bugarup

Wasteland 3. Thanks GOG for timely discount, I really need to cleanse palate from JRPG-y things and play grizzled, jaded combat veterans who are not 14 year old girls in miniskirts.

Things I hate about JRPGs, entry No. 17: When you finally down the boss, and then there's a cutscene where he's "LOL nope, you didn't actually win, ta-ta, suckers, ciao arrivederci!" Happened multiple times in one game so far. Now I understand that Kai Leng (ptui!) gets called a JRPG villain not just because of how stupid he looks.

I'm talking to them. It's just that the majority of them say really boring stuff like "I'm on a shopping spree wooooooo!" or "My hubs and kid never help me wash the dishes, what jerks". So after some time you just stop clicking on random NPCs lest they babble about their boring chores again. I do like how exposition is paced, though. No huge infodumps, just appropriate bits and pieces as you progress. And I like the world itself, way more interesting than ye olde high fantasy cliche.

Just those? No request for toilet breaks, trench feet, STD treatments, haggling with shopkeepers and searching for fences because normal shopkeepers only sell things rather than buy trash, darning socks, hauling the canary cage into the caves with you to prevent gas poisoning, spending a week in shackles pelted with rotten taters because the local noble took offense to how you barged into his dining hall uninvited, things like that, no? Pfffft. Some hardcore grog you are.

Told ya. TBH I'm a bit more positive about the game, even did the second playthrough, though cheated and was drunk for the sh!thouse at the end. Truth be told I'm not against yet another run some day, but only if I culled the majority of unfun bullsh!t like encumbrance, bloated stats, permanent debuffs, webs and greases you cannot unsummon, "Help I am crossing a field of molasses" movement speed, etc, etc, etc. It's not even cheating if GM is a griefing ****, it's just DIY QoL. And yet, Kingmaker has one unique trait among my RPGs - I reveled being evil in it. Like, I'm normally one to talk with every monster and minimize murdering whenever possible - but not in Kingmaker. The memory of how I executed every single official of the city I conquered, then razed it to the ground and refilled with barracks, prisons, gibbets and goblin quarters still warms my heart. Eagerly looking forward to what can I do in "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Stuffy Hypocrites".

Finished "Prey". Was pretty omnipotent towards the end of the game with so many consumables and ammo I could set up shop. Decided I'd go typhon-only neuromods for the second playthrough and it appears to be hard mode. Teeny tiny inventory, no sneaking, no gun upgrades, short psi bar...on the other hand, now when I can't just stop time and bash a critter with the wrench, I have to do things like paying attention to possible exploits in environment. It's still fun, just with much slower progression. Game good and I already miss its approach to moving about in other games, where Hero Almighty gets defeated by a fallen tree on his path. Also decided to try out a JRPG. Read glowing reviews for "Trails in the sky", bought it, realized that, a) those reviews were written by JPRG fans, b) J and W RPGs seemingly run on very different sets of quality criteria, c) I am not the target audience. Like, game's world building gets praised as something extraordinary, but it's just, well, 3.6 roentgen. I wonder how bad other JRPGs have it if this passes for excellence. Also, fighting takes too long, monsters look very silly, soundtrack is elevator music and the game seriously pushes romance between protagonists who are adopted siblings. The story itself is game's saving grace, at least so far, so I'm going to get the sequel when it goes on big discount next time. Unless the last act falls apart; you can never fully trust a game that's pro-incest.

Hey, don't knock 80-ties pop songs. Nor 70-ties.

Quote from that article: "The farm owners discovered the damage on Thursday morning when they saw that their chicken shed had partially collapsed and many birds had perished." I wish I could sleep as sound as these people.

Aaaaaand GOG is downloading 53GB again. Are you lovin' kidding me.

I played it so many times that the only class that remains (forever) untouched is Barbarian (gave some fighter levels to a Shadowdancer), though I enjoyed it despite of DnD rather than because. I hate Sand 2 (though he had some good lines), and Neeshka romance exists as a mod that is not completely terrible...or so a friend told me. Also, MellowYellow, didn't you have a different moniker before?

I got that spoiler, but it only has 4 uses. So of course I'll be saving them up "for when it gets really bad" and finish the game without spending a single one as it usually goes.

And why I never blatantly copy borrow from builds built around Deltro's Cage. I like the old pwgra and don't wanna hurt her. ...also, what's the difference between pleonasm and tautology?

Well, since enemies respawn I feel compelled to mop them up whenever I re-enter the locale, lest new ones keep spawning on top of previous tenants until I end with a marketplace of them. Still, I'm quite out of ammo and materials to craft it are needed elsewhere (neuromods! MOAR neuromods!), so soon I'll see where lowering the chaos brings me.

Prey. First things first, having to repeat what is essentially werewolf chase from Bloodlines every half-a-hour or so is NOT fun, game! There is a reason Bloodlines had only one! I also don't care for game loop itself because I really hate backtracking and respawning mobs and Prey combines the two, but because exploration is really fun and stealth wouldn't have a point in empty levels anyway, I'm not much bothered by it...or wouldn't be if not for the werewolf. Like, the setting is fantastic. Science fiction + space + alternative timeline. Love this. Exploration and atmosphere is great (esp. space with creaky noises and space beeps, love it). Art direction's great. Story hook in the beginning v. powerful and it remains intriguing, and I'm totally doing the second playthrough because I'm not taking any freaky powers so far and they seem fun. But seriously, that werewolf. Wish so much I could mod out that fokker.

Do places have different setup of critters for different difficulties? 'cause there are no oozes in the dig site on veteran difficulty. A couple or three floaty misty things and some zapballs in the last room before the pillar, shrooms, zapballs and a mini drake in the room before, also roomful of imps with one spider but definitely no oozes. Source: my chronic restartitis.

Speaking of unorthodox metal, here's my new favorite singer. And he needs no makeup to look demonic too!

Arkane's new game's trailer song is really easy on ears, 007 vibes and all

One more reason (next to inevitable bugmess) to sit on the game for a year -- to wait for a guide on how not to lock oneself out of something cool like swarm that walks. Angels and demons are so tacky. I wonder if I can still romance those horny bisexuals as a swarm.

I'm playing "Regalia", kind of turn-based RPG with resource management about a group of blonde anime people who wanted to reclaim their ancestral home and got slapped with astronomical debt of their ancestors instead. It's really well-written if not too original and Larian could learn a thing or two about how to write comedy that's not just lolrandom llama cheese wacky antics. I'm also v. much appreciative of Polish gamemakers' tendency to make their RPG protagonists not very bright but self-aware (and get zero respect from the world ), this approach is way more interesting than usual Hero McPowerfantasy whom everyone reveres just for existing. Combat's a bit slow but fun in this rock-paper-scissory way when you curb stomp with correct party setup and struggle otherwise, but there's time limit and you don't know what awaits in the dungeon before entering and cannot swap party members after entering. Some mobs are a bit bullsh†t though, so is the final boss -- but since he's final you can unload on him all the consumables you've been scrooging all the time, so it's all fine. And the game does not end after that, what is a very good thing -- nothing's more irritating than looting all that powerful stuff from the final boss just to realize you won't be using it.

Kinda looks like some con of sorts -- neckbeards, cosplayers...