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Sioux

Yevonite
UFFSite Veteran
Oct 7, 2013
60
12
35
Rosebud, SD
I am currently working through Pokemon Red & Blue and once those are slain...enough, then I'll probably move on to Pokemon Gold. God bless that there virtual console for the Nintendo 3DS.
 

Zero

ShinRa SOLDIER
UFFSite Veteran
Besides going through Yakuza Kiwami, I've been on a big retro kick lately... since I went and picked up a CRT TV that I always wanted back before I went HD. A 32" Sony Wega Trinitron. Got it for $10 off craigslist and it's in nearly perfect shape with the remote. I currently have it setup up as an additional TV in the living room, which my wife isn't too happy about, but we'll be buying our own house next year and I'll finally have my game room so...

I've been mostly replaying old Saturn games... Dragon Force, Panzer Dragoon series, Dracula X and the plethora of 2D fighters I have for the system. These games looked so bad on my HD TV's. It's been great playing them on a CRT again. Riding on that enthusiasm, I've decided to have my SNES-101 modded for S-Video output.

When it comes to S-Video cables for old consoles, any of you guys tried RetroBit brand? Just wondering if they're any good.
 

Guitar (pseudo)God

Blitzball Champion
Aug 14, 2016
519
649
All over
Witcher III. Never played any of the previous games, so I wanted to see what the hype was about. It turns out, as it pertains to the story and lore, it is well worth the praise it gets. It's extremely impressive how seemingly insignificant dialog choices can have major impacts on future events. Oftentimes, you're choosing from the least-worse consequence -- something that was sorely lacking from Fallout 4. The open world itself is expansive, if repetitive.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the rest of the game. I cannot stand the main gameplay loop. The controls, even after experimenting with various mappings and sensitivity settings, fight me at every turn. That goes double for the camera. I don't care for the crafting/mutagen/skill system - too obtuse for my tastes.

I'll continue it to see the story out - perhaps I'll set it on the lowest difficulty settings so I can blow through the game and get to the good parts.
 

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
I've been playing Assassin's Creed II (bought the Ezio Trillogy for PS3) since saturday, I've put about 10hs in the game. My thoughts:

Story: I don't care at all about Desmond story, nor can I say I'm very invested in the whole Assassins vs Templars narrative but Ezio is a compelling enough character to carry the story.
Gameplay: Simplictic in many ways yet quite addictive, parkouring your way through the city and buildings is pretty satisfying, weapon and hand to hand combat are serviceable. The hidden blades are -if used correctly- the most broken weapons in the whole game (basically they are 1 hit K.O machines), at least thus far. The open world is ok. The most satisfying thing thus far is exploring and solving puzzles from the "dungeons".
 

LogicalFal'cie

PSICOM Soldier
Sep 8, 2015
83
151
U.K
I'm playing through XII again for the first time since it came out. It's enjoyable enough but it certainly isn't as good or cohesive as I remember. It's funny what your brain remembers eh? Zodiac Age itself is a great remaster though.
Also got the Horizon Zero Dawn DlC and Transistor on the back-burner.
 

Guitar (pseudo)God

Blitzball Champion
Aug 14, 2016
519
649
All over
I played through the Secret of Mana remake/remaster. The price was a little high, but I did want my kids to experience a game from my childhood without the unintuitive iOS controls.

- I liked the updated models. They're faithful to the original. In particular, the enemies were translated quite well.
- The combat was faithful to the original -- almost to a fault. There were some noticeable differences. The normal enemies now hit MUCH harder than I remember. They fixed the evade bug, so you can't just whack everything to death. Conversely, the bosses are still quite easy.
- You can still chain magic to a degree. The new menu shortcuts are a good QOL improvement, but I felt there could have been more done here.
- The voice acting ranges from terrible to passable. However, the new translation is welcomed, considering the stilted nature of the original (understandable for early 90's cartridges). The most notable change here is the party talk at the inns. This seemingly innocuous addition added much-needed characterization (and humor) to the characters and events.
- The game crashed on me quite a number of times -- over 20 I'd say. The game auto-saves on every screen transition, so I never lost too much progress. Regardless, restarting that many times grated on my nerves.
- The new arrangements were a mixed bag. Some were fantastic, and some...weren't.

I had fun with it. It was a trip down memory lane, and apart from a few annoyances it played almost exactly like the SNES classic. And that's what's behind some of the criticism - nostalgia prevents people from remembering what a buggy and uneven mess the original was. Plus this is a version my kids can enjoy.
 

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
Resident evil 7

Played the first two hours and I've to say, while being a quite scary game it's largely very first person horror 101, I hope it improves in the next hours.
 
After nearly four years of waiting, I finally got my hands on Bayonetta 2. Having played this game and its predecessor back-to-back is astounding. While the core gameplay remains the same, Pt Games have made subtle changes to it that enhance the experience manyfold. Ditching cutscene QTEs was already a step in the right direction, but the game feels more fluid than its predecessor in many ways, making the combat more enjoyable, while also ramping up the difficulty in some ways - it feels like it's harder to earn a Platinum Medal/Trophy now compared to the predecessor.

Still, a great successor to an already great game. Can't wait what Team Little Angels will whip up for Bayonetta 3.^^
 
Likes: Storm

Nova

Warrior of Light
Jul 14, 2015
1,773
2,595
DBFZ

Story wise was total shit outside of a couple interactions, fighting through ai punching bags for three whole Arcs was a massive slog.

Online lobbies are a nightmare & ring matchs are flat out dysfunctional at the moment.

With that said, the core fighting gameplay is fantastic and i'm happy to see ArcSys' talents paying off commercially.

Also Android 21 is bae
 
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Likes: Storm

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
Dragon Ball FighterZ. It's awesome.
Right now I can't fight only because my internet has been shaky over the past two months but fighting my siblings and friends are a good enough replacement for that.
 

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
I got NieR: AutoMata three days ago, I'm quite liking the game. Have played about 5 hours of it, I've been doing sidequest and killing some random robots, got up to the point where...
The shirtless white hair dudes reveal aliens were dead all along.

Combat feels pretty smooth, I'm still learning how combos are structured and pratising doing more stylish stuff, even then doing the regular combos feel satisfactory.

Music is also pretty good but, I'm starting to feel a bit sick that all the location themes (thus far) all have vocals, would have preferred them to be only melodies.

It's a shame that visually lacks a bit of polish with some low-res textures in some areas.

I don't have a solid opinion of the story yet but I can smell it is build up to something, and seemly doing it in an obvious in your face manner , but this could be a misdirection for something greater (we'll see).

Sidequests are ok, nothing more to add.

Overall I'd rate it A- at the moment, the score may go up or down depending on how things play out.
 

Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
32
Switzerland
ok, playing the new God of War

i can't believe how unbelievably good it is already, both in narrative and gameplay; i already was a big fan of the previous games, but this is taking to a whole other level; its showing so much promise.

edit:

so i must have played close to 10 hours, this is definitely one of the most beautiful games out there, the gameplay is incredibly satisfying.
 
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Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
I got NieR: AutoMata three days ago, I'm quite liking the game. Have played about 5 hours of it, I've been doing sidequest and killing some random robots, got up to the point where...
The shirtless white hair dudes reveal aliens were dead all along.

Combat feels pretty smooth, I'm still learning how combos are structured and pratising doing more stylish stuff, even then doing the regular combos feel satisfactory.

Music is also pretty good but, I'm starting to feel a bit sick that all the location themes (thus far) all have vocals, would have preferred them to be only melodies.

It's a shame that visually lacks a bit of polish with some low-res textures in some areas.

I don't have a solid opinion of the story yet but I can smell it is build up to something, and seemly doing it in an obvious in your face manner , but this could be a misdirection for something greater (we'll see).

Sidequests are ok, nothing more to add.

Overall I'd rate it A- at the moment, the score may go up or down depending on how things play out.
Follow up to this:

Finished route A of the game and I have to say if this were the only way how the story developed it would have been a dissapointment. If there's something that bother me about the story is that very often it asks a phylosophycal question but doesn't elaborate beyond giving a one sentence long answer. Thankfully the game never constantly beat in my head its underdeveloped themes as much as the opening hours made me fear (or at least in this route...), so kudos to the game for knowing when to shut up.

Started playing route B, will see how much things improved from here.

If I had to give a score at the moment, it would be a 4/5 stars.
 

Storm

Warrior of Light
Oct 26, 2013
3,351
6,012
32
Switzerland
i already cleared almost everything GoW has to offer but i don't want it to end, all the possibilities in the story excites me, this never happened with a GoW title before; this is the type of game you'll remember and think about regularly for a while, the norse mythology is crafted in a way that you have the backstory for characters that havent even appeared yet, its not something thrown your face like past GoWs which lacked a deeper set-up for the greek elements.

personally i found impressive how the game holds such a superb quality during the entirety of its lenght, since we're talking about a game that can easily surpass 40 hours, and the narrative jump in quality is huge, i've never imagined Kratos could reach this emotional level.

engrossing in every sense, i would even call it a masterpiece.

i score it a 9.5, also best GoW and just entered my top 10.

for the cons (hard to find them):

puzzles arent that complicated to solve
there's a bit of backtracking
not many finishers
 
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Nova

Warrior of Light
Jul 14, 2015
1,773
2,595
Playing Xenoblade 2 right now

-Combat feels notably improved from the last two games so far
-Ace+ already doing gods work with the OST god daaaaaaaamn
-Cutscene direction when shit goes down is on fucking point
-ENG VA was so awful i immediately downloaded and switched to JPN VA. Like, holy cow Dub Rex cannot legit scream to save his life
-Cast seem pretty decent right now, Pyra's cute
-Handheld mode looks like literal cancer

Still on chapter 2, looking forward to the rest.
 

Guitar (pseudo)God

Blitzball Champion
Aug 14, 2016
519
649
All over
I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I'd classify it as a passable game at best and inferior to the first one.

One man's opinion:

  1. The story - yeah... There's not much I will talk about without venturing into spoiler territory, so I'll give impressions. First off, Rex must have spent his down time from salvaging watching old Tony Robbins videos. I lost track of the number of motivational speeches, and for each one the law of diminishing returns certainly applied. The game did a good job of setting up the main antagonists' motivation and subsequent actions, but I found them so baffling stupid I simply didn't care. Conversely, the smaller interactions between the characters were far superior to the overarching plot. Overall, it's a fair regression from the first game in both concept and execution.
  2. The less said about the voice acting the better. The dialog itself wasn't too offensive, but the performances were cringe-inducing.
  3. I did find the world compelling. The environments seemed smaller than the first game, but I thought those were far too big and overstayed their welcome very quickly (Mechonis -- urgh). Of note was the fast-travel implementation -- so much better than the first game. It also helped that the Switch was able to load these areas to where it didn't make exploration a chore.
  4. Now we come to the battle system. It combined the excitement of an Excel spreadsheet with the joy of waiting for paint to dry. The developers must have taken the Taco Town idea of battle implementation; it has systems on top of systems on top of systems it quickly becomes overwhelming. To be fair, I did get used to it later on - but I reverted to a strategy of break -> topple -> launch -> smash in conjunction with the Simon Says routine of the Blade specials. This, frankly, was enough to take me through the entire game and survive the bosses and most all optional encounters. (Thankfully, death immediately returns you to a checkpoint and you keep your progress - great if you run into a level 90 monster -- or fall off a cliff because of a F**KING HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BOSS FIGHT!) I'm sure if I put enough time into the accessories, core crystals (which was better implemented than the first game) I could have made things easier on myself, but I simply didn't care.
  5. Thankfully the game has a way of getting around the battle system, and that's by overlevelling through side quests. Here is where the game truly shined. Most of them were to the point -- even the obligatory fetch quests. It was helpful that they revealed more about the world than was presented in the main story. (I did mention fast travel, right?) And if I can run through an area (through the power of FRIENDSHIP!) without wading through swarms of creatures with way too many hit points, so much the better.
  6. The Blade system - so this is what compulsive gambling feels like. Sure, I get it in the context of the story -- but it left so much to be desired. I think it would have been much better to have the Core Crystals be all the "named" blades. I think I got about 5-6 through resonating (through 20+ Legendary Crystals, even after looking up the goddamned mechanics and muttering an audible "you've got to be f**king kidding me"). The others were from side quests, which I could handle. And only a few were useful - the vast majority were just plain awful.
  7. Other complaints - the field system. Okay, decent concept - poor execution. Why did I have to equip 3 separate blades on every goddamn character to be able to dive in the water? All my resonated blades HAVE THE REQUIRED SKILLS ALREADY! What time-consuming rigamarole do I have to do now to build affinity? Feed this blade collectible items? Cool. Fight untold number of battles? Not cool. Play "Tiger! Tiger!" and get 100 ether where I need 30K? HELL-to-the no.
  8. The enemy names must have come from a Wu-Tang Clan name generator. "Hey, we need a name for a big monkey." "Okay -- Big Monkey comes out to be... Immortal Gonzalez." "Done!"
  9. I haven't followed the game's reception on the various forums, but I can only imagine some of the reaction to the character design. I'm the furthest thing from a prude imaginable, yet some of the Blades (and certain leering camera angles) looked like they came out of a late-night Cinemax movie. My teenage self would have loved it; my adult self just sighed.
I could have written 10K more words -- on the plot alone. Overall, it's not a "bad" game (most aren't these days), but it's a case study how overstuffing a game with superfluous content can't replace a compelling narrative.
 

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
Bought the game two days ago, have played about 5hs of the game, first impressions:

The story is pretty followable for someone like me who never played the previous games. There's stuff in background about War and the Wild Hunt that I don't particularly care though.

It's a pretty looking game, probably the open world game with the most density of assets per meter square I've played.

So far the side-quest are nothing special but, I do like that you can fail a quest and said quest remain permanently as failed, don't know what other games do it but this is something I would like to see more often in RPGs.

Combat is OK. I don't think it's bad like some people say but, I do think it's quite unresponsive half the time, I think the main issue is that half of Gerald's attack (both Sword and Hand2Hand) animations take longer than they should to perform. Outside of that everything seems functional so far.

Navigating the menu is cubersome, by far the thing I like the less about the game.

I like the music, can't elaborate much.

Misc Stuff: Gerald has a quite low and raspy voice that can distore a bit what word he's exactly saying.

I'm liking it, as early as it might be, at the moment I'd rate it 8/10.