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

[Zevox]

One of the new locations lets you make skill cards, by taking certain personas to Okina City. You can get pretty much every skill this way, including ones like Heat Riser and Debilitate that aren't available in shuffle time.

I know, but I don't find myself even using the skill cards that I do get. With manual skill inheritance I just have no need for them.

I assume you're aware that you have to max out Aeon before you finish December's dungeon in order to unlock the extra Golden dungeon and the True Golden ending?

Yep, and I've got her at rank 8 IIRC, so I should have no trouble finishing that up in time. Also got Jester to 6 in time, so I'm on track to get to see the variant ending that unlocks as well.

I have allocated 110 hours into my Tales of Vesperia: Definitve Edition with a friend with whom I play over Steam Remote Play (which works great, actually). I played as blindly as possible and I don't think I got everything I could have gotten, but I'm finally going after the final boss of the final act into his final dungeon. (No spoilers!)

The game is really quite terrific and I'll probably end up binging on a lot of Tales games in the future. Which might be devastating to my plans to beat the rest of the stuff in my backlog, like Persona 4 Golden :P

Nice, Vesperia is probably my personal favorite of the Tales games (though I haven't yet picked up Definitive Edition, need to do that sometime). My next recommendations from the franchise would be Abyss and Berseria, personally.

Most of the VAs are pretty good, but Dojima's is especially so, yeah. It's interesting that the difference of quality is so real that people are preferring to play it in a language that they don't know.

Wait, then are you thinking of the Japanese voice actor there? Because I'm talking about the English one. The only time I've played a Persona game in Japanese was Q2, because they released that without an English dub.

[Cespenar]

Wait, then are you thinking of the Japanese voice actor there? Because I'm talking about the English one. The only time I've played a Persona game in Japanese was Q2, because they released that without an English dub.

Oops, sorry, never mind then.

Just saying though, the Japanese VAs are especially good (anime-level, at least) in P4. Couldn't get over Chie's English VA, for example (too hysterical and screechy), but the Japanese one is pretty cool.

[Clertar]

I'd add Owlcat to that list, but yeah European RPGs have been at their peak for the past few years.

Absolutely right, I forgot to mention them but I had them in mind too.

[Zevox]

Oops, sorry, never mind then.

Just saying though, the Japanese VAs are especially good (anime-level, at least) in P4. Couldn't get over Chie's English VA, for example (too hysterical and screechy), but the Japanese one is pretty cool.

They may well be, but I couldn't tell a good voice actor from a bad in a language I don't speak, personally. Doubt I could even for one I speak a little of like Spanish.

I would say that the remark applies to most of the English voice cast as well though. Yeah, Chie's new actress does get shouty and screechy a bit much, but that's appropriate at times for her (whenever she gets pissed at Yosuke, which is a frequent occurrence). She does admittedly do it at some times when she should be playing it more low-key, but it's not too bad, and she's otherwise fine. The rest of the cast though doesn't really have that problem. Some of the background or minor characters' voice acting is kind of wooden, but the main cast all in all does a great job aside from Chie. Well, Teddie can also get grating at times, but that's the kind of character he is, I can't fault the VA for playing him accurately.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm getting far in Antechamber. Come for the higher dimensional geometry, stay for the matter-manipulating puzzle solving. Its really chill and calming to play even if the puzzles require some mind-bending thinking to figure out even with the hints it gives. At times I find little easter eggs showing the games development or how it works under the hood at interesting little dead ends, though it can be a little annoying to constantly find yourself walking in circles and being sent back to places you already were and puzzles you already solved. Your progress in the game depends a lot on your ability to figure how to apply the tools your given with little to no instruction.

[factotum]

So, played a few hours of Trails of Cold Steel 2, and have a couple of thoughts:

1) Orbal arts. In the Trails series, all characters can use orbal arts (aka magic), and in Trails in the Sky it was often beneficial to do that--the orbal attack would do more damage than the character's regular weapon attack, which to my mind is fair enough, considering orbal arts take time to cast, can be interrupted, and use up your limited pool of EP. However, the first Trails of Cold Steel game changed that--unless you really heavily concentrated on orbal arts and had a character specialising in them (e.g. Elliott and Emma) it was usually better to just whack the enemy with your sword. I assumed this was just the way things were now and didn't pay it much mind, but in ToCS 2, we seem to be back with the Trails in the Sky meta, so I'm assuming they either realised the balance change was a mistake, or got a lot of complaints about it!

2) Mecha battles. There was one of these at the end of the first game, and from the looks of it they're back in 2. I'm not super happy about that, because the mecha battles...aren't very good. They throw away all the tactics and skills you use elsewhere and replace it with a glorified rock-paper-scissors game where you have to hit either the head, body or arms of your opponent depending which "stance" they're in. They're just not very interesting. So, I suppose I have to give Falcom props for somehow making two giant robots kicking seven bells out of each other boring, but it's not an accolade they should be happy getting!

[Anteros]

I have allocated 110 hours into my Tales of Vesperia: Definitve Edition with a friend with whom I play over Steam Remote Play (which works great, actually). I played as blindly as possible and I don't think I got everything I could have gotten, but I'm finally going after the final boss of the final act into his final dungeon. (No spoilers!)

The game is really quite terrific and I'll probably end up binging on a lot of Tales games in the future. Which might be devastating to my plans to beat the rest of the stuff in my backlog, like Persona 4 Golden :P

If I can make a suggestion, Tales of Zestiria has the best co-op system in the series. It starts a bit slow for the second player but once you unlock the second main character it's amazing for co-op.

[Wookieetank]

I'm getting far in Antechamber. Come for the higher dimensional geometry, stay for the matter-manipulating puzzle solving. Its really chill and calming to play even if the puzzles require some mind-bending thinking to figure out even with the hints it gives. At times I find little easter eggs showing the games development or how it works under the hood at interesting little dead ends, though it can be a little annoying to constantly find yourself walking in circles and being sent back to places you already were and puzzles you already solved. Your progress in the game depends a lot on your ability to figure how to apply the tools your given with little to no instruction.

This is probably my favorite puzzle game. Very surreal yet relaxing. The timer bit unlocks something (dunno what yet, haven't gotten around to a speed run), but even if it runs out the game is completeable. There's also so many little secrets if you keep an eye out for them, the pink blocks, the black blocks, and puzzles I didn't know were puzzles until after I finished the game and starting looking into what I may have missed.

Once you're able to have blocks autofill areas, I don't recommend trying to fill an entire room all at once. It'll crash the game sadly.

If you ever need a game with a similar vibe, I recommend Kairo.

[Cespenar]

They may well be, but I couldn't tell a good voice actor from a bad in a language I don't speak, personally. Doubt I could even for one I speak a little of like Spanish.

I would say that the remark applies to most of the English voice cast as well though. Yeah, Chie's new actress does get shouty and screechy a bit much, but that's appropriate at times for her (whenever she gets pissed at Yosuke, which is a frequent occurrence). She does admittedly do it at some times when she should be playing it more low-key, but it's not too bad, and she's otherwise fine. The rest of the cast though doesn't really have that problem. Some of the background or minor characters' voice acting is kind of wooden, but the main cast all in all does a great job aside from Chie. Well, Teddie can also get grating at times, but that's the kind of character he is, I can't fault the VA for playing him accurately.

Chie's English-version screechiness wasn't really fit for the character though, in my eyes, as she's portrayed as more of a tomboyish, aggressive sort of person. It also doesn't help that she has so many lines for her voice to be grating. I don't know, didn't play far in English so I don't know about all the characters, but the Japanese VAs sounded a lot more natural and less like they're reading it off a script.

So, played a few hours of Trails of Cold Steel 2, and have a couple of thoughts:

1) Orbal arts. In the Trails series, all characters can use orbal arts (aka magic), and in Trails in the Sky it was often beneficial to do that--the orbal attack would do more damage than the character's regular weapon attack, which to my mind is fair enough, considering orbal arts take time to cast, can be interrupted, and use up your limited pool of EP. However, the first Trails of Cold Steel game changed that--unless you really heavily concentrated on orbal arts and had a character specialising in them (e.g. Elliott and Emma) it was usually better to just whack the enemy with your sword. I assumed this was just the way things were now and didn't pay it much mind, but in ToCS 2, we seem to be back with the Trails in the Sky meta, so I'm assuming they either realised the balance change was a mistake, or got a lot of complaints about it!

2) Mecha battles. There was one of these at the end of the first game, and from the looks of it they're back in 2. I'm not super happy about that, because the mecha battles...aren't very good. They throw away all the tactics and skills you use elsewhere and replace it with a glorified rock-paper-scissors game where you have to hit either the head, body or arms of your opponent depending which "stance" they're in. They're just not very interesting. So, I suppose I have to give Falcom props for somehow making two giant robots kicking seven bells out of each other boring, but it's not an accolade they should be happy getting!

1) For me it was a bit different -- in all ToCSs I found it better to do arts with all but a couple members (usually Rean, Laura or Fie), which I tweak to either dish out extreme S-break damages, or go all speedfreak and give out status effects to lots of foes with their attacks. In 3, the system changes quite a bit because of the addition of a new stat bar, though.

2) I agree, though since they are few and far between, I treat the mech battles as "cutscenes" instead. Again, though, they are a bit more tactical in 3, since it's often multiple mechs vs. multiple mechs with support staff.

[Winthur]

We completed the (first?) run of Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition.

Spoiler: End game goof!

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We collected all the Fell Arms on Hard mode at level 70 and then it turned out that you aren't supposed to do that until you beat Duke's 2 forms for the first time! The third form creamed us almost instantly. Luckily we had a previous save. The question of beating the True Final Boss is still in the air, we might revisit him at some point.

The game was really excellent, fun and I'm going to miss the goofballs in the cast; it gave me a lot of good vibes. The gameplay is fun too, and I doubt I even scratched the surface of what Yuri et al. are capable of - mostly I played Yuri (with a bnb combo of Shining Fang -> Cerberus Blast -> Brutal Fang spam until OVL3 -> burst arte -> mystic arte), some Karol (surprisingly fun character but I feel like he unlocks a lot of his good stuff much later in the game, although the amount of damage you can do with just his OVL1 is kinda surprising) and Rita (I really adore this character's personality and vibe they provide to the party and got around to saying the plot is about Rita Getting Crap Done), whom I mostly swapped to to deliver some burst arte spammage or Tidal Wave. My friend mained Estelle->Judith->Patty->Flynn, with Patty and Flynn being his overall favourites.

I'm reliant on the Steam Access feature to enjoy the rest of the Tales series and my friend who hosts the games is now insisting on co-oping his personal favorite, Tales of Symphonia. We will get to that at some point soon! Zestiria was also a possibility (thanks Anteros - a lot of people tell me that it's a black sheep in the Tales family due to bad camera and poor pacing apparently?), but that might wait for later.

[DaedalusMkV]

1) For me it was a bit different -- in all ToCSs I found it better to do arts with all but a couple members (usually Rean, Laura or Fie), which I tweak to either dish out extreme S-break damages, or go all speedfreak and give out status effects to lots of foes with their attacks. In 3, the system changes quite a bit because of the addition of a new stat bar, though.

2) I agree, though since they are few and far between, I treat the mech battles as "cutscenes" instead. Again, though, they are a bit more tactical in 3, since it's often multiple mechs vs. multiple mechs with support staff.

I mean, it depends what you really want to do. Optimal play in CS1 is to just spam Delay-inducing Crafts from Rean, Fie and Gaius. There are exactly two bosses in CS1 immune to Delay that you'll have to do something else for, but otherwise this allows you to sleepwalk through the entire game, never allowing the enemies a turn. It's kind of lame, but if your goal is winning this gets you there as quickly and efficiently as possible. Otherwise, you set up Rean and Fie as tanks with physical attacks and Emma and Alisa as Arts attackers, keep Heavenly Gift up as much as possible, stack every conceivable Arts casting and recovery reducing item on Emma and pretty much reduce non-Emma characters to support elements while Emma throws around nasty Arts. Do it right and Emma gets roughly two turns for each turn anyone else gets (IE, she gets twice as many actions as everybody else, including the enemies, combined).

In CS2 it's all about the omega-combos with S-breaks and Overdrive against bosses, and damage-stacked Crafts and Arts against random encounters. Do it right and the enemy doesn't even get a turn outside of back-to-back boss fights, which CS2 does relatively uncommonly. CS2 lets you stack damage multipliers in ways that break the game if you want to. I think on the hardest difficulty setting you actually need tactics, but on the second-hardest you can kill the final boss in a single... Well, it's not one turn, since you get ten character activations, but it is a single tick of the initiative clock.

CS3... Yeah, it's got a lot more tactical variation, but 'Break Damage order into deplete the enemy Break bar into delay reduction order into the enemy doesn't get any more turns' works on almost every enemy in the game. It's at its most fun when the new characters aren't around, because Kurt and Juna are just way too efficient. That said, I had a lot of fun figuring out six or seven different ways to achieve broken nonsense, so that's always nice.


Generally, my experience with the Cold Steel games is that knowing how much game-breaking you want to do is pretty important. Because all of them are extremely breakable past roughly the halfway point of the game. Well, CS1's broken any time you have Fie or Gaius in your party right from the beginning, but eh.



Mech fights in CS2 suck. In CS3 they're actually really solid, thanks to the introduction of things like 'tactics' and 'resource management'. In CS2 it's just 'guess the enemy weakpoint. If you get it wrong too many times, you have to restart the fight once'.

[Anteros]

I'm reliant on the Steam Access feature to enjoy the rest of the Tales series and my friend who hosts the games is now insisting on co-oping his personal favorite, Tales of Symphonia. We will get to that at some point soon! Zestiria was also a possibility (thanks Anteros - a lot of people tell me that it's a black sheep in the Tales family due to bad camera and poor pacing apparently?), but that might wait for later.

Well, I actually don't recommend the game based on the plot or the single player experience, but the gameplay itself for co-op is the best in any Tales game. Basically you have the ability to merge with different party members on the fly to unlock different play styles. This leads to a choice between using the normal 4 person party or 2 stronger characters. It leads to more cooperation and team play.

A lot of the tales games make the mistake of having a main character that overshadows the others in the party. It's good for single player but bad for co-op. Zestiria basically gives you two main characters, although one isn't introduced until about 10 hours in.

[Dire_Flumph]

I messed about with it this weekend, and was left massively uninspired. It's a space dogfighting game, which means a lot of flying in tight little circles to chase the target indicator at the edge of the screen.

If you don't mind some advice, it sounds like you're focusing on targeting a ship targeting you and flying inefficiently. Given the number of fighters in the squadron engagements that make up most of the missions, don't do that. There are good targeting options available in the targeting computer, but since this is portraying an unrealistically close engagement distance for cinematic effect, eyeball it instead of just hitting "Target closest to me". Evade to dodge ships targeting you, but look for other fighters targeting your squad and get them, you can usually take them down before they can change targets and without playing spin in place. If you have to play spin around, half power to throttle and full power to engines will get you turned around very fast, just make sure to read your target and not overshoot. You don't have the "match my target's speed" option that the old Lucasarts sims had, so you'll need to fine tune throttle with the left stick to keep your target the right distance in front of you.

The flight model is painfully simple, and the ship management is pretty shallow. You have 4 power modes, balanced, bonus to lasers, bonus to engines, and bonus to shield, if the ship has them. So you fly in circles, and occassionally decide to fly in circles a bit faster.

You can actually incrementally increase power to shields/weapons/engines without going full bear to find something more comfortable to your situation, the full power to whatever options are just hotkeys when you need to quickly prioritize something (at least on PC, on consoles I believe your have to select one or the other method). Your options are spelled out in quick tutorial screens as the missions advance, but they're all there from the start if you look through the controls and options. As I got through the game I was happy to see there was a lot more going on under the hood than I thought. Power can also be quickly shunted to one system to another, and shields can be adjusted to favor front or back. You can even change a lot of the default control setup to fit a fair amount of control options into a gamepad without needing a HOTAS setup. Ship loadouts are also available pretty quickly and can make a pretty big difference in missions. I haven't found anything overpowered yet (Except for the repair droid, I can't think of any reason I'd deploy without one if I had a choice), but I've managed to fine tune things for my style. I absolutely love running barrage rockets.

It's hardly more complicated than original Battlefront 2, but without the sense of scale that had. For about the same price, you could play Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, which also didn't blow me away, but had a lot more going for it.

Big disagree here, dive deeper into the game, and there's a lot more going on in Squadrons than the Starfighter Assault mode of Battlefront 2 (Or either of the Rebel Galaxy games for that matter). I wouldn't say it can touch the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games of the 90's, but it's less arcade-y than the Rogue Squadron games. Starfighter combat sims are my favorite genre, and this is the best one I've played in at least 15 years, Star Wars coat of paint or no. (Though I'm open to suggestions if I missed any) Give it a chance! If you're interested in the genre, I think it's a well crafted game given a lot more attention that I feared was going to be the case. And if you get a chance to play it in VR, it's absolutely breathtaking.

[Zevox]

December 3rd in Persona 4 is the single most emotional, powerful sequence of events in any game I've ever played. And that is no less true today than it was twelve years ago.

Spoiler: Major P4 spoilers.

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Even knowing what will happen, I still cried at Nanako's death and the immediate aftermath. I don't know that there's any way I couldn't, with how damn well the game's writing, pacing, and voice acting sells it, and how much they build up your relationship with her throughout the game until that point.

And then, in Namatame's room, when the team is seriously considering doing the exact same thing that the serial killer they've spent the whole game trying to track down was doing, and yet it nonetheless makes total sense, and you could cut the tension with a toy knife... holy ****. I don't know of any other game that can make deciding to take its bad ending seem that appealing and sensible.

Goddamn I love this game.

[Lord Raziere]

This is probably my favorite puzzle game. Very surreal yet relaxing. The timer bit unlocks something (dunno what yet, haven't gotten around to a speed run), but even if it runs out the game is completeable. There's also so many little secrets if you keep an eye out for them, the pink blocks, the black blocks, and puzzles I didn't know were puzzles until after I finished the game and starting looking into what I may have missed.

Once you're able to have blocks autofill areas, I don't recommend trying to fill an entire room all at once. It'll crash the game sadly.

If you ever need a game with a similar vibe, I recommend Kairo.

oh I didn't know that red blocks could crash the game. I'm at The Escape and I've been using the red blocks to make red walls and floors to extend off of, got to be careful I guess. yeah this does seem like the type of game that would have those kinds of things cause I've found things like a fading tiles room leading some picture of another game, a museum of various versions of the block tool, things like that, its very nonlinear and honestly I'd just be happy to complete it once and I ever feel like going to back to it, I will but not any fast pace.

I've played more Starbound, as I get into the frozen and fiery stars the game is really is starting to ramp up in its Frackin' Universe environmental difficulty. I've got to start figuring out more environmental protection, what I got won't cut it anymore, simply because they are no longer the right types. finally managed to find an atropus world and start gaining MADNESS for fun mad science times, thanks to my new friend, picture of Azathoth! its horrific whispers will be my new companion on my journey through the stars! at least until I get bored with insanity.

[factotum]

December 3rd in Persona 4 is the single most emotional, powerful sequence of events in any game I've ever played. And that is no less true today than it was twelve years ago.

It's good, yes, but for me it paled into insignificance compared to the emotional impact of the ending of Persona 3, which I believe I've spoken about before on these forums.

Regarding cheesing things in ToCS2: I just don't play games like that, because I don't find that sort of thing fun. Delaying enemy actions so they never get a turn would definitely not be fun for me--if I wanted battles to be that easy I'd just turn down the difficulty. Of course, it gets hella frustrating when some combination of RNG factors sees you going from full health on all characters to a TPK on one turn, as can easily happen in the Trails games, but I don't think I'd have it any other way at this stage.

[Cespenar]

Regarding cheesing things in ToCS2: I just don't play games like that, because I don't find that sort of thing fun. Delaying enemy actions so they never get a turn would definitely not be fun for me--if I wanted battles to be that easy I'd just turn down the difficulty. Of course, it gets hella frustrating when some combination of RNG factors sees you going from full health on all characters to a TPK on one turn, as can easily happen in the Trails games, but I don't think I'd have it any other way at this stage.

Eh, as most cheeses go, you can do something in the middle -- combining only some of the set pieces to have an advantage but nothing gamebreaking.

[DaedalusMkV]

It's good, yes, but for me it paled into insignificance compared to the emotional impact of the ending of Persona 3, which I believe I've spoken about before on these forums.

Regarding cheesing things in ToCS2: I just don't play games like that, because I don't find that sort of thing fun. Delaying enemy actions so they never get a turn would definitely not be fun for me--if I wanted battles to be that easy I'd just turn down the difficulty. Of course, it gets hella frustrating when some combination of RNG factors sees you going from full health on all characters to a TPK on one turn, as can easily happen in the Trails games, but I don't think I'd have it any other way at this stage.

Honestly, I find just about anything you want to do works in the Cold Steel series, with the exception of the three or four hardest bosses in the series, as long as you have a decent understanding of the core mechanics and work to optimize it. In CS1 I spent a fair bit of time playing with Millium, Crow and Jusis, focused on strong tanking and status effects, just to see if I could (and Millium and Crow are by far the worst characters in CS1, rivalled only by Machias and even he has much better tools than them). In CS2 I've run both no-Arts teams and all-Arts teams, with a good mix of characters. In CS3 I found somewhere in the vicinity of six different awesome methods to put the enemy in an inescapable death-spiral, or outright kill them. And all of that was on the second-hardest difficulty (the only one that basically always worked was also the first available and most simple of them, unfortunately. Many were dependent on enemy strengths and weaknesses). Like I said; if you know how to break the game, you can challenge yourself not to. Or not. And half of the fun of the Trails series for me is figuring out all the best little ways to overpower it.

I... Do agree with the Delay strats, though. Optimal doesn't necessarily mean most fun, and spamming Arc Slash and Bullet Cyclone on repeat for 50 hours isn't exactly exciting. Hence my preferred strategy of 'let's build a complicated engine around Emma and then nuke the enemy a lot'.

[Zevox]

It's good, yes, but for me it paled into insignificance compared to the emotional impact of the ending of Persona 3, which I believe I've spoken about before on these forums.

I'd say the same in reverse, honestly. Heck, the ending of P3 isn't even the part of that game which had the most emotional impact on me - that was what happened with Shinji and Ken.

So, I saw the Accomplice Ending of P4G (thought I was going to last night, but the story events preceding it just took too long, so I had to leave it for today).

Spoiler: Ending spoilers

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I'm honestly not sure why it was added. I can't see why anyone would choose to do it besides "because it's an alternate ending." I get the possibility that you'd hesitate to bring up your suspicions about Adachi when you get there given the bond you'd forged with him via the Jester link, but then when you confront him about it, to tell him you're "on his side" and intentionally burn the one piece of evidence that could link him to the crime for him? Just, why would you ever do that? And hell, all it gets you is Adachi blackmailing you in return, so... yeah. Predictable downer ending that doesn't feel like anything you would ever actually do and doesn't add anything. Weird.

Also, I'm wondering whether it's the only way to max out the Jester link? I was surprised when that suddenly jumped from rank 8 to 10 during it. But that's kind of pointless, since the game ends right after.

[tyckspoon]

Spoiler

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Also, I'm wondering whether it's the only way to max out the Jester link? I was surprised when that suddenly jumped from rank 8 to 10 during it. But that's kind of pointless, since the game ends right after.

Spoiler: Adachi S-Link

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In a very strictly technical sense, yes - the S-Link will also max if you go for the True Ending, but it changes names, so going Accomplice is the only way to get Rank 10 Jester. There's probably an Achievement for it; I don't know if it's necessary for getting the one for maxing all S-Links.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: Adachi S-Link

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In a very strictly technical sense, yes - the S-Link will also max if you go for the True Ending, but it changes names, so going Accomplice is the only way to get Rank 10 Jester. There's probably an Achievement for it; I don't know if it's necessary for getting the one for maxing all S-Links.

Spoiler

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Interesting, thanks for the info. I don't think there's an achievement for it though, I didn't have one pop up after I did it - unless it requires me to make a Clear Save after, since I did skip doing that, since I always intended to just watch the ending then reload and go for the good endings.

As far as getting all of the social links maxed, I doubt I'll hit that anyway. While I've got a few maxed and a bunch at rank 8-9 that I'm going to max soon, there's a couple that I'm far behind on. Namely, Naoki (Hanged Man) and Ai (Moon), who are at 2 and 3 respectively. They just sort of incidentally got left in the lurch, since most other links had some reason for me to prioritize them. Shame, since I know they're both very good links. But hey, maybe there's some off chance there'll be enough time in the new period of the game for me to finish them.

[factotum]

I'd say the same in reverse, honestly. Heck, the ending of P3 isn't even the part of that game which had the most emotional impact on me - that was what happened with Shinji and Ken.

I think the main thing that reduced the impact of that for me was that I simply hadn't known the characters very long. As I recall, Ken doesn't join the team until August, and while Shinji pops up occasionally in earlier scenes he doesn't become a "proper" participant until after Ken--so maybe a couple of months. Obviously, though, you're deeply involved with the main protagonist and his story for the entire game, which is why it has more weight for me.

Regarding the Ai link in P4G you mention in your spoiler (though not sure why you spoilered it)--I think I got her to rank 1 and never advanced her any further, simply because I didn't like her much. The fact it starts with her persuading you to play hooky from school just gives me a bad first impression that I never bothered to correct.

[Wookieetank]

oh I didn't know that red blocks could crash the game. I'm at The Escape and I've been using the red blocks to make red walls and floors to extend off of, got to be careful I guess.

Well I was just messing around testing the limits of how much duplication I could get to happen at once and not trying to solve a puzzle. I tend to take the Cave Johnson SCIENCE! approach to puzzle games just to see what I can get away with. Under "normal" usage you shouldn't have any issues.

[Lord Raziere]

I've finished Antichamber. the ending was uuuuuuuuh.......surreal and I'm not sure its something anyone will ever understand. even if I wanted to tell you, I don't think I could put what happened into words.

finished up the Teeth of Naros in Amalur from that annoying boss fight with Anakatos then quick gone through didenhill, and now finally doing the Traveler quests all this time. always wondered how this game would react to me being a criminal. turns out, the guards are totally killable like everyone else, but don't grant experience and seem to respawn, so....the only benefit to fighting them is to get past them so you can skip town.

played Code Vein after a long while, beat this Insatiable tyrant boss after I figured out to destroy the adds before they hatch, then had to go looking for the next area which is this misty....cave...water place that is the closest this game will get to a swamp and now I have to go around fighting stuff to light things to know my way. the problem this game has is it clearly has a story progression but its sometimes unclear on where to go after you beat one boss or another. they need better hints on what area to go next to.

[Zevox]

I think the main thing that reduced the impact of that for me was that I simply hadn't known the characters very long. As I recall, Ken doesn't join the team until August, and while Shinji pops up occasionally in earlier scenes he doesn't become a "proper" participant until after Ken--so maybe a couple of months. Obviously, though, you're deeply involved with the main protagonist and his story for the entire game, which is why it has more weight for me.

Sure, I can see that. Personally though, there's always a bit more of a disconnect from the main characters of Persona games themselves for me than from the party members, since they do the whole silent protagonist thing. That's one of the very few things I wish they'd change about the series, though they probably won't, and they still manage to do great things despite it, so I don't complain about it much. In comparison I'd say they're very good at making me like and feel for major characters like party members even in relatively short periods of time.

Regarding the Ai link in P4G you mention in your spoiler (though not sure why you spoilered it)--I think I got her to rank 1 and never advanced her any further, simply because I didn't like her much. The fact it starts with her persuading you to play hooky from school just gives me a bad first impression that I never bothered to correct.

Yeah, I remember you mentioning that before, and I totally understand that. That's the same reaction I had to her the first time I played the game, and they obviously deliberately wanted her to give this rather negative initial impression, since even her first few ranks keep with her mostly acting like she first appears. Once you get past that point and into the real meat of her story, though, trust me when I say that she becomes significantly more interesting, and her link ends up as one of the strong ones IMO.

[Man_Over_Game]

Got CRAWL for the Switch. Probably the best competitive party game ever made.

It plays like a Diablo-esc dungeon crawler, but all of the monsters are players trying to kill the one bastard that's still alive. The monster players coordinate their attacks to kill the living player, but the monster player that lands the finishing blow steals the life from the living player and they swap roles.

Experience you earn while living carries over for the next time that player is alive, while that same experience also gives the unliving players a currency of which they can spend to upgrade their monsters. The more you lose, the stronger you get.

Get to player level 10, and you can attempt to escape the dungeon through a boss fight, where the three monster players control various parts of a boss to decimate the living player, whether that's a slime monster, a hydra, you name it. Fail, and you leave the boss fight with 1 HP.



It does a lot of great game-design strategies, like keeping players occupied in the game while they're not "actively" playing, boosting players that are losing so they stand more of a chance against better players, and forcing players to change roles constantly while forcing them to react to every other player.

[Rynjin]

Crawl is great. TBH I prefer to be the dungeon than the "player".

[Cozzer]

I'm playing Hades now, got to my 20th escape attempt. I can get more or less regularly to Elysium, but I reached its twin bosses just once, and they killed me.

Right now I'm focusing on trying new Boons, Weapon Modifications and things to complete as many Minor Prophecies as possible, in a short while I'll start focusing on the actual runs and see if I can get further.

EDIT: Well, just after writing that, I defeated Theseus and reached Hades for the first time! I liked the change of pace of the pre-Hades section. Also, I unlocked the (I think) penultimate section of the mirror (the one that needs 20 keys), and I'm maxing most of the abilities I'm interested in (defeating the Fury and the Hydra and losing in Elysium a lot of times does wonders for your Darkness total).

I feel like I'm approaching the point where Zagreus' growth slows down considerably, and it's all up to player skill (my weapons are still not leveled, but I feel like gathering Titan Blood is a pretty slow process). Which is appropriate, considering I've also reached Hades. From now on I guess I'll focus on getting the best build out of the current run, rather than on gathering materials/prophecies.

[zlefin]

Been playing Epic Battle Fantasy 5, a light-hearted JRPG that started as a flash game series. It's solid gameplay-wise with plenty of build choices and interesting combat, it's also just good fun with some laughs; the amount of difference from EBF 4 is a bit thin, alot of the art assets and spells are the same, and the combat system (including how to optimize/tactics) are very similar. There's some tweaks so it's not totally the same; but it's sufficiently overly similar that there's not as much 'exploration' and learning to do (I like figuring out strategy in new games/systems). It kinda reminds me of say the difference between Dominions 3 and Dominions 4, though probably a bit more of a difference than that.

[Cespenar]

I'm playing Hades now, got to my 20th escape attempt. I can get more or less regularly to Elysium, but I reached its twin bosses just once, and they killed me.

Right now I'm focusing on trying new Boons, Weapon Modifications and things to complete as many Minor Prophecies as possible, in a short while I'll start focusing on the actual runs and see if I can get further.

EDIT: Well, just after writing that, I defeated Theseus and reached Hades for the first time! I liked the change of pace of the pre-Hades section. Also, I unlocked the (I think) penultimate section of the mirror (the one that needs 20 keys), and I'm maxing most of the abilities I'm interested in (defeating the Fury and the Hydra and losing in Elysium a lot of times does wonders for your Darkness total).

I feel like I'm approaching the point where Zagreus' growth slows down considerably, and it's all up to player skill (my weapons are still not leveled, but I feel like gathering Titan Blood is a pretty slow process). Which is appropriate, considering I've also reached Hades. From now on I guess I'll focus on getting the best build out of the current run, rather than on gathering materials/prophecies.

A couple of pointers (though they may sound basic): picking Death Defiance x3 instead of per-room Defiance makes the Hades fight a lot easier. Similarly, dash x2 instead of the other one gives you a lot of advantage as well. Not picking those two costed me some amount of unnecessary deaths, personally.

Been playing Epic Battle Fantasy 5, a light-hearted JRPG that started as a flash game series. It's solid gameplay-wise with plenty of build choices and interesting combat, it's also just good fun with some laughs; the amount of difference from EBF 4 is a bit thin, alot of the art assets and spells are the same, and the combat system (including how to optimize/tactics) are very similar. There's some tweaks so it's not totally the same; but it's sufficiently overly similar that there's not as much 'exploration' and learning to do (I like figuring out strategy in new games/systems). It kinda reminds me of say the difference between Dominions 3 and Dominions 4, though probably a bit more of a difference than that.

That series has been the one that made me go "Why do multimillion JRPG developers have much crappier combat than this, when their core systems are so similar and simple?"

Haven't gotten into 5 yet, though, since I imagined it would be more of 3-4, basically.