What game are you wasting time on?

[baud]

I've just found that if you touch the hand Midas in the original Tomb Raider, you get turned into gold

Spoiler

I guess that most people here had already played this, but it's my first through that game and I find it's a neat touch.

 

[Kabas]

Conquest of Elysium 4
Converting people into the only correct faith of El so they donate you enough money to call both cruasade and inquisition on infidels - feels great.

 

[eXalted]

Back to fan-made Heroes 3 scenarios.

Titanic Pride - Now I see why this map is so recommended. I can't imagine the thoughts and time spent on creating this. The way the zones open and the episodes progress, the behavior of the AI (having in mind that Heroes III doesn't support AI scripting), the unique gameplay for each of the heroes and at the same time the openness and freedom it gives you. Beat it on Impossible after the 3rd try. Definitely one of my favorites.

 

[Jasede]

I've been wasting time on WoW Classic but I'm bored now and will quit.

Other than that, mostly independent puzzle games and Roguelites. Krumit's Tale, Legend of Bum-bo, Meteorfall.

Also been enjoying a Japanese/Chinese indie furry game called Changed which is about transformation. Not my cup of tea, that, but the game itself is endearing and has a nice story and memorable characters.

 

[newtmonkey]

Demon's Winter
Making very slow progress in this, mostly because the C64 takes so long to load and save lol (even with JiffyDOS installed). I explored a good portion of the starting area and ended up reaching level 3. I now regret making two dedicated wizards because spell points are so slow to regenerate, you really can't rely on spells very much at all. My damage dealing wizard has done basically nothing so far, and my support wizard is just a healer. I'll probably get priesthood or shaman skills for them at some point, so at least they can turn undead.

If I were to start over, I'd probably use three melee classes (prob Paladin, Ranger, and Monk), a "utility" class (probably visionary with rune skills added later on), and one dedicated wizard with priesthood skill for turning undead.

I am really enjoying this one however! It's nice to see that I had fine taste even as a kid, as this was one of my favorite games on my C64. It's got a surprisingly effective atmosphere with its desolate landscape (especially in the C64 version, as the 16-bit versions use gaudy and inappropriate colors), focus on religion, and minimal but well-written text. It's got a really cool Conan-esque sword & sorcery vibe. Also, the cover art kicks ass.

 

[Villagkouras]

I just finished Sundered (big thanks to Catacombs for the key!). It a metroidvania with roguelike elements. Many people overlook this game, because of its bad release in 2017 (I also dismissed back then after trying it), but the devs have made a great work fixing the game.

The obvious thing that the art direction is excellent. The game also has great gameplay, it's one of the smoothest 2D action games I've ever played. It gets really interesting when you start finding abilities which you can choose to corrupt unlocking special moves in these abilities you already have. Eshe (the PC) becomes a very fast killing machine soon. To justify the roguelike (or roguelite?) elements the game sends you hordes of enemies that act as DPS challenges, this way you know whether you need to empower your character before moving on to the next zone.

Very interesting is the perk system which allows you to try some builds, although there is a build that any person with some experience will go with this and make the game trivial. Regardless, the game offers you many choices: Do you corrupt your abilities or not? What perks will you choose? The level up system is a bit of flat, but as you progress you find interesting stuff to unlock. All in all, it's not the perfect game (sometimes there is too much happening on screen that you cannot even see your PC), but it was very fun, much better than first released and overall it's an underrated game.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Stardew Valley with the newest patch. They added room customization and... a sewing machine for tailoring clothes. Not exactly sure I asked for those additions, but I guess Martha Stewart's a big fan of the game.

 

[Catacombs]

Stardew Valley with the newest patch. They added room customization and... a sewing machine for tailoring clothes. Not exactly sure I asked for those additions, but I guess Martha Stewart's a big fan of the game.

I'm surprised room customization is NOW being added. That should've been included years ago.

 

[RK47]

Ugh, sometimes Restored Content is such a bad joke.
KOTOR2 Droid planet should've just been left out, there's just not enough material to restore it.

There was so little to construct with and yet modders still persist resulting in a very terrible experience from the following factors:
- There wasn't enough writing, so they added their own cringe-worthy lines.
- Barely any voiced lines, so the mods did their own voice impression of droids.
- No sense of scale, this goddamn planet had like 5 minute long walks with tons of filler look-alike droid NPCs.
- And since the droids look alike, it can be very jarring for players on their first visit.

It wasn't much fun. Here's how it's supposed to go:
The Exile found a recording of the missing Jedi Master on Korriban. She is headed to the Planet M4 with her apprentice.
Upon arrival, the Exile found the entire colony dead due to radiation and only a droid party member can help the droids to clean the radiation.
So cue 5-10 mins of T3/HK47 walking around slowly (no force speed) in the barren-looking colony filled with similar droid population.

Modder: this is so fun, guys

After suffering through a bland 'talk to this guy, then talk to that guy, then go back to this guy' questline, we finally cleared the radiation, only to be told that the Droid 'communication' with their primary server was cut off. And there's a 'droid faction revolt' within the colony shortly before a catastrophic radiation leak killed every colonist within. Turns out the colonists were Sith. And here come more banal conversations with at least 5 droids that are like 1-2 minutes apart of each other. Joy.

I had to abandon this planet halfway and came back later once I've sufficiently un-bore myself. But it's still a pain to push through.

And so I pushed on and my guess was right about the mystery. I'm sure anyone with a modicum of intelligence can guess the droid plot. We went to the hostile droid faction to uncover the truth and discovered the marvelous game design of having groups of combat droids standing behind a massive field of deadly mines.

A lot of mine recovery for Bao-Dur. Good source of cheese for harder encounters.

Spoiler

So the truth was the Droids were sent there to establish a colony, but the true colonists never arrived. So the 'Droid controller (AI)' decided let's just welcome any organics that came down here as our colonists.' The Siths came first and took over control and instructed the droids to start a war factory. The Jedi Master and her Padawan arrive a few years later and decide to sabotage the place up. Their plans broke down, the Jedi Master was separated from the Padawan but the Padawan managed to convince/sliced the 'Life Support control AI' that the Siths are evil. This triggered the radiation leak attack that killed the entire colony's organics.

The Padawan out of fear has killed everyone and took control of the Life Support AI.

The Exile battles through the Life Support Systems to the main control room and convinced the Padawan to stand down.
With the 'droid fracture' temporarily stopped, the access to the primary server was restored. Inside, we discover the missing Jedi master, but the reunion shortlived as the reawakened main server AI considered her as 'a threat' and commanded the droids to murder her after the Exile finished their brief reunion.

We barely knew ye.

The main controller AI argued that logically she is a threat to the colony's existence and cannot be left alive because due to the master and apprentice's actions, the 'colonists' are now dead, and the droid planet has no purpose and must wait for the next organics to arrive. It sounded really angry and wanted to do a full memory wipe of all the other AIs to 'reset' the colony again for the long wait. Before the Exile can take any action, the enraged Padawan burst in and sliced the control AI. The Control AI is now silenced, leaving the colony to slowly stagnant.

This line. Fucking kill yourself. The Padawan asks the Exile for forgiveness and mourns his fallen master. He wants to go back to the Light side. I said OK, go to my ship. He does so. And then I turn around to the main console of the controller AI and turned it back on. The Exile persuades the Colony AI to take in Republic colonists and perhaps supply Telos much needed fuel and medical resources. A deal was struck. Everything is great. All except for the Padawan who was stopped from reaching the Ebon Hawk and killed by droids.

The Exile senses the death of the Padawan but was too far to act. Not like he has a modicum of fucks to give anyway. He's had enough of this planet. Time to collect that finder's fee from Captain Grenn in Telos and say goodbye to this blasted planet.

 

[Modron]

Yeah the restored content here and there was nice throughout the game but the droid factory is best skipped entirely because it ends up being lifeless corridor affair with token battles every x feet being designed from scratch instead of something that was touched up.

 

[Average Manatee]

The concept sounds kind of cool. KotOR 2 already has Peragus though so a 2nd ghost area with killer robots would probably feel overly repetitive. Can see why they axed it.

 

[hexer]

Just finished Plague Tale and started GreedFall.
Fingers crossed it's not a Pocahontas ripoff.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Wasting time indeed with The Witcher tales: Thronebreaker...

 

[laclongquan]

After two runs of Theme Hospital I naturally turn to Startopia~ building up a space station~

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Solomon's key 2 - finished it along with the bonus levels. Excellent game. The bonus levels aren't that good, but the main game is very well crafted. Highly recommended.

Langrisser II - Finished nine missions. Can't say I find the game too interesting. It's not bad either, I just need some hook. I skipped the story, and I guess that was the hook for most people.
I like that you need to choose between short term strength (recruiting strong units for this specific battle, which you lose right after) vs long term strength (buying equipment that stays with you).

 

[Lagole Gon]

I'm preparing for a "How do you do, fellow Japanese People!" gaming trip.

- Septerra Core (I've just installed GOG version)
- Shogo (Played that one. Not sure if I finished it.)
- ONI (Never played it. I'll have to wait for it to appear on GOG)

Any more examples of serious studios pretending to be japs?

Good news. It looks a bit less hideous in-game.

 

[hexer]

- Septerra Core (I've just installed GOG version)

I remember that game. A very interesting world.
But I never finished it, dropped it at 50% progress but I can't remember exactly why.
Maybe I lost interest, was under-leveled or my HD crashed. It was a long time ago!

 

[Jasede]

It gets really rather repetitive and boring, even for a jrpg. And the combat music doesn't have a boss track.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm not well versed in JRPGs, so maybe that's normal for one, but Septerra Core has an insane amount of respawning fights. And there was nothing in the game to make me get past that. It's just not worth it.

As for non-jap JRPGs, the obvious answer is Anachronox.
Well, it's not jap-themed/animu if that's what you're looking for.

Spoiler

Also Planescape: Torment

 

[Lagole Gon]

Spoiler

Also Planescape: Torment

I blame Final Fagtasy for cutscene-spells in PS:T.

 

[hexer]

I blame Final Fagtasy for cutscene-spells in PS:T.

Yeah, I remember one of the artists quoting FF7 as inspiration in PST's credits

 

[FeelTheRads]

Spoiler

Also Planescape: Torment

I blame Final Fagtasy for cutscene-spells in PS:T.

I wouldn't call it blame. I think those spells fit well with the game. And at least they were skippable once you got bored of them.

 

[Modron]

I'm preparing for a "How do you do, fellow Japanese People!" gaming trip.

Throw in Anachronox, Silver, and Summoner. Also Gorky 17 if it doesn't crash 85 times an hour on your system.

 

[Jasede]

I've only played the demo of Silver and of Gorky17 but both were incredibly amazing to 13-year old me.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Shogo needs some patching and tricks in order to run without problems.

Look at this art. Some poor artist had to learn how to draw like a jap just for this game.

Looks like a bootleg version of that Masamune guy who drew manga GitS. Not a bad attempt, but he fucked up the girl. A crucial mistake when it comes to animu.

Spoiler