Tale

I have mixed feelings about Death Stranding. A lot of fantastic ideas in the setting, it looks like it could be truly something great creatively. But then there are bits like the walking around an open world, and the stealthing that remind me too much of Metal Gear Solid V.

Root Double is so long winded. Someone was paid by the word for writing this thing. There's some good ideas in here, but also so much time wasting crap. Overly long buildup, repeating scenes it already showed you, exposition of their made up metaphysics. Like over half of the game is going through a scene, to then come back and show you what was REALLY going on. I've taken to skipping through a bunch of it and I'm not really losing anything for doing that. I also think I'm done with The Surge. It's a well made game, better than I expected, but it's not scratching any itch. I guess if I had to pin it down, it's just that it feels like I'm wandering around the game world lost. There's no memorable moments to be found.

Yesterday, after getting asked for the half a dozenth time by the same guy "how are you" and responding, as I do, with "I don't know, you're asking the wrong guy," I came up with a new book idea. Conversation Stoppers for the Socially Awkward: Making People Regret Smalltalk It's a collection of very short stories you can share with people to make things even more awkward. I already have three pieces for it. "The Time I Thought A Woman Was Flirting With Me, But She Was Just On Her Bluetooth," "Job Interview Goes Great Until One Interviewer Reveals He Was My High School Bully," and "That Time My Friends Surprised Me With An Intervention Even Though I Don't Have A Problem."

I have little problem with their stance so long as they make adequate tools to help people find the games they'll like. Valve has been resistant to efforts on that end that don't amount to a form of crowdsourcing. The tag system is user driven and useful maybe half the time and curators are as uncurated as the market itself. We're going to just get more of that. We'll end up with cute puzzle platformers getting hidden by a "sexual content" tag put on by 4channers and we're still going to see Nekopara get recommended for people who recently played Painkiller. And a million little asset flips or achievement hunter games still filling up the new releases in every single category. Want to find something actually decent? You'd better have very common taste so you can find something with a ton of positive reviews already, and even then you better know how to analyze the review graph to make sure there's not a key giveaway or review bomb altering the numbers.

So, Surge was free for a short time on PSN earlier today and I'm completely shameless. It's actually fun.

Finally finished God Eater Resurrection. Looks like the game had two expanded rereleases at some point because the campaign had two expansions on it I had to get through. Nothing to rave about, but somehow I still enjoyed it. And it was free when buying God Eater 2 Rage Burst, that I am going to play now.

Some guy helped me get through where I was stuck on God Eater. I'm really enjoying it again.

Last Wednesday I basically scrapped the new writing project I'd been working on for a month and a half. I put it back on track, focused on the tone I was aiming for, made an outline to keep me from wandering off again, and in the past 3 days alone I've written about half of what was lost and had a blast doing it.

I was playing God Eater: Resurrection. But there's a pretty tough fight that's killing my interest. The fight already can take 25 minutes to lose, so I'm not exactly ecstatic about spending the time to try new strategies.

I finished The Fall 2: Unbound. So much better and more interesting than the first. I can't wait for the third.

The Fall 2: Unbound Not sure how to rate it compared to the first one yet, but it's promising.

Subahibi AKA Wonderful Everyday This VN has a reputation for being dark. So dark that when they released it on Steam, they could only include the first chapter and you have to patch in all the rest from an off-Steam source. Well I just finished that first chapter and... it's actually very sweet. Bittersweet at worst.

I don't think I finished the Paths. Maybe I will finish that run. To be honest, I don't like my character either. I like the Cypher class, but it's a Death Godlike and that feels too edgy.

I'm trying to finish Root Double before I start anything else. Then I might jump into Deadfire. Is it recommended I finish PoE1? How connected are the stories? I've played through most of PoE1 and think I'm in the final chapter as it is, but my save is off doing DLC stuff and I don't know how much actual time I have left to finish.

My true enemy Life of struggle, discomfort Why can't men wear skirts?

I'm caught up on re:Zero's official english publication, though there's two side novels I'm still to get. They're written by the main author, so why not. I'm also caught up on Konosuba. And now I'm moving on to Attack On Titan manga. Humble Bundle basically sold the entire series to date a short while back. Great value. Then I'll be moving on to Berserk, I already have the first three in my possession.

If any of those keys are for good games, just PM them to me. Thanks.

I have no record of my time playing. I didn't Platinum the game. I'm comfortable believing it was in the range of 15-20 hours.

I finished God of War. It was fun. As a complaint, it's way too sure of its own success and that it'll get sequels. This feels like Chapter 1 of a more interesting story.

I really liked it. Only complaint I have is that early Hulk/Banner scenes feel like badly out of place comic relief.

Everytime I see the title of this thread, I imagine a desktop tower in a bikini.

It's pretty great. I just wish it was a tighter experience. Open world with lots of gating systems where you get new abilities that unlock treasures and bonuses in old areas. And apparently a bunch of enemies I'm not high enough level to fight yet. So dying while exploring a bunch takes me out. But when it works, it works well, and the narrative of it has me gripped.

It's at least alluded to. I'm not far enough in to say how much.

The weight of his backstory is pretty important to the game, or at least my feelings towards the events and Kratos' personality. I won't say it couldn't have been done without a completely original protagonist. But I will say I'm glad they are using this one. It feels like Kratos. From the way he opens gates, doors, boxes to the personality that has changed a lot less than I expected. With it seeming like Atreus is the only thing holding him back from being completely his old self. He's not going around swinging Blades of Chaos or anything, though. The combat itself is wholly different, but pretty damn awesome in a new way.

God of War It's pretty good. A bit heavy on loot for my tastes, though. On the plus side, the non money loot tends to have a real identity instead of just being +1s. On the negative side, the majority of loot is just money and crafting materials.