What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[Bartimaeus]

On 11/14/2021 at 10:05 AM, Lexx said:

Aaand I just finished off the Wet Nurse boss in Bloodborne. Not sure if the fight was bugged for me or whatever happened, but ... all the boss did was swing the arms a little bit and I just had to walk to the back and whack with the Tonitrus. It didn't even enter another stage or something. Just died like it was nothing. Weird.

Yeah, that...ain't right. Weird.

Bloodborne's difficulty curve was a little weird for me, very up and down. I remember the faster-paced combat needing a bit of an adjustment from Dark Souls.

[Lexx]

Yeah, I raged about it a lot when I started playing. Often the generic mobs are tougher and a much bigger deal than the actual boss fights. Then you suddenly have a boss that just keeps wrecking you like hell.

The worst mobs are probably the brain suckers, right up there with winter lanterns(?). Really making me angry.

[Keyrock]

I'm going through the early game of SMT 5. This early in a MegaTen game the goal is to get a team that's not complete dog****. The first demon that joins you (in a scripted event) is a Pixie, which is somewhat common in MegaTen games. For a starter demon, Pixie is pretty good. She's weak physically but has decently high magic, agility, and luck, so she evades sometimes and does decent magic damage, plus she can heal. Next I got a Slime to join, which is the worst demon in the game, but you take what you can get at the start. 

Once I reached the point where they opened up demon fusions to me, that's when the game proper started. I fused an Angel, which beefed up my team's healing power and introduced light magic into my arsenal. I recently fused an Azumi to add ice magic to my team. A Mandrake is the weakest member of my current active party, it will be the next one to get replaced. I'm keeping the Pixie from the start of the game on my bench. I doubt this game has anything like in SMT 3 where if you hang on to the Pixie that is your first demon companion you can later turn her into an Uber Pixie, as soon as I can fuse her into a High Pixie I'm going for it. I have the necessary demons right now (Pixie + Angel) I'm just not high enough level (you can't fuse a demon higher level than the protagonist).

I got a side quest from an Apsaras to get rid of a Leanan Sidhe. The Apsaras offered to join me if I complete her task. Of course, once I met said Leanan Sidhe she made me the same offer with the roles reversed. I'm pretty sure the outcome will have no bearing on the larger story, so it's a matter of which demon would I rather have on my team, Leanan Sidhe or Apsaras. I'll probably side with the Leanan Sidhe, mainly for dark magic. I have time to think about it as I'm not strong enough to defeat either yet.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do a physical or a magic build for the protagonist yet, so I'm dumping most of my points into Agility since that stat is always very useful in any build.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Keyrock

[Lexx]

After 20+ attempts I finally managed to beat Ludwig, The Holy Blade. Was a huge pain and it cost me at least 15 insight. In the end I kinda just won by accident, because for some reason I've managed to land 2 visceral attacks on him before he was able to burn me to the ground (a matter of seconds).

Thing is, the game can be easy if you are able to manage all it's mechanics ... parry and visceral attacks make it *a lot* easier. The problem is just that I am often unable to perform them in time. It's not even the input lag, but some actions don't want to trigger or trigger with delay. Example: I need to heal asap, but I also need to gtfo. What am I doing? I'll jump back quickly and heal up.. but the healing didn't work (I was still in the last frame of the jump probably) and in this split second I realize the boss will hit me again, so I try to jump once more, but then suddenly the healing triggers and I'm stuck in place and get hit ... Happens all the time.

Kinda wish there would be some extra training mode, where you can just do stuff like dodge and parry without loading times and long walkways.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Lexx

[Amentep]

I'm roughly at the same spot in SMT V. I'm not high enough to merge an Angel, though. I guess I shoulda whacked a few more demons.

EDIT: Take it back, whacked a Mitama and by sheer luck killed it and boom, I'm level 10 so now Angel is a member of my party.

[marelooke]

On 11/14/2021 at 6:22 AM, Azdeus said:

I'm only getting some "agree to cookies" alert from what you posted there, could you just post a headline or something that I can find it?

Getting that a lot on the forum lately, even when agreeing to the social media cookies. Something's clearly broken somewhere...

Let's try that again: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hixww37DKuY

 

[LadyCrimson]

Real-time combat, party-based, 3D/modernish (not top-down/isometric/IWD style), not-overly-cartoonish action/rpg's?

...one reason I've been trying more East-Asian games is because of the above.  But there's not a ton of them (on Steam anyway) that at least have English subtitles. >.>  Single character combat/no party banter and party side stories apparently (usually) bores me and I feel like 90% of Western/US games have gone that route/or it's always been that way maybe.

Edited November 17, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[uuuhhii]

played some jrpg years ago

every hour wasted

[Mamoulian War]

I feel that way every time, I touch anything made by ubisoft or bioware after ME1

[LadyCrimson]

The past couple years, I've been refunding video games more and more often, and I'm one of those lazy/oddball folks who almost never returns/refunds anything.   

[Keyrock]

I completed the quest for Leanan Sidhe by beating the crap out of Apsaras. I was well prepared and thus the battle wasn't too hard (thanks, ice dampeners). I got the job done on the first try. Upon returning to Leanan Sidhe and giving her the news, she was so happy that she decided to join me. No word yet on whether she'll copulate with me, giving me a short but fruitful life (it's in the folklore, folks). For now, I'll settle for having a demon in my party that outlevels me and the first with dark magic. Now I'm gearing up for the first boss battle.

[Azdeus]

7 hours ago, marelooke said:

Getting that a lot on the forum lately, even when agreeing to the social media cookies. Something's clearly broken somewhere...

Let's try that again: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hixww37DKuY

Thanks alot!

I didn't much reflect on the fact that you're thrown cars at you all the way thought the game, one of the first ones I unlocked was the Ferrari F40, which was nice, but yeah, the sense of progression was never really there in the game.

[Amentep]

I saw Leanan Sidhe, but haven't talked to her yet. Mostly ran around and recruited some demons and merge them.

[Malcador]

Playing Alpha Prime.  Not an enjoyable experience, even if it has the same two VAs I keep hearing in games related to BIS - one is the guy that does Cooper in Arma 2 and the other is the guy from Alternativa (and I think Kerry in Arma 3)

[Lexx]

More Bloodborne yesterday. Finished the Living Failures - wasn't really good, wasn't really bad. Made it through the fight with barely any hitpoints left.

Did Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower right after and man, that is probably one of the most fun battles I had recently. Really nice, and I was actually sad to finish this one, because I really like to replay it. Also, awesome new clothes, probably going to roll with them till the end of the game now. 

[Humanoid]

I was just thinking to myself that it might be time to get a new edition of Football Manager Touch for six years, the last version I own being 2017. It's been a frustrating time for the past couple of years because Game Pass included the full-fat versions of 2020 and 2021 which is far too bloated for my tastes, and the overly stripped-down Xbox 2021 edition (that can be played on PC but has some critical limitations like a 30 season limit and no ability to import any external files). The middle-of-the-road Touch version (formerly Classic version) was always the happy medium for me since its introduction.

Well, scratch that plan, because Touch has been discontinued. In name it exists for the Nintendo Switch only, but that's just because I presume Nintendo wouldn't like a game called "Football Manager Xbox Edition" on their eStore: it's stripped back just as badly, if not moreso. I wonder if this is the end of the road for me and the franchise because it means going forward they offer nothing that's in my wheelhouse. Which is doubly disappointing because I was hopeful of some major changes on the horizon when they announced that women's football would be added within the next few years, which felt like the first attempt at major innovation in years.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Humanoid said:

I wonder if this is the end of the road for me and the franchise because it means going forward they offer nothing that's in my wheelhouse

Some day they'll work on the match engine.

[Humanoid]

26 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Some day they'll work on the match engine.

The Instant Result button is there for a reason.

[Maedhros]

Kotor 2. Only Korriban and the droid planet remaining before Malachor V. My last playthrough I stopped at the droid planet - found it very boring. Anyone know if it's possible to just skip it despite having the mod installed?

[Malcador]

Alpha Prime is torture to play through, enemies take too many shots to kill, the main weapon to use has a 28 round mag and it seems to require about half of it to kill one enemy.  Helpfully the enemies always follow the same path around an area to shoot you though.  Also, instantaneous reactions makes entering a room pretty challenging.    Has the base of a good game though.

I do like how they have the Arma 2 soundtrack in the game, too.

[Keyrock]

I defeated the first boss

Hydra

in SMT V on my third try. I was decently prepared on my second attempt and almost got the job done, my man was down to about 5% health, but I ran out of resources and my team started dropping like flies. The third attemp ended with a resounding victory.

In a bit of delicious irony, a little while after putting the boots to Apsaras in an effort to get Leanan Sidhe to join my team, I went ahead and fused an Apsaras anyway, so now I have both on my team. Even if you're against me, you're still with me. That's how I roll. Now Angel is the weakest link in my active party, but I'm only 1 level away from fusing them into their replacement, High Pixie.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Keyrock

[LadyCrimson]

After taking a break from it for a bit, turned Sword and Fairy 7 on last night.

Following the main quest (finding/rescuing people or something), I was immediately assailed with ... a stealth section. The kind where you have to sneak by guards and if you're detected, you fail. I hate that kind of thing. But the game was kind enough to at least re-load me forward if I'd passed each section, so didn't have to start from the very start each time. And it wasn't too long, so tolerable.

Then I reached the next area and ... a freaking timer started. It's a fairly long timer and likely game will be forgiving about it, but that's not the point.

L-stick steer-slide down a mountain, minor QTE's, short stealth...I can tolerate it if it''s not frequent. But I hate timers. *game off*

Edit: more and more it feels more like an adventure game vs. an RPG, and where I don't feel like I'm playing so much as I'm being guided on a leash with no personal agency, so to speak.

Edited November 18, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Amentep]

I hate timers as well.  They always make me panicky and then I rush through things being afraid that I'll fail, but then when I finish I always wonder what I missed by rushing through.

[Keyrock]

I'm going around clearing abscesses and collecting Miman in SMT V. Before heading into unknown territory I kind of want to get High Pixie to lev 20. At the moment, my active party is completely lacking force damage. At lev 20 High Pixie gains Zanma, which will go a long way toward addressing that.

In other news, I've settled on a physical build for the Nahobino. I plan to sink a lot of points into Agility, a good deal into Strength, and some into Luck, with a small sprinkling of Vitality. I've been putting most of my points into Agility (The Official MegaTen Motto: If in doubt put points into Agility) thus far, so I'm off to a good start. If some of the past MegaTen games are anything to go by, this build will suck in the early to mid game and I'll need my demon crew to carry me until the mid to late game. There are, however, usually some ludicrously powerful physical skills in late game MegaTen, including ones that can ignore resistances. Only time will tell if I chose wisely.

As an aside, I've noticed that support skills seemed to have been hit by the nerf stick. I don't want to say they are useless, but they've been really underwhelming so far. Hopefully some better ones pop up later.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Keyrock

[Amentep]

Got Leanan Sidhe through merged and High Pixie.  Finished some side quests and picked up a few more.  Whacked an abscess, I think I have two more in this area.