What are you Playing Now? Whatever happens, at least we're out of that mudhole, Gilded Vale.

[Mamoulian War]

So I have 12 hour clocked on Final Fantasy XV… If I would describe it in one word, it would be Bland…

The Good:

- Environment is gorgeous
- Fishing minigame is relaxing

The Bad:

- Everything takes ages. Running around the map, story, sidequests, enemy encounters…
- Most of the time “playing” the game, is just a waste of time and bland filler…
- Because of the nature of the game, the subtitles are lost a lot of time to me. As a non-native English speaker, this is probably my biggest issue… After I finally get to the story, I miss some of the dialogues. It is impossible to pause them…
- Lackluster and bland story. Story in Chapter 1 would be finished in previous FF games in around 30 minutes or so… Here it took me 10 hours… If I did skip all the running around for Hunts and Sidequests, It would take me probably 2 hours. Just because it takes ages to get to Objectives, which move you forward with the story…

The Ugly:

- Combat. Wait Mode is Atrocious, and real-time battle is chaotic… There is absolutely nothing good taken from previous games, to make the combat not suck
- I have purchased Special Edition at the release of the game, which is just a waste of 120 EUR… Should have waited for discounted Royal Edition with all content for 15EUR…

[Hurlshort]

12 hours? You aren't even done with the tutorial of FFXV at that point.  

You've got to embrace the road trip with the boys a bit more. It's about the journey, not the destination.

[Keyrock]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I am planning to purchase ot, but, I am also Waiting for a pricedrop. Square Enix after their shift to live services and NFTs is on my deep discount purchase list.

I wishlisted it and I'm also waiting for a discount. It doesn't have to be a deep discount in my case, I think I'll jump on it once I see 25% off or better.

[Malcador]

Back to WoW, helping friend level (although with the 50% XP buff, hardly needed).  Is always nice to see my dead server spring to life preceding an expansion, only to die off 2 months later (server is so skewed Horde anyway).

Resumed playing FM2018, still stuck at Brno, got to CL semifinal (!) there I met Real Madrid who smoked me.  Should just go with the meta for that version and play 4-2-3-1.

[Mamoulian War]

5 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

12 hours? You aren't even done with the tutorial of FFXV at that point.  

You've got to embrace the road trip with the boys a bit more. It's about the journey, not the destination.

Well, the journey so far sucks. If I want to do hiking, I’ll go out. Plenty to do around my place I expect from my games a little bit more, then what I got from FFXV. Sadly

[Wormerine]

Played a bit of technical beta for Hitman3 Freelancer mode.

So far really promising. A neat somewhat roguelite mode using Hitman levels. Randomised targets, optional objectives and limited access to inventory do shake things up quite a bit. Funny how much not having a silenced pistol changes things. From what I can tell there are no bonus objectives for silent assassin, unless there is reward for something of that kind.

[Mamoulian War]

Chapter 3 of FFXV. Finaly something, which I liked. The Chocobo and Bahamut quest. Unfortunately it was just about 20-30 long. And more anoying stuff around. Imperial soldiers love to spawn at the most unconvenient places. I “love” this especially if I am in middle of a Hunt Quest, close to another beast spawn point. Fighting three big groups of enemies at once is really “fun” in this game…

Edited November 5, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Keyrock]

I finished Plague 2: Attack of the Rats. Overall it was a good game, but not without its problems. Let's start with the positives.

This is a great looking game, on par with anything from a AAA studio. Sound design is equally great and the voice acting is terrific. Top notch production value all around, you'd have no idea this was made by a AA studio. I can only comment on the xXxBOxXx version of the game, but it ran nearly flawlessly. I had one hiccup about 2/3 of the way through where the game suddenly froze, although I could still hear dialogue. I thought for sure it was about to crash, but after about 5 seconds it started moving again and everything was fine. Outside of that one freeze there were no crashes, no stutters, everything ran buttery smooth.

The vast majority of the gameplay was quite fun. It was mostly a stealth game with light puzzle elements and figuring out how to get through areas was a good time. I mostly took an approach where I tried to ghost areas and kill as few soldiers as possible, except one section with slavers, I went out of my way to kill them. The run for your life sections were always fun and the two turret sections decent enough. The parts where I got to walk around without any threats were also welcome changes of pace. I liked all the gameplay except... Well, let's get to the negatives.

The game has forced combat sections where you are essentially locked in an arena and have to kill all the enemies. For most of the game, these are few and very far between, which is great. Early on, they're fairly short, but eventually they throw more and more waves of enemies at you. These were far and away the worst parts of the game IMHO. The combat wasn't bad, but it wasn't fun either, and it became a real slog when the combat just kept going and going. Eventually, I just dropped the difficulty down to narrative to get through the combat sections as quickly as possible, then I bumped it back to normal when done. Toward the last quarter of the game the frequency of forced combat increases drastically and that chunk of the game sucks.

Also, I feel the game was a bit too long. This is, of course, going to be very subjective. Some people are of the opinion that more is always better, I disagree. This game definitely outstayed its welcome. Not massively so, but the last few hours I was definitely just wanting it to end, rather than looking forward to what happens next.

Now, let's talk about the story. It was told well and the pacing was great, even if the story went on too long. However, the story itself... I have to go into major spoilers from here on. You have been warned.

 

I think the idea was to make Amicia and Hugo tragic heroes. They definitely succeeded with the tragic part. As for heroes, I feel they missed the mark. You know the "are we the baddies" meme? I don't think the devs were going for this, but you kinda play the baddies in this game. Granted, Amicia's intentions are good, but HOLY ****ING **** does she pave a whole bunch of roads to hell with her good intentions. I'm talking 4 lane interstate highways... She paved Autobahns to hell.

There is a part early on where an alchemist, who is very clearly supposed to be a villain in the writers minds wants to take Hugo, lock him away, and treat him with whatever was the state of the art science during the Hundred Years war. Amicia's mother and Lucas are both (wisely) on board with this while Amicia and Hugo want to go to some island Hugo's been dreaming about that may or may not exist (it does but they don't find what they're looking for there). Clearly, the writers wanted me to side with Amicia, but the whole time I was thinking "this alchemist is 100% right (he was), this EXTREMELY dangerous kid can't be left exposed to the world".

In the first game, Amicia at least had the benefit of ignorance, but in this game she knows exactly what Hugo is and the death and destruction that follows him everywhere he goes, yet she still takes him to urban center after urban center. You're never going to believe this, but everywhere they go gets destroyed and everybody dies, except them. This happens again and again and again. Even Hugo himself starts making more sense than Amicia eventually as he's walking through the ruins and mangled corpses of what was recently a city saying "this is all my fault." Amicia's response is "no it's not." The **** it isn't, this is 100% his fault, and yours, Amicia.

Another thing is that they try to make Amicia a strong, determined character and they very much follow the NuLara formula. Much like NuLara, she comes off more like a psychopath.

In the end, and this is a SUPER SPOILER, she winds up having to kill Hugo anyway, which is something that should have happened at the beginning of the game. I know it's her brother and she loves him, but thousands upon thousands, IF NOT MILLIONS of people die because of him.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Keyrock

[Hawke64]

Ender Lilies. I've defeated Guardian Silva and the MC has sprouted tentacles. Alas, they did not seem to do anything. Also a ghost that appeared after the battle told that we were the chosen ones.
Trying to find the right (possible to progress) path is becoming increasingly difficult, partially because I can't remember which uncompleted location requires what power, partially because I occasionally cannot tell if I am doing something wrong or I miss the ability that is required to proceed. The opponents have become quite deadly, though packs of rats proved to be the most dangerous due to the MC taking damage upon stepping onto an enemy.

@KeyrockThanks for the review.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Hawke64

[Humanoid]

On 10/30/2022 at 1:02 AM, kanisatha said:

In the Lost Valley DLC of Solasta ...

  Hide contents

I have now managed to get all the way to the last quest in the questlines of four of the five factions, having burned my relationship with the Valley's tyrant very early on. But, from experimenting using saves, you cannot do the final quest for either the Forge or Rebels factions without totally tanking the reputation for the other one. But you can do the final quests for the People and Mask factions without any problems. So, since all faction questlines eventually lead to the exact same location and task as their endpoints, I'm going to do that final quest through the People faction, as they're clearly the most "good" faction.

Just finished up today.

 

Just finished up today, did Forge + People. An interesting bug ensued where before going back to the city, we returned to the valley to turn in the final Giants quest. This, for whatever reason, increased my Dominion rep from -100 to -25. Therefore they were no longer hostile and we walked straight through to Orenetis to end the game.

Bit of a damp squib in the end, especially the contrived final trip back through the cave. Get back to the broken bridge and they characters just quip "hey that rock wasn't there before" as they climbed it. I mean, that was the entire thing keeping us trapped in the valley, not the bugs, and it's just handwaved away.

Oh, there was a bit of a continuity error at the palace too, where Malariel was back despite being killed during the Rebellion questline.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Humanoid

[BruceVC]

Im 50 hours into Exanima  and Im still loving it, I have just reached level 3 and Im fighting my first skeleton

Some feedback on the successful way mechanics and design is implemented
 

• The combat is by far the most realistic and exciting I have ever encountered. The combat design is all about physics and you have to learn how it works to be effective 
• I love how hardcore the game is. It took me about 8-10 hours to find a compass on level 1 and I only found a map on level 2. This game is definitely one of those experiences where if you love making your own maps it would be useful and advantageous
• I take my time and explore every room and its always rewarding to find a good weapon randomly. You really appreciate resources and the lack of them
• I have only found 2 x healing potions\salves and I used one of them on my NPC. I do use save scumming because its a hardcore game and Im not that hardcore
• Because you dont want to get red injured every battle is meaningful. Its a unique experience for me to be wary of getting hurt because you cant just " heal " easily ( I even tried a healing mod which doesnt work anymore )

I dont know if Sui Generis, the full game because this is a dungeon crawl,  will ever get released but I can tell you one thing. The developers have created one of the most brilliant, RPG survival games I have ever played and I recommend it to anyone who wants a challenge and is tired of Carebear and hand holding RPG that are fairly common nowadays

Exanima is definitely the game for you 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362490/Exanima/

 

[uuuhhii]

elden ring keep crashing when try to restore great rune

a lot of game crash often recently

not sure if something was wrong with gpu driver or whatever the software are called

Edited November 8, 2022 by uuuhhii

[Lexx]

Never had a single crash in Elden Ring.

That said, I still haven't finished it. Made it to 77 hours of playtime and that's usually when my burnout starts. Kinda feeling motivated to dive back into it again, but at the same time also not because it always takes a lot time to "get back into it" again .... It's also the reason why I still haven't finished my Bloodborne playthrough. Got stuck at the Orphan of Kos and it pissed me off so hard ... didn't want to skip that boss, but also having to grind for healing potions all the time was so tedious.

[Wormerine]

Persona 5 is soo good. I can’t stop. Help me.

[Chilloutman]

Back to Dota as second part of Battle pass dropped. This time its great value, already got 2 Arcanas

[Malcador]

Returned to Afterlife, very rough going back to a city builder from 1995 or so, but the banter with the advisors is amusing and the details on some of the punishments are funny as well.

[LadyCrimson]

On 11/5/2022 at 3:48 AM, Mamoulian War said:

Chapter 3 of FFXV. Finaly something, which I liked. The Chocobo and Bahamut quest. Unfortunately it was just about 20-30 long. And more anoying stuff around. Imperial soldiers love to spawn at the most unconvenient places. I “love” this especially if I am in middle of a Hunt Quest, close to another beast spawn point. Fighting three big groups of enemies at once is really “fun” in this game…

General combat in FFXV consists of three methods:
---rather mindlessly spam attacks and warp strikes, occasionally toss in a Technique, and stock as many heals/elixirs (elixirs are better but expensive if buying) as you can and just spam those constantly since they are "win buttons"
---learn/use the special directional and weapon type moves (I don't know how well those work with KB/mouse vs. controller), kite/move slowly to mostly block/parry vs. constantly directly attack, and utilize the bro's linkstrikes, use Techniques a lot for "invincibility frames" and hardly ever use healing (but this is a slow/patient method)
---get the nodes in the tree that let you switch which bro (assuming you have that available, it was added later, should be there on any PC version) and switch to/get good with Prompto and use his artillery.

Boss fights and certain strong enemies block/parry does not work well and story bosses often have QTE's anyway.
Daggers cannot proc the team linkstrikes, thus if you want those, do not use a dagger on Noct.
The magic grenades can be very powerful for mobs like the soldiers. The soldiers are eventually fodder, but yeah they're very annoying to many in the beginning/middle. Their spawn point triggers/circles are always the same tho, so if you figure them out you can avoid them entirely outside of some side quests.

Story - most of that is in the back 1/3 of the game. The story itself isn't terribly long really, like most such games.

EditEdit: the fishing was definitely one of the highlights on first-run for me. Sometimes I spent an entire session doing nothing but fishing. >.>
 

Edited November 8, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Mamoulian War]

20 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

General combat in FFXV consists of three methods:
---rather mindlessly spam attacks and warp strikes, occasionally toss in a Technique, and stock as many heals/elixirs (elixirs are better but expensive if buying) as you can and just spam those constantly since they are "win buttons"
---learn/use the special directional and weapon type moves (I don't know how well those work with KB/mouse vs. controller), kite/move slowly to mostly block/parry vs. constantly directly attack, and utilize the bro's linkstrikes, use Techniques a lot for "invincibility frames" and hardly ever use healing (but this is a slow/patient method)
---get the nodes in the tree that let you switch which bro (assuming you have that available, it was added later, should be there on any PC version) and switch to/get good with Prompto and use his artillery.

Boss fights and certain strong enemies block/parry does not work well and story bosses often have QTE's anyway.
Daggers cannot proc the team linkstrikes, thus if you want those, do not use a dagger on Noct.
The magic grenades can be very powerful for mobs like the soldiers. The soldiers are eventually fodder, but yeah they're very annoying to many in the beginning/middle. Their spawn point triggers/circles are always the same tho, so if you figure them out you can avoid them entirely outside of some side quests.

Story - most of that is in the back 1/3 of the game. The story itself isn't terribly long really, like most such games.

EditEdit: the fishing was definitely one of the highlights on first-run for me. Sometimes I spent an entire session doing nothing but fishing. >.>
 

I got used a little bit more to the combat, but as you described, the  best method to win, is spam Warp Strike and then hold attack button for second or two, followed by dodge/defend button and on Ignis technique, which name I do not remember, but it calls all the bros into the attack and it deals a massive damage to the enemy. Rinse, repeat, with occasional Potion use, and Healcast:Spell. Profit…

Still feels to bland to me, but for now, my evaluation of the game increased from 2/5 to 3/5. But I am again feeling a lot of boredom, while running around the open world and finding absolutely nothing useful

Finishing Chapter 5 btw

[UrbaNebula]

Currently playing a number of things on different days:

• Disco Elysium
• Pillars of Eternity 2
• Skyrim (Seriously though, fighting dragons in this game after Elden Ring...? Yeesh)
• Civilization VI with friends
• Phantom Fury technically, but that's very much for work more than play

[LadyCrimson]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Still feels to bland to me, but for now, my evaluation of the game increased from 2/5 to 3/5. But I am again feeling a lot of boredom, while running around the open world and finding absolutely nothing useful

The open world is rather empty. I mean, ok, I don't want enemies every 5 feet, and I did like galloping around on chocobos just for funsies (more fun than the car), but it is ... spacious, haha, especially in daylight.  I think it's because a lot of the empty is filled with areas intended to be reserved for side-quest spots. No side quest, no enemies there. Late game or post-game I would often re-take max number of higher level sidequests at once and/or purposely trigger the dropships for more action.

World items (beyond the periodically respawning ingredients and potions etc) largely work as:
---in specific dungeons (easily missed if you miss a turn/corner), from/during sidequests, or certain big-bads. Most original best items are in dungeons or from sidequests, many not available until late or post-game, or very late story game. There's one added cross-content quest/arena available whenever, that has a few current best items but it requires a lot of grinding to get them.
--some better gear items do appear in the open world but not until after certain story points, and/or post-game. So for example a spot will be empty/no treasure dot until then.
--there are quite a few items that don't seem all that useful but actually are...but they may require a certain mode of playstyle/strategy, or are best for specific situations vs. wear all the time.

The thing about the game is it's one of those where everything is largely really easy/casual to push through (they didn't even add a "Hard" difficulty...), but there are options for more strategic methods (or, well, less 1-button mashing or more "fun") and/or massive DPS gearing and the like. But since it's not necessary, except for maybe a few/several optional bosses, most never bother.

Oh, sidenote - dunno if you know this already but if a Hunt-giver runs out of quests, I think it was after you reach certain Hunter ranks, more would pop up at some of them. Most side-quests are the Hunts - there are a few independent quest givers but not a lot.

Edited November 9, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

I "played" Immortality, the latest FMV "game" from Sam Barlow. As you can probably tell from my "clever" use of quotation marks, there's not really any gameplay here, it's sort of an interactive movie, several, in fact. You scrub through clips of 3 unreleased movies plus some interviews and such. If you click on somebody's face or an object that will lead you to another clip. Eventually something happens. Over time you essentially piece together and, for the most part, watch 3 movies and there is a sort of overarching story. It was definitely too artsy fartsy for my tastes, but I do appreciate developers trying something different with the medium. The performances were good too.

 

[Mamoulian War]

5 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Oh, sidenote - dunno if you know this already but if a Hunt-giver runs out of quests, I think it was after you reach certain Hunter ranks, more would pop up at some of them. Most side-quests are the Hunts - there are a few independent quest givers but not a lot.

I have noticed it at some hunt givers already, yes.

oh and for some reason, I prefer riding in a car on Automode, and listening to soundtracks, over riding chocobos. I even sometimes do not use autotravel to outposts, just to listen to some music, which brings me some memories from my younger age This is the best feature of the game so far that’s why it went up to 3/5 for me

[LadyCrimson]

14 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

I prefer riding in a car on Automode, and listening to soundtracks, over riding chocobos.

The shop from the car has a Portable MP3 player you can purchase (it's cheap) which IIRC was for chocobo riding. I don't recall if it appears from the get go or at a bit later in the game. I also do not remember how complete it is re: the music choice vs. the car. I tried it once on the PS4 version, decided I didn't like it since it became default (I'd have to turn it off all the time I think) and have never purchased/made it available in a save since.

Edit: the Regalia is too road-locked for me. But yeah, I don't often use fast travel either, except when trying to rush sidequests or something.

Edited November 9, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Mamoulian War]

10 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

The shop from the car has a Portable MP3 player you can purchase (it's cheap) which IIRC was for chocobo riding. I don't recall if it appears from the get go or at a bit later in the game. I also do not remember how complete it is re: the music choice vs. the car. I tried it once on the PS4 version, decided I didn't like it since it became default (I'd have to turn it off all the time I think) and have never purchased/made it available in a save since.

Edit: the Regalia is too road-locked for me. But yeah, I don't often use fast travel either, except when trying to rush sidequests or something.

Yeah, I have that one. Still prefer chilling while driving on automode

[LadyCrimson]

^ I mostly used the car auto-drive mode when I wanted to leave the room to do something else for a few minutes, like grab a snack or feed a cat or....     Edit: there's a few pieces of music I liked in the car but since I'm not a player of the old FF games most didn't do anything for me.

This is making me want to try replaying the game from scratch again (not a completionist run). I haven't touched it for months and months outside of an occasional 1 minute memory check for something.

Edited November 9, 2022 by LadyCrimson