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Old 10-11-2017, 07:53 AM   #451
Blastoise
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Originally Posted by Maskerade View Post
So, not worth it?
I'll let you know once I'm actually deeper into the game and have gotten to play around with the actual fortress/siege mechanics: the series has a really weird need to gate the main draw behind absurdly long intro/tutorial areas.
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Old 10-13-2017, 01:02 AM   #452
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Get!

Cuphead: I've been playing for like 2 hours and I'm very bad at videogames so I'm only on the second area.

Cook, Serve, Delicious 2!!!: Oh my god. So I think I've spoken about how much I love the first game, it was such a good timewaster when I was bored. This one is the first one but like amped up to stupid degrees. The new holding stations are a welcome addition, actually keeping me on my toes.

Playing

Persona 5: This is my second playthrough so I'm breezing by, I just did the 6th palace and I literally have no idea what happened but according to the Thieves Guild thing I was 4 levels ahead of average and now I'm 11 levels behind the average. Like sure Jan that's fine. (I know for a fact I'm a higher level than the last time I played. This is a fresh save but I remember doing certain things during the "last" palace --- as in not Mementos but the last mandatory story palace, that I'm already done at this point in the ga,e)
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Old 10-14-2017, 01:25 PM   #453
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Played: Tales of Berseria

I tried, I did! It was my first Tales game, and as I understand from online reviews, one of the best within its universe. But I just couldn't get into it - combat was repetitive despitw the steady inclusion of new party members, and cutting through hordes of stuff like a hot knife through butter gets old insanely fast. In 25h of gameplay, I didn't need to chuck a single restorative item. Also, maybe it's just a case of me having outgrown the genre, but I'll be damned of this game doesn't tick all the cliché anime character tropes out there. I don't mind a little anime angst in my RPGs, but when it's all you ever get from your protagonist, it stops working really, really fast...
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Old 10-15-2017, 06:32 PM   #454
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Get: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions

I haven't touched minion mode and likely won't ever, as it's basically a Mario-themed Meownster Hunters from MH4U disguised as a strategy mini game. What I came for was the chance to play superstar saga on an actual console, and I have not been disappointed. Enemies have gotten a bit tougher, but in return, SEVERAL QoL improvements from the original are present. Can't get that A-then-B timing down in stardust fields? Now you can make both bros jump simultaneously with the X button, and you can even do this when the person in front is set to hammer or do some other action so that you don't have to switch them back every time you need to take the bros up a ledge. Advance Bros moves now manifest as separate "Super" Bros moves, so you no longer need to figure out how to actually trigger advances once you get them-they're separate moves now, at the cost of a little extra BP (Super Splash Bros will dock you six compared to four for regular). Bros attacks can be practiced while in battle as well, so if you find yourself struggling to master your new Super Move, you can practice right away.

Also the minecart mini game isn't a trashy timesink waste of effort anymore, though that might just be me actually having physical buttons more than it is there not being as many of the stupid trip rocks.

Overall very much recommend.
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Old 10-20-2017, 12:50 AM   #455
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I'll let you know once I'm actually deeper into the game and have gotten to play around with the actual fortress/siege mechanics: the series has a really weird need to gate the main draw behind absurdly long intro/tutorial areas.
PROTIP: Rush the main story missions until you hit Act 2 and get access to Domination. You can come back to the first two areas at any time, so you're not missing anything by skipping collecting elf bear asses until later.

Beat: Middle Earth: Shadow of Spider Tits (68 hours because I keep spending hours hunting down the perfect ork only to fatfinger the inputs and execute them instead, no it's you who has the problem)

Spoiler: show
IT WAS HIS FORT IT WAS ALWAYS HIS FORT I NEVER WANTED THE FORT
Spoiler: show
=(



Alright, let's get this shit out of the way first:

Stupid Sexy Shelob LOOT BOXES

I was on a media blackout for this game and even I heard about the fucking loot boxes. Polygon added fuel to the fire in their review by saying that the endgame missions (where you fight a series of fortress defense missions against ever stronger attackers) was structured to "incentivize" you to buy loot boxes, and given that the pre-release orc shopkeeper greedily rubbed his hands together while you were browsing everyone was expecting the worst.

It turns out that loot boxes are bad and dumb in a $60 game, but in a twist worthy of M. Night Shamalamadingdong Polygon are also bad and dumb at games journalism!

1. The Polygon reviewer probably blows all his money IRL on blow up dolls and My Little Pony sex toys

So the game has two currencies, Mirian (the "F2P" currency) and gold (the "P2W" currency, which you can also earn in tiny quantities from daily quests because WB is desperately hoping for the "first hit is free" effect used by F2P games). It's correct that you wind up spending a large amount of Mirian on upgrading your fortresses (about 14k-15k or so per fort, with four forts total to upgrade), but beyond that there are no actual meaningful Mirian sinks so you quickly accumulate huge amounts that burn a hole in your pocket and that you can use to smash the Skinner box lever once you hit endgame (I ended with about 90k, with the F2P boxes selling for 1.5k). The only way you'll be short of cash is if you buy loot boxes 24/7 and/or if you refuse to sell all the equipment drops you'll get like a hoarder refusing to part with his novelty McDonald's cup collection.

2. Sauron throwing hordes of orc captains at you is about as effective as throwing Skittles at a fat kid

Attacks against your forts are led by orc captains, which you can dominate like any other captain in the game (and you'll want to, because even at worst it's another body helping you fight one of the other 12+ captains you'll have to chew through to win). You can use these recruits to replace anyone who gets ganked, and it got to the point that I was using pit fights to cull the herd, level the captains I wanted to keep, and make room for more for the next siege.

3. Just because you pulled a Legendary Orc from a booster pack doesn't mean it's not a Wood Elemental

Orcs come in rarities, because of course they do. The difference is that Epic and Legendary captains roll unique skills not available to their more common counterparts: epic captains get one, legendaries get two.

This doesn't guarantee that the legendary captain will roll something that's all that useful (Poison/Fire/Curse Warder, woo) or that you won't get shitty weaknesses (yay, Fire Warder on a captain that's mortally vulnerable to fire!). Common captains with good/decent abilities will wind up being your Lightning Bolts: deeply unsexy, but a useful backbone to build around.

Also, if you only care about the story (and not the goofy competitive online siege mode), then finding good captains gets easier since you can ignore any weaknesses that the AI is unable to trigger (e.g. Stealth, Executions, etc.).

4. That said, loot boxes work against the game's raison d'etre (or, Loot Boxes:Shadow of War::Polygon:Games Journalism)

This is Golm:

Spoiler: show


I beheaded Golm in a story mission only to later have him jump me while I was in the middle of another fight, his head crudely bolted back on to his neck. He wound up getting his revenge, as he caught me in a hairball and I was too dumb to run. Liking his pepper, I hunted him down, dominated him, and made him my bodyguard, and after taking the region's fort I made him Overlord. He eventually died in a pit fight to some random orc, a victim of the leveling grind. Go with whoever is orc god, you crazy bastard.

Early in the game I also ran into a grunt Olog (whom I don't have a picture of, alas) who killed me and broke my sword, taunting me as I bled out. Mad about having my sweet sword broken, I hunted him down and had my revenge. Then, while going about my business, he hunted me down, this time crudely stitched back together by orc surgeons and bragging about his immortality. I wanted to add him to my crew, but he wound up killing me and getting promoted to warchief, leveling up in the process and out of my ability to dominate him. Deciding I wanted the fort more than another lackey, I subverted his bodyguards and had them lead him into an ambush, and after a grinding 3v1 human and orc on olog gangbang he was finally put down for good.

This is some duder I got out of a loot box.

Spoiler: show


He has good abilities, and he looks cool I guess. To quote Achewood, this orc is like a perfectly adequate used car that I sold to a complete stranger.

So really, ignore the fact that Polygon reviewers spend thousands of dollars shoving Pinkie Pie figurines up their rectums: loot boxes turn the Nemesis system into a random orc generator, which is not where the system's strengths lie.

Holy shitballs, a segue into Nemesis system chat

So, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Monolith/WB realized they had something special on their hands with Shadow of Mordor (even if a lot of it was more potential than something concrete: I went back and played through SoM again earlier this year and was struck by how perfunctory the Nemesis system was with a couple years of hindsight and distance). That said, I'm not sure they entirely know what to do with it, because Shadow of War alternates between working in harmony with the Nemesis system and trying its damnedest to fuck it all up.

The biggest change is that the Nemesis system is--for lack of a better term--more proactive: in Mordor you had to babysit the fucking thing to really get anything out of it, whereas in War it will make itself known in various and sometimes surprising ways. You'll sneak up on a captain's duel hoping to interfere, only to be jumped by another captain who was stalking you the entire time. Captains will get word of you interrogating worms for their weaknesses and hunt you down instead. You'll call for your bodyguard only to have them reveal that they're betraying you because you're a boring white dude tied to the spirit of the biggest dickbag elf outside of a 40k Dark Eldar sourcebook. And you'll be ambushed by an orc who's extremely mad that you put way too much poison in the grog ("haven't you heard of supersaturation?").

Also, there are orc bards, who wield lutes like El Kabong and speak in verse. Poorly.

Mordor was at its best when it was letting goofy little emergent stories like this emerge, and War throws more events and flags into the mix to see what comes out. The game paces them well enough that they don't generally wear out their welcome, but they keep things from becoming too rote as you traverse the overworld and keep you on your toes, since the game is harder than SoM and learning how to manage hairballs when a pissed off captain arrives to get revenge for his blood brother adds a sense of danger that was missing in the first entry.

This is, IMO, where part of the animus against Act IV (where you hold the line against Sauron in a series of fort defenses) comes from. A major part is that it's grindy as fuck (a total of twenty defense missions without much else to break up the repetition, and later missions require you to cut through 5-6 warchiefs with 2-3 bodyguards each), but the other part is that it's like a Dynasty Warriors game* with only generic captains that got one mention in Romance of the Three Kingdoms: you haven't met the attacking captains before, you never will again, and it's hard for a captain to leave much of an impression when you still have to cut down 10 of his buddies to win. The fact that the optimal strategy is to hang out inside your fort, leveling captains through pit fights and only rarely venturing out because you have to help one pet a Caragor or whatever also means that the Nemesis system doesn't really have any opportunity to throw an interesting or memorable situation at you.

The rest of the game follows this pattern: when it plays to the strengths of the Nemesis system (one mainline quest ends with you fighting the zombies of captains you'd killed up to that point, which for me included the sad sack I had shamed down to level 1 to fuck with him simply because I could), things are awesome. When you're following an NPC who's talking like you've done in Assassin's Creed a million billion times, it sucks ass.

(And the DLC sounds like it's going to be the same type of story missions about NPCs you don't care about while more or less ignoring the Nemesis system like Mordor's did, so lol)

tl;dr if you liked the Nemesis system in the first game, this is worth a look. If you thought the series was the child Arkham Asylum and AssCreed left in a dumpster, pass.

*
Spoiler: show
It's also a bit like Dynasty Warriors in that late game captains have few (if any) weaknesses to exploit: like Dynasty Warriors it can become tedious to try and chip away at a captain's health because they are immune/block nearly everything you can do and you don't have any real options to open them up.
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Old 10-21-2017, 08:15 PM   #456
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Time to catch up on posting again x.x;

Beat!
.hack//Infection
- 08:17:53
Dunno what ta say about these anymore! I had varying degrees of plans going into each of these which led to my fastest full story and 100% runs yet! Good stuff!

Atelier Sophie ~The Alchemist of the Myterious Book~
- 35:44:33
This was really really good! The only times I was having a bad time, was when I didn't know you could make key story progression items outta literal trash and that not be an issue! No time limits meant I could really play the game at my own pace an go out and hunt up good materials to make stuff instead of always using whatever junk I had in previous Atelier games. The added "fit ingredients into blocks" alchemy thing was fun!

.hack//Mutation
- 09:04:55
see: Infection

Final Fantasy VII
- 68:20:05
Not much ta say about this game anymore either but hmm. This was the first time I ever did all the Fort Condor missions so that was new. Taking time to backtrack around the world after major story events to see new dialogue from people in towns really extended the game time an was interesting on the whole! As was grinding enough to have Barret 1-shot Emerald lol.

.hack//Outbreak
- 10:30:34
see: Infection

Ever Oasis
- 23:59:00
The townbuilding/shop stocking turned out not to be the biggest negative for me. Infact I rather liked that stuffs. Its the backtracking in the last legs of the game that sucked! There were just way to many abilities/tools which have different names but all amount for "press the A button to open this door". Having ta warp back to town over and over to swap in party members with needed abilities is a huge flaw honestly. Ya can't know ahead of time which ones you'll need and even then you may need more than the 3 party member limit allows. With that aside I enjoyed the game a bunch an was surprised by the lack of handholding. Discovering new places yourself kinda nice huh?

.hack//Quarantine
- 09:36:16
see: Infection

Super Mario Kart
- 00:53:59
Every race ending with every racer holding the same position as the last is really dumb and boring! The cheap AI is also dumb! And the screen scrolling hurts my eyes... x_x; will stick with Mario Kart Advance now an forever.

.hack//G.U. Vol.1: Rebirth
- 27:22:11
This is easily the worst .hack game. Mercifully not all of the bad things it contained carried over to the other G.U. titles but alot still did. Again outta things ta say about these but hey like IMOQ I had plans going into it an came away with my fastest fully story and 100% run.

Secret of Mana
- 18:20:23
Been a long LONG time since I played this! I'd forgotten alot about it, especially the near worthless Sprite never surviving boss fights until a fair chunk of the way through the game! Since this game doesn't keep track of time played I never knew how long it was so when I got to tracking it myself I didn't know what to expect! Less than 20 hours? Makes sense since RPGs (the ones I play) are rarely 30+ hours to begin with. If I hadn't wasted hours mindlessly grinding magic I never used could it have been 15? Less? Maybe I'll find out with the remake~

.hack//G.U. Vol.2: Reminisce
- 29:00:01
Muuuuuch better than the first one! Still contains many issues but as a whole the stuff they both fixed and changed made it into a way more solid game!

Super Mario World
- 02:18:03
Haven't played this in forever either! For the playthrough I decided I'd just do levels that appear normally on the way to the ending. 0 secret exits aside from the 2 required to progress... which meant I only got to do the Yellow switch palace an no other! Surprisingly the lack of colored blocks only hindered me in 1 level! My save file says 40 on it which is like less then half the game! Anyhow I like the castle outros and Caping over entire levels can be fun but as a whole its a pretty bland an low-ranking Mario game I'd say. Fun enough but... just kinda there.

Last edited by Lindz; 10-24-2017 at 04:03 PM.
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Old 10-22-2017, 02:00 PM   #457
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I'm playing Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions. It's actually a really good game once you know what to do. I am about 5 hours into it.
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Old 10-22-2017, 11:03 PM   #458
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So I "beat" the Superstar Saga remake, and I use air quotes because for the life of me I can't actually beat the final fight not on easy mode. Bowletta herself isn't that hard-it's that Cackletta's soul got super hella buffed to fuck and back. Even the Mush badges, which have admittedly been nerfed but are still busted as fuck if you load up on mushrooms in combination with the "Great Force" item from Starbeans on Luigi (who was toting the AA, or better, Mush badge), and grinding like fuck to find Woo Beans/Hidden blocks (that Virtual-boy looking item from Starbeans reveals their locations) still couldn't make me a match for that wicked beast. And no surprise, really-that grinding only put me up to Level 38, whereas Cackletta is sitting at an even 40 for that final showdown. At least she's not guaranteed to attack first anymore, because some of her attacks are just BRUTAL to dodge now. Your sole comfort is that at least her arms are color coded by which hand power they absorb (don't worry, those attributes don't change when she Turns Red, so while the color coding stops being there kinda, you already know what you need to know).

My recommendation is to get the Mush Badges and Great Force (which thankfully does not require Hee Beans, so don't worry about grinding Border Jump), just do everything in your power to maximize your damage output because Cackletta's limbs and head are no longer wet paper bags. Do not, for any reason, enter that final fight before level 40 unless you want a hell of a bad time, and brew attack-up brews at Starbeans like no tomorrow to help with your damage. Trust me, you very much need all the prep.

There's just one thing-I'mmentioning getting "the" Mush Badges because yes, as part of the nerf, they're singular items now, as Monty Mole rewards specifically. There's only one Mush Badge A and only one AA badge to speak of. Furthermore, to ease stocking up on mushrooms, do try to maximize your 'Stache stat, as you will get significant discounts and better sell prices at shops for doing so, which greatly helps getting more mushrooms.
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Old 10-26-2017, 02:37 PM   #459
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GET: Destiny 2: Serious Borderlands (4 hours)

Because I’ve been in the mood for a new Shootnloot game.

-If this tutorial VA were any more wooden it would be trying to discover how to become a real boy

-Having not played Destiny 1 the story is complete gibberish to me. The giant Space Core makes me a robot space wizard, but the evil aliens put a chastity belt on it so I lost my Jedi powers. But then I found its giant space clitoris and got my powers back, and according to the story I’m the only Guardian to get my powers (and immortality) back because the others couldn’t find the clitoris. And you know what that means, don’t you Ramierez?

-Destiny 2 splits guns into three slots (regular ass bullets, pew pew lasers, “power”): shotguns are treated as a power weapon like sniper rifles and rocket launchers with extremely limited ammo and I’m pretty sure this qualifies as a war crime.

-A FPS MMO-like...with no ingame clan chat. why.jpg

-No general chat either, even in the game’s social hub. Now how will I find Mankrik’s wife?
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Old 10-27-2017, 07:59 AM   #460
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Darkest Dungeon:

Bless the Steam sale! It's 60% off right now and you can get all the DLC for the price of the base game not on sale as well, and I have to say, I'm really enjoying this. Having already watched some LPs I figured I would like it, but man oh man, its so fun to play.

Lost an Antiquarian to the Collector because I accidentally misclicked, rip Dudley.
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Old 10-27-2017, 03:54 PM   #461
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Get:
Darkest Dungeon:

Bless the Steam sale! It's 60% off right now and you can get all the DLC for the price of the base game not on sale as well, and I have to say, I'm really enjoying this. Having already watched some LPs I figured I would like it, but man oh man, its so fun to play.

Lost an Antiquarian to the Collector because I accidentally misclicked, rip Dudley.
Is the DLC a big deal in Darkest Dungeon, like a huge step-up from the base game, or just minor additions?
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Old 10-27-2017, 04:51 PM   #462
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Is the DLC a big deal in Darkest Dungeon, like a huge step-up from the base game, or just minor additions?
Both, sort of. It’s a lot more content, but it’s added on top of a game that is already pretty long to begin with. You can enable it at any time in your campaign once you buy it, so it’s not a bad idea to hold off until you’ve gone through the base game a bit to know if you want even more of what you’re already getting.
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Old 10-28-2017, 08:09 PM   #463
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Beat!
.hack//G.U. Vol.3: Redemption
- 30:12:38
No record time here but much prep for post-game means that should take less time than normal?
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Old 10-29-2017, 12:15 AM   #464
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Get:

Fire Emblem Warriors
This game totally sneaked up on me. When I preordered it, the place said "Winter 2018", so I forgot about it. Then it suddenly freaking releases. I don't have much hope in my favorite characters appearing, but this should be a fun game nonetheless.

Super Mario Odyssey
Holy mother of fucking Jesus why isn't everyone playing this?! Didn't you see how it got 10 on idontgiveashit review site?!
......
Yeah I'm playing this as well. I'm not sure how "open world" this really is, but I'm sure it'll be fun enough. I'm hoping there's a good reason Mario feels sluggish in this compared to the other 3D Mario games.
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Old 11-05-2017, 03:57 PM   #465
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Beat: Destiny 2 (30ish hours?)

In the sense that I leveled 2 characters to cap and have done everything but the raid. I saw someone on Reddit describe it as the best mediocre game they'd ever played, and I can't really improve on that but I'll bulletpoint shit out anyways because I'm a brokebrain:
  • Like Diablo 3, the moment to moment gameplay is pretty good. Like Diablo it makes me want to forgive a lot of the game's WTF design decisions because pulling the trigger on a handcannon three times and hearing three heads go pop never stops being muy bueno.

  • The story is, uh, bad. I like to think I'm pretty forgiving on game narratives, but Bungie wants to tell a sweeping space opera with a star-killing super weapon, an alien general trying to take your character's IDDQD-juice/Light for himself, and heroic characters trying to come to terms with how much of their personal identities were inexplicably bound to their lost powers in a "just get me to level cap" 6-10ish hour campaign where you spend a good portion of the running time shooting at fat red space rhinos and hippy Necrons and comparing assault rifles. It doesn't work.

    Also Zavala talks like he's perpetually angling to get scouted for the City's annual Shakespeare festival and it makes it impossible to take anything he says remotely seriously as a result, even over the zany wisecracking robot voiced by Nathan Fillion.

    Spoiler: show
    Zavala: "There I sat, broken-hearted. I tried to...defecate.

    *long pause for dramatic effect*











    *what you thought we were done? Fuck no son*











    *keep going*















    *Almost there*












    *just kidding lol*












    *for real though*









    "...but I only farted."

  • Okay Bungie, I'm willing to meet you in the middle and say I understand why there's no general chat in-game: as a veteran of Vanilla WoW Barrens chat I understand these channels are almost inevitably places where cogent thought goes to die and I don't miss having to try and ignore MAGA CHUDs calling each other racial slurs while I'm just trying to collect bear asses in peace. However, not having in-game guild chat (where we could talk to people we are willingly choosing to associate with) and having to alt-tab out of the game to use a Discord channel to talk with guildies is dumb as shit. It makes what's ostensibly supposed to be a proto-MMO feel like a very socially sterile experience.

  • Destiny 2 takes to its RPG elements with about as much enthusiasm as a fourth grader being told to clean their room, to the point where they could probably strip out all the barebones leveling/talent shit and have a better game for it. Even the individual classes don't feel particularly distinct, because everyone uses the same guns, ability cooldowns are long and the subclass specializations don't really do a good job of encouraging different playstyles or approaches to combat.

  • A lot of stuff feels bland as a result because Bungie wanted to chase the PVP dragon, but...

  • Destiny 2 PVP feels like a low-rent Overwatch where everyone is playing Soldier 76, and I already have Overwatch to play whenever I want. The restrictions demanded by PVP also end up bleeding back into the game's PVE, and not for the better: you'll spend most of the game using some variant of assault rifle or hand cannon due to shotguns and sniper rifles being moved to the "power" (high damage, very limited ammo) slot, which makes them both useless in PVP (you'll never take them when swords and rocket launchers occupy the same slot, and you lose all power ammo in PVP on death so ammo efficiency doesn't matter that much) and means that PVE is almost always a mid-long range affair without a lot of ways to really mix it up.
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Old 11-19-2017, 05:05 PM   #466
Emi
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Beat: Darkest Dungeon Radiant Mode (Week 104, 15 Deaths, 49 hours)

So I beat Radiant Mode, which isn't _too_ easier than Darkest mode, but I figured it made a good segway to make this point instead of 200 hours down the line where I beat Blood Moon difficulty or something. How is this game? This game is fucking fantastic! I absolutely loved playing it, as many people will attest to because I talked about a lot in the Discord chat. It's been a little under a month since I got the game, and I've spent about 10% of my time playing this game, which is probably a good sign of how good it is. It's challenging but has very rarely felt unfair (DD2...), and usually, when deaths happened, I could see where I had made a mistake (my very first death I panicked about having a party member on Death's Door and misclicked..........) and saw where to improve. The fact that my stratagems changed upon playing was also a really cool thing: I undervalued Abominations and Houndmasters a lot before I used them more correctly. Even when I was put on the back foot, even when I stumbled, I found I was having a really good time. That's hard for me to say, because normally when things go awfully I tend to become more despondent and put the game down to never pick the game up again. Of course, when one of your party members decides to go into God mode and score like 10 crits in a row, that just makes the whole deal sweeter.

Outside of the gameplay, the game looks great, I love the music (its one of those uncommon cases for me where the music is genuinely enjoyable to listen to outside of the game), the narration is incredible, and the story, while not particularly robust, is pretty good. It's hard to come up with complaints about this game, but I feel like if I had to make one, the late game is a little grindy (they made it better thankfully, but it still can be kind of bad), and that some enemies with high damage plus DoT moves can really fuck you over if you're unlucky. That's mainly where the "unfairness" comes from in this game.

Is this a 10 / 10 game for me? Not quite...but 9-9.5/10 seems really right for it. This game is pretty worth it at full price, but if it goes on sale again, you absolutely need to get it.
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Old 12-16-2017, 07:09 PM   #467
Lindz
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Beat!
.hack//G.U. Vol.1: Rebirth (HD)
- 23:51:50
.hack//G.U. Vol.2: Reminisce (HD)
- 24:01:29
.hack//G.U. Vol.3: Redemption (HD)
- 24:01:29
Woooo! Look at those much short main game clear times! Combined with post-game the HD editions took a combined 28 hours less to 100%! 60fps, no slowdown, +30% default movement speed, an much quicker battles make for huge time saving! Hard to see myself ever going back to the PS2 versions. An yes I was stupid enough to replay these immediately after finishing 100%'ing 'em on the PS2!

.hack//G.U. Vol.4: Reconnection
- 05:42:41
They didn't scale this new volume for post-game Vol.3 lol. Cause carrying over your data an starting off at L150 with all the best stuff in the game means you'll demolish all the much lower leveled baddies here! An even when the baddie level eventually match your own its still no problem! The new form for Haseo looks like but is much less versatile then the previous one. The stories really minimalist as-is everything else. But really after going through 3 full length games who needed yet another?
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Old 12-25-2017, 05:42 PM   #468
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Get!
Monster Hunter Stories
Really liked the demo for this a few months ago but had not the time to buy the full game an play it! So onto my wishlist it went an today it came!

Super Mario Maker
After hearing that Nintendo sat down an made a whole normal Mario game full of levels I got super interested in this! So I'll be happy to try it out!

Yakuza Kiwami
Remake of the original Yakuza! Was gonna buy this Day 1 myself but I was hurting for time and was still alil sour after 0 so this one was held back til today!

Beat!
Yakuza
- 15:22:28
Ya I replayed the PS2 original even with the remake out and all that as kinda a sendoff to it! Dun need ta touch this copy again... unless I wanna! Despite its flaws in hindsight to what later sequels fixed up, this is still a really good game! The depth and detail of Kamurocho show that this series was once big budget which became cheaper rehashes over time. Actually had more fun replaying this than I did playing Yakuza 0 earlier this year!
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Old 12-28-2017, 07:51 AM   #469
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Get:

Heat Signature
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Undertale
Vampire the Masquerade

Steam sale shenanigans.
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Old 12-29-2017, 01:10 AM   #470
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Steam damage so far:

-Tom Clancy's The Borderlands Division
-Chroma Squad
-Battlezone 98 Redux (remember when PC game manuals were treated as an important part of the user experience? I remember because I'm old and cranky as fuck but half of you aren't even old enough to remember 9/11 so get the fuck off my lawn and God Bless America)
-Xenonauts
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Old 01-06-2018, 06:58 PM   #471
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Just beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2 at just around 140 hours. Main game is about 100 hours, doing all of the side quests/blade stuff/extra bosses/etc. is probably closer to 160ish hours. Long ass game, but very fun. If you like JRPGs Xenoblade 2 is definitely a must buy
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Old 01-12-2018, 11:01 PM   #472
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Grinding in post-apocalyptic New York: Tom Clancy's The Division (32 hours)

This is a tentative review because I'm just starting to assemble my end-game gear, the journey to level cap had uneven moments, and they've had 18 months of post-release patches to polish this turd, but Ubisoft has:

-Somehow, despite themselves, made a better loot shooter than Bungie

-Created a game where--while the gunplay is admittedly less tight--the guns in a Tom Clancy near-future-combat-tug-job setting are more varied and interesting than the guns you find in a game where you shoot red space rhinos to protect a giant fucking companion cube floating over the last remnants of humanity in the grim darkness of the far future

What the fuck happened?
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Old 01-13-2018, 05:15 PM   #473
Lindz
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Beat!
Yakuza Kiwami
- 24:31:55
How'd this take 9 hours longer than the original? Padding! Some good, some bad! It may be called "Extreme" but the characters & story are super faithful to the original version thankfully! Kamurocho however is not faithful to its vanilla version which kinda sucked. The worst thing about this remake is that the good fighting style is locked behind grinding the same boss level enemy over an over again. I chose to stay the heck away from Majima as much as possible which left me stuck with the 3 unfun fighting styles introduced in 0. They fixed some issues present with the original game but left others untouched. Overall its an okay remake that can replace the PS2 one but with each one having its ups and downs the originals still very viable for playing.

Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS
- 6:06:00
This was abunch of fun! You're started in the Course Creator but can opt out within a few sentences and get straight to the real deal full Mario game hidden within! 100 levels of really strange and surprising things O.o; This is Mario's most bizarre adventure yet what with that weird Mario powerup, cannons spewing coins, and all kinds of freaky level design. Biggest downer was there being to many auto-scrolling/platform riding stages as opposed to ones they let ya go at your own pace. The difficulty curve was pretty flat outside of the spike that was W13, with most levels being done on my first or second try. Mary O. and Yamamura's between world intermissions were nice an a tease at things to come! After beating the main game I made it through the mysterious W19 and then gave 100 Mario Challenge a try on Easy which left me feeling that user made levels sure are... interesting o.o?

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If you like JRPGs Xenoblade 2 is definitely a must buy
Why, I love jrpgs!

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Main game is about 100 hours
Noooooooopes! Hard pass right there!
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Old 01-19-2018, 07:34 PM   #474
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Get!
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
Why pay $60 for an incomplete game when ya can wait an get so much more for $40 o.o? Naturally Capcon manages ta give peeps the finger with this by including the brand new Arcade Modes on the disc but not the 8gb+ large year and a half old General Story mode on it... nor the 12 extra characters ya get with this release... nor the most recent 14gb+ patch... someday after many many many hours of downloading I'll get to play the game!
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Old 01-20-2018, 11:15 PM   #475
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jesus christ what is modern gaming
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