Whatcha Been Playing?

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
User avatar
KSubzero1000
Member
Posts: 3365
Joined: August 26th, 2015, 9:56 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by KSubzero1000 »

shadowless_kick wrote: July 5th, 2018, 3:51 pm I'm also on PS4 (@blu_storm__). I've seen your name up there 8-)
Sweet, I'll add you immediately. I've been meaning to revisit Nex Machina for some juicy score-chasing anyway. :)
User avatar
duskvstweak
Member
Posts: 1123
Joined: August 23rd, 2017, 6:40 pm
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by duskvstweak »

I just started Mass Effect 2. I'm a hours into it, having finished up a few things on Omega. Liking it so far. I liked but didn't love Mass Effect 1, so I'm hoping this game will click for me like it does for most. Playing on the PC, it's almost comical how everything is the space bar, and how simplistic the leveling seems to be right now.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

Yeah, me2 is a shooter with some RPG elements. It’s the direction they took it, more action oriented. Me1 is much closer to something like knights of the old republic.
User avatar
Jobobonobo
Member
Posts: 574
Joined: July 27th, 2016, 4:30 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

After nearly 6 months scouring through nearly everything Nier Automata had to show me I have now finally moved onto another title, one that I have been meaning to try out for a very long time.

Final Fantasy VII.

Despite playing a fair amount of JRPGS in my time, this is my first ever foray into the Final Fantasy series and so far I have to say, I am enjoying myself quite a bit. The way the game builds the world of Midgar and how its society is set up is quite compelling, the battle system nicely builds up in complexity over time (ATB was hard to get into at first but I am slowly mastering it) and the story moves along at a nice pace with lots of stand out moments such as rescuing Tifa from the Don at Wall Market and scaling the wreckage of the slums to get to Shinra Headquarters. Graphics are certainly outdated yet oddly charming to me, the Playmobil bodies kinda gives the game its own unique visual identity in a way and I honestly feel the remake will lose a lot of its appeal if it has FFXV type graphics. Definitely does not prevent me from getting through the game at all. What has not aged at all, however, is Nobuo Uematsu's wonderful soundtrack, nearly every tune is beautifully composed and stays in your head for a long time.

I suppose one reason I have not tried out this series, especially the older entries, is that my tolerance for random battles is pretty low. I feel they are an archaic mechanic that might have been necessary due to console limitations back in the 8-bit era but should really be a thing of the past especially when this was originally released in 1997. Having said that, they have not been too bad and you can even run through some areas without getting attacked at all if you are quick enough. Also been happy to report that the levelling seems to scale nicely with the progression of the story and so far, have felt no need to grind. Hopefully it stays that way.

But yeah, can certainly see why this is fondly remembered and want to keep on playing.
User avatar
stvnorman
Member
Posts: 911
Joined: March 19th, 2013, 8:09 pm
Location: Keysoe, Bedfordshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by stvnorman »

Went back to Ocarina of Time on the 3DS for the first time in a month and finished the Ice Cavern, then spent half an hour jumping in lakes with my booty to see what was on the bottom of them. Still really enjoying my first play through and I guess I’ve got a few hours to go yet (then onto Breath of the Wild), but while I was on the 3DS had a quick look on the shop and saw a WarioWare demo had appeared. Like Zelda, I’m new to this one too, and first impressions were this is crap... But I can’t stop playing it!!! Definitely give it a go if you’ve got a 3DS.

My Switch is telling me over 25 hours on Mario Tennis Aces. I’m winning online tournaments now - what a difference a week makes!
User avatar
shadowless_kick
Member
Posts: 116
Joined: May 1st, 2018, 12:16 am

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by shadowless_kick »

Jobobonobo wrote: July 5th, 2018, 9:30 pm I suppose one reason I have not tried out this series, especially the older entries, is that my tolerance for random battles is pretty low.
Chrono Trigger was the first RPG I played and it spoiled me. Once I tried entries in the Final Fantasy series and was hit with random battles, it was a massive step backward that was difficult to get over and helped dissuade me from digging much deeper into the genre.
User avatar
Suits
Member
Posts: 3174
Joined: October 28th, 2015, 3:25 pm
Location: Chelmsford, UK

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

stvnorman wrote: July 5th, 2018, 11:13 pm Went back to Ocarina of Time on the 3DS for the first time in a month and finished the Ice Cavern, then spent half an hour jumping in lakes with my booty to see what was on the bottom of them. Still really enjoying my first play through and I guess I’ve got a few hours to go yet (then onto Breath of the Wild), but while I was on the 3DS had a quick look on the shop and saw a WarioWare demo had appeared. Like Zelda, I’m new to this one too, and first impressions were this is crap... But I can’t stop playing it!!! Definitely give it a go if you’ve got a 3DS.

My Switch is telling me over 25 hours on Mario Tennis Aces. I’m winning online tournaments now - what a difference a week makes!
Everything about this post is excellent.
User avatar
Flabyo
Member
Posts: 3576
Joined: August 8th, 2013, 8:46 am
Location: Guildford

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Flabyo »

The switch not yet having a warioware game is a crime.

Mona is the best Nintendo character of all time. And so is Ashley.
User avatar
Chopper
Member
Posts: 1405
Joined: April 16th, 2013, 6:35 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Chopper »

I'm in the early stages of Metal Gear Survive. The prospect of a survival game in MGS5's engine was too appealing to resist, and it looked pretty demented from the trailer, so once it fell in price I was on it.

The theatre of operations is basically Afghanistan from MGS5, which is covered with a poisonous fog and filled with zombies. The fog has the effect of acting as a restrictive timer on your missions, as you need to carry oxygen, and the zombies enforce stealth gameplay, as there are too many of them to fight. The early game consists of simple fetch missions into the fog, armed only with a pointy stick, while managing your hunger and thirst meters, which tick down inexorably.

Early days yet but it is reasonably enjoyable. I haven't quite grasped how the UI works, so managing and deploying my items is a real pain. It has promise, though a lot will hinge on the progression mechanics - will the crafting of basic necessities become easier, will the gathering of supplies become tedious, will the missions get better?
User avatar
hazeredmist
Member
Posts: 1709
Joined: June 25th, 2013, 12:45 pm
Location: The DMZ
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by hazeredmist »

Oxenfree (Switch)

Completed this. An interesting 2D walking simulator, albeit with dis-likeable characters. I'd love to play more things like this on the Switch, well worth the entrance fee (it was obscenely cheap on the eShop)
User avatar
Jobobonobo
Member
Posts: 574
Joined: July 27th, 2016, 4:30 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Jobobonobo »

shadowless_kick wrote: July 6th, 2018, 12:30 am Chrono Trigger was the first RPG I played and it spoiled me. Once I tried entries in the Final Fantasy series and was hit with random battles, it was a massive step backward that was difficult to get over and helped dissuade me from digging much deeper into the genre.
Yeah, I played Chrono Trigger before any of the Final Fantasy games and it can definitely raise your standards of what to expect from this genre to a very high degree. It did so much right, especially with how it made you know how many enemies you can deal with in a given area and when they are gone you are just free to explore the area. Having played many a Pokemon game beforehand, I don't find random battles as jarring when playing other JRPGs but with Pokemon I at least have the oportunity to catch new monsters to add to my team/collection so they becoem a bit more tolerable to me than would otherwise be the case.

Thankfully, Chrono Trigger is far from the only JRPG to do away with random battles. Off the top of my head, I would recommend the Mother series (well, the last two, the original is meant to be TERRIBLE in regards to random battles!), The World Ends With You (which is getting a remake on Switch and has an unorthodox but fun battle system) and the Mario and Luigi/Paper Mario series. I'm sure they are plenty more options with regards to JRPGs without random battles but those are ones I would suggest if you want to try the genre again.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8423
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

You might like the Ys series. Much more action orientated with real time combat with no transition between exploring and fighting at all. I am probably becoming a bore given the amount I recommend it, but everyone needs to play Ys The Oath In Felghana on PSP (or Vita). It's brilliant.

EDIT: Also, Kingdom Hearts.
User avatar
Craig
Member
Posts: 576
Joined: October 25th, 2015, 1:04 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Craig »

Flabyo wrote: July 6th, 2018, 8:45 am The switch not yet having a warioware game is a crime.

Mona is the best Nintendo character of all time. And so is Ashley.
Let me count Wario’s balls with HD rumble, dammit.
User avatar
shadowless_kick
Member
Posts: 116
Joined: May 1st, 2018, 12:16 am

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by shadowless_kick »

thanks for the RPG recommendations. there are other reasons I haven't waded back into those waters, but I'll keep those titles in mind if I ever do.

ps- I concur on a new Wario Ware.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8423
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Alex79 »

I've gone back to Xcom Enemy Unknow Plus on Vita after reading someone (sorry, I can't remember who!) was playing it on here recently. I started a new game, but it's so frustrating how much they funnel you down a certain avenue via the tutorial, but then if you skip the tutorial you're left feeling worse off than if you jumped straight in so it's a difficult decision to make whether to play it or not.

The game itself is still brilliant. I wish Xcom 2 was on Vita as well, because I would love to play it but can't see me ever loading it up on the PS4, it's really a perfect game for handheld. It's rock solid, too. Not necessarily the combat, but the balancing the nations panic levels etc. I'm so close to the entirety of North America pulling out of the council, which will require yet another restart as they're pretty much vital for funding.

Still a good game, though.
Todinho

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Todinho »

Still on DMC4 and man I got around to playing Lady and she is just as much fun to play as I hoped she would be, she all about guns and creating explosions everywhere and not so much about melee combos but you can still do some really neat stuff with wires that lock pretty awesome like launching an enemy with the wire then blowing him up with hail of bullets and rockets and then using the wire to bring them back down.

Trish is a bit more tricky to get to grips with she attacks with bare fists and leaves electric traces that hurt enemies and she also uses Sparda but she also has some overlap with how Dante plays by having Pandora for example she can do some really crazy stuff like doing a constant electric spinning bird kick around enemies but overall I wasnt in love with it.

I also decided to go back and play FE Awakening to measure that up after playing Path of Radiance and boy that game doesnt really hold up by comparison and I found myself missing a bunch of features like where the hell is my shove and why dont I get bonus exp I can spend of other characters! Also the pair up system that I loved really doesnt hold up well under scrutiny because it just makes wanna keep your units bunched up all the time because you get a myriad of bonuses out of it and you never wanna leave or send a unit alone, I also kept thinking back to that huge dissection of awakening on the point of the maps and it really is true the maps in awakening are pretty barren for the most and all the objectives are the same.
I kept thinking, I mean I know inteligent systems develop all the FE games but did they fire everybody who worked on the previous games and hired new people for awakening? Because it just feels stripped down by comparison but maybe Im being unfair since I only played 2 FE games so far. The one aspect I dont think awakening is a step back is still the art, its alot more eye catching, at the same time the file I loaded I was playing as the female avatar and I just gotten a S support with Chrom and when you get that conversation you get the most cringy dating sim scene ever, I'd forgoten how heavily the game relied on that.

Finnaly I did read all the support conversations In path of Radiance and man there are some important stuff in there, like vital for you to understand characters for example I completely missed the entire subplot of the halfbreeds when I played I guess I didnt recruit a character and so it never came up but thats actually a pretty interesting part of the whole universe and gives and more nuanced view of the societies there because the marked are shunned by both the humans and laguz , I hope that's more prominent in Radiant Dawn.
User avatar
KSubzero1000
Member
Posts: 3365
Joined: August 26th, 2015, 9:56 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Todinho wrote: July 8th, 2018, 7:21 pm I also decided to go back and play FE Awakening to measure that up after playing Path of Radiance and boy that game doesnt really hold up by comparison[...]

Also the pair up system that I loved really doesnt hold up well under scrutiny because it just makes wanna keep your units bunched up all the time because you get a myriad of bonuses out of it and you never wanna leave or send a unit alone[...]

it really is true the maps in awakening are pretty barren for the most and all the objectives are the same.[...]

I was playing as the female avatar and I just gotten a S support with Chrom and when you get that conversation you get the most cringy dating sim scene ever, I'd forgoten how heavily the game relied on that.
Yep, yep, yep. Exactly. The only reason Awakening was such a hit is because it was everybody's first FE game and came out at a time when the 3DS was badly hurting for exclusives. But it's a poorly designed, poorly balanced, poorly written, fanservice-obsessed game when compared to the rest of the series until that point.

Todinho wrote: July 8th, 2018, 7:21 pm I kept thinking, I mean I know inteligent systems develop all the FE games but did they fire everybody who worked on the previous games and hired new people for awakening?
Well, it's definitely true that IS's development team has changed over the years, but I think that (given that Awakening was initially supposed to be the last FE game) this quality difference is simply due to them wanting to make the most accessible celebration of the franchise without focusing too much on the details. It's not like the target audience would have had much of a frame of reference to compare it to.

Todinho wrote: July 8th, 2018, 7:21 pm Finnaly I did read all the support conversations In path of Radiance and man there are some important stuff in there, like vital for you to understand characters for example I completely missed the entire subplot of the halfbreeds when I played I guess I didnt recruit a character and so it never came up but thats actually a pretty interesting part of the whole universe and gives and more nuanced view of the societies there because the marked are shunned by both the humans and laguz , I hope that's more prominent in Radiant Dawn.
Supports in classic FE are designed to provide both gameplay and narrative rewards for sticking with your favorite characters. It's a wonderful binary system that allows nuanced characterization without bogging down the main plot. Unfortunately, Radiant Dawn replaced the support conversations with generic lines and added specific base conversations as a replacement. It's one of the game's weak points.

Oh, and I'd recommend playing RD on easy for your first time around.
User avatar
Michiel K
Moderator
Posts: 1295
Joined: October 13th, 2015, 9:37 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Michiel K »

KSubzero1000 wrote: July 8th, 2018, 8:07 pm Well, it's definitely true that IS's development team has changed over the years, but I think that (given that Awakening was initially supposed to be the last FE game) this quality difference is simply due to them wanting to make the most accessible celebration of the franchise without focusing too much on the details. It's not like the target audience would have had much of a frame of reference to compare it to.
I think everything in Awakening is focused on customisability (from grinding, marriage and having offspring to being able to reclass units)… at the cost of everything else.
User avatar
Suits
Member
Posts: 3174
Joined: October 28th, 2015, 3:25 pm
Location: Chelmsford, UK

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Suits »

I played some more of Hollow Knight and I'm starting to see the attraction more - from a personal point of view and I've unlocked a few different areas, the different aesthetic was very welcome as I'm not a fan of the Tim Burton esc art style, I appreciate it I just don't enjoy it.

Bit playing this mostly of a night, in bed or on the sofa.

Gran Tourismo Sport. The Campaign Missions. Lots of it. Love it. LOVE IT.
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2426
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: Whatcha Been Playing?

Post by Scrustle »

Lately I've been feeling like I keep getting burned by taking a chance on certain games. Buying games that look a bit rough, but I get the impression I might enjoy. Too often lately I've been feeling like I've made a mistake. Two recent games spring to mind.

The one that spurred me to post about this is something I just picked up today. Gear Club Unlimited on the Switch. Had my eye on it for a while, since it's a racing game on the Switch that isn't Mario Kart (or Fast RMX, which I already have on the Wii U), and it also happens to be developed by the studio behind the Test Drive Unlimited games. While they are pretty janky in their own way, I always appreciated them for what they were going for.

Gear Club however, is a lot less ambitious. It's a port of a mobile game that was originally based around the F2P model, but is now just a normal up-front purchase on the Switch. Initially it was full priced, which is pretty ridiculous. So I picked it up on sale as it is right now. I wish I hadn't now. I haven't played much, but that's because first impressions were so poor I didn't feel much like playing more right now. It's basically a very bog-standard circuit-based racing game with little else to offer. You can upgrade your car with performance and cosmetic parts, but it doesn't feel particularly fleshed out, and that's a pretty standard feature these days. Very few race types that are all pretty basic.

But the main problem is just how poor it is technically. The cars don't feel great to handle. Pretty stiff and flat. That wouldn't be a huge problem in itself, at least if there was other stuff to make up for it. But not only does it lack that, it also has a huge amount of input lag. It feels like you barely have control over your car, and trying to actually nail a corner with a proper decent line is pretty much impossible. It's an achievement just to stay off the walls. On top of that the frame rate is awful. Struggles to reach 30fps, and frequently drops below that, with relatively frequent stutters too. And it's all running in a really low resolution as well even in docked mode. The Switch should be able to do better. Loading times take an age, and the UI is incredibly unresponsive and slow. Very sluggish, and frequently just stops responding completely, meaning you need to restart the whole game.

Now I've bought it I suppose I have to play at least a bit more to get some of my money's worth out of it, but this was a pretty big disappointment for my already low expectations.

The other game was from a little while ago, and I almost forgot I even played it until thinking about this post. That being Anima: Gate of Memories on the PS4. The name is kind of ironic now I suppose. Anyway, I heard this getting some comparisons to Nier, which is why I wanted to pick it up. Supposedly a rough, slightly janky action RPG that goes in to very interesting, dark places with its story. A magical talking book with an attitude is also a major character.

But hooooly hell is the writing in this game awful. The dialogue feels like it was written by someone who doesn't speak English well, which I expect is actually the case. It's stiff, awkward, and very unnatural. The voice acting is a similar story. Delivery is awful, and if the tone isn't completely dull and dead, it's all over the place for no reason. The book character in particular is just offensively bad. Both figuratively and literally. He's arrogant and annoying, and won't stop talking in his obnoxious voice about how great he is, telling the absolute worst jokes and just generally being a piece of shit. At one point he makes a rape joke, at another he loudly, and poorly, sings about how amazing he is as you're roaming across a large open field in a sequence that feels like it'll never end. And then there was one line that was the final straw that made me turn the game off and never go back to it. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though shithead Romeo?" Seriously.

The combat is also pretty terrible. I guess I didn't get that far in to unlocking abilities or seeing many enemies, so what I played was basic and repetitive. But the controls were clunky and slow, the feeling of impact was awful and weak, and the sound design was just atrocious. Just miserable on every level.

So these games, on top of a few that I actually finished, like Mafia and Unravel, have left me a bit frustrated with games at the moment. Been really hit-or-miss lately, with far too many of the latter for my liking. I think it's the summer drought. Not much new coming out. But still, I feel kind of dumb for picking up these when I have other things I also wanted to try out but haven't picked up yet, like A Hat in Time and Dead Cells. Wasting money on garbage like an eejit instead.
Post Reply