Finished Air Combat 7, which I‘d explain later, but to sum it up: even if the campaign was more disappointing than I would have expected to, it is still a very good game with some amazing missions, so I’ll probably explore the DLCs and other content. Now I‘m going to finish the pending games I have, although it’s going to be slower than I expected.
Also, I tried Valkyria Chronicles (I bought the remaster of the 1st and the 4th). The first so far has a very neat beginning and I love the strategy system and how flexible it can be.
I finished up VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action last night. I don‘t play a lot of visual novels, but I feel like I’m familiar with them. Overall, I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. I played it sans-walkthroughs or other spoilers. When I finished it I looked it up and I got the “good Alma” ending. Judging from how one gets the endings, it‘s equally plausible I would have gotten any of the other good endings, but this works out well as the VN Rorschach test because I enjoyed Alma’s character the most.
Kinda took a break with _Control_. I think I'm effectively through the main game and probably have only a few hours left, but I went and did the Alan Wake side quest DLC thingy and I didn't care for that level at all. Well, I like the writing and the story and the monster, but I hated all the fights. I think I'm going to skip trying to beat the monster and go finish the main game.
@antillese#30691 did you play or get any reliable opinions about Coffee Talk? I know that I‘ll enjoy Vallhalla when I get to it, and Coffee Talk seems like a less interesting version of that. I played the first like ten minutes on my sister’s copy and wasn't really enthralled from that
@dylanfills#30717 Sorry! Never heard of it until now!
After reaching the first real boss in Sekiro and failing enough times for the guilt-inducing dragonrot mechanics to kick in, Dragon Quest 11 is there to pick me up and change my gamer diaper for me, and give me little kisses on my forehead.
I redid my Dark Souls control scheme for Sekiro:
Left Paddle is hookshot, Right Paddle is same as for Dark Souls and DQ11-- Dash
It feels so good running, jumping, and using the hookshot. I love the way this game feels. I remember seeing some really dumb reviews complain about many of the mechanical and control choices in this one.
I fine-tuned my Sekiro and Dragon Quest 11 control schemes so that they both make sense and overlap in important areas. Wouldn't be interesting to anyone, but I really enjoy fine-tuning these games to feel the way I want them to on my 8bitdo pro 2...
@treefroggy#30769 I spent the entire game in full blast dragon rot. It doesn’t matter that much for a first playthrough. It’s like playing DS1 without looking like a prune. It’s challenge mode more than anything.
@CidNight#30778 nah it does make me wanna restart and play that beginning sequence again through to the boss but then I might also begin to Dragonrot myself,
@treefroggy#30785 The only thing it really effects are the NPC side quests. And you can even do those without worrying too much about dragonrot. There is an item that removes the dragonrot (it begins to build again as soon as you start to die), and they give you enough of those that you can essentially clean the rot every time you take down a big boss, then run around to the NPCs and progress their quests, then rinse and repeat.
At least for me, Sekiro was so challenging that I can't imagine playing the game while worrying about dragonrot. I think that would kill the experience for me.
@christoffing#30224 You’re correct about the game weighing character level harder than any other variable. You can pretty safely get through the whole game ignoring most or all of the five thousand variables and subsystems, which are only vitally necessary to superboss-challenging 100% completion run masochists, and just go back and grind sidequests any time you hit a progression barrier in the story until you’re sufficiently leveled up. (Fran is also correct that the gem-crafting system is both the most convoluted and least consequential.) Succumbing to completionism in this game is a recipe for burnout since the sheer quantity and sameness of sidequests is absolutely mind-numbing (though the Switch version makes them a lot more painless to check off than they were originally) and they contribute zilch to the narrative anyway. (Let’s just say you can really, really tell that the main storyline and sidequests/incidental dialogue were not handled by the same people.)
@JoJoestar#30394 Funny, imo the only non-forgettable parts of the story are the wacky bits at the end where it actually starts to resemble the other _Xeno_ games. It definitely suffers from a classic case of [Grand JRPG Cliche #183](https://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html) though.
@2501#30828 Mystery is well presented during the whole game imo, with a good number of things going on that are interesting, but it depends on what do you mean by the wacky bits at the end. The final reveal is kinda cool, and reminiscent of Xeno games, true, but the whole climax leading to it is super boring jRPG nonsense, with ||nondescript angelical boy villain with wings and a very bland good vs. bad central conflict. Almost every reveal once the game shifts gears to “let's actually explain things” fell flat to me.||
My wife and I finished up Super Mario 3D World last night. Overall, I really enjoyed it, but some of those levels are rouuuuugh and the two players actually exacerbate it. I‘ll probably poke at Bowser's Fury a bit, but it’s effectively a single player game.
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@antillese#30931 and the two players actually exacerbate it.
my wife and i used to watch our niece and nephew every night while their mom worked, and those two and our kids used to play mario 3d world together, but we eventually had to ban it. nothing can make kids fight more than the combination of age differences and "working together."
this is what's so great about the game "heave-ho": yes, players are always screwing each other up, but it's hilarious when it happens.
@pasquinelli#30937 The game is great fun in co-op until it isn‘t, which is somewhere around halfway in, at which point even experienced Mario players will start mostly getting in the way of each other. Very weird how every multiplayer Mario has exactly this problem and they still haven’t solved it!
i was just now playing “the longing” and doing the dishes. my character was digging a tunnel, and i was keeping an ear out for the ticking of the pick, and it dawned on me that the game feels like cooking.
to make it about waiting but not unbearable to play, you can set your character doing something, most of the time walking, and he'll go on his own. basically, you're putting the game on a burner and letting it cook. so far i haven't run into any situation analogous to burning your food, but it would be interesting if it happened.
I streamed the first two hours or so of the Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir remake – which I just found out was done by Mages – and it‘s one of the few visual novels I’ve ever tried (I beat the first Ace Attorney on the GBA when it was new & have done the first few chapters of Kentucky Route Zero). It was an experiment in “reading the game” live (which was lovely until allergies), but overall I would describe FDC as an extremely pleasant thing. The visuals are clean and lively, really evoking that late ‘80s/early ’90s Japan feel, the UI is nice to use, the dialogue is cleanly written, and the music pulls your brain right in. So far, it‘s just a nice little well-presented mystery, and I’m gonna keep on with it.
@tokucowboy#30963 would definitely check out the stream if you got a link
@tokucowboy#30963 are the games expanded in some way? That’s an insane price (60 bucks) if it’s just the same games with (one might argue) worse art…
@tapevulture ah, thanks – a midnight allergy attack stream ain‘t my finest moment, but here it is (I’ll get back to reading through it, too, think I'll save it for Twitch)
@yeso I've never played the originals, so I really couldn't tell you outside of the obvious stuff, like the new art/animation & the full Japanese voice acting. I would rather Nintendo had included the option for the original art -- which is gorgeous -- but I will say that the new art is pretty good (it's no Final Fantasy VI mobile situation or anything). But, yeah, no excusing that price -- I could justify $35 for one of 'em, but I'd have to really be enamored by the end to spring for another $25 on top of that
@CidNight#30803 I‘ve played every Souls game thus far, so I’m very familiar with the mechanical significance.
I only this year got up to 45 humanities in Dark Souls 1.
I love the humanity system.
It‘s not something I “worry about”. I’m already accustomed to playing these games where I wanna have a good run with less deaths sometimes. It only adds to the fun for me.
So the Sonic Advance games kind of rule? They have very fluid sprite animation, really good looking backgrounds and levels, and it plays pretty well. I played some last night at 3am because I couldn‘t sleep. Surprised they aren’t talked about more.