What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[factotum]

I don't think that was necessarily Beatty's idea--it was general British dogma of the time that rate of fire trumped all other considerations, not just him acting unilaterally. Note that the Hood suffered pretty much the same fate in 1941, five years after Beatty's death.

As for the thread subject: I've just started on Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, and *boy* is it a lot harder than I expected. Frustratingly so, in some cases--it took me so many attempts to get my two characters through the locked gate on the third mission! How on earth you could ever complete some of the bonus objectives (like "Never go in the water" on mission 2, considering the bridge across the river is out) is beyond me.

[Spacewolf]

well it depends on your weapon.

spear, shield and sword are more fluid and easy to move with, and dash-attacking is a thing you need to constantly do with them, they're melee weapons so thats how they're designed. shield has the easiest ranged special however that you can just throw the shield, it bounce off things and will naturally return to you, and spear has a ranged special but needs you to press a button to return to you. so if you want to be really fluid, melee.

gun and bow however are ranged weapons, so it intuitive that they need to stand still to aim, particularly for the bow because you actually need to hold down that weapon to fire a shot, you can't spam arrows unless you get a specific daedalus upgrade, or if you volley special which gets you less damage.the gun's more spammy in its regular attack though, no charge up like the bow, but its bomb special does take time and prediction to make work, so not really fluid. basically the tradeoff for being at range is that you have to stand still because if you could both move and shoot your normal attack, ranged weapons would just be broken, thankfully all the enemies are bound by the same "stand still to fire" rules. the upside of ranged weapons however is that you can shoot other projectiles into their being destroyed or even deflecting them with your own projectiles if you have athena upgrades

but no matter your weapon, your still going to be dashing like mad and constantly keeping mobile, the only difference with ranged weapons is mastering quickly shooting before you move instead of being able to attack while you move while probably spamming your special to are attack foes. so if you want to avoid "clunkiness" don't use ranged weapons. personally I like ranged weapons, I don't mind switching it up to mow things down from range before they ever get to me and sniping this and that while running away to snipe some more. but then I'm kind of person who thinks snipers are cool, so perhaps its just my playstyle.

So I've gotten to the final boss with sword, shield and spear now. I still don't get how to use the gun, effectively I made it to Theseus with it but doubt I could get past him with it. I've gone off the spear abit and found the sword and shield to be much more effective, which is a shame because I used all but one of my titan bloods on the spear. I also used up all my diamonds on Orpheus music box and cant buy the fishing rod, whatever that does.

[Cespenar]

As for the thread subject: I've just started on Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, and *boy* is it a lot harder than I expected. Frustratingly so, in some cases--it took me so many attempts to get my two characters through the locked gate on the third mission! How on earth you could ever complete some of the bonus objectives (like "Never go in the water" on mission 2, considering the bridge across the river is out) is beyond me.

Yeah, it's pretty challenging as that subgenre usually goes, but still not in a way that favors repetition rather than planning, so it gets an okay by my book at least.

The bonus objectives are really crazy though, yes.

[Anteros]

So I've gotten to the final boss with sword, shield and spear now. I still don't get how to use the gun, effectively I made it to Theseus with it but doubt I could get past him with it. I've gone off the spear abit and found the sword and shield to be much more effective, which is a shame because I used all but one of my titan bloods on the spear. I also used up all my diamonds on Orpheus music box and cant buy the fishing rod, whatever that does.

Fishing rod gives you a chance to fish up a (random?) item like once a run.

My best runs have all been with the gun. I basically just abuse the special attack. Dash to safety, fire special which homes in on the enemy for ridiculous damage (up to 4k or so with the right boons) and dash away as soon as you fire it. Rinse, repeat.

The primary fire is awful.

[Lord Raziere]

So I've gotten to the final boss with sword, shield and spear now. I still don't get how to use the gun, effectively I made it to Theseus with it but doubt I could get past him with it. I've gone off the spear abit and found the sword and shield to be much more effective, which is a shame because I used all but one of my titan bloods on the spear. I also used up all my diamonds on Orpheus music box and cant buy the fishing rod, whatever that does.

then your farther than me, I only have gotten past Theseus once at this point and died on the way to the final boss and am busy playing skyrim.

the thing you do with the gun is that you unload it as much as you can while throwing bombs every chance you get, I simply find no reason to manually reload. for theseus specifically, the primarily problem is figuring out how to deal with the minotaur because he will just keep charging at you and won't stop until he hits a wall, no amount of running will fix that, only him hitting a wall and he tracks you real good. think it over, its probably best to constantly huddle up against the arena walls while hiding behind one of the six statues when the minotaur charges and theseus throws his spear, so that the spear will hit the statue and the minotaur will hit the wall thus protecting against both attacks and just do this constant positioning dance in that manner until you can take out the minotaur because once he is taken out, you can take out theseus much easier even when he starts calling down his god attacks, for the gun in particular, think it through I'd probably have to constantly do that positioning dance while throwing the bombs at the places the minotaur will probably be.
though how someone can get past a fury and hydra with the gun and still not consider themselves effective with it is beyond me. three out of four areas is pretty effective in my book.

[Spacewolf]

So got past the current last boss. Nemesis sword with hangover and weakness effects plus some random crit stuff worked so well even with an awful last fight my dps was just too high.

It didn't even start off as a real attempt run I was just trying to work my way through everyones heirlooms but when I reached the last floor with all my restarts left I decided to go for it.

[Zombimode]

Finished Tyrants of the Moonsea (Neverwinter Nights module) and with it the last of the Premium Modules.

I really liked Tyrants. It had great characters, a good action-packed pacing (especially in the first half), large scale without padding, good production value.

While I'm not much of a Forgotten Realms person, I alway appreciate it if a work of fiction manages to present a compelling setting AND respects and builds upon the lore: Tyrants feels very much at home in the FR setting and its chosen region, the Moonsea.

I also like that this game rewards attentive players: reading books provides the player with actual useful information without the game forcing or guiding the player to this information.


Since I have not really any else to do with this sunday I figured I could start another game. Not yet ready for another RPG I picked up Beyond Good & Evil. The game wasn't a success when it was released (2003) but it got a loyal fan base and it got high praise on GoG. I'm about 2 hours in the game and feel rather unengaged. It's not a bad experience, but quite appearently I would rather do someting else with my time.

Maybe this genre isn't for me?

[Zevox]

Since I have not really any else to do with this sunday I figured I could start another game. Not yet ready for another RPG I picked up Beyond Good & Evil. The game wasn't a success when it was released (2003) but it got a loyal fan base and it got high praise on GoG. I'm about 2 hours in the game and feel rather unengaged. It's not a bad experience, but quite appearently I would rather do someting else with my time.

Maybe this genre isn't for me?

Not necessarily - I was pretty underwhelmed with it when I played it, too. Not honestly sure what its fans see in it.

[TaRix]

Not necessarily - I was pretty underwhelmed with it when I played it, too. Not honestly sure what its fans see in it.

Maybe it resonates with their suspicions of "The Man" not telling them the Truth? I dunno.

As for me, I finally finished a Hades run with each weapon, but pretty much only when I had everything but the last mirror upgrade maxxed. I'm currently on a three-game streak (no heat) but don't expect it to last--though I'm reliably getting to the last boss.
I guess a big thing in fighting big folk is more 'Punch-out!' stick-and-move or dodge-counter than, say, Diablo's mash everything until they die. I'm not that great with that, though; I get caught up in the moment and mash too much and take too many hits. But learning to read a boss while sticking 'em with all the debuffs lets you get in, backstab, maul, call, whatever, then run way back out of range to read 'em again. It's very nice that even the bosses get debuffed and everything else. One satisfying win had me nearly gone when Demeter's Withering Freeze (or somesuch, basically kills a chilled foe if it's at 10% or less) finished off the boss, who even had a special dying line for that situation.

Then I fell off a cliff and died. Or pretended I got clobbered by the last boss and got sent back home.

[Rodin]

Not necessarily - I was pretty underwhelmed with it when I played it, too. Not honestly sure what its fans see in it.

I played it originally ~5 years after it was released. There's a lot in there that appealed to me - likeable characters, a colorful world with imaginative alien species, and a pretty good (if simple) plot. The way BG&E varies its gameplay made it a very unique experience. One moment you're doing third person brawling, the next you're doing a car race, and then all of a sudden you're playing air hockey.

However, I found the individual elements of the gameplay to be dated. Each element is a relatively shallow version of its style, and even at the time there were other games that did each element better. This has only gotten worse over the years.

BG&E is worth playing if you get engaged with the world and don't mind putting up with gameplay that has aged badly. I found it to be charming and well worthy of the cult status it has gained over the years. It's just a shame that the sequel appears to have started development with a soulectomy. It has Duke Nukem Forever written all over it.

---

In other news I'm back on the Souls train. I started with a Dark Souls 2 mod to try and re-kindle (heh) my interest in the black sheep of the franchise. I got about halfway through it before I remembered two things. The first is that most Souls mods suck, and the second is that Dark Souls 2 sucks. I put a ton of hours into DS2, but now that it is bracketed by two superior games I find little reason to return.

So I moved on to DS3 to do a Pyromancer build. I got about halfway through THAT run before my PS4 shut off during a loading screen and my save data got corrupted. That was the end of that run as well as a couple hundred hours worth of other characters.

I'm now back on the original, doing a Solaire run. This unfortunately meant ganking our jolly cooperator for his clothes, but it's been worth it to play the game in full Sunbro mode. I'm starting the DLC now and waiting for the bolt of lightning to strike my Switch and destroy this run too.

Maybe I should dig out my PS3 and Demon's Souls just in case...

[Cazero]

So, Megaman Zero/ZX Legacy is out. I didn't remember bosses being so fragile. Probably because hard mode disable charged attacks.

The funny thing with the Zero saga is how the only thing making the game difficult is the ranking system. If you care at all about it, you have to deprive yourself of almost all the permanent upgrades. And starting with MMZ2, almost all of the cool things (like weapon skills) are gated behind the ranking system.
At least an A is enough.

[tonberrian]

So, Megaman Zero/ZX Legacy is out. I didn't remember bosses being so fragile. Probably because hard mode disable charged attacks.

The funny thing with the Zero saga is how the only thing making the game difficult is the ranking system. If you care at all about it, you have to deprive yourself of almost all the permanent upgrades. And starting with MMZ2, almost all of the cool things (like weapon skills) are gated behind the ranking system.
At least an A is enough.

I did manage a playthrough of MMZ with a perfect 100 score on every mission - it's a pain in the butt, to be sure. I did it also with Z3, but that was on ultimate mode which gives you most of the stuff and some more besides from the beginning.

[warty goblin]

I don't think that was necessarily Beatty's idea--it was general British dogma of the time that rate of fire trumped all other considerations, not just him acting unilaterally. Note that the Hood suffered pretty much the same fate in 1941, five years after Beatty's death.

My understanding is that Hood blew up because Bismarck's 15 inch shell penetrated the deck armor directly into the stern magazine for the 4 inch secondary armament, which ignited and blew out the bulkhead for Hood's 15 inch rear turrets. It was understood at the time that Hood was vulnerable to long range plunging fire hitting her relatively thin deck armor (that had nevertheless been increased post-Jutland while she was still being built), and not a failure to follow the safety protocols put back into effect after Jutland.

Been fighting a couple cruiser actions, which are kinda fun and very zippy. Very different feeling from long-lasting battleship rumbles, or battlecruiser brawls, where a ship will sometimes tank a hit no problem and sometimes get totally demolished. Cruisers just tend to fall apart under the tender ministrations of 8 inch gunfire, so if you're gonna commit to a fight, you've gotta mean it.

Also been dithering around in Age of Empire 2 Definitive Edition, which is a fascinating object lesson in just how differently games used to do things. Slowly. They used to do things slowly. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's very different from a modern strategy game, where if there isn't blood being shed within sixty seconds, something has gone weird.

[Spacewolf]

I think that might be because games like AoE2 have gone down the starcraft route, while the slower pace RTS have gone in the Grand Strategy direction. So slow small scale RTS have kind of died off.

[warty goblin]

I think that might be because games like AoE2 have gone down the starcraft route, while the slower pace RTS have gone in the Grand Strategy direction. So slow small scale RTS have kind of died off.

Probably yeah, which is too bad because I rather like the general scale and heavy econ focus of something like AoE. Sort of a Goldilocks thing, where grand strategy lacks the fun of personally building a thing through their sheer size, and the hyper-aggressive design philosophy of modern RTSs loses the geeky simulation aspects I love. My AoE cities don't feel a thousand miles from a Caesar 3 city, pretty much most all recent RTS cities feel like... that place I go to spit out some more cannon fodder.

Mind, I don't miss having to manage individual freaking pikemen. Squad/formation based unit management is one of those modern changes that I completely favor.

[Triaxx]

I don't know, Supreme Commander is the last RTS that really went me go Oooh, Must Play! The rest all seem to have gone on the Starcraft Band Wagon and that just doesn't appeal to me.

[Anteros]

Checked out Hades again since they were advertising a big update. Nothing really new except one piece of art and a few changes to the way the mirror upgrades work. Hardly the big update they promised.

Still, the base game remains very fun. I seem to be able to win consistently now, and the heat mechanic is interesting...especially the ability to grant new moves to the bosses. I'll probably shelf it (for real) until they finish the game and then give it another run to see how they end things.

[Rodin]

Checked out Hades again since they were advertising a big update. Nothing really new except one piece of art and a few changes to the way the mirror upgrades work. Hardly the big update they promised.

Still, the base game remains very fun. I seem to be able to win consistently now, and the heat mechanic is interesting...especially the ability to grant new moves to the bosses. I'll probably shelf it (for real) until they finish the game and then give it another run to see how they end things.

They added a whole new weapon, which is the first new weapon added to game in a year. That's a pretty major update all by itself in a game with only 5 weapons previously. They added all the different Aspects for it too.

The Mirror upgrades are also not "a few changes" - they doubled the number of talents on it, marking a major change in how you upgrade between runs.

There's also supposed to a be a massive amount of additional story added.

Hades is one of the few games that I think are worth keeping up with the Early Access updates because there is a whole bunch of dialogue that is added solely for the Early Access players. All of the lines from Hades about renovations? Those are addressing the EA state of the game. Back when Hydra was the final boss, the ending narration went something like this:

Narrator: After escaping Asphodel, Zagreus went on to have many more adventures. Unfortunately, we can't show them right now so let's pretend he died instead.
*Game displays death screen*
Zagreus: OH COME ON!

He shows up back in the pool of blood grumbling about how unfair that death was. There's a flipping ton of that sort of thing in the game, and I love it.

[Lord Raziere]

Hades updated!? why am I screwing around with skyrim again, I need to check this new update out.

speaking of which, ultimate combat mod wasn't as great as thought it'd be, things barely changed! if at all. wondering if it was worth it. found another one of my dwemer mods while exploring north of dawnstar, wasn't the best one admittedly even if there was some thing about that were unique like having actual living dwemer to interact with and a plot about the race coming back. but soon my mod testing will be done as I'm coming near the 254 mod plug in limit, so no more mods for me. I hoped to save my mods for big expansion ones made by the guys made Bruma, but....oh well.

[Gnoman]

My understanding is that yes, sort of. The British battlecruisers also had fairly thin turret roofs, which allowed them to be penetrated by German battlecruiser shells. This was obviously very bad news for the gun crew, and ordinarily might knock the turret out of action, but the ship itself would be safe. But sometime during the war, Beaty, who was in charge of the battlecruisers, decided that they needed to maximize rate of fire above all else. So they started leaving the armored hatches connecting the turrets to the magazines open, to allow faster transport of shells and powder. Unlike the Germans, who used a sealed brass cartridge case, the British kept their gunpowder in rather leaky cloth bags, resulting in powder dust everywhere. With that setup, when a shell penetrated a turret and detonated, it would ignite the powder in the gunhouse, which would then flash through the connecting passages into the magazine. And once that went off, it tended to blow the ship in half. So the thin armor was definitely a contributing factor, but if they'd actually used the hatches that sealed the magazines from the gunhouses, they would have taken dramatically fewer losses than they did.

The Germans were also substantially aided by the fact that the British had really terrible armor piercing shells, which tended to break apart and detonate on contact with armor, rather than after piercing it. Otherwise they would probably have taken much worse losses.

It is important to note that the Germans adopted ammunition-handling practices very similar to the British ones before the war, for much the same reasons - hit rates were low enough that rate of fire was crucial to inflicting damage. The primary difference is that the German ships' heavier armor kept out enough of the shells to prevent total disaster at a battle (Dogger bank?) not long before Jutland, and that gave them the information they needed to reform their practice. The RN didn't have that experience, and their ships were so vulnerable to flash fires because of their thinner armor that the hits they took were not survivable.

I don't think that was necessarily Beatty's idea--it was general British dogma of the time that rate of fire trumped all other considerations, not just him acting unilaterally. Note that the Hood suffered pretty much the same fate in 1941, five years after Beatty's death.

As for the thread subject: I've just started on Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, and *boy* is it a lot harder than I expected. Frustratingly so, in some cases--it took me so many attempts to get my two characters through the locked gate on the third mission! How on earth you could ever complete some of the bonus objectives (like "Never go in the water" on mission 2, considering the bridge across the river is out) is beyond me.

My understanding is that Hood blew up because Bismarck's 15 inch shell penetrated the deck armor directly into the stern magazine for the 4 inch secondary armament, which ignited and blew out the bulkhead for Hood's 15 inch rear turrets. It was understood at the time that Hood was vulnerable to long range plunging fire hitting her relatively thin deck armor (that had nevertheless been increased post-Jutland while she was still being built), and not a failure to follow the safety protocols put back into effect after Jutland.

Been fighting a couple cruiser actions, which are kinda fun and very zippy. Very different feeling from long-lasting battleship rumbles, or battlecruiser brawls, where a ship will sometimes tank a hit no problem and sometimes get totally demolished. Cruisers just tend to fall apart under the tender ministrations of 8 inch gunfire, so if you're gonna commit to a fight, you've gotta mean it.

Also been dithering around in Age of Empire 2 Definitive Edition, which is a fascinating object lesson in just how differently games used to do things. Slowly. They used to do things slowly. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's very different from a modern strategy game, where if there isn't blood being shed within sixty seconds, something has gone weird.

The exact cause of Hood's magazine explosion is disputed. It is almost certain that the 4" magazine deflagrated, destroying the internal bulkhead and setting off the 15" magazine. Exactly what caused this to happen is (and always will be) impossible to answer. There is some suggestion that exposed 4" shells detonated and caused the chain reaction, but the more likely explanation is that the doors of the 4" magazine were opened up by one shell, and another set the shells off.


More on-topic, does Ultimate Admiral simulate the British handling practice at all? Rule The Waves (1 and 2) does this in a really awkward way - Britain's national flaw is "Hidden Flaws", which greatly increases the chance of a flash fire when a turret is penetrated.

[warty goblin]

It is important to note that the Germans adopted ammunition-handling practices very similar to the British ones before the war, for much the same reasons - hit rates were low enough that rate of fire was crucial to inflicting damage. The primary difference is that the German ships' heavier armor kept out enough of the shells to prevent total disaster at a battle (Dogger bank?) not long before Jutland, and that gave them the information they needed to reform their practice. The RN didn't have that experience, and their ships were so vulnerable to flash fires because of their thinner armor that the hits they took were not survivable.

I think it was Dogger Bank yes, where the Saydlitz nearly blew in half due to a hit to one of the rear turrets.

The exact cause of Hood's magazine explosion is disputed. It is almost certain that the 4" magazine deflagrated, destroying the internal bulkhead and setting off the 15" magazine. Exactly what caused this to happen is (and always will be) impossible to answer. There is some suggestion that exposed 4" shells detonated and caused the chain reaction, but the more likely explanation is that the doors of the 4" magazine were opened up by one shell, and another set the shells off.

True enough, it's pretty impossible to tell exactly what happened. Since the British stopped leaving giant sacks of propellant sitting around in the turrets however, it probably wasn't the same problem they were having at Jutland.

More on-topic, does Ultimate Admiral simulate the British handling practice at all? Rule The Waves (1 and 2) does this in a really awkward way - Britain's national flaw is "Hidden Flaws", which greatly increases the chance of a flash fire when a turret is penetrated.

Not at the moment, so far as I can tell, but what I'm playing is an early access version so early it's not even ready for Steam yet. So there's no campaign at all, or tech tree or anything like that. All it's got at the moment is a bunch of loosely scripted scenarios (build X ships of Y class to sink Z), and a pretty good custom battle generator where you pick the year, the two belligerents, and the fleet composition for each side, optionally design one of the ships, and then have at it. The ship designer's pretty good too, and has been substantially improved as of the last release, with more hulls and better parts selection. There's some definite quirks - the barbettes for secondaries are definitely not working as intended at the moment - I'm pretty sure guns don't weigh nearly enough given the silly number of them you can stick on a ship, and the damage model does not handle repeated torpedo hits to the same area of a ship at all well, by which I mean the followup hits seem to do hardly any damage. This can be extremely annoying when you torpedo a battlecruiser five times, only for the damn thing to keep smugly sitting there, sinking your light cruisers. Also, the ship AI can be very hard to keep from doing incredibly stupid things, although given the difficulty of signaling in a naval battle, this may be a stealth feature.

I don't know if it will model something like that, but I suspect not, simply because that's a little more in the weeds than I think the game is going. It does increase the chances of a magazine detonation depending on what kind of propellant you're using though, which makes lyddite a real deal with the devil.

[Lord Raziere]

So I've played updated Hades.

the Fists are my new favorite weapon and I consistently get past Theseus with them,and on my first run with them I managed to get as far as getting past first phase Hades himself. they are just so fast and furious and deal so much damage they kind've opened my eyes to how little damage I was doing before. I just have to dash and never stop punching. who needs weapons when you can put a pair of gloves and ORAORAORA my way through the underworld? they're really good, really aggressive and real fast. Just don't stop punching. Become punch eternal.

[Yora]

After a bit of a break, I have now reached the Spellhold in Baldur's Gate 2 again. I started playing the game a few times over the year, but I think this part of the game I have not seen in probably 18 years. There are some parts in the dungeon that feel really familiar, but I don't actually remember what the dungeon looks like and what you encounter in it.
That should make playing the game now more fun than the previous parts, but I feel the game really hasn't aged that well. I think Icewind Dale might actually have aged better because it's more or less only the combat. It's when BG2 tries to do creative things with puzzle dungeons and stories that it feels particularly outdated.

[Anteros]

They added a whole new weapon, which is the first new weapon added to game in a year. That's a pretty major update all by itself in a game with only 5 weapons previously. They added all the different Aspects for it too.

The Mirror upgrades are also not "a few changes" - they doubled the number of talents on it, marking a major change in how you upgrade between runs.

There's also supposed to a be a massive amount of additional story added.

Hades is one of the few games that I think are worth keeping up with the Early Access updates because there is a whole bunch of dialogue that is added solely for the Early Access players. All of the lines from Hades about renovations? Those are addressing the EA state of the game. Back when Hydra was the final boss, the ending narration went something like this:

Narrator: After escaping Asphodel, Zagreus went on to have many more adventures. Unfortunately, we can't show them right now so let's pretend he died instead.
*Game displays death screen*
Zagreus: OH COME ON!

He shows up back in the pool of blood grumbling about how unfair that death was. There's a flipping ton of that sort of thing in the game, and I love it.

I did forget about the fist weapon since I didn't have the 8 keys stocked up to unlock it. I guess that's something else to do. To be clear, I do like the game quite a lot.

The updates to the mirror and making you pick and choose between upgrades certainly do seem interesting, but they need a lot of work. A lot of the newer available stuff is incredibly overpowered compared to their alternative.

I don't particularly care about the extra early access narration since it's all basically just some variation of "we would tell you the rest of the story now, but we can't since it's early access." I did find the one bit where Hades was complaining that the renovations could be done by now if they had more support humorous, but mostly they're pretty samey. Most of the characters and voices are very charismatic and well done, so I do enjoy hearing them...just not enough to keep playing the game soley for that.

[factotum]

After a bit of a break, I have now reached the Spellhold in Baldur's Gate 2 again.

I recall trying to get into BG2 a few years ago but it crashed hard not long after I left the starting dungeon and I never picked it up again. If the Enhanced Edition is more stable I really ought to pick it up and give it a go, I suppose.

[Spacewolf]

So I've finished Hades 14 times now with a combination of Sword, Spear, Sheild and Fists. Still haven't manged it with either of the ranged weapons.

I agree the fists are very powerful partially because the first aspect you get is one of the best full stop, although their speed and power are certainly nothing to be sniffed at even without it (interesting how they are building up Demeter in this game). Although the Swords hidden aspect is absolutely ridiculous, i think it might have some sort of +Chaos gates as well because basically every shop I came to had the ability to buy one which meant I was stacking 8 chaos buffs by the end. (I always carry the cosmic egg till the final level.)

I'm very impressed with how well this game keeps you going I got remnant from ashes at the same time as this game but I've only played that through about 1 and a half times. The pacts, prophecies and just generally screwing about combined with short run lengths really works well.

It's a shame i never really got into Transistor considering how much I liked Bastion really.

[Lord Raziere]

I am now consistently getting through Elysium and Styx and fighting Hades myself, but I have yet to beat him. its not that hes tough, its that Hades has this stupid circle melee attack I keep being caught in that has really long range which I don't know how to avoid. other than that, I can evade most of his attacks, its that stupid circle-sweep that gets me so often that I need to figure out how to avoid.

[werehounding]

I'm playing Shadowrun: Hong Kong to finish my playthrough of the series of games, and loving it. I'm also (re)playing Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines on and off in anticipation of VTMB2 in September(?).

[Zevox]

Still playing Granblue Fantasy Versus quite a bit, and feeling like I'm getting the hang of it more. I definitely enjoy it, but boy, a particular weakness it has proven to have is its online. And it's sadly more than just the connection quality problems that all fighting games with delay-based netcode have, but rather a problem with finding good connections. In ranked mode, the filter that's supposed to prevent you from being offered matches with lower-quality connections just does not work. You can set it to show you only the fastest connections, and you'll still be offered opponents with a 0 bar connection. Meanwhile, in the game's lobby system, you outright cannot see anyone's connection rating at all. All you can do is get into a match and find out how it feels.

That's pretty darn bad in both cases, and baffling why it's like that. This isn't a fighting game from a new developer or anything, it's an ArcSystem Works game. They've got plenty of fighting games under their belt, and none of them have had these problems before. It's standard in their other games to see a connection rating floating right over players' avatars' heads in their lobby system, and the filter in ranked woks just fine aside from edge cases where someone's connection is right on the cusp of a higher rating. I can't imagine how they dropped the ball on those - particularly the filter, which is there, it just does nothing for some reason.

I also played through the Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo this weekend, and was fairly happy with it. It's no Devil May Cry, but I can see some potential to that combat system, and it was fairly fun to play. Definitely thinking about picking that one up when it releases in a month.

[Cazero]

I've reached the Megaman ZX series and boy I'm glad model P's ability to attack by tapping the touchscreen is useless, because they really ****ed it up on the PC port. Seriously. I have an emulator with a better touchscreen support.
Really sad that model F's attack trajectories are a pain to reconfigure (even more ****ed up than model P's radar shots for no reason), because that was a fun gimmick to play with.

The voiceacting of ZX Advent is jarring, with people constantly stopping mid-sentence waiting for you to push a button before they continue.