What game are you playing?

[Bertram_Tung]

Just pay 2k for a graphics card brooooo XD XD

[DecadeRiptide]

Final Fantasy XIV at the minute. Was not going to play more but I thought the band was cool and also found out about the Golden Saucer which can be quite fun. Questing is absolute fish **** though

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Final Fantasy XIV at the minute. Was not going to play more but I thought the band was cool and also found out about the Golden Saucer which can be quite fun. Questing is absolute fish **** though

If you are on the Crystal DC, I can add you as a tennant to my house if you want to use the stables to recolor your chocobo or just have a quick teleport to training dummy/repair servant/mailbox/retainer bell.

AFKing at the gold saucer to do a FETE every 20 minutes like the jumping puzzle or the bamboo dodging is neat. The chocobo racing minigame was also neat to do when I was first starting out in FF14, though they never added more maps.

[Finarfin]

Still Destiny 2 and some of the games I bought. Some would say I am Taken™
Still mad about the dev situation regarding Battlefield 6 since I was looking forward to it a lot. Ah well, Call of Duty Black Ops 7 is still around and none of the devs said disgusting things about Charlie Kirk.
Also Black Ops 6 will have a final Season with Halloween theme and apparently Leon and Ada will be in?

[DecadeRiptide]

Final Fantasy XIV at the minute. Was not going to play more but I thought the band was cool and also found out about the Golden Saucer which can be quite fun. Questing is absolute fish **** though

If you are on the Crystal DC, I can add you as a tennant to my house if you want to use the stables to recolor your chocobo or just have a quick teleport to training dummy/repair servant/mailbox/retainer bell.

AFKing at the gold saucer to do a FETE every 20 minutes like the jumping puzzle or the bamboo dodging is neat. The chocobo racing minigame was also neat to do when I was first starting out in FF14, though they never added more maps.

I'm not on Crystal I don't think but if I change I will let you know

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Trails in the Sky remake

Half way through the final chapter.

The game has been an almost 1:1 beat for beat remake, pretty much what people were expecting the Final Fantasy VII remake to be. Some things are incongruent with how the world and backstory is depicted in the more recent games.

They made Grancel too 1:1. The layout and the small handful of houses just feels silly for what is supposed to be the capital city of the most advanced city in the world (before Crossbell was retconned in). It should have gotten the Heimdallr/Ordis/Edith treatment where you can see much more of the city extending beyond the playable areas.

► Show Spoiler

It is interesting that Kuro establishes that there was a Church in Zin's town of Longlai where his master's Taito dojo was, not to mention there being Churches in every town across Calvard and Zin is an established Calvardian hero by this point. Surely he would have known about nuns by now? Unless the Septian Church operates like the Orthodox church where priests can get married.

He's known Kilika for how many years? If he hasn't married her by now, it's never gonna happen.

It is dispiriting that by this point in year 1,202, Zin is already an extremely successful and famous Bracer, but then seven years later in 1,209 when Kuro 2 takes place, he's still alone while his pal Olivier scored. He's clocking out






























Original

[Kalin]

What a weeb.

Anyway I've been playing Quasimorph a lot lately it's a cool game, ain't finished though. Also Shadow Empire and Vagrus.

Best games I played recently: Phantasmagoria 2 and Blade Runner.

[Roguey]

Finished Ravensburg, a Roguey-bait RPG Maker game filled with goth girls, femboys, large-chested women, and optional pornographic scenes with most of them. The beginning was a bit of a hurdle since there were 11 potential companions to go through, and the ending battle climax was a bit too shonen for my tastes, but I had a pretty great time.

[W1llus]

Im in the process of replaying code vein and lords of the fallen (2023) and the latter has really got me thinking. I'm very curious what caused the 180 regarding the woke **** in lotf and the removal of some of it. Is it because the anti woke grift is profitable? Did the ceo see the changing of political sentiments and figured its now safe to lean right? Was it a genuine change of heart? I may never know but I'm curious.

[Vaako]

Trails in the Sky remake

Half way through the final chapter.

The game has been an almost 1:1 beat for beat remake, pretty much what people were expecting the Final Fantasy VII remake to be. Some things are incongruent with how the world and backstory is depicted in the more recent games.

They made Grancel too 1:1. The layout and the small handful of houses just feels silly for what is supposed to be the capital city of the most advanced city in the world (before Crossbell was retconned in). It should have gotten the Heimdallr/Ordis/Edith treatment where you can see much more of the city extending beyond the playable areas.

► Show Spoiler

It is interesting that Kuro establishes that there was a Church in Zin's town of Longlai where his master's Taito dojo was, not to mention there being Churches in every town across Calvard and Zin is an established Calvardian hero by this point. Surely he would have known about nuns by now? Unless the Septian Church operates like the Orthodox church where priests can get married.

He's known Kilika for how many years? If he hasn't married her by now, it's never gonna happen.

It is dispiriting that by this point in year 1,202, Zin is already an extremely successful and famous Bracer, but then seven years later in 1,209 when Kuro 2 takes place, he's still alone while his pal Olivier scored. He's clocking out






























Original

This 3D artstyle is just a downgrade and all these close ups I also dont like. I havent played that game but the original looks superior to me.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Trails in the Sky remake

Half way through the final chapter.

The game has been an almost 1:1 beat for beat remake, pretty much what people were expecting the Final Fantasy VII remake to be. Some things are incongruent with how the world and backstory is depicted in the more recent games.

They made Grancel too 1:1. The layout and the small handful of houses just feels silly for what is supposed to be the capital city of the most advanced city in the world (before Crossbell was retconned in). It should have gotten the Heimdallr/Ordis/Edith treatment where you can see much more of the city extending beyond the playable areas.

► Show Spoiler

It is interesting that Kuro establishes that there was a Church in Zin's town of Longlai where his master's Taito dojo was, not to mention there being Churches in every town across Calvard and Zin is an established Calvardian hero by this point. Surely he would have known about nuns by now? Unless the Septian Church operates like the Orthodox church where priests can get married.

He's known Kilika for how many years? If he hasn't married her by now, it's never gonna happen.

It is dispiriting that by this point in year 1,202, Zin is already an extremely successful and famous Bracer, but then seven years later in 1,209 when Kuro 2 takes place, he's still alone while his pal Olivier scored. He's clocking out






























Original

This 3D artstyle is just a downgrade and all these close ups I also dont like. I havent played that game but the original looks superior to me.

It's a mixed bag, neither wholly superior nor worse IMO.

First it rectifies one of my biggest issues with the pre Cold Steel games, which was that you were spending a lot of your time staring down at brown dirt or grey rocks. The pre CS games did not have timeless top down backgrounds like a PS1 Final Fantasy game's baroque prerendered backgrounds. Now you see a horizon with a sky and mountain ranges in the distance, etc, and it is just more visually attractive.

I mentioned this in an earlier writeup, but the switch to 3D is a drastic improvement for the monster desgins, which looked unintimidating from a top down perspective as small sprites, and a lot of details were lost in the sprites. Whereas with the yeti, he actually looks big and scary, and you notice details like his spider eyes that I never noticed before.

The main issue I have is that they abandoned Trails' artstyle that had developed through the Trails of Cold Steel games and now the Kuro games. It's the same game engine and base models, but now they have oversaturated colors and some comicbook outlines (contrast with the prior two games on the same engine for reference). The fields also have some mildly cartoony grass and rock texturing which I'd expect from Genshin Impact, not from a Trails game.

Visually there are some neat things, like how Estelle's Morale craft shows your party in a cool pose and there are actually at least a couple different possible alt shots that can play.

The cutscene directing however is indeed poor. Modern Trails games are typically 100+ hours long with a high percentage of that being story. So Falcom being a 60 man team pushing out the door at least one game per year can't make the baseline for the entire duration as high as a game like Witcher 3 which has many more devs and spends many more years in development. However, there are a lot of decently directed series of cutscenes across the last few games. CS3, CS4, Reverie, Kuro 1 and 2, etc. But I feel that with the Sky remake that the standard for most of the duration is lower than usual. Apparently Falcom president split the team and had the newcomers remake Sky while the veterans work on Kuro 4 or whatever the sequel to Kai will be called.

[methoxetamine]

Trails in the Sky remake

Half way through the final chapter.

The game has been an almost 1:1 beat for beat remake, pretty much what people were expecting the Final Fantasy VII remake to be. Some things are incongruent with how the world and backstory is depicted in the more recent games.

They made Grancel too 1:1. The layout and the small handful of houses just feels silly for what is supposed to be the capital city of the most advanced city in the world (before Crossbell was retconned in). It should have gotten the Heimdallr/Ordis/Edith treatment where you can see much more of the city extending beyond the playable areas.

► Show Spoiler

It is interesting that Kuro establishes that there was a Church in Zin's town of Longlai where his master's Taito dojo was, not to mention there being Churches in every town across Calvard and Zin is an established Calvardian hero by this point. Surely he would have known about nuns by now? Unless the Septian Church operates like the Orthodox church where priests can get married.

He's known Kilika for how many years? If he hasn't married her by now, it's never gonna happen.

It is dispiriting that by this point in year 1,202, Zin is already an extremely successful and famous Bracer, but then seven years later in 1,209 when Kuro 2 takes place, he's still alone while his pal Olivier scored. He's clocking out






























Original

This 3D artstyle is just a downgrade and all these close ups I also dont like. I havent played that game but the original looks superior to me.

It's a mixed bag, neither wholly superior nor worse IMO.

First it rectifies one of my biggest issues with the pre Cold Steel games, which was that you were spending a lot of your time staring down at brown dirt or grey rocks. The pre CS games did not have timeless top down backgrounds like a PS1 Final Fantasy game's baroque prerendered backgrounds. Now you see a horizon with a sky and mountain ranges in the distance, etc, and it is just more visually attractive.

I mentioned this in an earlier writeup, but the switch to 3D is a drastic improvement for the monster desgins, which looked unintimidating from a top down perspective as small sprites, and a lot of details were lost in the sprites. Whereas with the yeti, he actually looks big and scary, and you notice details like his spider eyes that I never noticed before.

The main issue I have is that they abandoned Trails' artstyle that had developed through the Trails of Cold Steel games and now the Kuro games. It's the same game engine and base models, but now they have oversaturated colors and some comicbook outlines (contrast with the prior two games on the same engine for reference). The fields also have some mildly cartoony grass and rock texturing which I'd expect from Genshin Impact, not from a Trails game.

Visually there are some neat things, like how Estelle's Morale craft shows your party in a cool pose and there are actually at least a couple different possible alt shots that can play.

The cutscene directing however is indeed poor. Modern Trails games are typically 100+ hours long with a high percentage of that being story. So Falcom being a 60 man team pushing out the door at least one game per year can't make the baseline for the entire duration as high as a game like Witcher 3 which has many more devs and spends many more years in development. However, there are a lot of decently directed series of cutscenes across the last few games. CS3, CS4, Reverie, Kuro 1 and 2, etc. But I feel that with the Sky remake that the standard for most of the duration is lower than usual. Apparently Falcom president split the team and had the newcomers remake Sky while the veterans work on Kuro 4 or whatever the sequel to Kai will be called.

What did you think overall? I just finished it a couple days ago and am quite happy with how it turned out

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This 3D artstyle is just a downgrade and all these close ups I also dont like. I havent played that game but the original looks superior to me.

It's a mixed bag, neither wholly superior nor worse IMO.

First it rectifies one of my biggest issues with the pre Cold Steel games, which was that you were spending a lot of your time staring down at brown dirt or grey rocks. The pre CS games did not have timeless top down backgrounds like a PS1 Final Fantasy game's baroque prerendered backgrounds. Now you see a horizon with a sky and mountain ranges in the distance, etc, and it is just more visually attractive.

I mentioned this in an earlier writeup, but the switch to 3D is a drastic improvement for the monster desgins, which looked unintimidating from a top down perspective as small sprites, and a lot of details were lost in the sprites. Whereas with the yeti, he actually looks big and scary, and you notice details like his spider eyes that I never noticed before.

The main issue I have is that they abandoned Trails' artstyle that had developed through the Trails of Cold Steel games and now the Kuro games. It's the same game engine and base models, but now they have oversaturated colors and some comicbook outlines (contrast with the prior two games on the same engine for reference). The fields also have some mildly cartoony grass and rock texturing which I'd expect from Genshin Impact, not from a Trails game.

Visually there are some neat things, like how Estelle's Morale craft shows your party in a cool pose and there are actually at least a couple different possible alt shots that can play.

The cutscene directing however is indeed poor. Modern Trails games are typically 100+ hours long with a high percentage of that being story. So Falcom being a 60 man team pushing out the door at least one game per year can't make the baseline for the entire duration as high as a game like Witcher 3 which has many more devs and spends many more years in development. However, there are a lot of decently directed series of cutscenes across the last few games. CS3, CS4, Reverie, Kuro 1 and 2, etc. But I feel that with the Sky remake that the standard for most of the duration is lower than usual. Apparently Falcom president split the team and had the newcomers remake Sky while the veterans work on Kuro 4 or whatever the sequel to Kai will be called.

What did you think overall? I just finished it a couple days ago and am quite happy with how it turned out

Still right before the end. I last saved right before the Lorence fight on the terrace. Got occupied spending a few days farming for the Gilded Mawsworn Greatsword from Torghast before Legion remix launched. Gonna try to beat it soon.

[Roguey]

Finished Klonoa: Empire of Dreams. Really solid puzzle-platformer with a silly story. I liked how it's more oriented around solving puzzles than platforming, though each world has two levels each focused more on that. Figuring out how to beat the bosses was fun too. Got a bit too difficult for my liking in the final world, and I decided to give up on the second post-endgame level, just getting too much for me. Still impressed me enough that I put Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series in my wishlist, check out how the main 3D series plays later.

[stormvermin]

Im in the process of replaying code vein and lords of the fallen (2023) and the latter has really got me thinking. I'm very curious what caused the 180 regarding the woke **** in lotf and the removal of some of it. Is it because the anti woke grift is profitable? Did the ceo see the changing of political sentiments and figured its now safe to lean right? Was it a genuine change of heart? I may never know but I'm curious.

The timing of it all is both a point in favor of it being a grift and against. They didn't do it until after the US election where it would have been "safe" to do so as you said, but it was also almost a year and a half after the game came out during which the damage (unrelated to wokefaggotry) was already done so it's not like there was a lot to gain on that end. My personal cope is that the people calling the shots were always kind of not completely insane but were under pressure to avoid any kind of nontroversy. From what I read, the game made its money and then some so they played it safe and waited until they were gearing up to formally announce the sequel.

Regardless it was kind of a ballsy move that I don't think made them tons of friends even if the game did receive a massive shine job that flew under the radar. Also might be them betting on the future but they've already screwed themselves in the short term with the EGS thing.

Tax: playin Underrail. Got a psi build, about ten hours in. I'm awful at this game.

[Manny V]

well i WAS playing Blood Bowl 2.... then...

► Show Spoiler

of course he fails his roll to regen as well

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Trails in the Sky remake

I have now reached the final dungeon.

► Show Spoiler

I beat the optional Lorenece fight on nightmare difficulty on my third attempt, though ofcourse the difficulties for the original game were not made by Falcom and were modded in by XSEED with massively higher stats than the official nightmares in later Trails games, so it's not as impressive.



I put the taunt quartz (scent) on Estelle and her run to the far side of the terrace. All she does is to cast either 1. morale to regen CP for the rest of the team, 2. Chaos Brand to confuse the shadow clone add, or 3. Earth Guard on herself so that she doesn't get one shotted.

Kloe and Schera cast Clock Up on themselves three time and once every 5 turns to refresh the duration. Kloe alternates between healing Estelle, using her AoE buff craft to give Estelle evasion, and casting Aqua Bleed on Lorence to deal damage and also hopefully silence him. I lost my second attempt half way through because he got a cast of Silver Thorn off which confused Estelle and caused her to attack my other party members, and since Estelle had the confuse quartz they got confused too. Schera mainly just casts Soul Blur to damage Lorence, and maybe uses her impede craft to interrupt his arts casting so he doesn't get Silver Thorn off. Everyone needs to spread really far so they don't get hit by his S-craft.

[BlueMemphis]

Star Ocean 2 R.

10/10 remaster in that they didn't mess too much with OG game, just spruced it up and added LOTS of qol stuff that made playing through the game very pleasant.
Reached the ending under 30 hours which is short for a jrpg, but just means it didn't outstay its welcome and i'm left feeling that the game was 100% substance and didn't waste my time with filler bs or lots of fedex backtracking.

After the relative disappointment that was Wild Arms Alter R that i tried a while back, this was a pleasant surprise all around, gues to show it is totally possible to remaster ps1 jrpgs without butchering them.
The only negative is remembering that sadly the star ocean series didn't really go anywhere after this (did consider picking up the other star ocean games on steam but reviews on them as overwhelmingly negative and i suspect its for a good reason) but maybe that's for the best.

[Jordy]

Wild Arms

Weird how a tune from 20 years ago can just pop right back into your head.

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

Star Ocean 2 R.

10/10 remaster in that they didn't mess too much with OG game, just spruced it up and added LOTS of qol stuff that made playing through the game very pleasant.
Reached the ending under 30 hours which is short for a jrpg, but just means it didn't outstay its welcome and i'm left feeling that the game was 100% substance and didn't waste my time with filler bs or lots of fedex backtracking.

After the relative disappointment that was Wild Arms Alter R that i tried a while back, this was a pleasant surprise all around, gues to show it is totally possible to remaster ps1 jrpgs without butchering them.
The only negative is remembering that sadly the star ocean series didn't really go anywhere after this (did consider picking up the other star ocean games on steam but reviews on them as overwhelmingly negative and i suspect its for a good reason) but maybe that's for the best.

I played the PSP remaster of 2, thought it was great, but 3 (Till the End of Time) is the best in the series imo. You should give it a shot. It has the best gameplay, story and soundtrack (has the best final dungeon theme in a JRPG) in the series. I recommend it, but emulate the PS2 version on PC because the official ports are broken and crash a lot.

[Breathe]

Star Ocean 2 R.

10/10 remaster in that they didn't mess too much with OG game, just spruced it up and added LOTS of qol stuff that made playing through the game very pleasant.
Reached the ending under 30 hours which is short for a jrpg, but just means it didn't outstay its welcome and i'm left feeling that the game was 100% substance and didn't waste my time with filler bs or lots of fedex backtracking.

After the relative disappointment that was Wild Arms Alter R that i tried a while back, this was a pleasant surprise all around, gues to show it is totally possible to remaster ps1 jrpgs without butchering them.
The only negative is remembering that sadly the star ocean series didn't really go anywhere after this (did consider picking up the other star ocean games on steam but reviews on them as overwhelmingly negative and i suspect its for a good reason) but maybe that's for the best.

Lots of old JRPG's are around 20-30hrs. Perfect length imo.

[Roguey]

Finished Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind though I'm not sure why. A lot of detailed animation, but the control is janky and there are a lot of leaps of faith that can end in disaster. You start off with 9 lives which is cute, but you would need them without rewinds/save states. Last few bosses get incredibly chaotic and finicky, seems like pure luck without cheating. They even make fun of you for sticking through it by having Bubsy say "Wow are you still playing this thing?" at the beginning of the final level. To complete the troll, the entire thing turns out to be a movie set.

[rusty_shackleford]

I really want to play a handcrafted AAA experience but they don't make good ones anymore. Smaller budget games can be fun but it's just not the same, anyone who pretends it is only plays genres like metroidvania or something

[wndrbr]

I really want to play a handcrafted AAA experience but they don't make good ones anymore. Smaller budget games can be fun but it's just not the same, anyone who pretends it is only plays genres like metroidvania or something

I'm playing Clair Obscur Expedition 33 right now, and it's pretty decent. A lot of things to complain about, but still head and shoulders above all the other big budget releases in the last couple of years.

[rusty_shackleford]

I really want to play a handcrafted AAA experience but they don't make good ones anymore. Smaller budget games can be fun but it's just not the same, anyone who pretends it is only plays genres like metroidvania or something

I'm playing Clair Obscur Expedition 33 right now, and it's pretty decent. A lot of things to complain about, but still head and shoulders above all the other big budget releases in the last couple of years.

I really didn't like the combat.
And no it's not even an issue of 'git gud', I did the 1v1 arena side content which requires you to be able to dodge/parry 90% of attacks, it's just rote memorization.

► End of act 1 spoilers

Also it kills the only character I liked off

But I agree it's hopefully a sign of things to come, a game with near-AAA production values on a very small budget. Production value is a quality unto itself.

[wndrbr]

I'm playing Clair Obscur Expedition 33 right now, and it's pretty decent. A lot of things to complain about, but still head and shoulders above all the other big budget releases in the last couple of years.

I really didn't like the combat.
And no it's not even an issue of 'git gud', I did the 1v1 arena side content which requires you to be able to dodge/parry 90% of attacks, it's just rote memorization.

not a fan of mixing turnbased with QTE **** either, but the game grew on me with time. Theorycrafting / damage numbers optimization is pretty neat.

► End of act 1 spoilers

Also it kills the only character I liked off

► Show Spoiler

I like how the game designers cynically give you a new party member five minutes after Gustave dies, and the new guy by a sheer coincidence uses the same weapon and shares most of the same skills with Gustave. Gamey things undermining your dramatic narrative twist.

But I agree it's hopefully a sign of things to come, a game with near-AAA production values on a very small budget. Production value is a quality unto itself.

pre-made engine, mostly empty levels, no environmental interactivity or story reactivity because jrpg. Frankly the game looks its budget.

[rusty_shackleford]

pre-made engine, mostly empty levels, no environmental interactivity or story reactivity because jrpg. Frankly the game looks its budget.

But it has a high quality presentation. KOTOR has a higher quality presentation than most games, it's a certain je ne sais quoi

[Crusader]

I started playing the Fire Emblem games this year, from the ones I tried I like Fire Emblem 7, it has a very good cast of characters with some exceptions and Three Houses is good too if you ignore the woke elements and choose the good house. I am playing these two at the moment.

I also started to play Crusader Kings 2 again recently, my favorite Paradox games and one of the best game of all time for me, It's the perfect mix of grand strategy and RPG, two of my favorites video games genres.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

I tried to play Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries and anti-aliasing is so awful in this game that i couldn't start a tutorial! It made me so angry and ****** off that i started recodering gameplay and editing it!


Display settnigs

► Show Spoiler

MechWarrior_TXAA_Display_Settings.png

TXAA

TXAA with AMD sharpening

► Show Spoiler

Graphics settings

MechWarrior_TXAA_amd_sharpening_ON_settings.png

Gameplay

TXAA without AMD sharpening

► Show Spoiler

Graphics settings

MechWarrior_TXAA_amd_sharpening_OFF_settings.png

Gameplay

Impressions: people who invented temporal anti-aliasing should burn in hell; this monstrosity is now in all modern games, resulting in ghosting and blurring in motion; there are rare cases of successful application of this method, but I have seen so few that I cannot name a game as an example.


FXAA

FXAA with AMD sharpening

► Show Spoiler

Didn't made a graphics settings screenshot, sorry!



Gameplay

FXAA without AMD sharpening

► Show Spoiler

Graphics settings

MechWarrior_FXAA_amd_sharpening_OFF_settings.png

Gameplay

Impressions: I have never seen a worse implementation of this method, it feels like a wire mesh effect has been applied to the textures, looks awful.



DLSS

DLSS Quality

► Show Spoiler

Display settings

MechWarrior_DLSS-Quality_display-settings.png

Graphics settings

MechWarrior_DLSS-Quality_graphics-settings.png

Gameplay

Impressions: according to NVIDIA, while DLSS upsacales, it apply NVIDIA own anti-aliasing method DLAA. Unless developers desided to interfere with the upscaling process and use their own anti-aliasing method. There is no noticeable blurring in motion, but there is some kind of strange visual noise, or perhaps these are upscaling artifacts.



Conclusion
I will probably drop this game and move to old games that people recommended me on this forum.

LONG LIVE SSAA and SMAA!

[Classix]

well i WAS playing Blood Bowl 2.... then...

► Show Spoiler

of course he fails his roll to regen as well

lol ffs man... how many games in were you?