What are you Playing Now? - the man sez Video games are bad for you - fight the man!

[rjshae]

8 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Kingmaker is overall a good game, but there's a bunch of different design decisions I didn't really like. Like all crisis are basically loads of **** thrown at your kingdom until you solve the main quest. Meaning it's not really a "build your kingdom" -game, more of a try to not make everything fall apart.

I enjoyed it a lot more when I turned on the automatic kingdom management. That made it more of a traditional cRPG with plenty of exploring and combat, but none of the management headaches. It's still buggy at times though.

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, MrBrown said:

It's classic D&D, there's tons of debuffs, and you have to have the specific spells to counter each one with you.

Kingmaker is overall a good game, but there's a bunch of different design decisions I didn't really like. Like all crisis are basically loads of **** thrown at your kingdom until you solve the main quest. Meaning it's not really a "build your kingdom" -game, more of a try to not make everything fall apart.

Speaking of which, I'm trying Wrath of the Righteous again. Played it through once already, now trying to actually get somewhere on Core difficulty, with a different Mythic path.

Because of the complexity of the ruleset and because I am not familiar with Pathfinder ruleset I set Kingdom Management on Automatic

I read some Beginners Tips and this was recommended and also Im playing this game for the RPG element and other mechanics, I dont have an interest in spending hours micromanaging my kingdom because this seems to a point of real criticism about the game  

 

[kanisatha]

On 4/2/2025 at 12:54 PM, BruceVC said:

It reminds me of D&D which is obvious because I assume some of the Pathfinder mechanics are similar?

Pathfinder 1e is often described as D&D 3.75e. So it does have a lot of the same rules and mechanics bloat of D&D 3.5e. For me, D&D 3.5e is the best D&D edition, so I have no problem with Pathfinder. But others will disagree of course.

But overall, P:Km is a great game. I played it with the strategic subgame turned on, and I actually enjoyed at least some of the elements of that part of the game.

[Theonlygarby]

I finally started playing avowed now that KCD2 is done.  It's a nice shift from realism to pure fantasy.  Mostly ive just been exploring and jumping.  It's a lot less stressful so far.

[Hawke64]

Finished Tunic. It is an excellent action and adventure-puzzle game, though I did look up the translation and some of the codes. Also got the elbow bursitis from playing (the irony is that gaming is one of my least physically-intensive hobbies). Almost gone now, though. Highly recommended (the game, not the injury).

Started Broken Roads. 5 hours in and it strongly reminds me of Encased, but worse in every aspect - it is an isometric party-RPG in the post-apocalyptic setting, but the customisation options are fewer, very few non-alignment skill checks, very few interactions outside of dialogues, the highlighting does not quite work (so I miss the interactive objects unless I hover the cursor over the whole screen continiously), etc. And the last quest was to run between 2 NPCs, who were standing 10m from each other, and click on the only quest-related option available.

Started Thymesia. I guess, I have played worse Souls-lites? The absence of the stamina limits is nice, the lack of customisation options is less nice.

[Theonlygarby]

28 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

Started Broken Roads. 5 hours in and it strongly reminds me of Encased, but worse in every aspect - it is an isometric party-RPG in the post-apocalyptic setting, but the customisation options are fewer, very few non-alignment skill checks, very few interactions outside of dialogues, the highlighting does not quite work (so I miss the interactive objects unless I hover the cursor over the whole screen continiously), etc. And the last quest was to run between 2 NPCs, who were standing 10m from each other, and click on the only quest-related option available.

I had high hopes for that game.   I don't think I even made it 5 hours.

[Tale]

LIDAR Exploration Program: This is the third LIDAR horror game I've played and it falls squarely in the middle of the pack. Scanner Sombre, which inspired it, it still king.

Anomaly Exit: In the growing genre of anomaly hunting games, this is just another one. It's a decent indie horror game for jumpscares, but nothing special at all. There's a bunch better of this type, whether you're looking at Exit 8 (which kicked it off), Ten Bells (highly recommended), or Shinkansen 0 (Chilla's Art's take on it).

Inzoi: I just wanted something relaxing to calm down from all the FFVII Rebirth excitement. But it really feels early access. No pets, barely any jobs where the Zoi doesn't just vanish from the world while they work. Just killing time with it.

[Humanoid]

Scratched my Civ4 itch for now by going one world size up (to standard), which only validated my usual preference for small planets. It felt a bit easier but that may have been just down to RNG, and it was only on Monarch difficulty anyway.

Anyway, for the past few weeks I'd been thinking "I haven't played Rimworld for a few patches now, let's see what's new". Turns out that was a pretty big understatement: based on my old saves, the last time I played was a pre-release build, albeit the final one before 1.0. For context, it's at 1.5 now and four expansions have been released in the interim. Incidentally, while those old saves do load with some warnings, the UI ends up broken so they're not really playable.

I still haven't finished Avowed and right now I'm kind of in "wait for the announced roadmap" mode. I also see KCD2 is now out on GOG and I'll buy it at some point in the near-ish future, though I don't know if I'd wait for a token-ish sale price.

[Hawke64]

Thymesia. It is certainly an interesting choice to put Genichiro as the first boss and the Bed of Chaos as the second (not counting the tutorial one). The hitboxes are a bit weird and the parries lack the feedback Sekiro provided, so "if no numbers above my head => the parry was successful". The difficulty gap between the regular foes and 1 mini-boss (the rest were tanky, but not challenging) and the main boss is rather large.

The storytelling is fine, I suppose? The MC has amnesia and recalls the past while sitting in a remote cabin with a Firekeeper-like NPC, whose age I cannot quite determine.

The recalling part is venturing into clearly separate levels and completing an objective there (to defeat a boss, find an item, or destroy something). So far there has been 1 tutorial level, 1 large main level (returned trice), and 1 boss room level (the Bed of Chaos). That is to say, there is no connection between the maps, despite them having shortcuts within themselves. The MC cannot jump up, though there is no falling damage and any dangerous fall is covered in the invisible walls.

Update. The fourth boss regenerates. Not continuously, but in several timed (?) bursts throughout the battle. The third is fine. The variety of the regular enemies is humans with weapons and 1 levitating humanoid.

Forgot to mention, the opponents have 2 health bars - one is the actual health, depleting which leads to the foe perishing, and the other one is called Wounds (Armour or Posture would be more appropriate). It regenerates after a delay up to the health level. The main weapon, a saber, causes a decent amount of damage to the Armour-Wounds, but very low to health, while the alternative weapons, including the always-available Claws, shred the health, but cannot pierce the Wounds (so, it definitely should have been called Armour). The alternative weapons can be set at the not-bonfires and summoned with a separate key or torn from the opponents. They also have linear upgrade paths that require defeating the foes wielding them for the upgrade materials.

The controls are rebindable and reasonably responsive, and 5-button mice are supported. Dodge and sprint are separate keys.

Update. 2. At the final boss and vaguely annoyed. There are 4 maps in total (the Royal Garden has 2, the greenhouse and the underground, and the tutorial is a part of the Hermes Fortress map) and the bosses' arenas. I have not encountered any major bugs. I am still confused about the order of events or why the MC had gone into those areas in the first place.

Update. 3. Defeated the final boss with the power of farming (sort of) - I farmed the upgrade materials for the Bow (the free talent respec helped with quite a bit), stuck all consumable ingredients into the potion since there is nothing after the final boss, and was shooting the boss in the face with the bleeding-inducing arrows to break the armour and using the long claws to shred the health and recover my energy.

Edited 3 hours ago by Hawke64

[kanisatha]

I just started my first ever replay of DA:I, and all I keep thinking is: how did I not remember this stupid/horrible aspect of this game from my first playthrough many years ago? There are just so many things about the game that I simply would not be willing to accept in any contemporary RPG. And somethings downright make the game *not* an RPG, such as distributing attribute points not being in the hands of the player. The only thing I seem to like about the game is its story and characters, so I've dropped it to 'casual' difficulty and am continuing with my playthrough just to enjoy my revisit of Thedas, especially given how much of a bust DA:V has turned out to be.

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, kanisatha said:

I just started my first ever replay of DA:I, and all I keep thinking is: how did I not remember this stupid/horrible aspect of this game from my first playthrough many years ago? There are just so many things about the game that I simply would not be willing to accept in any contemporary RPG. And somethings downright make the game *not* an RPG, such as distributing attribute points not being in the hands of the player. The only thing I seem to like about the game is its story and characters, so I've dropped it to 'casual' difficulty and am continuing with my playthrough just to enjoy my revisit of Thedas, especially given how much of a bust DA:V has turned out to be.

Kanie can I give you some good advice I adopted 6-7  years ago that I had to learn  because I  finally  started playing lots of CRPG from the 1980S onwards  or games from the 1994-2007 era that  I  had never played before  or even replays of old games. And the advice is the same

 

You either replaying an older game because of nostalgia and fond memories or because you know it  is a foundation RPG from the era that RPG became popular and you have love and deep appreciation of RPG but you also want to know the gaming journey.  And then the early games often set a precedent for future games. I ended up playing many older games because of how much I enjoyed the later versions so I went back years and played the early games. This also made lore more relevant, I did this with Elder Scrolls 2, Fallout 1&2, Gothic 1&2. 

 

But the advice I learnt is you first make sure you know  why you originally liked the game and you accept that there could be mechanics and designs that create unhelpful or frustrating outcomes. But its  important to remember what you liked or disliked  and what you think now because its strange an older game  would now create such  a   negative view on something that originally never use  to bother you. Of course its normal to become more analytical and aware of certain older designs and get annoyed by them but that  cant  be used to dislike the game. You focus on what is good 

What I always do with older games before I play them is some quick and easy research about what can be improved around older  bad designs. And I always find common views on what mod you can instal to address this 

Then at I will look at any mod recommendations that improve the game without  fundamentally changing it 

I have played about 25 older games over the last 8 years and I have been very fortunate that I enjoyed them and in most cases I was able to experience of what made these  games so popular 

But I make sure  I install " common sense " mods around QoL 

For example an older game  that has no fast travel unless under some cases so you have to travel on foot on a large map and  this can become annoying because it is just a waste of time