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@“captain”#p49735 I’m glad it demanded those things of me
Fought a scorpion boss and rethinking my gladness :/
Have been plugging away at The Case of the Golden Idol, finishing a scenario every other day or so, and I‘m having a pretty pleasant time! I hit a few frustrating little spots where I prevailed more by trial and error than by any sort of logical deduction–some leaps of logic seem a bit far-fetched and I swear they are ||reusing some character art assets for different characters and/or characters are adopting different names in the course of the story, which is a bit too much for my meager brain to handle||. It’s definitely in the Obra Dinn-like category, but lends itself more to bite-sized play sessions. I wouldn‘t say it completely scratches the Obra Dinn itch, but it’s at least seven tenths of an itch-scratcher.
lol at your observation under the spoiler text. You might be on to something…
@“Syzygy”#p90333 That‘s possible lol. It’s been a long time since I played the original all the way through but I do remember (contrary to this experience) enjoying the complexity of its mechanics, which as I recall were sometimes underexplained (when they were mentioned at all), where here I can‘t tell whether I’m failing to understand something or if the combat is really held together with spit and glue. It seems strange, for example, that your sometimes-AI-controlled party members will wander right up to enemies when, because their pins are depleted, you're unable to take control of them and make them dodge attacks
Not a game I‘m currently playing, but one I’m hoping to play soon. I‘m hankering for an SRPG but I’m not sure what to bite into.
Ones I'm thinking about:
Can anyone persuade me one way or the other?
i played some bejeweled 3 and telltale poker night today
a very casual gamer day for me
@“rearnakedwindow”#p90373 BOY are these some tough choices.
I have a tendency to lean towards Saturn games BUT Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time is probably in my top 5 favorite games of all time as well as being a very Saturn-feeling game kinda.
Sakura Wars would be my second suggestion, and Wild Arms XF my third.
They are all very good choices.
@“mtvcribs”#p90393 I think I've been leaning toward Growlanser as well (Dragon Force is the one I want to play most, but it feels like the biggest commitment maybe?). Thank you for your thoughts!
I started Returnal last night and I‘m not sure how much I like it. The movement, gun play, and general mechanics are pretty solid but it takes ages to make in-game progress through biomes and a death feels a lot more like time has been wasted than in any other rogue adjacent game that I’ve played and became immediately apparent that right before I was about to encounter the first boss I died from an enemy that seemed to be invulnerable to attacks, at least given what I had at the time.
I'd not mind so much if the permanent upgrades weren't quite so demanding to unlock; find a certain item for an upgrade and then take it to a certain area to deposit and trigger the upgrade. My death before doing so meant its loss and a sense that I'd just wasted the best part of an hour.
I do understand that I'll start being more confident within its world but I admit that experience has me discouraged despite how lovingly made the rest of the game is - and this is coming from someone that's got a Platinum trophy on both Nier games so I'm not exactly averse to perseverance. Returnal almost feels like it doesn't want to be played and I've half a mind to call its bluff.
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@“rearnakedwindow”#p90373 Not a game I’m currently playing, but one I’m hoping to play soon. I’m hankering for an SRPG but I’m not sure what to bite into.
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Ones I’m thinking about:
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Dragon Force (SAT)
> Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time (PSP)
> Arc the Lad 1
> Wild Arms XF
> Jeanne D’Arc
> Sakura Wars
> Kartia
> Saiyuki: Journey West
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Can anyone persuade me one way or the other?
Very different vibes.
Surprisingly short, non-commital and easy game if you don’t care for the optional 100 floors dungeon near the end. Feels like (and literally was) a prologue for a longer game (Arc the Lad 2). The impression of playing a vertical slice pissed teenage me off at the time but the great thing from a busier adult perspective is you’ll be done quickly.
PS1-era game design busywork (even the PSP game). Not to say these games aren’t good or uninteresting but they’ll require an investment and attention (especially Kartia) which is hard to commit to in modern distracting times. Unless you specifically ache for the "knee-deep in the weeds" feeling of playing a SRPG, maybe wait for the Holidays?
Similar to the above but slightly more interesting and modern, with excellent production value, strong characterization and that (Golden Era) Level 5 "touch" of streamlining just enough some mechanics and ideas that should have been cumbersome if done by any other prinny-shaped hands.
I think that’s the port of Growlanser IV, right? Haven’t played the Growlanser sequels yet; only the first one which was quite the handful. Might be an even tougher cookie to crack if you go into it without the context of having played Langrisser III•IV•V and having seen the series slow transformation from tactical to RTS. I’d also expect it to be frustrating without a guide but then again, I haven’t played this one at all! Maybe I am completely wrong!
On the contrary, I’d definitely argue it’s the lowest commitment in the list! _Not_ a SRPG but one of the greatest casual strategy games of all time. Much more laid back and slow paced than the other titles above. Make sure you have this chart below of soldier classes’ advantages & weakness on hand, as a helpful reference, if you don’t have access to the original manual. Pretty much the entire game relies on this chart! Also I’d recommend you increase your leader’s max MP as much as possible before the final battle (try to ensure they can cast their strongest magic spell twice).
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/ZcxQsb7.png]
Saturn/Dreamcast version, I assume? Not the PS2 remake? The "episode of the week" structure of the story is extremely comfy to make progress or make a pause now and then. Very light on the tactics side so don’t expect too much from the battles. You’ll need to be invested in the six heroines’ stories and relationships with your avatar but fortunately they are rather well characterized (within the tropes of the genre and those times). Great game if you like romantic simulations and tactics games but don’t feel like investing too much into either side. Memorable characters. Excellent vibe of the overall world setting. Outstanding soundtrack and voice acting.
@“chazumaru”#p90478 Wow. I want to, like, stand up and applaud. Thank you for that helpful answer!
Hmm I'm still got some tough deciding here but you helped me a lot. I don't know if Growlanser on PSP is IV. I was mainly going for that because it's in English and easy for me to emulate (had to fix the PPSSPP font, but I'm good now).
And yeah Sakura Wars for Saturn is the one I was thinking of.
You seem like a real strategy aficionado. I've played through most of the entry level must-play stuff (FFT, Tactics Ogre, Shining Force II, Fire Emblem 7, various Nippon Ichi games) and Vandal Hearts. If there's anything else you can recommend, I'd love to know.
Overall, I'm leaning either towards Growlanser or Sakura Wars here (you sold it really well).
@“rearnakedwindow”#p90494 I don’t think any of them are bad games. Kartia is probably the diciest by modern standards. Arc The Lad’s simplicity is both its greatest asset and greatest weakness. Saiyuki has a translation from another age but the story is a literary classic. I obviously can’t say for Growlanser PSP but @“mtvcribs”#1223 vouches for it so you should definitely go for it first since you were already convinced and have a set-up ready.
Once you are done with Growlanser, I think your next game depends on what aspect you are looking into the most next. (Obviously another option is you fall in love with Growlanser and catch up with all the other episodes.)
① If you are more into having a comfy Shining Force II / Vandal Hearts time, I’d say this is the most relevant ranking for you.
→Other good candidates: Valkyria Chronicles, Dragon Force II, Langrisser, Langrisser II, Shining Force III, Feda: The Emblem of Justice, Devil Survivor, Devil Survivor 2, Banner of the Maid
More interested into deeper strategy mechanics and experimentation? Then I’d say:
→Other good candidates: Triangle Strategy, Valkyria Chronicles, Brigandine, Steamworld Heist, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Rebelstar Tactical Command, X-Com
More into diving into the lore, interesting characters, engaging plot and stuff? I’d say:
→Other good candidates: Triangle Strategy, Front Mission 3, Langrisser II, Ogre Battle 64, The Banner Saga, Shining Force III
I think the first three Sakura Wars games keep getting better. Sakura Wars is a really cool idea (and innovative for its time) but ultimately a pretty shallow game and more like an interactive anime. I like Sakura Taisen 2 even more, but it’s a direct sequel and hard to recommend as a first try. Sakura Taisen 3 (which is much more standalone than 2) is the apex of the series: amazingly funny, beautiful and its slightly more imaginative battle system prefigures what would become the (excellent) game system of Valkyria Chronicles.
Valkyria Chronicles is pretty great, despite its stupidly naive interpretation of World War 2 and antisemitism, and frequently on sale at an absurd price (typically 5$) on [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/294860/Valkyria_Chronicles/) and on the [eShop](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/valkyria-chronicles-switch/).
If you want to try a true _classic_, since you have already played TO and Shining Force, I highly recommend Langrisser II, made by the people who would later create the Growlanser series. It’s one of the key pillars of the genre. There are tons of versions available on different platforms but, if you can spend a bit of money, I would especially recommend the recent remake available in the Langrisser I&II remake ([Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060220/Langrisser_I__II/)/[Switch](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/langrisser-i-and-ii-switch/)). This remake comes with tons of excellent QOL options, it includes pretty much all the contents from the different versions released over the years and you can (separately) revert to the old sprites, character illustrations or soundtrack if you don’t care for any or every aspect of the modern design.
I‘m currently playing Bayonetta 2 in order to be able to play 3, and while I’m generally having a Good Time, I feel like by all accounts this game should have been called “More of Bayonetta 1” rather than Bayonetta “Two”, which implies some kind of advancement or refinement of the formula. Not exactly complaining because Bayonetta 1 is a great action game, but I guess it‘s fitting that in all occasions they’ve released Bayo 2 for sale it has been bundled with the first game, as if they were two parts of the same package. Guess that sums up well enough how I'm feeling with the sequel.
I ended up finishing Lost Odyssey without completing all the secondaries and honestly it was the best decisions I could ever made. I‘m sorry because I like the game, but I felt the story had a lot of potential and you could see glints of greatness here and there, but I feel there are a lot of problems with pacing that doesn’t let me enjoy the story as much.
Now I‘m thinking which games I’m going to play, since there are a lot of great horror games that came this month. Saturnalia, Signalis, Scorn… I feel like this would make me want to play some horror games I never dared to play.
EDIT: Well, I played a bunch of hours of Signalis and while it doesn't scare me as much, I think it's a very charming game that takes note of the PS1 horror classics' mechanics. The limited inventory, the way you use bullet and such is very RE, and I could say both of the illustrators who made the game loved the SH/RE formula, but they take this and several references to make a game of their own and I have to say it feels good to play it. The animations are cool, some of the puzzles are nice... I think the boss I played is not that good, honestly, but the rest feels nice and while there are a lot of references the game stands on its own two feet. Definitely worth playing.
I played kind of a lot of Demon's Crest last night for spooky month but those bosses are fucking hard so I had to call it quits. Replaying levels with different modes of traversal at my disposal was fun.
Was playing in the NSO SNES emulator with an NSO SNES controller and I have some thoughts
I'm kind of wondering what I should play next that I can fit in before Pokémon Scarlet comes out.
Started playing through Persona 5 Royal last night. Didn't want to name my dude after myself so I called him Porsty Portella.
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/yUm0BR6.jpeg]
||Kinda hideously disgusted at how not a single dialogue option ever allows me to speak to anyone with any kind of humanity or compassion. One of the recent plot beats I just ran through required me to confront abuse victims who hardly know who I am in the middle of a school day and force them to tell me what they've been through; if they didn't comply, my only options were "Why won't you tell me" or "you're a coward." One of these girls ends up jumping off the roof of the school, and after witnessing that scene another abused student runs away from the premises. Deciding this is "suspicious," Porsty and his friend pursue. Cornering him in a locker room, they scream at this kid insisting "we know you know something!" And people say this game is good...?||
Been a week of hospital visits. My elder son was a bit wheezy and lost his voice, but then suddenly had an episode right before bed where he couldn't breathe. Rushed him to urgency care where he got treated but had to stay for observation for a few hours. While there we watched a long play of Donkey King Country on my phone where this motherfucker never died even once.
Since everyone has been sick here, my son and I finished Mario RPG, which is still the greatest game ever made. A cool experience to play it again after 25 years and to share it with my son.
Since then, he's all about Donkey Kong and, man, those games are unforgiving. Also, it's absolute horseshit that when you reopen a save, you only have 5 lives because I had near 30 when I saved!
Anyway, Donkey Kong County 2 is the only one that's actually fun to play. 3 was so gratingly unpleasant to play that I gave up real fast. Possibly this is because it's the only one I never played growing up so there was no nostalgic shine to it.
Also, people sometimes talk about hangout games and I'm not sure there's a better one that I've played than Pokemon Arceus. Seems designed to just pick up and play for half an hour at a time. It's a game made up of sidequests, which is pretty all right. And you can just ignore what people want you to do and wander around catching pokemon indefinitely.
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@“rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”#p90548 I’m kind of wondering what I should play next that I can fit in before Pokémon Scarlet comes out.
NSO Vice: Project Doom
NSO Crystalis
NSO Breath of Fire II
NSO Kirby’s Dream Course
NSO Earthbound
NSO Phantasy Star IV★
NSO Shining Force II★
NSO Alien Soldier★
(★if you have the NSO Premium whatever)
I played the entirety of **LIVE**[color=#EE0000]**A**[/color]**LIVE** (the HD2D remake) with the NSO Super Nintendo controller and it was a blast. Also a surprisingly short RPG so you’d likely be done in time for Pokémon.
Another likely good candidate for the NSO Super Famicom controller is the upcoming Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Another good candidate is the free Deltarune demo.
I‘ve been addicted to Victoria 3. In my first campaign I started as the apartheid Cape Colony and transformed South Africa into a multicultural Pan-African republic. The Boer landowners became radicalized, so I instituted labor reforms raised the standard of living so high they wouldn’t dare stage a rebellion. Next I cast off the yoke of British oppression and survived a near market collapse after we severed ties. Thankfully Spain offered me an alliance and a place in their market. It was a compromising choice, but I had started a colonial project of my own that I was working on, to free slaves and integrate countries into my dictatorship of the proletariat. I got a little zealous expanding welfare reforms and subsidizing the worker co-ops that we soon turned into full-bore communism. I ended by expanding as far north as Nigeria and Chad, before the performance was so laggy I had to stop. Still, I feel proud of my first game:
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/ObQKPT4.jpeg]
Next I'll play a totally different style of game. Maybe I will play as a German free city and try to stop Prussia and prevent Europe from exploding intoWWI. Maybe I'll play as Japan and try keeping them a closed market for as long as possible during the Meiji restoration. Or prevent the American civil war by having Mexico conquer the south first. Or turn a Arabian bedouin outpost into an urban oasis. So many ways to play, even though the game doesn't have a fraction of the amount of 'flavor' it will have in a few years.
The Victoria team did a fantastic job with pops, supply lines, production, trade, and internal politics. The new war system is controversial but I think it is an overall improvement over paradox games that are a little too micro-intensive. I think there is still a lot of room for improvement with diplomatic options, the UI, and performance, but I have great faith in this team, and think that what they have made is an great accomplishment.
@“Tradegood”#p90574 uhhh this looks awesome, and i had no idea it existed.
i've never played anything like this, but i am fascinated by your description of it. i'm also not what you would call a "history buff." is this the kind of experience a noob can approach and still have an engaging experience? bonus points if i could learn something about actual world history in the process.
EDIT: would Victoria II perhaps be a better jumping-on point? or maybe something else entirely? i genuinely don't even know how to refer to this genre. "grand strategy?" note, i have tried Civilization VI, and thought it was okay.