What game are you wasting time on?

[Kabas]

Finally managed to reach Astrea as each of the five classes and unlocked the super secret 6th one.

Spoiler

I value incorruptable effect of this guy a lot.

I love crits and i cannot lie, my favourite currently.

The first character that i felt was somewhat complicated to figure out.

Last character promises to be even more complicated.

Also, started playing this.

Environements are pretty drab, enemy designs and weapons on the other hand are pretty fun. Some nice music too.
Instead of auto- and quicksaving you get an ability to rewind time at any moment you like. You can rewind pretty far.
Uses custom engine from what i gathered.

 

[NecroLord]

Alright!
Fallout is done, baby!
What a game...
Always one of my favorites.
The Master realizes the futility of his plan for humanity's "evolution" through the FEV virus and turning baseline humans into supermutants. I gave him the holodisk that proves that mutants are sterile and convinced him to commit suicide by blowing the whole Cathedral up. Had Ian and Tycho with me, Tycho died getting cut in half by a Gatling Laser wielding Supermutant, but Ian survived. Some really tough battles, but Hardened Power Armor and Turbo Plasma Rifle are supreme and allowed me to prevail.

I still have much to do in Fallout 2, however. Fallout 2 has a lot more content.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Power Armor was ridiculous at that point. You had to be hit with a nuke, dead center of it, to be able to feel some degree of damage. No other game captured that feeling in that way.

 

[Sigourn]

Ender Lilies

Wasted time on. It's a "Metroidvania" with none of the aspects that make metroidvanias fun to play through. I can elaborate if others had this game on their radar and want my opinion on it, but at the moment I've put so much effort trying to like it, and I'm burned out to type out everything that's wrong with this game.

 

[NecroLord]

Power Armor was ridiculous at that point. You had to be hit with a nuke, dead center of it, to be able to feel some degree of damage. No other game captured that feeling in that way.

Not exactly.
There are some weapons that can still hurt you a lot - Plasma Rifle, the .223 Pistol, rockets. Of course, an unfortunate critical hit inflicted on you will do a lot of damage, regardless of the weapon.
But, yeah, Power Armor rulez!
I like the Advanced Power Armor better than the iconic T51b Power Armor.

 

[NorwegianWolf]

I started playing Max Payne 2 recently, and I'm kinda disappointed Sam Lake no longer is Max Payne's face. James McCaffrey is (was) an awesome voice actor, but I got used to the original Max Payne appearance.

 

[BruceVC]

I completed Steve Jackson's Sorcery and I really enjoyed the nostalgic experience as the book series was my favorite Fighting Fantasy series of all time. The developers understandably changed several things for the PC experience but many aspects of the game were traditional and appreciated

I then decided to play NWN2 again, Im loving it. I loaded some recommended mods and the journey is great so far. I like my companions and the party interactions, hilarious exchanges and I enjoy how the narrative lets you see what your enemies are scheming like the Host Tower

Early days, 30 hours in so further updates to follow

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I've been wasting my time with some DS/3DS RPGs lately:

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
The existence of a Hard Mode(and an even harder Deadly Mode, available as free DLC) enticed me to play this again, as I'd played the original on the DS years ago and didn't remember much about it. It's basically a more accomplished Chrono Trigger(I'm not the biggest fan, admittedly). It has some good ideas, with a new spin on CT's "semi-tactical" combat where the enemy stands on a grid while you don't. The time travel is a bit more fleshed out, but still limited as a gameplay system (it's still a linear, story-driven RPG with no meaningful choices). The way it forces you to revisit old areas to open new areas with the use of an ability resembles Pokemon games. Some of the music is pretty good and I like the main character, as well as some of the narrative themes, but this isn't enough to drive me to finish the game.

The Hard Mode is a scam, it's not really hard at all, while the Deadly Mode is so ridiculous, it makes me wonder if it was tested at all. Apparently, its purpose was to sell item DLCs which break the game balance. I don't understand the point of "hardcore" difficulty that relies on cheat items. The new character art is generally inferior to the original's, but you can thankfully opt for the latter, although the publisher deserves an egg on its face for locking the feature behind a DLC. Money was also wasted on a full voice over, which you'll see praised on reddit but I had to disable as soon as possible. The new cutscens are also completely superfluous and the image might be a tad too bright compared to the original. The new story content has been criticized by fans, according to my research(I didn't play that far), but you can also opt out of it. The existence of the Hard Mode still puts this a couple of inches above the original, but it's still not challenging enough to excite me to make a full playthrough.

Etrian Odyssey 1 & 3
Decent Wizardry clone, if you can stomach the stupid anime artwork(I like some anime, not this). I found it too grindy, as clearing the first level wasn't enough to give me a chance of fighting harder monsters, so I had to keep grinding until I did, and the same pattern kept repeating. The quests are of the "find 10 x" variety, while access to new items is locked behind selling a bunch of items to the vendor, instead of a more involved mechanic, all of which points to grinding. I decided to try something more recent, as I heard the series evolved quite a bit over the years, particularly starting with the 3rd entry.

The third game seemed better in every aspect. Better level design; more interesting classes with less obvious archetypes; more interesting skills, including limit breaks you can assign to any character; more varied gameplay, including a sea exploration mode, which still follows the dungeon crawling style, but has a lot more focus on exploration. I didn't feel tired after playing, unlike with the first entry. I'm likely to stick with this for longer.

Dragon Ball Z Attack of the Saiyans
Better than could be expected, with some caveats. It's a turn-based RPG, surprisingly. Item management, equipment (in the form of individual accessories and "capsules" that have party-wide effects), even party composition, these are things you don't expect to see in a Dragon Ball game, but here they work rather well. There are no action elements, except the "Active Guard", which lets you parry hits similarly to Vagrant Story. I'm trying to keep the game challenging, so I'm abstaining from this mechanic altogether, which has had the desired effect so far.

Other interesting gameplay elements consist in skills that you buy(and further upgrade) with AP. Combining some of these between characters can create powerful combos and the animations are entertaining to watch. There are also ultimate moves that take turns to charge, such as Piccolo's move that kills Raditz.

Despite being a DBZ game, it starts after the Piccolo Daimao fight, when Goku's friends are preparing for the last Budokai of the original series. As as fan of the original anime series, I loved the early focus on Yamcha, Krillin and Tien, who don't get enough attention later on. The game is strongest when you're fighting together with a party, but the impositions of the story often dictate that you fight 1-on-1. That, together with the constant switching of characters due to events, often hurt the game as a standalone RPG. If you're not a fan of Dragon Ball you may find this, as well as the heavy story focus, too discouraging, but if you are, there's a lot to enjoy here.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm playing some Morrowind.
Custom build, sort of a heavily armored, axe wielding killing machine who also does utility and healing spells from mainly the Mysticism, Alteration and Restoration (one is a Major Skill, the other Minor).

 

[processdaemon]

I'm playing a Pokemon clone called Coromon at the moment. On the plus side it doesn't have a lot of the nonsense minigames that the later Pokemon games have and the 'mon design is better than the later Pokemon gens (although not as good as the first or second). Hard mode releases the 'mons when they faint which is a nice challenge in theory, although the combat isn't hard enough for it to have happened to me more than once in 15 hours.

On the other hand the dungeons drag a bit, the story is stupid even by the standards of Pokelikes and the overuse of emojis above the heads of the characters to show emotion makes the whole thing feel silly. I'm also a little perturbed that they chose to have a gay scientist couple called Nikola and Thomas; even assuming the most positive interpretation of their business relationship I doubt either Tesla or Edison would be particularly enthusiastic about being immortalised as lovers in a video game.

 

[Caim]

I'm playing a Pokemon clone called Coromon at the moment. On the plus side it doesn't have a lot of the nonsense minigames that the later Pokemon games have and the 'mon design is better than the later Pokemon gens (although not as good as the first or second). Hard mode releases the 'mons when they faint which is a nice challenge in theory, although the combat isn't hard enough for it to have happened to me more than once in 15 hours.

On the other hand the dungeons drag a bit, the story is stupid even by the standards of Pokelikes and the overuse of emojis above the heads of the characters to show emotion makes the whole thing feel silly. I'm also a little perturbed that they chose to have a gay scientist couple called Nikola and Thomas; even assuming the most positive interpretation of their business relationship I doubt either Tesla or Edison would be particularly enthusiastic about being immortalised as lovers in a video game.

Looking at the trailers there seems to be a bit of Golden Sun DNA in this game with how you interact with the overworld, but then again it just might also be the HM usage from Pokemon. How heavy is the use of powers in the overworld in practice?

 

[processdaemon]

I'm playing a Pokemon clone called Coromon at the moment. On the plus side it doesn't have a lot of the nonsense minigames that the later Pokemon games have and the 'mon design is better than the later Pokemon gens (although not as good as the first or second). Hard mode releases the 'mons when they faint which is a nice challenge in theory, although the combat isn't hard enough for it to have happened to me more than once in 15 hours.

On the other hand the dungeons drag a bit, the story is stupid even by the standards of Pokelikes and the overuse of emojis above the heads of the characters to show emotion makes the whole thing feel silly. I'm also a little perturbed that they chose to have a gay scientist couple called Nikola and Thomas; even assuming the most positive interpretation of their business relationship I doubt either Tesla or Edison would be particularly enthusiastic about being immortalised as lovers in a video game.

Looking at the trailers there seems to be a bit of Golden Sun DNA in this game with how you interact with the overworld, but then again it just might also be the HM usage from Pokemon. How heavy is the use of powers in the overworld in practice?

It's basically exactly like HM usage but with the skills being attached to the player's gauntlet rather than the 'mon's skillset. All I've really done is pushed around a few logs and rocks, the obstacles pretty much just lock areas until you've hit certain milestones and hide loot just like Pokémon. To be fair I only have the first couple of abilities and it might get more interesting later, but so far it's nothing particularly engaging.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Warhammer 40k Shootas, Blood & Teef: 40k Greenskin Metal Slug and it's as awesome as that sounds.

 

[Raghar]

Guess who got a battleax of distortion as a gift. And guess who equipped it to see what it does. And guess who got into Abyss as a consequence of equipping it? It turns out when you are kickass who murders nearly everything Abyss isn't that dangerous. I found portal out only on 4th jump, not on 100. This time.

In case you don't know what ax of distortion +2 can do. It can: do what normal enchanted ax +2 do when hitting enemy. It can blink enemy away. It can cause additional wounds to enemy by on impact. It can teleport enemy at random location. It can send enemy into Abys. And it has small chance to kill enemy instantly by warping space around enemy.

Of course the problem is unwielding it. When unwielded it WILL send user to Abyss, and push into him so much magic he would GLOW, and well if he had some previous already, he can explode.

So now I have one dwarf with Battleax of distortion+2 who learned some spells L1 and L2 and now what to do. Use the battleax of distortion, enchant it, or find some tools that would prevent bad thing TM that WOULD happen when the weapon of distortion would be unwielded.

Going into elven halls, and using it on elves, because they have vault and inside it they have decent rings, spell books, and magic weapons. The problem is naga casted a random teleport spell and while he killed the naga it went trough his innate magic resistance. And going into elven halls with low enchantment magic abilities and without sufficient magic resistance rings can end being randomly teleported just in front of a shapeshifter that turns into golden dragon, slowed, and send into Abyss.

Encountering yakataurs battleparty without shield wouldn't be probably pretty either. Then again stoneskin spell and dragon armor + 1 works well in these cases. (Not against Stone Giants.)

There is still however a question who would give a Battleax of distortion as a gift?

 

[Ivan]

Unmetal: don't recoomend
It's an homage and parody of Metal Gear. Its opening hour is its best, then it continues to force attempts at humor at you by wrestling control away from you and forcing to listen to boring/cringey dialogue scenes that are geared to pre-teens. The gameplay itself is solid, but there's no proper campaign to carry it. The game is more stage based and serves the script/comedy first and foremost. At least the boss fights take some brains to figure out and many require careful play.


Turbo Overkill: early recommend
It's a stage based FPS like Quake that features nice visuals, a pretty kickass soundtrack, but I definitely need to up the difficulty. I was bit skeptical when I saw the game offers 5 or so difficulty modes to begin with, makes me feel the dev wasn't confident on setting base difficulties. Enemies aren't nearly as fast as you are, so I'm definitely going to need to go above the base "Hard" mode as it's way too easy (through level 3 anyway).

 

[Zlaja]

I'm playing some Morrowind.
Custom build, sort of a heavily armored, axe wielding killing machine who also does utility and healing spells from mainly the Mysticism, Alteration and Restoration (one is a Major Skill, the other Minor).

That's kinda gay. I mean, you're going for heavy armored dude wielding an axe, and yet you opt for both healing magic AND utility magic. That's like eating a burger and then going "fuck, I'm gonna order some pizza and kebab too". It's not like you're playing a super hard game here that forces you to go jack of all trades.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm playing some Morrowind.
Custom build, sort of a heavily armored, axe wielding killing machine who also does utility and healing spells from mainly the Mysticism, Alteration and Restoration (one is a Major Skill, the other Minor).

That's kinda gay. I mean, you're going for heavy armored dude wielding an axe, and yet you opt for both healing magic AND utility magic. That's like eating a burger and then going "fuck, I'm gonna order some pizza and kebab too". It's not like you're playing a super hard game here that forces you to go jack of all trades.

Playing with the difficulty slider slightly to Hard.
Also, a wider array of skills makes sure I level up several attributes each levelup.
And luck.

 

[Zlaja]

Also, a wider array of skills makes sure I level up several attributes each levelup.
And luck

I'm not a person that uses that many mods, but the one that makes it so you don't have to worry about the whole attribute multiplier thing makes the game so much better and more relaxing. The most important mod for Morrowind of them all, IMO.

 

[NecroLord]

Also, a wider array of skills makes sure I level up several attributes each levelup.
And luck

I'm not a person that uses that many mods, but the one that makes it so you don't have to worry about the whole attribute multiplier thing makes the game so much better and more relaxing. The most important mod for Morrowind of them all, IMO.

I kinda like the micromanaging of attributes and skills.
It takes a certain kind of autism, right?

 

[ghostdog]

After Koudelka, I'm playing another horror-themed RPG for the PSX, Parasite Eve.

Ah.. the PSX era, a time when you could have two very good horror RPGs side by side.

It's not as expertly written as Koudelka, but it makes up with a very cool setting. A very somber setting actually, where you have a Manhattan devastated by a rapidly mutating organism/being (with big boobs - these were the times I tell ya!)

Nice gun porn-crafting, great locations, challenging combat (if you don't grind like crazy -you shouldn't). Some of the mechanics are obtuse at first, but it's nothing major. Walking, moving through screens, UI... all of this could be faster/snappier, but again it's not that bad.

Anyway, a nice experience. Linear and not that long, but it seems that it has a NG+, with more challenge and new stuff that lead you to the "true ending". So, it seems it still has a lot of meat.

Too bad it has very little VO, a game like this could benefit from some good VO.

Combat is phase-based with real-time movement in order to better position yourself. Works well, when you get the hang of it.

 

[El Presidente]

Unmetal: don't recoomend
It's an homage and parody of Metal Gear. Its opening hour is its best, then it continues to force attempts at humor at you by wrestling control away from you and forcing to listen to boring/cringey dialogue scenes that are geared to pre-teens.

So it's THAT faithful to the source material?

 

[mediocrepoet]

After Koudelka, I'm playing another horror-themed RPG for the PSX, Parasite Eve.

Ah.. the PSX era, a time when you could have two very good horror RPGs side by side.

It's not as expertly written as Koudelka, but it makes up with a very cool setting. A very somber setting actually, where you have a Manhattan devastated by a rapidly mutating organism/being (with big boobs - these were the times I tell ya!)

Nice gun porn-crafting, great locations, challenging combat (if you don't grind like crazy -you shouldn't). Some of the mechanics are obtuse at first, but it's nothing major. Walking, moving through screens, UI... all of this could be faster/snappier, but again it's not that bad.

Anyway, a nice experience. Linear and not that long, but it seems that it has a NG+, with more challenge and new stuff that lead you to the "true ending". So, it seems it still has a lot of meat.

Too bad it has very little VO, a game like this could benefit from some good VO.

Combat is phase-based with real-time movement in order to better position yourself. Works well, when you get the hang of it.

Parasite Eve kicks ass, they should rerelease it. I'd say reboot, but every follow up sucked balls, so I'd take a straight rerelease or remaster on modern hardware.

Then again, I wonder if I'd like it as much these days. Part of what blew me away at the time was the novelty of it.

 

[ghostdog]

After Koudelka, I'm playing another horror-themed RPG for the PSX, Parasite Eve.

Ah.. the PSX era, a time when you could have two very good horror RPGs side by side.

It's not as expertly written as Koudelka, but it makes up with a very cool setting. A very somber setting actually, where you have a Manhattan devastated by a rapidly mutating organism/being (with big boobs - these were the times I tell ya!)

Nice gun porn-crafting, great locations, challenging combat (if you don't grind like crazy -you shouldn't). Some of the mechanics are obtuse at first, but it's nothing major. Walking, moving through screens, UI... all of this could be faster/snappier, but again it's not that bad.

Anyway, a nice experience. Linear and not that long, but it seems that it has a NG+, with more challenge and new stuff that lead you to the "true ending". So, it seems it still has a lot of meat.

Too bad it has very little VO, a game like this could benefit from some good VO.

Combat is phase-based with real-time movement in order to better position yourself. Works well, when you get the hang of it.

Parasite Eve kicks ass, they should rerelease it. I'd say reboot, but every follow up sucked balls, so I'd take a straight rerelease or remaster on modern hardware.

Then again, I wonder if I'd like it as much these days. Part of what blew me away at the time was the novelty of it.

I finished the main game. I enjoyed it a lot, even if it became rather easy in the end. That "Liberate" ability was insta-win.

The final sequence where you run away from a crawling monster-thing was pretty stupid, though. Completely unnecessary and at odds with the rest of the game.

I started the new game EX and died in the prologue-intro fight

 

[Ivan]

Bramble: The Mountain King

Pretty much finished it in one sitting, it was that compelling. It feels like playing a Team Ico game set in a fantasy/horror world imagined by Guillermo Del Toro. I was reminded of Ico, Brothers: Tale of Two Sons, and Pan's Labyrinth while playing it. The gameplay mechanics are limited, think Ico, but the world and encounters are so rich and well paced that I was nearly never bored. Some sections get repeated a bit, and I always dislike when the game forces you to walk (remember that bit in Revengeance?) but yeah, I'm just nitpicking. I'm glad I fit it in before the year's end.

 

[Raghar]

After Koudelka, I'm playing another horror-themed RPG for the PSX, Parasite Eve.

Ah.. the PSX era, a time when you could have two very good horror RPGs side by side.

It's not as expertly written as Koudelka, but it makes up with a very cool setting. A very somber setting actually, where you have a Manhattan devastated by a rapidly mutating organism/being (with big boobs - these were the times I tell ya!)

Nice gun porn-crafting, great locations, challenging combat (if you don't grind like crazy -you shouldn't). Some of the mechanics are obtuse at first, but it's nothing major. Walking, moving through screens, UI... all of this could be faster/snappier, but again it's not that bad.

Anyway, a nice experience. Linear and not that long, but it seems that it has a NG+, with more challenge and new stuff that lead you to the "true ending". So, it seems it still has a lot of meat.

Too bad it has very little VO, a game like this could benefit from some good VO.

Combat is phase-based with real-time movement in order to better position yourself. Works well, when you get the hang of it.

Parasite Eve kicks ass, they should rerelease it. I'd say reboot, but every follow up sucked balls, so I'd take a straight rerelease or remaster on modern hardware.

Then again, I wonder if I'd like it as much these days. Part of what blew me away at the time was the novelty of it.

I finished the main game. I enjoyed it a lot, even if it became rather easy in the end. That "Liberate" ability was insta-win.

The final sequence where you run away from a crawling monster-thing was pretty stupid, though. Completely unnecessary and at odds with the rest of the game.

I started the new game EX and died in the prologue-intro fight

I was completely obliterated by falling airplane.