and used the discount coupons to buy $45 of double-amount-for-first-time-purchase primogems. Then I got Mavuika. Then I used the Stellar Reunion to story skip to Natlan so I can get out of samey and boring Mondstadt/Liyue/Sumeru/Fontaine hell and get to the cool high fantasy canyon land.




I am overall having a much, much better experience than when the last two times I played Genshin. Having an all-terrain motorcycle mount that can also climb up 90 degree cliffs and fly is a lifesaver. I can't imagine playing this game without it. Besides Ifa who can fly, there is no reason for me to ever again buy another character. My only disappointment is that Mavuika is visually incomplete, since Genshin characters do not come with their weapons. The weapon is sold separately on a different banner *shakes fist angrily* so now I have to use a crappy crafted sword.

I do appreciate that in HSR, when you buy a character, you visually get the whole character since it comes with their weapon, and HSR characters do not share weapons like spears or swords or bows, so each HSR character can have its own unique weapon like a paintbrush. Only downside is that HSR's equivalent of weapons/stat sticks, Light Cones, have no visual and their benefits are often invisible (usually +20 attack or something like that, rarely something like a taunt effect you will notice).

Natlan looks very pretty. Wish the rest of the game looked as nice as it.
















I really like the battle music, particularly @2:33.




The story so far has been a lot better than your average Genshin and HSR main story (though still not great). Mihoyo "stories" is usually hours and hours of people standing around blabbing on and on about stuff that happened 500+ years ago, and then at the end someone decides to become a boss fight, and then that's it. There has been little of that so far. The plot mainly is about people in the present doing stuff, namely various pilgrimage and tournament stuff and visiting the various towns along the way. We have a FF10-esque setup where we are escorting a young lady on her pilgrimage through a rundown rural country. It is peculiar that she wants to win the tournament so that she can be allowed to get sent to the frontlines in a war against demons.








It is neat that there are both story boss fights and open world boss fights where the bosses will raise platforms that you can use your Natlan characters' traversal mechanics to climb.

Mualani and Kinch both look and sounds like expies of HSR's duo of March 7th and Dan Heng from HSR.

[KnightoftheWind]

Gacha slop is engineered to be as addictive and vaguely pleasant as possible. Bright colors, attractive women, flashy effects. Playing these games is like visiting a casino, only you have a 0% chance of winning any money.

[gerey]

Gacha slop is engineered to be as addictive and vaguely pleasant as possible. Bright colors, attractive women, flashy effects.

If only Western developers could manage to reach this low bar.

EDIT:

Currently playing IXION and really liking it. It's a game in the vein of Frostpunk, but instead of building a city around a thermal source, you're building one inside a ring-shaped spaceship (very similar to Startopia). The main constrain in IXION is space, there's only so much real estate on the ship and you must use the space as efficently as possible. You can "pay" resources to open up a new section of the ring, but doing so increases the upkeep ("paid" in alloys) necessary to keep the ship of the hull from deteriorating too far.

You also need to manage energy consumption, population - which is a rare resource, most of humanity is dead so the only source of new workers is from cryogenically frozen individuals you find - food (you do eat the bugs initially) and stopping your scant few survivors from losing their **** and chimping out.

Unlike Frostpunk the game doesn't really badger you with ******** moral choices - or at the very least the way the game writes them doesn't make it feel like there is a specific set of choices the devs want you take.

That being said, the Points of Interests tend to be irritating. You are usually presented with a number of choices, but the game is very opaque about what the choices are, and you can absolutely pick a seemingly innocuous choice that will result in losing one of your exploration ship and the crew, which feels very frustrating and unfair, basically necessitating using a guide to see what each of the choices does.

If you don't believe me, here's an example: your science ship comes across an abandoned space station, your choices are to dismantle it or use explosives to gain access to the command center. If you pick the second option you're informed that your team has encountered a bunch of dead bodies, one of which was a family member of one of the crew. Now, if you pick the option "Honor the Dead" the whole crew goes batshit insane and you lose the ship and everyone dies. Mind you, at no point does the writing ever hint there may be a risk in picking such a choice, and the other choice you're presented with also leads to one crew member dying.

The game also got a lot of bad reviews due to some frustrating bugs and obtuse design choices that can easily send the whole ship into a death spiral. You're encouraged to specialize various sections of the ship to various tasks, so eventually you'll make a section of the ship that specializes in producing food. Said food needs to be delivered to various other sectors, but the game can bug out and your little forklifts get stuck on the exit ramp, so the food never gets delivered, and people start starving, which can quickly have a cascading effect as they lost trust in you, begin to riot and shut down other facilities.

Another issue is that you need to specify how much food (and other resources) each sector gets, the game doesn't do that automatically for you, so if you're not paying attention to the population distribution, you can also induce starving this way. Yet another problem you can encounter is not having enough people to do the work in a given sector optimally, which in turn guarantees you will get accidents (that lead to casualties) and facilities becoming nonoperational, which again can lead to a death spiral.

The way the game informs you of these things is not optimal, which can be frustrating.

Despite all these quibbles, it's a very fun game - the gameplay loop of entering a new system, finding points of interest to explore, which then have you questioning what exactly went down during the time your ship was absent, mining, building, trying to optimize your use of space is really great.

So my recommendation is to play the game if you liked Frostpunk, and especially if you liked the premise, but disliked how annoyingly preachy the writing in that game is. IXION seems to be very different so far, your one and only goal is the survival of the human race, everything else being of secondary importance.

[J1M]

Dropping Spirit Tracks at the final boss. The controls are too ******. It made a Roguey out of me.

I got filtered by the town that blocks your progress until you find all the ******** people there roommates. I wanted trains and adventure and instead I got a reality TV show.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Honkai Star Rail

I am doing the Foxian Ghost side story event. I am surprised at how much content there is in this event compared to the other events I have done (which is usually an hour of a management minigame that you can't fail and half an hour of fluff story). Here it is several hours of story including several fights, a new boss, a new minigame, and a new Trails-esque AT bonus battle mechanic that makes you pay attention to the turn order and hold your ultimates so you can pop them to deny the enemy the turn order bonuses.

But the main thing I am irked about is the story. Yanqing has willingly decided to begin secretly meeting with a demon so he can learn swordsmanship from it, knowing full well that these demons are liars, manipulative, can possess people, steal people's lifeforce and take years off of their lives, etc, and must be sealed away by the Ten Lords Commission. And he is also the retainer to the worldship's top general who is a renowned warrior and also personally trains Yanqing, so why does he need to find someone else to train under? Yanqing has just made a terrible life decision that could lead to him getting being stripped of his status or being imprisoned, if he's lucky no bodily harm comes to him. But he gets off with a slap on the wrist.










I am writing a comparison post on the different business models of serialized RPGs, and one of my points for the gacha section is that selling individual characters leads to writing where nobody is allowed to make a bad choice or a mistake that leads to consequences, because then that would make the character less likeable and people less likely to spend money for him. And the bad guys aren't allowed to be really bad and judged for their crimes, or else the devs can't later on make popular villains into playable characters for people to pull for. So it leads to wishywashy narratives where nobody is evil. Everybody is good but just misguided, and there are no consequences. It is funny how when bad guys do get caught, they then get almost immediately released from jail, and there is all of this waffling about how they have to live to do good and repentant for their crimes... when they are out and around walking free and able to do whatever they want.

[methoxetamine]

I've been playing both Fire Emblem Awakening and Dragon Quest V. I think I'm near the end of Awakening, it's pretty fun and I'm going to check out some other FE games after. The only game in the series I played was the 2003 GBA game and I don't remember **** about it now

Oh I also played a couple hours of Wuchang Fallen Feathers. It seems decent so far despite the typical UE5 performance issues, but I'm not sure I'm really in the mood for a soulslike atm. The world is pretty cool though, I'll probably play a bit more and see if it grabs me harder but I really doubt I'll finish it

[KnightoftheWind]

Beat Metro 2033 and Stranglehold. Metro was a decent experience, with great visuals that have aged remarkably well and a moody campaign set in a post-apocalyptic world. I'd argue it's a better "Fallout 3" than the Fallout 3 we actually got. I attempted to play it's sequel, Last Light, but got burnt out by the scenery and sameness of the plot, and it started getting a bit too propagandic with the "Nazis bad, Communists good" sort of messaging and the "Dark Ones weren't actually le bad" revelation that it seemed to be hinting at. I also discovered that the original author of the book was a Russian Jew, who's father worked in television and radio (i.e propaganda) for the former USSR. Decided to just drop it after that. I give the first game a 6/10.

Stranglehold on the other hand is a pretty solid third-person shooter, that feels like what Max Payne 3 should have been. It's billed as a sequel to the film Hard Boiled, and as a fan of that movie I felt I owed the game a playthrough. It's your typical Hong Kong action movie plot, renegade cop goes against his orders to stop a cartel, and learns that his daughter and her friend (?) were kidnapped in Chicago and he has to rescue them. Nothing at all remarkable, but who gives a **** about the story in games like these anyway?. You are given the same moves as Max Payne, the famous diving and slow motion mechanic, and you are encouraged to be as stylish and efficient as possible in order to boost your end-mission score. I didn't really care, so I just spammed what I could and still had a good time. You have a few weapons that you can find and pick up, with a two weapon limit and no reloading necessary. By the end I just stuck to the assault rifle and shotgun, since there was no point in using anything else. I also give the game a 6/10.

Also tried Dishonored, Timesplitters 2 and Timesplitters Future Perfect but found them all rather boring and uninteresting to play. In Dishonored's case it's a **** shame because I really like it's art direction and plot.

[Roguey]

Finished The Profane Barrier expansion for Dawnsbury Days. Pretty good set of combat encounters for the most part, slightly longer than the original campaign, more ambitious in its design. Number of things bothered me: all the voice actors were apparently directed to mispronounce "aeon" (the a is silent), there's arachnophobia-mode signaling in the middle of a dialogue scene (as if someone's going to see a mention of spiders and immediately hit alt + f4), and a little over halfway in, there's an obnoxious and unnecessary yuri-bait scene out of nowhere.


It looks like the author plans to make at least one more, but I dunno if I'll bother. It's just going to get more difficult from here on out and probably include even more prog-signaling. I can proudly contribute to the "each DLC sells less than the last" phenomenon.

[Tweed]

Was or kinda am playing Ambermoon, but I'm sinking most of my hours into The Necromancer's Tale while checking out updates on Devil Spire Falls and I need to get ready to do Hotel Galactic.

[logincrash]

Rewatching the Fantastic Four movies made me want to get back into this gem. It's really good, even though it's a reskin of the awesome "X-Men 2 Something, Something Apocalypse" game. I'm gonna play that too and just thinking about it makes me want to rewatch all the X-Men movies.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Finished Code Vein. This game made me cry like a ************.

► Show Spoiler

[DecadeRiptide]

I am addicted to Vermintide 2.

[Oyster Sauce]

The final part of Abiotic Factor was STINKY

[wndrbr]

The final part of Abiotic Factor was STINKY

what this game is about? Steam page describes it as an open world multiplayer survival crafter, but from the screenshots it looks like Half-Life-1 inspired shooter.

[Oyster Sauce]

The final part of Abiotic Factor was STINKY

what this game is about? Steam page describes it as an open world multiplayer survival crafter, but from the screenshots it looks like Half-Life-1 inspired shooter.

Coop campaign with survivy crafty elements and a HL1 aesthetic.

[wndrbr]

The final part of Abiotic Factor was STINKY

what this game is about? Steam page describes it as an open world multiplayer survival crafter, but from the screenshots it looks like Half-Life-1 inspired shooter.

Coop campaign with survivy crafty elements and a HL1 aesthetic.

can it be played solo?

[Oyster Sauce]

what this game is about? Steam page describes it as an open world multiplayer survival crafter, but from the screenshots it looks like Half-Life-1 inspired shooter.

Coop campaign with survivy crafty elements and a HL1 aesthetic.

can it be played solo?

Sure, but the lack of manpower would be pretty tedious in my opinion.

[logincrash]

>HL1 aesthetic
>unreal engine
>precompiling shaders
This is just embarrassing.

[methoxetamine]

Finished FE Awakening, Echoes, and Fates (Birthright). Man the gameplay of these fuckers is addicting as hell. I just can't stop doing one more mission. About to start Three Houses

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Finished FE Awakening, Echoes, and Fates (Birthright). Man the gameplay of these fuckers is addicting as hell. I just can't stop doing one more mission. About to start Three Houses

Who did you marry?

[methoxetamine]

Finished FE Awakening, Echoes, and Fates (Birthright). Man the gameplay of these fuckers is addicting as hell. I just can't stop doing one more mission. About to start Three Houses

Who did you marry?

Nowi in Awakening, Hana in Fates. I would've chose Sakura in Fates but she's the MC's sister

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Hana in Fates

What a coincidence. She was my first pick too. It was either her or Hinoka. I certify that you have good taste sir.

[methoxetamine]

Hana in Fates

What a coincidence. She was my first pick too. It was either her or Hinoka. I certify that you have good taste sir.

[Roguey]

Finished Deus Ex: Invisible War. Really awful introductory level, made me think the bad reputation was deserved, but after that it actually got fun. Found it a pretty good im sim on its own merits. At least until it introduced armored templars in the endgame, those guys were ********. They have a tiny weak spot on their backs but all that means is that it takes two rockets instead of three to kill them. MJ-12 Commandos weren't anywhere near aggravating to kill.

Writing was a bit flawed, on account of being a linear sequel, but the humor and intelligence of its predecessor showed through in places. Pacotti's one of the best even when hamstrung by decisions out of his control. My favorite moments were the reaction I got from the NG Resonance AI after I told her about the bribe I gave her manager (lowbrow) and the conversation with JC Denton (highbrow). JC recreating the original cover art pose was also a great visual callback.

Soundtrack was good too, particularly the kidneythieves songs; loved the trip hop sound of Feathers. Some nice callbacks to previous level music.

Hell yeah I'll be an Invisible War apologist. Don't really care about small levels or universal ammo or the streamlining. The Eidos Montreal prequels are better games, sure, but the difference in writing is incredibly stark. Not every game writer can be a Harvard/MIT graduate unfortunately.

[Tweed]

Finished Deus Ex: Invisible War. Really awful introductory level, made me think the bad reputation was deserved, but after that it actually got fun. Found it a pretty good im sim on its own merits. At least until it introduced armored templars in the endgame, those guys were ********. They have a tiny weak spot on their backs but all that means is that it takes two rockets instead of three to kill them. MJ-12 Commandos weren't anywhere near aggravating to kill.

Writing was a bit flawed, on account of being a linear sequel, but the humor and intelligence of its predecessor showed through in places. Pacotti's one of the best even when hamstrung by decisions out of his control. My favorite moments were the reaction I got from the NG Resonance AI after I told her about the bribe I gave her manager (lowbrow) and the conversation with JC Denton (highbrow). JC recreating the original cover art pose was also a great visual callback.

Soundtrack was good too, particularly the kidneythieves songs; loved the trip hop sound of Feathers. Some nice callbacks to previous level music.

Hell yeah I'll be an Invisible War apologist. Don't really care about small levels or universal ammo or the streamlining. The Eidos Montreal prequels are better games, sure, but the difference in writing is incredibly stark. Not every game writer can be a Harvard/MIT graduate unfortunately.

Stop it! My loathing of you can only increase so much.

[rusty_shackleford]

Finished Deus Ex: Invisible War. Really awful introductory level, made me think the bad reputation was deserved, but after that it actually got fun. Found it a pretty good im sim on its own merits. At least until it introduced armored templars in the endgame, those guys were ********. They have a tiny weak spot on their backs but all that means is that it takes two rockets instead of three to kill them. MJ-12 Commandos weren't anywhere near aggravating to kill.

Writing was a bit flawed, on account of being a linear sequel, but the humor and intelligence of its predecessor showed through in places. Pacotti's one of the best even when hamstrung by decisions out of his control. My favorite moments were the reaction I got from the NG Resonance AI after I told her about the bribe I gave her manager (lowbrow) and the conversation with JC Denton (highbrow). JC recreating the original cover art pose was also a great visual callback.

Soundtrack was good too, particularly the kidneythieves songs; loved the trip hop sound of Feathers. Some nice callbacks to previous level music.

Hell yeah I'll be an Invisible War apologist. Don't really care about small levels or universal ammo or the streamlining. The Eidos Montreal prequels are better games, sure, but the difference in writing is incredibly stark. Not every game writer can be a Harvard/MIT graduate unfortunately.

I've seen the game get some re-evaluations in the past few years and they seem to amount to "not as bad as we thought, not as good as it should be"

[Tweed]

And I say all those people are suffering from a severe case of legacy drift disease. It sucked then, it sucks now, it will continue to suck until the end of the universe.