SleepingSilence

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@SleepingSilence Duuude if you have a Switch Online subscription, I'll invade ur world punk. If you get Dark Souls...How is Underhero?

I just got Grow: Song of the Evertree and, despite the graphical quality dipping in handheld (on Switch). It's an immensely addictive game with positively beautiful OST. The orchestral pieces are exceptional and the intro nearly brought me to tears.

@Dark Cloud

Have Dark Souls on PC, I'm afraid.

And I haven't played it yet. Just got it on the cheap, and needed another Switch game to play. But it looks fairly engaging, from what little I've seen through youtube.)

Almost got Spiritfarer on the Switch for the same reason. But in spite of how much I think the narrative will be engaging. I've watched how tedious some of the gameplay/mini-games look, and I keep telling myself that I'd be better off watching someone else's lets play of it.

Even if those tend to improve the likelihood that I'll purchase them.

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Unlike watching silent playthroughs of Eternal Threads and AI: The Somnium Files, and how their once interesting premises were made no longer interesting, by having some of the slowest go-nowhere stories and gameplay that I've endured as a viewer. Seriously, hours go by in these games, and NOTHING happens.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Dragon's Dogma is under $5 bucks on Steam right now. So if anyone ever wanted to play that...now's your time.

I bought Underhero on my Switch instead.

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Anyway, I'm finally playing Undertale. Thus, I'm happy to discover that this game is still enjoyable (beyond its soundtrack), and that its humor is usually on point.

Papers, Please is interesting and challenging. Similarly to Lucas Pope's other game that I loved, Return of the Obra Dinn. (And I can only imagine that it continues to ramp up in difficulty.) But I don't know how "fun" it is to play. (Especially when certain mechanics interrogation feel purposely unintuitive.) Though I still might attempt to push it through more, maybe?

Stories: The Path Of Destinies is an hour long game that you can playthrough up to twenty four times, if you really love asscreed-style combat. (For a minimal branching narrative that almost always leads to a 'ha, ha you ded'.) But on my fourth run through, (they expect you repeat the same few levels at least five times to get the true ending) my last level broke on me and forced me to restart the entire thing. So I said fuck that and uninstalled.

The Magic Circle is a great idea that is tedious and insufferable to play through. The fucking dialogue/narration...

Immortal Planet is fine. (If not a little slow, and obviously unbalanced from the very beginning.) But I'd rather get back into Dark Souls...

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I am sad, but unsurprised, that Mario Strikers: Battle League is like Tennis, in that it lacks and strips content from the original game.

What shows/movies are you watching?

Spy Family is wholesome and great, if you're in the mood for it.

Summertime Render continues to be one of the more engaging anime plots I've seen in a bit. (Assuming that it doesn't fuck it all up.)

The Boys S3 is occasionally funny. And it feels like most of the actors are trying their best, with the god awful material/writing they've been given.

Apparently Peaky Blinders is getting another season soon? And I mostly enjoyed three seasons of that. (So maybe, I'll try to pick this show up again?)

Otherwise? I haven't heard much buzz about anything in particular.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@Dark Cloud Well, I have several on my to-play/backlog list. (Ones I've heard many good things about.) So I'm sure (at least hoping) that one of them keeps me engaged. So I can enjoy the usually large time sink that good RPGS provide. Anything to avoid Diablo Immortal.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@SleepingSilence Divinity II is possibly my favorite rpg next to Pillars of Eternity

@Dark Cloud

Still need to give Pillars Of Eternity a try. But I've not been having much luck with RPG's as of late. Aside from replaying Divinity, I'd start to wonder if I was growing tired of the genre. Because MMOS/RPGS used to be my favorite genre bar none. Though I'd struggle to make that claim nowadays.

Maybe I haven't been playing the right ones?

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Any thoughts on KOTOR/KOTOR II?

And oh my god, the Fire Emblem Three Hopes Demo is a 7.7GB download *whistles* that was a bit off topic.

@Dark Cloud

I'm afraid most of my experience with KOTOR, was watching someone else play it. (And my ability to be interested in anything Star Wars, has been significantly diminished.)

I felt a similar pain, when I redownloaded Divinity Original Sin 2 to play with my brother. Because the internet I had was downloading its 60 GB file at 2 MB per second.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I mean I agree, but like, you didn't encounter any bugs? The minecart puzzle actually loaded? etc.

@BrokenPromise

Not that I recall, actually. Maybe it was fixed late in development? Another justifiable reason it takes me so long to play most games.

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>Attempted to watch a recent game trailer reveal, and couldn't care any less about what I saw.

(Doesn't help that its almost always trailer shots alone w/o any gameplay.)

So...is anyone actually excited to play anything coming out soon?

I hope that one game where you play as a stray cat doesn't suck, I guess.

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Doki Doki Thoughts & Spoilers I guess.

I understand the defense of DDLC's beginning, and how its mundanity is all done on purpose. A defense that can be applied to just about anything. But its all for the sake of judging the player playing the game, and the twist's premise doesn't end up justifying itself. (Or making much sense at all really...)

So the villain character is "the one who is typically ignored in romance VN's", who the story itself ignores and gives the player no say in that, and her plan is to make you (the player) hate the other three in the cast by, in order. (So far as a single playthrough warranted.)

1. Making someone relatable and showing clear signs of depression.
2. Making someone honest and critical of your shitty poetry.
3. Making someone overly fascinated with some unique and morbid topics.

"Heightening their worst aspects" as the game puts it.

Relatable, unique, and honest. The three things to get a guy to run away from a relationship for sure? (Step 2, ??? Step 3, Profit.)

What exactly is this game's understanding of relationships? But if I don't try to consider or analyze the intentions behind the story. All I'm left with was a boring reading experience, that transparently tells you delete one file outside of the game. Clearly, the next Undertale in 'subversive' gaming.)

Note to self: Still have not played Undertale and means to, honest.

More reviews/impressions.

"Titan Quest" is the most boring ARPG I've ever played. (That I will remember for all the wrong reasons.)

So I had a "I remember now" moment of why I stopped this game so quickly the first time. Because this game (all about killing and looting monsters) has its "see loot on screen and have ability to pick any of it up" turned off by default. c:

So I kept hearing sounds like loot was dropping, yet the (broken) auto-pick up button wasn't doing anything. So I assumed, almost no monster in the game dropped shit for an hour or more. Before pressing "Z" and realizing I had a lot of backtracking to do. (When was the last time you ever pressed z on your keyboard while gaming?) Then after hours and hours of playtime, there was never a single unique loot drop. It felt more like a test on a player's patience, than an actual game.

I will just reinstall Grim Dawn, if I want to play an ARPG again. Cuz, my god. This must be confirmation bias, for the people who hate ARPG's and think Diablo is anywhere close to this f*cking tedious.

"Murdered: Soul Suspect" is too predictable to be engaging/worth recommending to people who like mysteries. And the 'combat'/demons were so clearly an afterthought in the development process.

"Banner Saga" really does not put its best foot forward, and I can see why everyone on my friend's list has so little time put into it.

And what's everyone else been playing? Don't leave me hanging...

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

I uh, stopped.

What Are You Listening To?

Switching back and forth, for the only two hits I've enjoyed this week.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

It will cost $110,000 dollars to fully level up a character in Diablo Immortal...

Holy shit Blizzard. Way to make the developers of Lost Ark look like saints by comparison.

And in that news, I'm giving Titan Quest another try to hook me in. (Gave up absurdly quickly the first time, and I don't remember why.)

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Another quick round of game reviews.

"A Story About My Uncle" has a decent, if not, sometimes unreliable set of mechanics for a first-person platformer. (That you only get halfway through the game.) So my first impression of its stunted mechanics, while foolishly using a controller, was a miserable experience.

But all its levels can be trial and error, and the story elements with ugly frogs only seem to pad out the game's short run time.

Apparently it was once free, which would've been a recommendation to try it. But alas. (Plus, it also doesn't grant you a single achievement unless you go through the gameplay multiple times. So that's a fun middle finger.)

"The Blackwell Series" (four of five of them anyway) are my kind of supernatural detective/point&click games. (In terms of how much I like its concept on paper.) But the puzzles and solutions in many cases will frequently be obscure/standard-fare adventure game nonsense. So I wanted a stronger story, that the game(s) didn't have. But I didn't mind playing them.

"Brothers - A Tale Of Two Sons" was exactly how VideogameDunkey described it. (*sees a whole row of people hanging* "Oh no, they must've beaten this whole boring ass game.") I cannot fathom who made the decision to make this game without real voice actors.

"Doki Doki Literature Club" is one of the dullest visual novel experiences I've had in a while. (But I like the song at the end.)

"Choice Of Robots" was an entertaining choose your own adventure story. With plenty of additional branching paths, that I wouldn't mind returning to at some point. Even if all of them lead to China becoming a superpower and taking over the world. Ha ha ha.

"Deponia" was a pleasant surprise for a point&click game. Because the intro song and terrible meta tutorial had me very nervous that I'd dread this comedy experience. But the childish/slapstick humor was actually pretty entertaining, most of the time. And I'd be willing to try out its sequel stories.

"Oxenfree" was an enjoyable walking simulator. (With fun character interactions, and way too many loading screens.) I'd play its sequel, when it comes out.