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Post by acathala on Oct 26, 2020 19:57:14 GMT -5
Are you not enjoying it still?
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Post by TG Barighm on Oct 27, 2020 1:08:41 GMT -5
I'm mixing things up by changing builds as I go, and the core systems are still fun, but I seriously never expected the game to take this long. Weirder, I don't know where the time is going. It feels like I am charging through the dungeons and the content, barely reading anything, throwing on only that gear I need and selling the rest. Time still flies.
It's only really bugging me because I expected to clear out the rest of 360 backlog by this point. Instead, this one game is eating up all that time.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 1, 2020 17:05:29 GMT -5
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5: So far adjustments to the weapon growth systems and they've rejigged the campaign to feel more like a reboot of the original story. Still dumb fun.
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Post by acathala on Nov 1, 2020 19:20:07 GMT -5
KoTOR. So I downloaded this onto my mobile. It works surprisingly well, although some of the text can be difficult to read. I suspect Vao is going to annoy me, unless she gets some serious development. Carth, I like, and the Wookie is pretty fun too. The one thing that really irks me about the game, is the lack of a fast travel system, other than takes you to your base.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 1, 2020 22:27:58 GMT -5
You've never played KoTor? Dude!
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Post by acathala on Nov 1, 2020 23:15:34 GMT -5
At the time I didn't have anything that could run it. More of a console player. Better late than never. Apparently I have cut content from the original as well.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 2, 2020 2:07:17 GMT -5
It was a console title.
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Post by acathala on Nov 2, 2020 5:57:29 GMT -5
Only for Xbox. I had PlayStation.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 8, 2020 7:04:12 GMT -5
Now playing Amalur as a rogue-ish build. This is proving to be much more fun than that awful Might build. It's pretty effective without too much effort whereas that might build requires you to pack ridiculous amounts of damage plus enhancements on your gear just to deal decent damage. Even then, the damage is pretty much restricted to a single target. The AoEs suck.
The game has been easier to stomach in the later zones. The early zones are SLOW and crazy dull, carried only by the core gameplay. You don't see any really interesting zone stories and dungeons until later. The dungeon design is still modern hallway drek, but at least the themes of the zones lead to more interesting stories than just a never ending glut of "go to that cave and fetch something for me".
I sure hope that new expansion will be standalone. I want the franchise to get a proper follow-up, but I don't think I can bring myself to play through the core game again.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 13, 2020 21:33:30 GMT -5
And I'm at the halfway point of Amalur. Yeesh.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 17, 2020 4:14:18 GMT -5
Good lord the final stretch of Amalur is BUGGY.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 18, 2020 17:19:21 GMT -5
FINALLY finished Amalur, clocked at 96 hours. It actually sped up quite a bit when I reached a zone where there was a merchant and certain key crafting stations at a camp I could just run to whenever.
On to Binary Domain.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 25, 2020 6:01:32 GMT -5
Binary Domain down! On to Vanquish! Or Bulletstorm. Haven't decided on that on yet.
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Post by acathala on Nov 27, 2020 23:51:24 GMT -5
I'm retro at the minute, with the original BoF. They've had me solo with Ryu, and just when I think I'm getting Nina, they put me on solo with her. At least she gets soldier Npcs not too long in her run.
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Post by TG Barighm on Nov 28, 2020 23:00:28 GMT -5
Did Vanquish, now doing Bulletstorm.
I actually enjoyed Binary Domain more than Vanquish. Vanquish is cool and all, but there were WAY too many times when I died for what felt like no good reason, and there are very few ways to disable certain annoying design elements that just don't work (such as automatically going into bullet time when your HP gets too low; it's a nice boon, but when you're chaining them back to back over and over again, it gets really annoying; obviously you can say "stop getting hit", but again, there are a lot of times when I'm getting hit and I have no idea how. The game does a poor job communicating enemy tells).
This didn't happen in Binary Domain. BD has its issues, but in terms of combat, there aren't many and I always seemed to know exactly how and why anything happened. Also, methodically dismembering and trashing robots is way more fun than just shooting at an enemy that doesn't react in any way to getting shot aside from its health bar depleting.
So far Bulletstorm has been just as stylish as I remember. My only problem with it is the lack of a toggle button for crouching. You're expected to hold L3 to crouch, which is okay when crouching is rare, but it's not rare in Bulletstorm and it hurts my thumb.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 7, 2020 18:20:30 GMT -5
Back to EDF5. Almost finished the campaign, although leveling the other three classes will take some time...when I get around to it. Still need to do the same in EDF2025! And yet I just bought EDF:Iron Rain! Gah!
Man, I thought my 360 backlog was bad, but I just got a look at my PS4 library, including all of the digital games I've purchased that I haven't played yet. Holy crap...and unlike my 360 collection, most of the games are RPGs, so no quick 5 hour romps like on my Xbox.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 10, 2020 21:05:44 GMT -5
GANG BEASTS: My sister actually grabbed this game to play. It's...well, it's plain goofy fun.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 15, 2020 5:01:05 GMT -5
BATTLETOADS REBOOT: The actual core combat mechanics are fine and decently deep, but the game also has a sizable amount of mini-games. And they suck for the most part, or just run WAY too long. The story runs like some crappy Adult Swim cartoon and is very generic and "me too'ish" without any sense of wit or charm. They would have been better off continuing the cliche but totally badass storyline of the original game where they were capable of doing things the Ninja Turtles just couldn't do.
*Gave up on Battletoads. Towards the end of the game it begins throwing a bunch of bullet hell levels at you. This isn't such a bad thing in itself, but it plays more like a twin stick shooter which I just don't enjoy very much.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 16, 2020 5:24:42 GMT -5
LUNA NIGHTS: Cute little Metroidvania. Interesting mechanic where getting close to enemies steals their HP or MP. The only way to approach them safely is to either slow time near them, which is good for HP, or to stop it entirely which is only good for MP, but you're free to cast all the spells you want when time is stopped for free. Only one boss fight so far but it was pretty epic. The game actually has a very high metacritic rating.
*Although the game ended up being pretty short with no real replay value, and the total number of items you pick up are pretty one-dimensional, the rest of the game's boss fights ended up being epic. The final one required me to actually mix up my special abilities quite a bit, and I even needed to grind a few levels. It's actually a very good game.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 20, 2020 15:10:38 GMT -5
IKENFALL: Another low tier retro RPG from Game Pass, this one channels Earthbound to deliver yet another take on Harry Potter. Although the graphics are very early SNES, the game itself is actually very good. Simple mechanics, sure, but so far I've encountered a good bit of variety in combat with enemies doing all sorts of things from launching heroes across the map, eating other enemies, buffing all nearby monsters (including your own), and raging, sleeping, or laughing depending on what element you hit them with (ie, make them sleep). Gear has also been very significant so far with large differences in any stat having a large impact on battle. Oh, and there's options to disable the timing mechanics or an "I WIN" button if you don't like certain fights.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 23, 2020 2:13:43 GMT -5
Okay, I know Cyberpunk is getting roasted, but everything I'm hearing about the game is that it plays a lot like Fallout 3. All this time I was expecting something like the Witcher or something akin to it, but Fallout? That actually piques my interest.
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Post by acathala on Dec 23, 2020 18:37:08 GMT -5
I'm sure it'll be a great game when it's finished.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 24, 2020 4:09:06 GMT -5
I guess that I shouldn't be surprised there are so many used copies of Cyberpunk available for purchase right now, lol. I'll let you know how it plays.
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Post by TG Barighm on Dec 28, 2020 7:01:32 GMT -5
IKENFELL is proving to be a much better game than I expected, playing just as well as some of the greatest SNES RPGs. It has benefitted from a surprising leap in quality at around the half way mark of the game, jumping from quick little dungeons and a handfull of monsters to more moderate sized dungeons filled with surprises and crafty enemies. It's not quite as deep as the very best RPGs, but it's right up there, held back mostly by the charmless too-old retro graphics, a generic setting, and a bit of woke crap but not bad. It still has a neat little story, plenty of nooks and crannies to loot, a goodly number of secrets, and a fair cast of heroes for you to customize with suitably unique gear. If this game released on the SNES before, say, FF4, it would likely have been considered one of the greatest RPGs of the era.
**Blarg. The woke stuff spiked sharply towards the end. Why are so many indie games like this? Still a great game though.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 4, 2021 5:29:05 GMT -5
STREETS OF ROGUE: Rogue-like dungeon crawler with an emphasis on Deux Ex-style choice of approach. You can either fight your way through the random dungeons, sneak, or use other means. I was expecting more of a straight RPG, but the different approaches you could take was a nice surprise. Still, a lot of its combat is twin-stick.
RIVER CITY GIRLS: Brawler, or beat'em up if you prefer, with a strong helping of RPG mechanics including exp, leveling up, and gear. Started out pretty blah but quickly improved as you learn more techniques and the combat variety picked up. The anime/manga vibe is also a nice change of pace from the retro stuff I've been playing lately. It's also a surprisingly meaty game with 15 hours of gameplay, and double that for full completion. So far, so good.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 5, 2021 6:37:42 GMT -5
CYBERPUNK: So it plays like a mix of Fallout 3, Deux Ex, and GTA. The RPG elements do seem pretty deep. There are a lot of perk trees to choose from. Every stat has its own perk tree, and most have different pages of perks, each of which have different levels. So there are quite a few ways to level. And, yeah, there's a fair bit of jank going on. I've also been focusing on the main story which everyone says apparently runs okay. Still early and so far the game is throwing tons of cinematic stuff at me, but it's certainly promising. Controls feel a little wonky though.
**Although it turns out a lot of perks don't work, or they have actions that AREN'T AVAILABLE IN THE GAME. Yikes!
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 5, 2021 18:48:50 GMT -5
Anyway, bugs I've encountered so far.
-During an early quest, helped carry an injured person to an ambulance. After they drove away, all of the NPCs in the ambulance appeared a few seconds later, well after the ambulance passed, and flew through the air after it.
-In the menu screen, the right stick of my controller seems to be suffering from drift since the cursor loves to float around the screen and drag menus down...except I then tested that same stick in other games and I didn't see any drift in them. So...it's just Cyberpunk.
-A bunch of police randomly decided I was guilty of something and gunned me down. I was literally just standing by a nearby sign and looking at it (the signs are really cool). Wasn't anywhere near them, and you need to pass through the area for a quest, so clearly I didn't do anything wrong in the first place. Probably the first truly annoying glitch I've encountered.
-Upon shooting someone with a shotgun, the NPC turned into Mr. Fantastic and stretched vertically. He kept stretching and stretching until he became so thin he winked out of existence...with a splash of blood. Gotta say, I laughed at that one.
-I've encountered a few items in the environment, including what I think is a key piece of gear you're supposed to pick up as your first "gear up" item, that I simply couldn't pick up. No matter how close I got to the item, there was no prompt to pick it up. Thankfully, a few minutes later, you get your second mandatory piece, so the quest still triggers properly.
-I've encountered one instance of "fuzzy boobs". Yes, it's as funny as it sounds.
-Some design foibles, such as in one quest where you're supposed to review security footage to identify clues. The game tells you to look for when a computer is on, then gives you "clues" at multiple points throughout the tape. But it's only at the end that you can actually scan the computer. Of course, there could have been other clues to scan and I just missed them, but I wasted a lot of time scanning the environment at the points the game said there WERE clues...only to reveal much later that the one I actually needed was at the end of the tape. Feels like the game was trolling me. Of course, there are far more serious design foibles like perks for abilities that aren't even in the game, but I'm just noting the stuff I have seen so far.
-The game doesn't seem to delete old autosaves. That might be the source of the memory leak; not the deleting of autosaves part, but the fact the game avoids writing over old autosaves.
-Quite a few instances where the game says "press (or don't press) this button to do this", and I do, or don't, but the game does it anyway.
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Post by acathala on Jan 5, 2021 21:02:38 GMT -5
What are you playing it on?
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Post by TG Barighm on Jan 5, 2021 22:03:47 GMT -5
Base PS4. So the "funnest" platform to play it on. Some more: -The game tends to "clone" text and graphics, such as game over screens and the like. So you'll open a menu and it will open, but then suddenly disappear, load for a sec, and then the menu will load in properly. This happens a lot with pretty much every pop-up type menu. -A lot of buttons don't seem to do what the game thinks they do. I found it better to just ignore the tutorials in some respects.
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Post by acathala on Jan 6, 2021 6:52:01 GMT -5
Oh you poor thing.
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