What are you Playing Now? Volume XIX: The New Beginning of the End of the Middle

[Zoraptor]

I haven't had a significant bug yet in, uh, 90 minutes of play.

It wouldn't be a gothic like if it didn't feel just the slightest, smallest smidge janky and have a plethora of minor bugs; they're part of the charm. Along with getting brutally murdered by the first bit of fauna you meet.

Edited yesterday at 10:31 AM by Zoraptor

[marelooke]

11 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Yeah, I get it's a main aspect of the game, ofc (not a peaceful game, lol), I just meant there seemed to be at least one early (?) quest/thing where you could do it that I saw, and sometimes that means there's more like that - like the kinds of constant run/avoid speed runners might take advantage of. But I have no clue, maybe they were using some glitch to their advantage, or it was still a tutorial area with different rules or something.  It does look (story, npc) cutscene heavy but Chinese games I've tried before, it probably won't bother me much (vs. US games). I was planning on using original language/subtitles (even if text translations aren't always awesome), the Eng dialogue/dub/whatever sounds horrid.

Combat mechanics probably are a bit more than I want - I find constant parrying/dodge timing annoying/difficult AND tedious/boring vs. exciting/gratifying - but I'll probably try it at some point. If it was offline I'd just mod it but - plus re: waiting, I'm curious if they'll actually mellow out the supposed multi-multi menu nightmares a bit. they've supposedly said they're "looking at that" re: complaints.

Apparently the problem isn't just the translation, some of the lore supposedly is obtuse to the Chinese players as well per this Reddit post of a Chinese player.

The English voice acting has mostly been fine, at least with a female MC, I don't dare try Chinese since some of the text assumes Chinese, and things do get cut off occasionally, especially when it comes to on-screen tips. Though there's some weird issues sometimes like where the subtitle runs behind one step with the spoken dialogue, or the lines are assigned to the wrong person, which is hopefully less of an issue in Chinese.

I've yesterday finished the final boss we have access to for now, which seems to wrap up the Kaifeng storyline and I did have some trouble, though I managed it in one try in the end. I guess one tip for combat is to use the Healing Fan as an offhand, as well as to look into the weapon combinations in general, I found this video helpful to explain how I picked wrong initially  

 

[HoonDing]

Of Vodka and Borscht

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

I haven't had a significant bug yet in, uh, 90 minutes of play.

It wouldn't be a gothic like if it didn't feel just the slightest, smallest smidge janky and have a plethora of minor bugs; they're part of the charm. Along with getting brutally murdered by the first bit of fauna you meet.

Yes, Gothic like ES scrolls are expected to have bugs when first released

This feedback about how buggy it is comes from Codex and people playing it  but I never take that too seriously

You much more objective and you not prone to hyperbole and drama around how stable it would be 

But Im interested in what you think after 10 hours because the one guy listed about 10-12 bugs around quests and he had clearly played it for  a while 

 

[melkathi]

I hear for Gothic like games, studios actually hire professional bug devs to add the right bugs to the games.

[HoonDing]

That game looks too eurojank even for eurojank that it has to be a parody

[Zoraptor]

It is a bit like what you'd get if you described Gothic to an alien race and they decided to try their hand at it to replicate literally everything about it. Apart from everything else I also haven't met a single woman (one women, not a romantically unattached woman. It's Piranha Bytes like, not Bioware like. Sorry Bruce) in my brief sojourn. 

I did catch a fish, and squashed some bugs (hmm) for a quest, so there are some animals I'm a genuine threat to.

Edited 21 hours ago by Zoraptor

[HoonDing]

Feels great in these Gothic-likes to finally become powerful and then revisit places on the map to clean house.

But the most enjoyable is really to be able to pick up whatever you want without having to worry about getting encumbered.

[Wormerine]

Finally a sequel to the best Total War game:

I try to not get too excited. To be frank, most of the time I spent in Medieval II was with mods (mostly Stainless Steel), and no other Total War experience managed to scratch an itch that heavily modded Rome and Medieval II could. I was hyped for Shogun2, but never managed to get into it, and none of later TW caught my attention - I tried Warhammer for a bit, but felt rather simplistic (I mean to give it another go now when I have a PC that could enjoy the looks better).

Anyway, classic Total Wars got GOG release. Picked up Medieval2 and might give it another go at some point. We will see if nostalgia googles hold up. 

edit. Oh, and Empire. I have a weak spot for it. Such a messy game, but also somewhat inspiring. I loved the setting, and innovation and I just wish it would be a more polished release. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Wormerine

[Hawke64]

I have finished Horses. The only reason for the Steam ban I could see is that Valve really dislikes non-gratifying sexual violence (1 scene). Otherwise, it is a short walking simulator. The controls are unrebindable, the game saves every ~5 minutes, the scenes can be replayed after completing the game. It does not say anything new nor is particularly enjoyable to play (seems to be linear), so, unless one wants to support the developers, it is safe to skip. 

I have also played Atlas Fallen and so far it feels good. It also does not use UE5 (may it be sunsetted soon), so the performance is stable. The most memorable moment so far is the battle against a mini-boss and most of it I was able to spend mid-air ascending higher and higher along with the boss and it was not a scripted scene. In terms of story, it articulates more persuasively "theocracies and authoritarianism are bad" than Horses. 

A slightly longer review for Horses:

Spoiler

Horses is a mostly-linear walking simulator and it takes ~3 hours to complete. If it was not clear, the game covers the topics of state violence, human and animal rights. There is not much horror per se (there is only one situation where the protagonist is endangered), but a more subtle oppressive atmosphere. 

To add to the list of warnings, at one point animal cruelty is discussed in a dialogue and the protagonist has to dismember and consume an animal corpse in order to progress. 

The game does not exactly say anything new - the christofash like to project their suppressed desires onto other people and act on them when no one's looking. I suppose, the only fresh angle here is the sexual violence being explicit rather than implicit, because, as Steam demonstrated, it tends to increase the age restrictions. I'd like to mention that, like with the developers' previous works, it is not gratifying. 

I suppose, the game also shows that abuse survivors can choose to perpetuate the cycle of violence as well as to break it. As in permanently repelling the attacker, not singing kumbaya together, refreshingly so. Though, the antagonist being an overweight older adult, who might be autistic, while the main character and the "love interest" being young and athletic seem much less appealing. 

The narrative fares somewhat better if one assumes that the "horses" are the stand-in for the domestic animals, rather than humans. At least, it points out the ridiculous cruelty inflicted upon random sentient beings, so the human animals can find pleasure in consuming their corpses or bodily fluids. What can wonder what happens to male calves, so their mothers can lactate. 

There are a few dialogues and it is possible to respond with emojis, but it did not look like the responses changed anything. Most of the gameplay consists of walking around the relatively small farm area and completing simple tasks. Occasionally, the journal, the "Daily Tasks", does not describe correctly what is required to complete the day, but walking around usually triggers the next step. As the content warning suggested, a lot of the sequences are linear and questionable actions are mandatory to progress (i.e. the protagonist unavoidably spends 13 days without a spine). The limited freedom leads to disconnect from both the avatar and the story.

The movement in general feels slow and uncomfortable and the controls are not rebindable. There are 2 timed sequences but completing them successfully does not seem to be required to progress. There is also 1 puzzle at the end. At a few places, the interactive objects are drawn attention to by adding a separate screen with them which is, to put it mildly, almost useless. Usually, the interactive objects are slightly highlighted, but it can be hard to see. 

The visual style consists of relatively low-poly models and a black-and-white "old cinema" filter. There are occasional short video sequences. The game is VA-free, though I find showing the subtitles on separate screens after the facial animations play out to be quite annoying. The sound design is present. 

The game saves into the chosen slot at the start of every scene (usually, a day), which are ~5 minutes apart. While it is possible to save into a new one, it requires a manual action and after completing the game, the chapter select function becomes available, with the names being not quite descriptive (e.g. Day 10). 

Overall, if the game is considered separately from the Steam ban, it is a short walking simulator without any significant qualities. 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Hawke64

[kanisatha]

How in hell do you guys finish playing games so quickly?! Do you just not go to work, don't eat, don't sleep, just play, play ,play?! It takes me many months to get through modest sized game. 

[Hawke64]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

How in hell do you guys finish playing games so quickly?! Do you just not go to work, don't eat, don't sleep, just play, play ,play?! It takes me many months to get through modest sized game. 

Horses in particular took 3 hours. Otherwise, I was on AL last week (still have a few days to spend until 2026) and Black Geyser was of reasonable length (~35h for the first playthrough, 8h? for the second) to play. I also WFH 3 days per week and it is glorious as it cuts down ~130 minutes of commute per day.

I would not try to play anything Ubisoft-like and currently just listening to the other gamer in the household playing Rogue Trader. I like Owlcat, but the turn-based combat and their density of encounters fill me with dread. So, might try in a year.