Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

[DELETEDUSER007]

@Kuro

>Meanwhile I want the complete opposite. Make me Palpatine (like KOTOR essentially did). Make me the bad guy and let me ruin the world for once. Hell, it's why I play Shadows of Forbidden Gods.

>I know most people want to play heroes, but I just want to play a character that's an outright dick for once. Probably why I play so many CRPGs like Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect and the like. Although even then I can't be pure evil. Pillars of Eternity was a welcome change in that regard though to be fair.

[Dark Cloud]

Divinity 2.

[BrokenPromise]

@BrokenPromise

I'm cancer inkarnate, so Luna. I tend to play either goalie or support-forward.

@TGM

Those do tend to be the roles she fills best. I think you're going to like the changes they made to her. Luna's rockets don't go all the way across the map anymore (without the proper gear) but her nuke is more spammable.

If you want a buddy, you can add "BreakOmega" as a friend. They have party chat in the lobby so we can get the other particulars sorted out in game. I should be pretty free Sunday.

[mickilennial]

@BrokenPromise I'll have to do some warm ups throughout the weekend. Been a bit.

[DELETEDUSER007]

Divinity 2.

@Dark Cloud

>Already played through it. That and Tyranny, although Tyranny has the weird twist of trying to make you fight Kyros in the end, even if you've stayed completely loyal to the Overlord the whole game.

[BangoSkank]

You could try that one detective game and figure out how to just be a complete piece of shit in it.

[DELETEDUSER007]

>L.A. Noire?

[SleepingSilence]

For someone with limited Dark Souls experience, Elden Ring is great thus far.

Combat's far more fluid and manageable than it is in Dark Souls. And it's far more open-ended and visually stunning than Bloodborne. Both games that I still had positive (albeit brief) experiences with. Yet this is the one that I'll probably stick with...

But I haven't gotten far enough to experience its "boss and length" fatigue, that most Triple A games seem to be guilty of nowadays.

Then again, after watching someone playing Ragnorok and listening to the obnoxious son blab on and tell you every puzzle solution in ten seconds flat, I've found no such annoyance in Elden Ring.

The horse/mounted combat kind of sucking aside.

---

I played Greedfall first. But its lack of direction wasn't doing it any favors. Regardless of if it was setting up an interesting narrative (or not).

The map is so needlessly confusing, that it's difficult to navigate through the floors of most buildings. And the open world areas are usually small, and don't have much to reward your curiosity. (Probably due to its smaller budget.)

But the sheer amount of "two characters dryly exposit dialogue" cutscenes that played in the beginning, was a good reminder why I (usually) prefer playing indies over 'the games that so desperately want to be movies'.

[Dark Cloud]

@SleepingSilence Melania, will ruin your day.

[BangoSkank]

>L.A. Noire?

@Zyx

Disco Elysium

[BrokenPromise]

@TGM I'm not one of those oafs that spams the magnifying glass emote every time the goalie botches a save. I'm not opposed to playing with you even if you're a little rusty. I recently purchased the new characters and I wanna test them out. But I get it, you wanna do your best and not humiliate yourself in front of your secret senpai. You will never escape your tsundere past.

[DELETEDUSER007]

<Snipped quote by Zyx>

Disco Elysium

@BangoSkank

>Checked out some videos on it.

>The "I want to have fuck with you," line sold me. I'll probably get around to buying it eventually.

[Dark Cloud]

I never thought I'd enjoy Code Vein so much, I walked into it expecting the cringiness of God Eater 3 but was met by talented English voice acting, a very engaging story and characters that were actually likeable.

[mickilennial]

I never thought I'd enjoy Code Vein so much, I walked into it expecting the cringiness of God Eater 3 but was met by talented English voice acting, a very engaging story and characters that were actually likeable.

@Dark Cloud

Yeah it's way better than the God Eater games mechanically and aesthetically. I feel like God Eater has personality, it just hasn't had great mechanics behind it to excel.

[Dark Cloud]

As someone who has played the first part of the game up til the weird chick starts calling you daddy or mommy, I can say the mechanics felt quite clunky and I often felt like the fighting was lackluster.

Code Veins combat is very fun to me at least, getting new Blood Codes and working towards the build I wanna play, which is a Greatsword wielding Dex and Str scaling mix has been fun. Definitely gonna be putting quite a bit of time behind it. I also like the way they make unlocking abilities tie into other characters memories.

Also Yakumo is such a fucking bro, absolute Chad gotta live him.

[mickilennial]

Yeah, it is lackluster. Much like Monster Hunter, God Eater started out of handheld games and it isn't until God Eater 3 where the production values have really been allowed to have a budget. GE3 is still no MHW, but I think that has to be the next step.

[Dark Cloud]

Yeah, it is lackluster. Much like Monster Hunter, God Eater started out of handheld games and it isn't until God Eater 3 where the production values have really been allowed to have a budget. GE3 is still no MHW, but I think that has to be the next step.

@TGM

There still is room for improvement, the weapon system was definitely interesting and could be something really fun and unique if expanded upon further.

[Fabricant451]

But I haven't gotten far enough to experience its "boss and length" fatigue, that most Triple A games seem to be guilty of nowadays.

Then again, after watching someone playing Ragnorok and listening to the obnoxious son blab on and tell you every puzzle solution in ten seconds flat, I've found no such annoyance in Elden Ring.

@SleepingSilence

Elden Ring has the most boss fatigue out of any of the games in its ilk because of how many bosses are not unique or well designed. Over half the bosses are either "normal enemies but slightly spongier" or "I dunno, now there's two of them in an arena not designed for the mechanics of either one, let alone two" or the dreaded "now with gank squad". But if a player doesn't do the crazy thing and do as much of the caves and mines and catacomb mini dungeons then they're less likely to run into the sheer volume of repeat and underwhelming bosses. But because I am a crazy person who did like 95 percent of those, I really found myself liking the game less because of it. Still a totally fine game but I'm Team Bloodborne all the way still.

Ragnarok doing the Sony thing of having characters spell out the puzzle after ten seconds is made worse because everyone does it, not just Atreus and nothing is more annoying than doing a loop of an area to gather resources and also to see the fuller scope of the puzzle only to have like three people going like "HEY I WONDER IF YOU CAN FREEZE THE WATER AND MAKE IT GO SOMEWHERE ELSE". It's annoying especially because at a conference where devs talked about the 2018 game they basically said that they designed around even the lowest common denominator players can play through the game. Which, like, sure that's fine, but in a game with so many accessibility features how could they not just have a toggle that goes "party hints - reduced/off/normal" or something because goddamn. It was what I liked the least about Forbidden West, a game I loved, and it was even worse in Ragnarok - a game I think is 3/5 at best.

Jedi Survivor was good but I'm real tired of lightsaber games making the lightsaber feel like a pool noodle. I don't care if beskar is a thing or whatever, I shouldn't have to get a fuckinig bandit or stormtrooper into a stun state to be able to cut his goddamn arms off. The goddamn Wampa on Hoth didn't need to be stunned before Luke cut its goddamn hand off!

Anyway, I'm only a couple hours into Tears of the Kingdom but I think the starting tutorial island is less good than the BOTW one because of how more blatantly linear it is. It feels like it's designed for people who didn't play BOTW because now there are things that just go "HEY YOU SHOULD COOK SPICY PEPPERS FOR COLD RESISTANCE BECAUSE IT'S COLD" or "HEY IF YOU COOK THINGS YOU GET MORE BENEFIT FROM THEM" rather than it being more of an organic learning experience like in BOTW. It's weird because if someone does play this without playing BOTW then the relationship between Link and the NPCs is rather confusing because it assumes you know all about them from the first game but also the same little issues that I didn't like in BOTW still exist.

If nothing else it's proving that Banjo Kazooie Nuts n Bolts was ahead of its time.

[SleepingSilence]

"HEY I WONDER IF YOU CAN FREEZE THE WATER AND MAKE IT GO SOMEWHERE ELSE".

@Fabricant451

It's great that you use this as the example. Because that phrase being said over and over again, is the part that I was watching someone else play.

I also find "games that put you in small wave-style combat arenas ad-nauseum" is my least favorite combat scenario to deal with. Because it's probably only done that way, to make up for the enemy AI's shortcomings.

I'm Team Bloodborne all the way still. Elden Ring has the most boss fatigue out of any of the games in its ilk, because of how many bosses are not unique or well designed.

@Fabricant451

I certainly do have my critiques of Elden Ring. (Like how the platforming is pretty terrible. And how jumping somewhere I shouldn't, is usually the reason I die. Or how finicky the camera/lock-on system can be at times. Or how the balancing is unsurprisingly all over the place. Or how much this game could use an NPC quest journal.)

But I'm 90 hours in Elden Ring (some of that being afk), and I keep finding new locations, enemies, NPCs with bits of lore, set pieces/cutscenes, equipment, and new boss variations. That it honestly puts most open world games that I've played to shame.

And yeah, it sort of does feel like this game will literally never end. But I guess I haven't gotten to a point where it's soured my overall experience. Because it's genuinely engrossing. (At least, for me.)

Though I plan to revisit both Bloodborne and Dark Souls at some point.

Jedi Survivor was good.

@Fabricant451

Insert "You actually got this game to work?" joke here.

Did you play Fallen Order? And is the sequel better? (I've heard that it's basically Fallen Order 2.0, in that the Pros and Cons are basically identical.)

And my experience with Fallen Order was a brief one. But it made me question the "PS5 load times are fast now", when I was waiting minutes on end for every loading screen to go away.

Anyway, I'm only a couple hours into Tears of the Kingdom, but I think the starting tutorial island is less good than the BOTW one because of how more blatantly linear it is.

@Fabricant451

I wonder sometimes if I didn't give Breath Of The Wild a fair chance. But this game really feels quite empty in its early areas. And I miss the original dungeons that make the Zelda games special.

And honestly, BOTW's start could've probably used a bit more linearity/direction. (Though I say this, knowing full well, that 'Nintendo direction' probably means "handholding, JRPG-level tutorializing".

Also, 'weapons breaking every few seconds' is a cancerous game mechanic.

[Fabricant451]

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
Insert "You actually got this game to work?" joke here.

Did you play Fallen Order? And is the sequel better? (I've heard that it's basically Fallen Order 2.0, in that the Pros and Cons are basically identical.)

And my experience with Fallen Order was a brief one. But it made me question the "PS5 load times are fast now", when I was waiting minutes on end for every loading screen to go away.

@SleepingSilence

I did play Fallen Order and honestly I'm not sure which one I prefer. I think Fallen Order has a better story but Surivor has better combat thanks to having more lightsaber forms to play with - though locking you into only having two at a time kinda means you eventually settle into your specific 'build' unless you purposely spread your skill points thin to make all five of them equal. Survivor is way smaller in terms of scope, like you spend 70 percent of the game on a single planet that you can explore like 60 percent of before you even leave the first time. If you liked Fallen Order then Survivor is a better playing version of that with a slightly worse (or rather, not as interesting) story. The load times (on PS5) are also not as quick as any other PS5 game which, on top of the performance issues, makes me think the game coulda baked in the oven a couple more months.

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
I wonder sometimes if I didn't give Breath Of The Wild a fair chance. But this game really feels quite empty in its early areas. And I miss the original dungeons that make the Zelda games special.

And honestly, BOTW's start could've probably used a bit more linearity/direction. (Though I say this, knowing full well, that 'Nintendo direction' probably means "handholding, JRPG-level tutorializing".

Also, 'weapons breaking every few seconds' is a cancerous game mechanic.

I was not super into BOTW because I much prefer the classic Zelda approach of dungeons and the like, and BOTW really made me long for those days because singular shrines weren't exactly my idea of a fulfilling experience and any game where the combat is either "avoid as much as possible cuz resources" or else "find some goofy way to do it using physics" is not the kind of game for me.

TOTK has an immediately stronger narrative hook but I'd be lying if I said it was making the style of BOTW work for me. It is very, very similar other than making puzzles like "how do i make a boat/car out of four pieces of wood and gacha capsule fans". Yes, I'm sure people will make a bunch of crazy mecha stuff, but for the types like me who aren't exactly creative outside of character creation, most of my puzzle solutions are "okay here's a big stupid log bridge to cross a river that takes longer to build than just going around"