What are you Playing Now? Who needs a life anyway?...

[MrBrown]

Playing Chrono Cross, released on steam a few days ago. Runs well and looks good.

Lots of people on steam complaining about it, some people seem to have a problem running it, while some seems just annoyed it doesn't look better than some hugely modded version. *shrug*

[Bartimaeus]

On 4/7/2022 at 5:42 PM, Tale said:

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

This will be my first time experiencing Rise of Skywalker. Never saw it in theatres, never plan to see it. I have my own petty issues with that whole trilogy. But I'm kind of looking forward to seeing it through a Lego game lens.

That game was delayed some number of years, which greatly annoyed my young niece because she loves those Lego games...and then it finally came out and apparently the game is like 75% cutscenes. She's not a happy camper.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

More Hades. I got the first ending by escaping 10 times and am now doing the family fixing thing. Thinking about doing no heat runs to accumulate stuff and get rid of all the boon hunting prophecies. Favorite weapon has become the sword with cursed slash and Arthur aspect, least is probably the bow with any aspect other than the homing special. Don't have hidden aspects for bow or gauntlets yet though.

It's a really fun game to play and relax, it will probably be my go to when I'm craving hack n slash stuff for a while because it doesn't really require too much investment.

[Keyrock]

I'm probably roughly halfway through Pigman's story, if Jane Bell's story is anything to go by. I still do a lot of sneaking to thin the herd, but when I see an opportunity with a bunch of baddies bunched up I let the dynamite fly. I have the Demolitionist perk maxed out, meaning I do double damage with dynamite. On the off chance that anything survives the explosion I got a sharp blade and an itchin' for some slicin'.

The game hands out too many Golden Aces, provided you are as diligent as I am in picking areas clean. At the rate I'm finding them I may max every perk out before all is said and done.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

4 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

More Hades. I got the first ending by escaping 10 times and am now doing the family fixing thing. Thinking about doing no heat runs to accumulate stuff and get rid of all the boon hunting prophecies. Favorite weapon has become the sword with cursed slash and Arthur aspect, least is probably the bow with any aspect other than the homing special. Don't have hidden aspects for bow or gauntlets yet though.

It's a really fun game to play and relax, it will probably be my go to when I'm craving hack n slash stuff for a while because it doesn't really require too much investment.

I escaped once and immediately uninstalled the game. I was later told by someone else that there was still more content, but I'd had my fill. I think playing and 100%ing The Binding of Isaac like a decade ago has forever made me wary of ever trying to 100% a roguelike ever again.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I escaped once and immediately uninstalled the game. I was later told by someone else that there was still more content, but I'd had my fill. I think playing and 100%ing The Binding of Isaac like a decade ago has forever made me wary of ever trying to 100% a roguelike ever again.

Yeah, I don't know if I will 100% it to 100% it, but for now I'm having fun playing it. I don't really see the point in grinding away if you're not having a good time.

[uuuhhii]

play elden ring are incredibly frustrating

with the no quick save nonsense spend any money on things turn out not useful are painful

pc froze twice and have to be rebooted

choose high faith start feels like a mistake until winged scythe

[Lexx]

That's just how their games work. You are supposed to farm souls anyways, and usually you gain more faster than you can spend on items.

That said, I think Elden Ring is the first one where you are able to respec your character. Hell, can even change the face of the character for the first time ever. Really wish I could do that in Bloodborne.

[alanschu]

I know a few of my friends comment taht the open world nature makes it a whole lot easier to not get blocked by a tough area as you can just go elsewhere. It's still on my list to play but mostly just in a gaming holding pattern. Busy with apartment shopping and stuff like that and a bit of choice paralysis for what game to play right now. Probably just need some sleep haha (he says at 1am)

[uuuhhii]

rpg move on from single save slot for decades for good reason

it only worsen the problem with those vague and long npc quest line that could result in their death

how could anyone figure out anything without a wiki

[Lexx]

tbh I never saw souls games as "RPGs". Save&Load would also ruin a lot of what makes those games good.

[melkathi]

Wrapping up Cris Tale. I'll post complete thoughts when I'm done or bored.

[LadyCrimson]

On 4/3/2022 at 7:12 PM, Tale said:

Sadly all the tension is sucked out of it being on a second play.

The main reason I played Death Stranding twice on the PS4 was because of Offline and Online runs and I wanted to do a run with more "perfection" re: some stuff with foreknowledge and the "Online" help, like a perfect zipline network, roads, the top level of orders etc, because I'm like that. When I tried a 3rd time on the PC I didn't get past the first starter area because it felt like I'd done everything already and it's not all that repeatable. That said, I still want to check out the Director's Cut soon as I'm more settled re: moving houses. Maybe since it's been ages since I played it I could sorta get into it again for that 3rd/final time.

On 4/4/2022 at 9:44 AM, Wormerine said:

How is online component? Do I loose much by waiting? From what I understand stuff our build can appear in my game. Does it mean that if I wait for too long then logging in will result in bunch of stuff appearing in my game, or does it more organically appear with story progression?

The game uses a system where each new main hub area you enter into, will not show "online user" structures until you finish the first main story quest of that area (IIRC, connecting a location to the 'network').  Anyway, it'll look empty until then, and then suddenly you'll see a bunch of stuff pop in.  So no,  you won't miss anything by waiting.

You can also just turn the "Online" mode off entirely (much more challenging re: tasks/resource and "network bandwidth cost" management), or tell it not to show vehicles and couple other options I think. I hated the "signs" everywhere, they were an eyesore and  I turned those off.
Once such items are placed into your game, they will remain forever and you have no control over what/where exactly gets placed, outside of manually deleting them if you find them non-useful ... which the game will then just randomly replace it with something else in/near the same spot. I took advantage of this to try to force it to place a lot more ziplines vs. anything else, although that was time consuming/very random.

Online mode is great for an easier time with  resources management and travel and for some, a sense of "this world has other people besides my MC in it" immersion I suppose,  but it is very intrusive in a way and you may get annoyed with bridges/vehicles popping up in weird places and whatnot.

[Wormerine]

9 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Yeah, I don't know if I will 100% it to 100% it, but for now I'm having fun playing it. I don't really see the point in grinding away if you're not having a good time.

I do remember Hades dragging on when trying to wrap up some remaining story archs, though it is difficult for me to say how it works in 1.0 - I have been playing since early Early Access so I have burned through new story content rather quickly in 1.0. Gameplaywise Hades wasn't strong enough to keep my attention, but it was mindless and satisfying enough to keep going to see the story content. It's really impressive how many unique lines Supergiant put into the game and to how many variables the game responds. 

7 hours ago, Lexx said:

You are supposed to farm souls anyways, and usually you gain more faster than you can spend on items.

I never farmed in any Souls - I feel the series do a good balancing act. If an area kills you over and over again, by the time you beat it you will have accumulated enough souls for a decent boost in powers. If one doesn't struggle and redo the content, then the progression will be slower and game will become more difficult. Of course, one can intentionally lower difficulty by overleveling themselves, but I never found it necessary or desirable. 

7 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

it only worsen the problem with those vague and long npc quest line that could result in their death

That's part of the charm no? NPC quest isn't something you ticked off in every game, it's just side stories that you may or may not see through the end - usually with grim ending, fitting the game's tone. 

[majestic]

For those who want to know how it compares to the other games by From and do not mind spoilers:

 

[Bartimaeus]

i still haven't decided if i'm ever going to play it, though

[majestic]

Neither have I, but I think not. I'd just install it, play for a bit and then quietly drop it and hope my brain won't force me to go back. Essentially the same thing that happened with Breath of the Wild.

Edited April 10, 2022 by majestic

[uuuhhii]

optimization are very bad

even quiting the game take 5 to 20 seconds

[sorophx]

so, to toss my two cents into the Elden Ring discussion pit, it's the game of the decade for me and the best RPG since Persona 5.

someone here compared it to Conan Exiles, it actually feels very similar in terms of how the world is designed, although technically  ER is vastly superior. it also reminds me of Final Fantasy for some reason. I've been told by the people that own a Switch, that ER is basically a Zelda game, but I'll have to take their word for it.

and just to clarify, the only two games from this company I played in the past were Bloodborne and Sekiro, and I hated both. Bloodborne due to terrible controls, Sekiro due to terrible vertical level design. Elden Ring on PC fixes most of these issues for me (although, the combat in Sekiro is superior in my opinion, would love to have that as an option in ER).

anyway, I won't write a review or anything (I have a lot to say, but I'll keep it to myself), I'll just address a few issues other obsidianites brought up recently. namely, GRRM's involvement and the whole plot thing, combat, the open world and role-playing aspects.

not sure how many of you have read ancient literature (Norse sagas, Greek myths etc.), but one of the things that makes GRRM's writing stand out is how he emulates story beats and styles that are often encountered in those early examples of storytelling. and you can see a lot of that in ER. I won't spoil anything here, but the influence is very noticeable, it gives the game this incredible atmosphere. I did catch myself many times feeling like I was actually experiencing a fairy tale.

love the quest design, easily the best approach to doing quests in an open world game IMO. you get to an NPC and talk to him, he/she drops a hint on what you should do next, and that's it. on the one hand it makes quests easily missed,  on the other, you aren't required to complete any of them, so when you do stumble across a quest resolution if feels very rewarding. some of the quests are incredibly story-rich and all of them have tragic resolutions. everything else in the game's story is traditional FromSoft stuff with the elder gods and demi-gods doing their thing far as I can tell, not interested in any of that personally. but that's just fluff that never interested me in games.

combat on its base level is mediocre due to how heavily enemy design relies on the player evading attacks and not blocking. even though parrying and countering are a thing, they're very situational, while evading is universal across all enemy types. personally I think it should be the other way around (like in Sekiro, where the emphasis is on parrying and countering), but I can make parry/counter work with certain builds, so at least it's an option if you're willing to invest the time into making it work.

Spoiler

 

as for the open world, again, it's some of the best design I've seen. games like the Witcher 3 or Skyrim don't even come close (even though they're clear influences, as well as Assassin's Creed, I'm sure). the variety of environments, the attention to detail, the hundred different enemy types representing warring factions and poor creatures stuck between them - all of that makes the game world a joy to just traverse and take in the sights.

as for the role-playing part, I love that the game has at least three secret endings and another three unlockable variations of the base ending, all of which require you to jump through hoops to reach but all of which are optional and skippable entirely. I really enjoy building up my character and trying different approaches with bosses I can't beat. for example, I was having trouble with one particular boss (the first Crucible Knight you meet in Limgrave) and just couldn't get through no matter how much I tried spamming skills. I then tried parrying and just couldn't get a hang of it, but then I found an ash of war that added a special kind of parry to a shield of my choice, and that was the winning recipe for me. I like how crafting isn't forced down my throat and can be ignored completely. I like how intuitive the stats scaling is. unlike some other games I didn't need to go through millions of guides to figure out how to build my character. the equipment screen makes it self-evident.

anyway, I'll just stop here before this turns into a wall of text. one downside is the UI of course, it's borderline unusable but can be customized somewhat which makes it bearable.

 

[Lexx]

The Elden Ring open world is pretty much just the usual souls game world, but every room is scaled up x10. As I've just recently played Bloodborne again, the similarities are extreme to me. You leave one room (walk through a tunnel) in Bloodborne and enter the next, now the scenery changed and it feels like a completely different place --- it's exactly the same in Elden Ring, just bigger. Because it's bigger, they gave you a horse to travel faster. This is also the point where I have some issues with it... because technically the bigger world really wasn't necessary.

That said, I'm not hating on the world building. As usual they did a fantastic job with the vistas and panorama locations. I'm just questioning if it was really necessary to make everything big. Especially since now combat balance goes haywire even faster than before... first it's way too hard, then it gets way too easy, and then everything kills you in 1 hit unless you pump vitality > 45 at least.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Lexx

[HoonDing]

Playing From Software games for all eternity is one of those ironic punishments they dish out in hell.

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, Lexx said:

it's exactly the same in Elden Ring, just bigger. Because it's bigger, they gave you a horse to travel faster. This is also the point where I have some issues with it... because technically the bigger world really wasn't necessary.

For me Elden Ring leans into exploration and discovery far more then any of the Souls I played. However, I have been worrying for a while about the thing JosephA in his video mentioned - that once you know what's there you don't want to do it again, because most of it is not great content. I really won't mind replaying any of the legacy dungeons I did in Elden Ring so far - but those smaller caves and ruins? Not knowing what one will get is the only thing keeping those from being a snooze fest. There is already far more repetition then I would like and I still have a healthy chunk of the game ahead of me. 

[Lexx]

For me, the dungeons in ER are really just chalice dungeons 2.0 ... they pretty much feel the same in all the ways, except that now they aren't randomized.

And yeah, there are some that I really don't want to ever do again ... worst is, the one with the best armor in the game is also the worst dungeon

But then again.. there has yet to be a souls game that I actually actively replayed. Usually I sink ~150 hours into them and then they release the next game and I move on.

[Hurlshort]

I picked up Vagrus: Riven Realms on a whim. It is a pretty well-written survival death march type game with turn based combat. I guess it is like Sunless Sea and Battle Brothers combined. So far it is very engaging.

[uuuhhii]

why does so many game waste time and effort in big empty field with horse ride

it does nothing but burn away life of dev and hardware of player