What game are you wasting time on?

[HansDampf]

I played some Neon White (chapter 6), and I'm surprised how good this is. Finding hidden shortcuts and tricks to improve your time in each level. Seems like a gateway drug to speedrunning. Missions are interspersed with visual novel parts, and the dialogue is either cringe or "so bad it's good", I can't decide. I'm trying to get Ace medals everywhere, which hasn't really been difficult so far. The game is forthcoming and will always reveal one shortcut to you per level after you get gold. The only thing I didn't like was the boss fight. Feels like it doesn't belong in this game.

 

[Kabas]

Now i have the full squad of 5. Not enough, gotta catch them all!
Sillia in the upper left corner is my main fairy. Game told me she is beginner friendly and indeed she is. Her base spell has 30 charges in comparison to the usual 15. Look forward towards her evolution.
Vesbat in the middle is nice too. Very long charging time on his attack but also very big damage number once he actually finishes charging it. A bit fragile tho.
That blue Tadana is ok. Base attack spell has a chance to crit. Very nice once it actually happens but too unreliable compared to what the previous two offer. Also fragile.
Blumella on the right is very strong with that maxed AGI. Unfortunately, she is an evolutionary dead end. One of my first replacement candidates.
Lana on the bottom is a follower of , all stats are balanced. I already have too many green fairies tho, so she is also a replacement candidate.

 

[NecroLord]

Now i have the full squad of 5. Not enough, gotta catch them all!
Sillia in the upper left corner is my main fairy. Game told me she is beginner friendly and indeed she is. Her base spell has 30 charges in comparison to the usual 15. Look forward towards her evolution.
Vesbat in the middle is nice too. Very long charging time on his attack but also very big damage number once he actually finishes charging it. A bit fragile tho.
That blue Tadana is ok. Base attack spell has a chance to crit. Very nice once it actually happens but too unreliable compared to what the previous two offer. Also fragile.
Blumella on the right is very strong with that maxed AGI. Unfortunately, she is an evolutionary dead end. One of my first replacement candidates.
Lana on the bottom is a follower of , all stats are balanced. I already have too many green fairies tho, so she is also a replacement candidate.

Is that a goblin? Companion?
My sword arm is getting itchy...

 

[Kabas]

Is that a goblin? Companion?
My sword arm is getting itchy...

What you are seeing here is the list of my combat fairies slaves!
If you're asking about that fellow behind the menu when it's just a very racist elf, don't mind him.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

What game?

 

[Modron]

https://www.mobygames.com/game/7120/zanzarah-the-hidden-portal/

I hear this game either works on your modern system or not at all with no rhyme or reason as to why and no amount of elbow grease can change that.

 

[Abu Antar]

What game?

Edit: Ninja'd by a ninjitsu shuriken thrower.

 

[Kabas]

Took a bit extra work but it works fine for me.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Doom 64. Until a few years ago, I didn't even know that this is its own game, I always thought it was a port of Doom for N64. Been playing it for the last few days and, honestly, it's a blast. Despite some obvious design shortcomings due to limitations of the hardware, the game is much better than I expected. The atmosphere is amazing, some of the sprites look really cool (I love the plasma gun, BFG, chaingun, arachnotrons, barons; hate the fist and chainsaw), maps are quite big with sometimes devious level design, guns feel good. The biggest downside imo is that the game is a bit easy, probably because it was designed for consoles first and foremost. Also, Unmaker looks and sounds stupid, and is too weak for such a unique weapon. But still it's a great experience.

And I think Even Simpler is better than Dead Simple, pain elementals and all.

Are you playing the original via emulation or the recent pc port? Because I think the port touched up a few things here and there. Nothing major, but still. I share your opinions, though. The game feels like a middle ground between the old Doom and Quake games, with its own touch. The fact that the soundtrack is basically just droning ambient sounds give a nice little touch to it all.

 

[Hag]

Completed the Return of The Obra Dinn.
A strange adventure about a lost boat coming back to harbour empty, all crew dead or missing. Peculiar. As the representant of the insurance company, equipped with a pocket watch that let you see the last moments of the dead crew members rotting around, you are to find what on the holy name of God did happened. Really one of a kind. Everything feels fresh in this game, and the little clankyness is easily forgiven by the huge quality of gameplay. I really loved that on one hand there is no hand-holding at all and you really have to look, think and be clever but on the other hand it is all coherent, and if something "just feels right" then it usually is. People speaking the same language usually hang around together for example. It is overall very well made and if sometimes frustrating, it is never unfair and the "eureka" moments really fell good.

Even the black and white visual is good and you quickly learn to recognize characters by their face. And it is a nice boat to walk around for sure. The only gripe I could have is with the voice acting that is a bit plain (surprising considering how many people contributed), but it is not much to whine about and is easily forgiven.

A solid if only for the amazing overall quality and scope of this alien game, made by a single guy. This is what video games should be about.

Also, between this and Rain World (maybe others I forgotten), some really great games came out of the TigSource forums. Must have been a great place to develop back then.

 

[ferratilis]

Doom 64. Until a few years ago, I didn't even know that this is its own game, I always thought it was a port of Doom for N64. Been playing it for the last few days and, honestly, it's a blast. Despite some obvious design shortcomings due to limitations of the hardware, the game is much better than I expected. The atmosphere is amazing, some of the sprites look really cool (I love the plasma gun, BFG, chaingun, arachnotrons, barons; hate the fist and chainsaw), maps are quite big with sometimes devious level design, guns feel good. The biggest downside imo is that the game is a bit easy, probably because it was designed for consoles first and foremost. Also, Unmaker looks and sounds stupid, and is too weak for such a unique weapon. But still it's a great experience.

And I think Even Simpler is better than Dead Simple, pain elementals and all.

Are you playing the original via emulation or the recent pc port? Because I think the port touched up a few things here and there. Nothing major, but still. I share your opinions, though. The game feels like a middle ground between the old Doom and Quake games, with its own touch. The fact that the soundtrack is basically just droning ambient sounds give a nice little touch to it all.

I'm playing the Nightdive port on Steam. With texture filtering turned off, I could never stand it, even though I've read comments that it's how the game was supposed to be experienced. But honestly, I like how it looks unfiltered.

Yeah, the music is eerie, this track in particular has stuck in my mind:

 

[Abu Antar]

Games #11 and #12 are beaten. Immoral Planet, and Street Fighter V Story Mode.

Immortal Planet is an isometric soulslike, that I wrote about in a previous post. It was fun, and challenging, but I did have to grind for the end game, because I was getting slaughtered by one of the bosses. Good controls, not much writing, but it is serviceable. Good for a small indie team/one man studio. If you have it in your library, it's worth a try, but it's not a game you have to go out of your way to try.

Street Fighter V, I got on PS+, and I did the individual story archs, and the general story. This could all be done in a few hours. Is it worth it? No. The story mode is absolutely terrible, and the writing is abysmally poor. Good for me, then, that I mostly have this installed for local co-op. Oh, The arcade mode is good, if you want to play the older games in the series. One more thing; the character designs are awful. Even the old characters look like crap. The new characters... don't get me started on how awful they look.

 

[cigaretteEnjoyer_despirit]

I'm replaying Deus Ex rn. Some new stuff I noticed during this playthrough, that I did not get on previous runs:
-if you clear the metro station before finding ambrosia in the fort, the game will claim that Anna Navarre has already found it(even though she's clearly outside and the NSF occupies the fort). Then she'll follow you on loop until you leave the area
-if you talk to Joe Green in the tavern, Manderley will berate you for it afterwards
-if you dont interrupt Walton Simons during interrogation, men in black will thank you while leaving unatco base
I'm at the airfield part right now. Maybe I'll reach Paris this time, but I dont feel like going through the final levels.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Games #11 and #12 are beaten

Do you have a list of games you are going to play this year?

 

[Abu Antar]

Games #11 and #12 are beaten

Do you have a list of games you are going to play this year?

Not really. I have some games that I hope to beat like, but they are games that I have already started. Everything else just comes spontaneously.

Dragon Quest XI
Solasta
Wasteland 3
Ace Attorney Trilogy
Octopath Traveler II
Like A Dragon: Ishin!
Disciples II
Romancing SaGa 2
Romancing SaGa 3
Devil Survivor: Overclocked

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

About to play Morrowind for the first time. Any pointers? How good are spellsword builds?

 

[Caim]

About to play Morrowind for the first time. Any pointers? How good are spellsword builds?

- Read your quest log carefully.
- Magic is pretty jank if you don't go full-on wizard: Magicka doesn't regenerate on its own and you have to either wait or drink potions to get it back.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

About to play Morrowind for the first time. Any pointers? How good are spellsword builds?

- Read your quest log carefully.
- Magic is pretty jank if you don't go full-on wizard: Magicka doesn't regenerate on its own and you have to either wait or drink potions to get it back.

So it's better to go full magic or not at all then? That's different.

 

[Caim]

About to play Morrowind for the first time. Any pointers? How good are spellsword builds?

- Read your quest log carefully.
- Magic is pretty jank if you don't go full-on wizard: Magicka doesn't regenerate on its own and you have to either wait or drink potions to get it back.

So it's better to go full magic or not at all then? That's different.

Magicka itself scales with the Intelligence stat at a rate of 1:1, which isn't a lot given that a basic fire ball costs 5 and barely does any damage, especially against Dunmer. There's a few ways around this: pick a High Elf for a base increase at the cost of vulnerability to magical damage, or go with a Birthsign that increases your magicka by 50%, by 150% but with a 50% weakness to magic spells (so you take more damage and suffer more from debilitating effects), or by 200% and have a 50% chance to turn all incoming spells into magicka but at the cost of not being able to regenerate magicka by resting.

Magic is extremly useful but a bit finicky to use, especially for a new player. You should get your hands on the massively useful Mark and Recall spells as well as ALMSIVI and Divine Intervention, which will make your life a hell of a lot easier even for a non-mage.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I went with a sneaky Dark Elf build. Not sure I like it that much, sneak doesn't seem all that effective early on. It is not at all like Skyrim's or Oblivion's.
I might end up rerolling and trying a Nord or Argonian spear build.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

About to play Morrowind for the first time. Any pointers? How good are spellsword builds?

So I went with a sneaky Dark Elf build. Not sure I like it that much, sneak doesn't seem all that effective early on. It is not at all like Skyrim's or Oblivion's.
I might end up rerolling and trying a Nord or Argonian spear build.

Morrowind has ten joinable guilds/factions offering a substantial number of quests, and the game is designed to pursue three in any given playthrough. If you stick to the base archetypes for character design, then fighter-types have House Redoran, the Imperial Legion, and the Fighters Guild; magic-types have House Telvanni, either the Imperial Cult or the Tribunal Temple, and the Mages Guild; and stealth-types have House Hlaalu, the Morag Tong, and the Thieves Guild. Note there are relatively high skill requirements for rising through the ranks; the spear is one of the skills favored by the Imperial Legion and House Redoran, but for the Fighters Guild you'll want to be using axes, blunt weapons, or long blades as a secondary weapon skill (or else raise armorer, block, or heavy armor to a high level through training).

Also, try not to spoil things for yourself.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I'm doing errands for Hlaau and I'm trying to find Morag Tong. Right now I'm in Vivec and I have to say, it's an impressive world space. It's also not that well designed; it's really easy to get lost first time around because they didn't think to illuminate the ramps that takes you to the lower levels.

 

[Sigourn]

I'm playing Wanton Destruction, the second expansion for Shadow Warrior 1997, having beaten the main game and Twin Dragons expansion.

As I grow used to the weapons I like the game more, but it has many aggravating things without which it would be so much more fun to play:

1. 90% of the times you instantly load a save after you die, without knowing what the hell killed you in the first place.
2. You die way too easily to certain enemies. In Blood, cultists drain your health. But in Shadow Warrior, certain enemies will OHKO you if you are not careful, and that's pretty terrible. Ninjas with missiles or grenade launchers, exploding coolies, fucking shadow ninjas, it's awful to see a good run end suddenly (quite suddenly, see point 1) just because you missed an explosive or a coolie.
3. Explosion radius is way larger than their animations suggest. I still don't know how to gauge it properly beyond "keep a massive distance to them".

 

[Darth Roxor]

Iirc there's a nasty thing about coolies where their explosion if you let them detonate is bigger and/or more damaging than when killing them. I guess it discourages running in, triggering them and running away.

 

[cigaretteEnjoyer_despirit]

I started playing Judgement some time ago, I'm just few hours in. I like roaming the streets and enjoying the city. I like that there's a little friendship system and dating, and that there's some depth to the combat. But what I dont like is that gameplay is heavily mediated by the story. Its very on-rails, and only from time to time I feel like I'm in control and have some agency. Its more like a series of cutscenes or a visual novel that only lets you play when it feels like it. I don't like this structure at all, and this is something all those Japanese urban games have in common. It is certainly very confident in its storytelling, in an odd way. The game just assumes that the player is going to be invested in what's going on, like it does not need to hook the player in. It is bizarre and unfounded, because its just an average drama, except with yakuza and crime. The foundations of the game are far too slow and static for me.