What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

[LibraryOgre]

Well, who did you lose?

Amiri. I didn't run her solo mission correctly, so her friend Nilak died, so she decided I never cared about her once we were in the final castle.

[Zombimode]

Well, moving into the endgame of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, only to learn that I've lost one of my best and favorite characters because of something that happened HOURS ago. Like, several chapters. Considering restarting, because at least this is still fun, but, ugh, that's a blow.

Well, considering the games track record on these kind of things that should not come at a suprise to you at this point

[Narkis]

Amiri. I didn't run her solo mission correctly, so her friend Nilak died, so she decided I never cared about her once we were in the final castle.

Ah, yeah, her sidequest is one of the tough ones. I remember reloading a lot to get it right on my first game. Still, I appreciated the companion quests having consequences like that, even if the execution was a bit hamfisted.

[LibraryOgre]

Well, considering the games track record on these kind of things that should not come at a suprise to you at this point

To be honest, I've missed most of these problems. There's a few places where I messed up, or had trouble finding something, but overall, the game has run pretty smoothly for me.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Been playing a bit more Slay the Spire, finally beat The Heart again. I was using a pretty standard Stance Dancer deck (The Watcher, tons of ways to switch stances, Mental Fortress, Talk to the Hand, and a couple of Flurry of Blows), save that since I got almost no upgrades because I swapped my starting relic and got Fusion Hammer, and I compensated by making my deck extremely thick with copies of the important cards (3x Mental Fortress, 3x or 4x Talk to the Hand). Also had Fasting (for extra damage) and Devotion (since I picked up the relic that grants one Mantra per turn) in there.

Landing two or three Talk to the Hands on The Heart before it got its artifact up made the fight relatively easy. I still would have died if not for a Fairy in a Bottle, but after that I didn't take damage again, and I only needed it because I lost 40 HP in the fight against the Spear & Shield.

Maybe next I'll try the Defect again. I feel like all my successful runs as the Defect end up the same, though; start as a frost turtle deck, then pivot into spamming lightning thanks to Storm and Creative AI, in what I call an Unlimited Power deck after Emperor Palpatine. Easiest run I ever did was 4 innate Storms, one innate Creative AI (courtesy of Tornado in a Bottle), and Mummified Hand. I did make it to The Heart once with a zero-cost Defect deck, but it promptly killed me.

[Zevox]

The random minigame breaks are a mostly FFVII thing; even the other classic Final Fantasies that go heavy on minigames generally don't force you to do them for plot progression (there's like.. one particularly annoying instance in FF8.) It's one of the things I suspect even the fans that hold up FF7 as an all-time benchmark would prefer got removed or reduced. As for the party changes, yeah, this is a pretty common structure for older Final Fantasies; in the first part of the game you wander the world meeting a bunch of people that float in and out of the party as your goals intersect with their plotlines. Later on you get more freedom of movement, they all gather in one place, and you can more freely choose who you want to use (in Final Fantasy, this tends to be when you get access to an airship.) I think 7 let you start swapping people more or less freely almost from the moment you leave Midgar, tho? Just didn't have the quality-of-life improvement for letting you manage party members that weren't in the active group.

You do get the ability to change your party quickly after leaving Midgar (it's after watching Cloud's flashback scenes in Kalm). It's irritating that it's arbitrarily locked to being done only at save points or on the world map, though - you can never change party members while in a town (and there's surprisingly few towns with save points in them; the game must be expecting you to save on the world map outside them) or other non-world-map area, and I can't imagine why. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could be a technical limitation from the day, and it makes no sense to me as a deliberate design.

As far as people leaving the party, the issue isn't quite like in older FF games, at least that I'm familiar with. In FF4 I recall you'd have party a rotating final party member or two, as a member tended to leave just before you'd meet another and, in many cases, only became available again very late in the game (though at the same time you had some constants for other slots), which sounds like what you're describing. In FF7 it's not like that, at least not that I've seen so far. It's more that any time a party member has a story scene to play out, they automatically leave the party until that scene is done. Walk into any new town and there's good odds that someone is going to do that (sometimes the entire party, even), and you won't get them back until you've concluded the story for that town - which, with the lack of ability to interact with their inventory while they're away, makes some things very frustrating, like visiting shops in those new towns and considering whether buy them new weapons and armor. On top of that, anyone who does that takes any equipped materia they had with them until they return, so you can't even swap those over to someone else in the meantime in case you do get into a fight before they come back. It's just a very annoying design element that seems to serve no purpose at all.

As for the mini-games, yeah, not much more to say I guess. I hope Remake Part 2 (and on) jettisons a lot of them, but given it did preserve the only few I recall Midgar having in one form or another*, I don't know how likely that is. Seriously though, I'd be incredibly grateful if they at least confined them to the Golden Saucer. Honestly, it feels like that port town the mini-games I complained about in my last post needs a much bigger overhaul than even just ditching the mini-games anyway, I'd say, as the events there really don't make much sense on a basic level.

*The Bike mini-game got expanded upon and was actually pretty cool (though it was already the best mini-game in the game as far as I can tell); the squats mini-game was similar but harder and got a sequel in the even-harder pull-ups mini-game; and the "push the buttons simultaneously" mini-game became a "pull the levers simultaneously" one, which was at least better in that Tifa's countdown gave you an indication of when you needed to pull the levers, so you weren't just guessing.

Yeah, FF has always had a bad habit of not asking themselves "Is this fun?".

That feels quite sadly accurate, yeah.

So, further progress today: I seem to have just passed the point where I recall stopping the one previous time I played. I didn't recall it's name before, but turns out it was Cosmo Canyon. I remember getting there, seeing that Red 13 recognized the place, walking outside and saving, and I don't think I ever went back after that. So I'm finally in all-new territory and seeing story elements I completely haven't before, at least. Which is good, because honestly there wasn't a lot of story development in between the end of Midgar and this point (and most of it was that Kalm flashback that happened immediately after Midgar), so getting all that new information from Red 13's "Grandpa" is very welcome. Now, if only the party could figure out a goal besides "find Sephiroth," maybe this would get somewhere. Not expecting that though, I'm guessing we'll be two steps behind him looking for vague hints of where he's gone for a good long time...

[factotum]

Ah, yeah, her sidequest is one of the tough ones. I remember reloading a lot to get it right on my first game. Still, I appreciated the companion quests having consequences like that, even if the execution was a bit hamfisted.

That was one of the things I really liked about Persona 4--it wasn't afraid to gate off parts of the game. There's a point around the beginning of December where, if you don't say exactly the right things to defuse the situation, you'll skip straight to March 20th and get one of the bad endings, skipping three dungeons in the process. Best hope you had a save just prior to that happening or you're in trouble!

[tyckspoon]

That was one of the things I really liked about Persona 4--it wasn't afraid to gate off parts of the game. There's a point around the beginning of December where, if you don't say exactly the right things to defuse the situation, you'll skip straight to March 20th and get one of the bad endings, skipping three dungeons in the process. Best hope you had a save just prior to that happening or you're in trouble!

..'tho if I recall this right the game has one of the interrupts where it prompts you to save right before going into this sequence and has huge heavy-handed 'YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE SOME IMPORTANT DECISIONS!' messages a couple of times leading up to it. If you manage to ignore those warning signs and still get stuck without a save close to that decision point.. well. Game tried to tell you.

[clingydreamers]

I'm playing duel links. My quest for the ultra rare gozuki is on! : D

[Silverraptor]

I'm playing duel links. My quest for the ultra rare gozuki is on! : D

I'm playing Duel Links as well. Currently have a witchcrafter deck I mado that I'm pleased with.

[Gnoman]

On top of that, anyone who does that takes any equipped materia they had with them until they return, so you can't even swap those over to someone else in the meantime in case you do get into a fight before they come back. It's just a very annoying design element that seems to serve no purpose at all.

This at least is not true. You can access your inactive party members materia using the "exchange" option.

Look here, third menu down.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...l_Fantasy_VII)

[Zevox]

So, I've reached the most famous scene of FF7 today - fairly markedly further into it than I ever was before. I think I'll be saving thoughts on the story from here until I've seen the rest of it, at least for the most part. I have to ask though: how many times in this game are my own party members going to betray me? It's happened twice now. And yet somehow we're still traveling with both of the traitors. I mean, okay, one has a reason for that (albeit one that I wish certain characters would decide to do something about...), but the other not so much.

Besides that, I feel like I've gotten enough time with the combat to give some thoughts there. Obviously, my dislike of the ATB means I was always going to find the combat in this game at least a bit lackluster, but I have to say I'm quite disappointed in just how easy everything is. I've still yet to feel like I was in a fight I could realistically lose. Some fights lately have forced me to do more healing than in the past, but that's about it.

Also, the materia system is coming to feel like a double-edged sword. I quite like some elements of it, as it allows some interesting customization and cool combinations - and the "Enemy Skill" materia in particular has been fun. But I also can't help but feel that it too heavily defines your characters. Throw enough magic materia on them and anyone can be the party mage; throw some HP ups and a high-power/low-materia weapon on them and even some of the normally weaker characters could be your melee character or tank. It feels like the characters barely have anything to give them individual fighting styles - basically just their limit breaks, mostly minor stat differences, and whether their weapons are long-range or not by default (and even the latter can be changed by the long-range materia). In which case, what's the point of having so many? Especially when only the ones you met in Midgar (and let's be honest, mostly Aerith) and Cait Sith really seem to matter to the main plot.

I will compliment the game on its music though. Granted, there's been a track or two that I've found more grating (particularly in that harbor town with the mini-games I was complaining about earlier), but the majority of it is actually quite good - thankfully including the ones you hear the most often, the world map theme and random encounter fight theme.

This at least is not true. You can access your inactive party members materia using the "exchange" option.

Look here, third menu down.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...l_Fantasy_VII)

That only works if they're simply not in your current party, but are still in the reserves. If they've left the party entirely, they won't show up on that menu at all. It is definitely a godsend for allowing you to move materia more easily when switching party members, but doesn't help with the leaving the party issue.

That was one of the things I really liked about Persona 4--it wasn't afraid to gate off parts of the game. There's a point around the beginning of December where, if you don't say exactly the right things to defuse the situation, you'll skip straight to March 20th and get one of the bad endings, skipping three dungeons in the process. Best hope you had a save just prior to that happening or you're in trouble!

The great thing about that part of P4, I think, is how well even that bad ending works. I had a friend back when P4 first came out who reached that point, decided

Spoiler: Endgame spoiler, naturally

Show

to throw Namatame into the TV world,

and came away from it saying that it was a bittersweet but satisfying ending. He legitimately didn't realize until we told him that he'd gotten the bad ending, and needed to go back and make different choices to see the true ending! And you can kind of see why.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers.

Show

Nanako's death hits hard, after all, and the game does everything it can to make it so, with everybody reacting so realistically to it. (On top of that, if you've played Persona 3 before, as we had, you'd really have no reason to expect that she isn't staying dead, as that game killed off multiple important characters and brought back none of them.) Presented with the possibility that the man who is definitely responsible for her death, and for all you know at the time likely the murderer you've been tracking down the whole game, might be impossible to punish through ordinary authorities due to the lack of evidence of his crimes, it's easy to see why you'd consider some vigilante justice at that point. I recall being pretty torn about how to handle the situation my first time through myself, and I think I did get the bad ending first, though through failing to calm down the others rather than choosing to participate. I just recognized it was a bad ending and re-loaded to try again immediately.

[factotum]

Well, I went ahead and did it--bought a second-hand PS4 Pro because it cost about the same as a new regular PS4, and a copy of Persona 5 Royal. Just firing it up now and it feels kind of dirty, considering I've been a PC gamer all my life...

[DeTess]

Well, I went ahead and did it--bought a second-hand PS4 Pro because it cost about the same as a new regular PS4, and a copy of Persona 5 Royal. Just firing it up now and it feels kind of dirty, considering I've been a PC gamer all my life...

Eh, trust me, that feeling will go by soon enough. I used to be a PC-gamer like you, but then I took half a dozen playstation exclusives to the knee and caved and got myself some sony systems to play them on, and I've never really regretted it.

[Erloas]

I've owned a PS4 for maybe 5 years now and I've almost never used it, except when I was married because that's all they wanted to play on. Even with my old computer that struggled to play a lot of newer games I didn't find myself using the PS4. I've used it more for Netflix than anything else.
It probably won't be an issue with a game like Persona, but controllers still suck compared to a mouse and keyboard for many types of games, it just happens that the game types that are good with a controller are also game types that I don't really care for. All the big console exclusive titles that I've noticed all fall into the category of "that looks like a decent game, but that genre is so much better with a mouse and keyboard."

[Rynjin]

Most Sony exclusives these days are some variation of open world brawler; God of War, Spiderman, Ghosts of Tsushima as the most recent. All are definitely "controller games" as are IMO any game besides FPSes and CRPGs.

[Zevox]

I've owned a PS4 for maybe 5 years now and I've almost never used it, except when I was married because that's all they wanted to play on. Even with my old computer that struggled to play a lot of newer games I didn't find myself using the PS4. I've used it more for Netflix than anything else.
It probably won't be an issue with a game like Persona, but controllers still suck compared to a mouse and keyboard for many types of games, it just happens that the game types that are good with a controller are also game types that I don't really care for. All the big console exclusive titles that I've noticed all fall into the category of "that looks like a decent game, but that genre is so much better with a mouse and keyboard."

I feel like a lot of that has to be a matter of personal preference based on what you're familiar with, because I kind of feel the opposite. The only genre that comes to mind for me as better with a mouse and keyboard would be RTS. Maybe shooters, I know a lot of people insist that's the case, but I don't play those, so I wouldn't know on that one.

Outside of that? For anything turn-based it logically doesn't really matter one way or the other, and for just about anything else real-time (action games, platformers, fighting games, etc) I can't imagine using a mouse and keyboard at all, personally.

[Anteros]

For anything that requires fast pinpoint precision like RTS games or shooters I prefer keyboard and mouse. For anything else, the controller is superior.

It's definitely way more relaxing to just chill on the couch with a controller than sitting up to use a keyboard and mouse properly too.

[Erloas]

I would say anything that involves aiming is best done with a mouse and keyboard... and that is a large number of games across many different genres. Controllers are "good enough" for that, but only because the games are designed so that precision isn't that important.

I would put fighting games, sports games, brawlers, and some styles of hack-n-slash as controller games. I played a lot of Diablo 3 on the PS4, and while it worked perfectly fine there were some things that just didn't work the game way and were much less powerful because of it, teleport and area of effect spells being the big ones.

Turn based games will work fine on a controller, it's just a lot slower for certain designs. Given that in turn based taking a while to make your moves doesn't change the end result at all, it's just a matter of fluidity.

Most sim and strategy games also work, they just bury a lot more things under nested menus. Like Cities Skylines is playable on a controller, it's just a lot slower and more steps to get to information.

I found action games like Dauntless pretty much a wash in terms of controls, it just looked and ran much better on my PC compared to a PS4.
I only played Horizon Zero Dawn a little bit, but most of the time I did spend playing it I spent thinking I would much rather be playing with a mouse and keyboard than the controller.

Granted there is going to be personal preference with anything, but specifically someone mentioning being a long time PC gamer, I'm going to assume they're going to have a similar experience. Even growing up on the NES and Sega, and playing on all the Playstation systems, I've had plenty of time to compare and it's not like I'm not used to having a controller, there is a lot of "good enough to play" which is different from the best choice, and that goes both directions.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't really care, I just use whatever I can and get used to different controls. sometimes people should to learn to adapt to little things like that. would save them the pain.

In Starbound what I intended to be my first temporary base in my tutorial planet is rapidly becoming a ridiculous multi-story thing made of various materials in a weird conglomerate. I have however set up a pool of healing water in a glass tub in it, decorated it with geodes, all from a crystal planet. going through the depths of planets never seem to get to any cores no matter how deep I go though? looked it up, all there is at cores are lava.
The missions are actually probably my least liked part of Starbound because they seem to require good gear just to play them, and its whole lot of needless faffing about with limited stuff when the greatest strength of starbound seems to be its sandbox nature

in Skyrim using a naruto mod, I have teleported Ancano to a cage where he forever gets burned alive repeatedly before he can do anything. hopefully I've not broken the Mage's guild quest by doing this. he still can't die after all, he just isn't in the usual place, and the Ancano you fight is probably not the same one, code-wise.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

For anything that requires fast pinpoint precision like RTS games or shooters I prefer keyboard and mouse. For anything else, the controller is superior.

Even for RTSs, Halo Wars (2) proved that the controller works perfectly well. I'd still say that mouse and keyboard have a lower skill requirement, but in several of the world-wide tournaments for HW2 it was an Xbox gamer with a controller triumphing over a PC gamer with a mouse in the finals, so apparently at the highest levels of skill there isn't that much difference.

[Anteros]

Even for RTSs, Halo Wars (2) proved that the controller works perfectly well. I'd still say that mouse and keyboard have a lower skill requirement, but in several of the world-wide tournaments for HW2 it was an Xbox gamer with a controller triumphing over a PC gamer with a mouse in the finals, so apparently at the highest levels of skill there isn't that much difference.

I would say that anything Halo related was probably particularly crafted with a controller in mind over a keyboard. Which is fine, but most RTS games are made the other way around.

[factotum]

I would say anything that involves aiming is best done with a mouse and keyboard... and that is a large number of games across many different genres.

If that's the *only* thing you're doing in those games (e.g. FPS) then I would agree, but there are a lot of games around these days that have a lot of different game styles in them. For example, Grand Theft Auto--there's probably at least as much driving as there is shooting in that game, so you have driving bits that are unquestionably superior with a controller due to the analogue control of accelerator, brakes and steering, and shooty bits that work better with a mouse and keyboard. It's a pain in the butt to keep swapping controllers, so you have to make a value judgement as to which part of the game you'll be playing with optimal controls and which part the less good ones. As I've said before, though, what I like about PC is that you *have* that choice--I've had an XBox controller attached to my PC for years, and it's been well used for games, believe me.

Regarding Persona: played about three hours of Persona 5. I've also played a little bit of Persona 3, and if those two are good examples, it seems Persona 4 is a bit of an odd one out in the series because (despite being nominally a murder mystery) it's actually pretty light-hearted and easy-going. I mean, in 3 you activate your Persona by shooting yourself in the head with a gun, and 5 has a very "film noir" feeling to it so far.

[oxybe]

it depends on the fps at this point.

Fortnite, for example, is "plagued" by an aim assist feature that greatly benefits contoller players with how it can more accurately help lock onto enemies at longer ranges. the top players very much use controllers on PC.

other games, like tf2, can benefit from a high sensitivity mouse which allows you to quickly snap headshots with a sniper.

I'm working on/off on a hybrid mouse/controller setup, to get the benefits of a mouse's control while aiming but the precision movement of a contoller. it's been awkward.

[DeTess]

Regarding Persona: played about three hours of Persona 5. I've also played a little bit of Persona 3, and if those two are good examples, it seems Persona 4 is a bit of an odd one out in the series because (despite being nominally a murder mystery) it's actually pretty light-hearted and easy-going. I mean, in 3 you activate your Persona by shooting yourself in the head with a gun, and 5 has a very "film noir" feeling to it so far.

persona 4 is probably the most light-hearted of the three (with persona 3 being by far the darkest). I wouldn't really call it an outlier though, it's more that each game has a slightly different overarching theme. Persona 3 is dark for a very different reason than persona 5 is, for example. A lot of the darkness in 3 comes from the supernatural elements, while I'd say the darker bits in 5 owe far more to the mundane opposition the heroes face.

[Razade]

Picked up Paper Mario: Origami King today. It's my first time with a Paper Mario game so I won't have the rose tinted glasses that most people seem to have with Thousand Year Door, which is a shame since I hear that's a stellar game.

Not too far in though I like the use of motion controls for a change and the paper theme is cute. The art is really nice, everything looks paper-y and hand made. The writing's cute, clearly an RPG for a younger crowd in general. The central concept of the battles in concentric rings and lining enemies up for modifiers is a really cool concept. We'll see how annoying it gets since they only give you so much time to do so and you can't go backwards on the ring.

I'll predict they'll block parts of the ring from moving and general shennanigans later on to complicate the formula.

[Zevox]

persona 4 is probably the most light-hearted of the three (with persona 3 being by far the darkest). I wouldn't really call it an outlier though, it's more that each game has a slightly different overarching theme. Persona 3 is dark for a very different reason than persona 5 is, for example. A lot of the darkness in 3 comes from the supernatural elements, while I'd say the darker bits in 5 owe far more to the mundane opposition the heroes face.

Indeed. It's also worth noting that Persona 5 gets dark a lot faster than other entries in the series, thanks to Kamoshida. Persona 3 is certainly the darkest of the bunch, and you could claim that its atmosphere can be pretty dark from the start due to the nature of the Dark Hour and the game's summoning method, but it doesn't really get into its heavy stuff story-wise until the second half of the game, where Persona 5 jumps right into the thick of it.

Persona 4's certainly not without its dark elements though. I mean, it is about trying to stop a serial killer, after all, and the events that lead up to the point where its ending branches are honestly some of the most powerful and depressing the franchise, IMO. It definitely doesn't have such dark elements as quite as much of a constant throughout the game as 3 and 5 can though.

[factotum]

persona 4 is probably the most light-hearted of the three (with persona 3 being by far the darkest). I wouldn't really call it an outlier though, it's more that each game has a slightly different overarching theme. Persona 3 is dark for a very different reason than persona 5 is, for example. A lot of the darkness in 3 comes from the supernatural elements, while I'd say the darker bits in 5 owe far more to the mundane opposition the heroes face.

Maybe so...I've got a fair bit further into 5 now, and one thing I will say is that they've definitely improved the battle mechanics to make things more interesting. I'm not as impressed so far with the storyline and characters, and I find the way they've changed navigation around the city to be annoyingly complicated compared to 4. One other thing I don't like is that the anime cartoons of the characters are animated when they're speaking, but no attempt whatsoever has been made to make the lips sync with the voices--I'd rather they just left them as static portraits.

[Anonymouswizard]

Indeed. It's also worth noting that Persona 5 gets dark a lot faster than other entries in the series, thanks to Kamoshida. Persona 3 is certainly the darkest of the bunch, and you could claim that its atmosphere can be pretty dark from the start due to the nature of the Dark Hour and the game's summoning method, but it doesn't really get into its heavy stuff story-wise until the second half of the game, where Persona 5 jumps right into the thick of it.

Persona 4's certainly not without its dark elements though. I mean, it is about trying to stop a serial killer, after all, and the events that lead up to the point where its ending branches are honestly some of the most powerful and depressing the franchise, IMO. It definitely doesn't have such dark elements as quite as much of a constant throughout the game as 3 and 5 can though.

I've not payed Persona 5, but I've got partway through 1 and Innocent Sin, so my thoughts:

Persona 4 is the lightest and softest of the Persona games, and possibly of the MegaTen franchise as a whole, being a few steps above the first Persona and possibly moreso than Devil Children. But it's darkest elements are exactly as dark as Persona 3, just based on apathy rather than nihilism or death wishes. it just operates on a higher baseline due to it's subject matter. It's boredom, not wishes for suicide that drive the plot.

The main character also doesn't have anything in their past causing them problems (unlike Tatsuya, Minato, or Joker). Their main problem seems to be that Inaba is the first place they've truly set down roots, whereas Minato arguably has suicidal tendencies or other severe mental health problems. I don't agree with the anime's interpretation, but it's still the biggest problem he has besides the lack of Yosuke's and Teddie's romance routes.

As a side note, do you think character's not in the know assume Teddie's full name is Theodore? Actually, I'm a bit disappointed the game just kind of brushed over Teddie's real world identity, it would have made good fodder for his Social Link with having to set him up with a legitimate one.

[Razade]

The anime for all the Persona games are intentionally a bit goofy (4 especially). The directors have all been pretty open on that front. They reason that players go through the game picking the serious answers because that's how you get the best endings so they wanted to showcase some of the absolutely absurd things you could reply and how the other characters would react. I for one think that's a great way to do an adaption.

Having played all the way though 3, 4 and 5 I think 4 feels more light hearted because they wanted to channel that small town feel. It's in no way off-brand though. Suicide, murder of children, abusing children, all are pretty front and center throughout the story. Not to mention something the other games haven't ever touched on. The decline of small town life by the encroaching corporate monster and the general malaise people have to it. Not as dark as the implied rape in 5, but mercing a kid for the drama's pretty up there.