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

[warty goblin]

I've still been playin Genshin Impact. It seems like there's enough game here for a solid 30-40 hours of gameplay for a F2P player. Not bad if you're the type of gamer who enjoys the open world ARPG type of games. There's probably no viable endgame for a F2P player but oh well.

On the plus side, the gacha side of the game is so obviously predatory and greedy that there's no desire to spend money on it at all. They've got a lot of different currencies and stuff designed to obscure how bad it is, but after some rough math it's something like 27 dollars to ensure a 4 star character or item and 270 dollars to ensure a 5 star one. And you have to pull a character 5 or 6 times to actually max them out. I have a ton of disposable income, but you'd have to be a millionaire, insane, or insanely stupid to bother with rates like that.

Given that open world action game with RPG bits describes like... damn near every game being made these days, why would I play one of these instead of any of the ones I can buy once and get all the things for way less money?


I was feeling like something different, and decided to give Pumpkin Jack a whirl. I don't really generally like platformers, but this is a real joy. I think a lot of this due to just how pared down the game is. There isn't a level-up system, or crafting, or consumables, and thankfully literally no aspect of the gameplay is "like Dark Souls". Instead you run around, jumping on platforms, beating up the occasional enemy via the delightfully laid back combat system - you have attack and dodge buttons that's it - and figuring out how to get from A to B, or from A to not particularly subtle secret. It's like a game from 15 or 20 years ago in other words; which is to say a game instead of a set of progression systems designed to make your lizard brain compulsively crave MOAR NUMBERS!

Honestly it's been so long since I played an action game that isn't significantly built around that sort of compulsive feedback loop, it took a while for me to realize I was actually just having simple, straightforward fun. Jumping on stuff is fun because of the intrinsic design of the mechanics. Whacking evil skeleton-men with a shovel is fun because the animations are great. Exploring the gorgeous Halloween-decoration aesthetic levels is fun because this is legit one of the prettiest games I've played in yonks.


Highly recommended if you want an easy-going sort of thing. It's really not particularly hard, at least what I've played so far, and that's sort of part of the charm. It's just easygoing, low-stakes fun. And dear me does that feel good this year.

[Aotrs Commander]

Just finished playing through Spellforce 1 Platinum Breath o winter campaign. (I had SF1 originally on disc, but I only played through Order of Dwan and the follow-up Shados of the Phoenix. I bought SFP on Gog on dirt-cheap a littlw hile back, because I couldn't be arsed to faff about installing off discs with the usual level of stuf you have to do to get old games to work.)

After 63-odd hours, a lot of which was sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for stuff to build up, or painting while I was waiting. As someone once said of another game, it isn't very considerate of your time. Perhaps I'm just old, but I don't like doing that anymore. (I would have been a lot more tolerant is, y'knoiw I was allowed to be doing some base-building (i.e. towers and such), instead...)

Yeah, not a fan of this campaign. Particularly not a fan of having to repeatedly use my absolute least favourite race (the dwarves) multiple times, simply because they don't have towers and only have one ranged unit. I only got to really use defenses, like three times, at the very end, and one of those was more or less pointless, since I cleared all the enemy spawn points with the Avatar before I started. Finished at level 30 anyway (not like I needed the farming, thanks to a chap n Steam who had a couple of map mods to add high-XP monsters so you didn't have to farm as much; I think it was quite clear that without that extra push, it would have gone into seriously tedious territory. *tips helmet*)

I could have spent another three-four hours (projected) faffing about destroying the last of the skeleton level 27s at Fastholme, or going back to Frosthall to build orcs to kill the level 18 crimson empire troops, but I decided after taking out a few of the former that I really couldn't be bothered that tedious process of luring them out, having most of the troops die killing one or two and then waiting for ages to do it again and just wanted to finish.

ESPECIALLY disliked the final boss fight; I very nearly rage-quite when it basically said "you have to fight the final boss with archers heroes only and the only ranged units you have are out of range." That wasn't interesting, it was just tedious. (And one could easily see if being next-to-impossible if you didn't happen t have one to hand; plonking and archer rune hero in the chest next to the boss is all well and good, but if you don't got a bow...?)

(Not as cheap and frustrating as the final fight in Divinity Original Sin 2, which I loathed, so points there, I guess...)

Could go on to Shadow of the Phoenix again, but I think I've had enough.

Still, as I basically paid about £3 for this campaign playthrough, it really doesn't owe me anything.



Back to BTA 3062, I think; though I also did pick up Phantom Doctrine on sale as well...

[Anteros]

Given that open world action game with RPG bits describes like... damn near every game being made these days, why would I play one of these instead of any of the ones I can buy once and get all the things for way less money?

Well, the art is good, the music is good, and I enjoy the combat. Plus it's coop so I can play with a friend. It feels less like a gacha game and more like a real game with extra gacha stuff tied to it. For a free game it's pretty solid, and the 8 or so characters you get for free are perfectly usable.

I haven't made it to end game yet and I've heard bad things, but the game itself is very good for a free game.

[Eldan]

As far as I understand it the entire point of that game is exploration and finding out the story of what happened to the ancients, so if you're not enjoying that, I'm not sure the game has much else to show you.

I'm enjoying the exploration, the various planets are fun, I like hte music and the atmosphere. It's just that I found some of the ruins and it seems to be the story is just "aliens tested a super device to find the cosmic space wibbly-wobbly, it exploded, and now there's time loops and the sun explodes", which isn't that interesting. So I mostly just fly around a bit blindly, crashing into planets, I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do in the long run except read more not-that-interesting alien texts.

[Squark]

So, a question to any Smash ultimate fans out there; When creating your own ruleset, is it possible to limit which pokemon come out of a pokeball? I'd like to keep the pokeball in the item pool of my casual ruleset, but it'd be really nice if I could remove lengendaries and a few really annoying pokemon like Mimikyu and Alolan Executor.

[Man_Over_Game]

Been playing around with some of the games I picked up from Nintendo deals.

First one's Bloodroots. It's basically a fast-paced murder-puzzle, similar to Hotline Miami, but you're a lumberjack on a quest for vengeance instead of some hitman on acid. What's really fun about it is that you can pick up almost anything and use it as a weapon, and lots of weapons come with special utility features. The scimitar makes you dash ahead, which is good for when you want to clear a gap or kill enemies in rapid succession. The chain can be used to helicopter around while mulching anyone who gets in your way. There's not much of a plot, which is perfect, and it's pretty dang goofy, which is also perfect.


I also tried the Mario + Rabbids XCOM game. Which is about as thematically weird as it sounds. In an attempt to put this succinctly, the Rabbids are using their Combo Washer+Time Machine to warp to different worlds and have fun there. Well, they warped to a future version of Earth, where a girl created a goggle-type machine that is able to shoot a lazer that merges two different objects into one (for example, merging a spring with a turtle creates a turtle with bouncy legs). She also happens to be a Nintendo nerd, with a bunch of Nintendo memorabilia all over her desk. As she leaves her room, Rabbids come in, wreck the place, mess with her goggles, just before their Time Machine scans a Mario poster and warps them all to the Mushroom Kingdom. So now Mario and friends gotta deal with PirahnaRabbids and the like.

The gameplay of it is very much XCOM, except:

• All attacks either have 0%, 50%, or 100% chance to hit, based on the cover you have against that attack (which is literally just half or full cover). Range is only applied as a hard "you can attack things in this range" and generally doesn't apply to hit% or damage.
• Overwatch isn't a thing (although it's a special power on some characters, like Mario), which actually makes the game encourage aggression rather than the passive waiting game.
• Mobility is a much bigger deal, as:
  • Moving into an enemy allows you to get a free "Dash" hit against them, while still allowing you to move anywhere within your original movement area. So you can move 6 squares forward (your max) to Dash someone, then still move 6 squares behind your original position (for 18 squares of movement with a 6 square limit).
  • Moving into an ally allows you to Jump off that ally, about 5 squares, which can launch you into cover, across gaps, onto a higher layer (which grants extra damage), or even allow you to jump-attack an enemy you land on with some characters.

It also has cooperative and vs. modes, different characters you can use for your team, different powers and guns unique to each character, rewards for clearing an encounter within a time limit without losing anyone, and so on.


Lastly, I picked up Cat Quest. It's an Action-RPG that slims down all the mundane BS you'd expect out of an overworld RPG, for an obviously younger audience, while still making it quite challenging! The game seems to have a hidden debuff system that causes enemies to deal a bunch of extra damage to you if you're underleveled (I was level 17, took on a weak level 20, died in two hits), which makes it feel challenging unless you do quests for gear and experience. All enemy attacks have a telegraphed pattern that becomes increasingly difficult to adapt to when facing multiple enemies at once (with many enemies even having multiple, telegraphed attacks in a row!). I say all this, because the game was definitely designed for noobies to the genre. Rather, it was made for them, but it's not limited to them. There are a lot of mechanics that a pro can appreciate, such as:

• Picking up gear of a type that you already own (such as mage-specific gear) simply upgrades the version you already have equipped, making it impossible to have any "truly" useless gear. You can have underleveled "Warrior", "Warrior/Mage", "Mage", etc. gear, but it'll level up over time as you randomly pick up more gear of that type.
• You earn Mana back by hitting enemies, and casting magic does not interrupt your attacks or slow you down, meaning that the 3 core stat concepts (tankiness, magic, damage) are all being used regardless of what gear you're using or what playstyle you prefer.
• Despite everything being telegraphed, the speed of it requires you to memorize how certain enemies attack beforehand. You sometimes only get 1/2 of a second to dodge an attack.

[Dire_Flumph]

Playing Outer Wilds a bit. I'm liking the general idea and atmosphere, and zipping around the various weird planet-esque things is a lot of fun, but I don't really know what else to do. There's texts to read in the ruins about how the precursor species screwed everything up and I'm following them around, but I honestly don't find them all that interesting.

I'd recommend sticking with it, probably the best exploration game I've played in a long while. Every planet has a puzzle to solve to get more information from, and that's the center of the game. Some tips on where to start:

-Your ship log records what you've done so far and can show you if you still have things to find on a particular planet. You get new signals to follow on your scope over time as you discover things, check that periodically.

-Something to start with is finding (or trying to find) all the other explorers. Your audio sensors will tell you when you are pointed in the direction of one of them by the sound of the instrument they're playing. You'll eventually need to find all of them, some easy, some not.

-Everything in the game is on a 20 minute cycle and puzzles are set up so that you can solve anything in that limit. Most planets have a cycle in that time (Sand in the twin planet system moves from one planet to the other making some areas only open early in the cycle, others only late in the cycle, another planet disintegrates over time, the comet slowly melts as it approaches the sun, etc...). You will need to be familiar with each locations cycle. A musical piece plays as the sun is about to collapse, letting you know when things are about to reset.

-Don't focus on one planet or moon at first. Visit *everything* and get a general feel for the system. Do surface level stuff first before diving into a planets interior. You'll find some easy info and get an idea of what you might need to do next at a location. My favorite? Probably the water planet.

-That launch you see at the beginning of every cycle? It's important, but you can't catch what it launched (I spent a lot of time trying to do that). That station right next to the sun? You need to get there, but there's no way to successfully land on it, so that's something you'll only manage to reach near end-game.

-Where did that moon go?

Good luck and I hope you find it more enjoyable as you get into it. I didn't find the story interesting myself much at the start, that changed as I pieced together what was going on more. It was a rough start, but possibly my favorite game of 2019.

[oxybe]

Yeah I was surprised with Mario+Rabbids myself. Surprisingly good game and the soundtrack is a banger by Grant Kirkhope. The extra challenge missions are probably my fav, since it's less XCOM and more of a puzzle "How do you do X in Y turns" and you setup your team accordingly.

Hit and finally beat my first real wall in Monster Hunter World: Nergigante. Real satisfying to take down as it proves both my prep work and execution is now at that level. As much as I would have loved to use my big F-Off hammer, I went Insect Glaive and flippy dipped all over and under him.

Now to take out the Deviljho and Bezelgeuse who have tormented me in my travels, lol.

[Aotrs Commander]

The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos

Anyone played it and have thoughts?

[IthilanorStPete]

I started playing Satisfactory again and finally got around to setting up a coal power plant. It's a total mess of pipes and belts, but now I've got plenty of power to keep building out my factory.

[warty goblin]

The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos

Anyone played it and have thoughts?

I've got just over 30 hours in it, which I figure is about 80% of the game, since my party is all level 8, the level cap is 10, and the leveling rate seems fairly consistent. I'll loop back and beat it pretty soon, I just felt like a break.

I quite like it. The underlying combat system is quite sound, leveling up actually feels like progress instead of just doing the same damn things with larger numbers, with a reasonable amount of flexibility in how you develop your characters. You're probably not going to make the Barbarian a better archer than the Elf or vice versa, but you can improve the Barbarian's ranged ability and the Elf's swordfighting if you want to. Gear is also pretty solid, with multiple slots for armor and so on, some characters can take skills that let them equip shields or heavy armor or different weapon types. The loot isn't randomly generated, and generally is fairly interesting in terms of gameplay effects, although the most interesting often come with their own downsides. It's got some pretty solid encounter design as well. There's no random battles in the game, every single fight is a designed scenario, and very few of them are pointless trash fights. That isn't to say they're all knuckle-bitingly hard - on Normal the game requires attention and thought but not super-advanced tactics or cutting edge system mastery - but fights take place in well designed spaces with tailored enemy placement, reinforcements and so on. After playing a ton of XCOM-alikes with super-repetitious random battles or RPGs where you have to kill another goddamn pack of wolves every 50 yards, I find this a real breath of fresh air.

The basic system is essentially XCOM/D&D, where each turn you get a move and an action (which can also be spent moving). The game pretty much sticks to this and is pretty stingy with ways to get extra actions, which prevents it from degenerating into abusing the action economy. Special abilities are also generally more situational and less overtly powercreepy than one often sees in tactics games; most of them impose a 5% to-hit penalty, and generally do less damage than a base attack as well. In return you get to do AoE damage, or have a chance at inflicting a status effect. Abilities are on individual cooldowns, and also require Endurance/Mana. I like this, since it means that special abilities have a real downside, and you really can't spam them. This is particularly true early game, when your to-hit chances are often painfully low, and that -5% really hurts.

There's also a pretty solid positioning system at work. You've got cover (inevitably), but every character also has controllable facing, with flanking and backstab attacks getting bonuses to hit. Since the game is a firm believer in the RNG (and does not so far as I can tell cheat in your favor) this is quite important. The enemies get the same bonuses, so keeping your melee dudes together to watch each other's backs is very important. Overwatch and attacks of opportunity are also present and accounted for, and work basically like you think they should, although the rules for AoOs are slightly opaque to me still.

An important note: the game is very very linear. Your party is set in stone - you get to choose one character from three options, and you make very few story decisions throughout. Because a major source of the game's humor is that your party sucks, pretty much all of these decisions go disastrously and fairly predictably wrong; even when you don't choose what to do thing still go wrong quite frequently. A gentle ego massage this game certainly isn't; I rather enjoy this about it since most games treat your characters like a rock star for completing the tutorial. The writing also leans pretty hard into its own brand of humor, which is mostly based around the assorted personality failings of your one-dimensional party members, along with the occasional pop culture reference and fourth wall break. Basically the dialogue is the in-character banter of a group of friends playing a very not-serious game of D&D, and their characters striking predictable sparks off of each other. I find it amusing to genuinely funny, but sophisticated or cutting edge it is not.

[Aotrs Commander]

I've got just over 30 hours in it, which I figure is about 80% of the game, since my party is all level 8, the level cap is 10, and the leveling rate seems fairly consistent. I'll loop back and beat it pretty soon, I just felt like a break.

I quite like it. The underlying combat system is quite sound, leveling up actually feels like progress instead of just doing the same damn things with larger numbers, with a reasonable amount of flexibility in how you develop your characters. You're probably not going to make the Barbarian a better archer than the Elf or vice versa, but you can improve the Barbarian's ranged ability and the Elf's swordfighting if you want to. Gear is also pretty solid, with multiple slots for armor and so on, some characters can take skills that let them equip shields or heavy armor or different weapon types. The loot isn't randomly generated, and generally is fairly interesting in terms of gameplay effects, although the most interesting often come with their own downsides. It's got some pretty solid encounter design as well. There's no random battles in the game, every single fight is a designed scenario, and very few of them are pointless trash fights. That isn't to say they're all knuckle-bitingly hard - on Normal the game requires attention and thought but not super-advanced tactics or cutting edge system mastery - but fights take place in well designed spaces with tailored enemy placement, reinforcements and so on. After playing a ton of XCOM-alikes with super-repetitious random battles or RPGs where you have to kill another goddamn pack of wolves every 50 yards, I find this a real breath of fresh air.

The basic system is essentially XCOM/D&D, where each turn you get a move and an action (which can also be spent moving). The game pretty much sticks to this and is pretty stingy with ways to get extra actions, which prevents it from degenerating into abusing the action economy. Special abilities are also generally more situational and less overtly powercreepy than one often sees in tactics games; most of them impose a 5% to-hit penalty, and generally do less damage than a base attack as well. In return you get to do AoE damage, or have a chance at inflicting a status effect. Abilities are on individual cooldowns, and also require Endurance/Mana. I like this, since it means that special abilities have a real downside, and you really can't spam them. This is particularly true early game, when your to-hit chances are often painfully low, and that -5% really hurts.

There's also a pretty solid positioning system at work. You've got cover (inevitably), but every character also has controllable facing, with flanking and backstab attacks getting bonuses to hit. Since the game is a firm believer in the RNG (and does not so far as I can tell cheat in your favor) this is quite important. The enemies get the same bonuses, so keeping your melee dudes together to watch each other's backs is very important. Overwatch and attacks of opportunity are also present and accounted for, and work basically like you think they should, although the rules for AoOs are slightly opaque to me still.

An important note: the game is very very linear. Your party is set in stone - you get to choose one character from three options, and you make very few story decisions throughout. Because a major source of the game's humor is that your party sucks, pretty much all of these decisions go disastrously and fairly predictably wrong; even when you don't choose what to do thing still go wrong quite frequently. A gentle ego massage this game certainly isn't; I rather enjoy this about it since most games treat your characters like a rock star for completing the tutorial. The writing also leans pretty hard into its own brand of humor, which is mostly based around the assorted personality failings of your one-dimensional party members, along with the occasional pop culture reference and fourth wall break. Basically the dialogue is the in-character banter of a group of friends playing a very not-serious game of D&D, and their characters striking predictable sparks off of each other. I find it amusing to genuinely funny, but sophisticated or cutting edge it is not.

Thank you. Seems pretty consistent with the various reviews and ratigns I've seen. 35-40 hours or so isn't too bad, I guess (I mean, that Spellforce campaign was about twenty too long, because it wasn't an interesting 60-hours...)

Couple of questions, then (strange though it may seem) - can you save in... mission? Dungeon? Quest? And does it do that annoying thing Firaxis loves to do where it saves the random seed or not?

[warty goblin]

Thank you. Seems pretty consistent with the various reviews and ratigns I've seen. 35-40 hours or so isn't too bad, I guess (I mean, that Spellforce campaign was about twenty too long, because it wasn't an interesting 60-hours...)

Couple of questions, then (strange though it may seem) - can you save in... mission? Dungeon? Quest? And does it do that annoying thing Firaxis loves to do where it saves the random seed or not?

You can save anywhere at any time so far as I can tell - maybe not within a combat round, I've never tried. It autosaves at the beginning of every round though (round meaning a full run through the initiative order), which is more than good enough for me. I think it saves the seed, but I'm honestly not sure because I've had exactly zero temptation to save scum. There's only one battle I actually needed to restart due to losing which I would have lost anyway because my tactics sucked for the situation, there's no permadeath, and the injury penalties are very cheap to remedy. Besides, the critical fumbles are a lot of fun; I once had my sorceress' spell misfire and, instead of a fireball, I got a swarm of belligerent chickens.

[Anonymouswizard]

So Tyranny was just too much for my computer, finally got to the point where commands in combat regularly weren't read, so I've switched to Pillars of Eternity+White March, which runs much nicer, and picked up my save. And I remember exactly what I was playing as and slipped right back in: a Pale Elf Priestess of Wael who lost her faith and came to the Dyrwood toturn her life around, intentionally acting benevolent and rational.

It's fun, although I find the fact that so many abilities are 'X per rest' instead of per encounter means I use them a lot less. On the plus side the White March is proving to be a lot harder than the base game, which means that I might start using these abilities more (even if I'm still short a Rogue, finally picked up a Barbarian though). Annoying though, despite playing a backlines character I've found the game will teleport me to the front of the party before major battles, causing the MC to take a lot of damage and sit out most of the fight. If it wasn't for having to go through about ten to fifteen hours of game again I'd restart as a Fighter or Barbarian (and will do for my second playthrough).

[Triaxx]

Honestly Combat was probably the least interesting part of PoE for me.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, after some thought, I decided to get The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos (my uncle gave me some money fo my birthday). Had the choice of GoG or Steam (10p difference); I opted for GoG, but while I was there, I perused through their on-sale mlist (as unlike Steam, that's a thing what is worth attempting) and also bought Dragon Commander (Imperial addition) (which if I really hate the RTS combat, only cost me £3.50, so it only owes me a couple of hours), The Inner World (point-and-click) and Beautiful Despolation (ditto, but with RPG elements). Never heard of the latter, which seems to be a fairly new game, but one that seems to be getting good reviews.

I now have about, ooh, six various stripes of graphic adventure (Longest Journey, Stein's Gate and linear bounded program and Gibbous A Cthulu Adventure), plus the Last Federation and Imperator and TW: Shogun 2 (which I got for free), which gives me at least a buffer of new stuff I've not played (never mind bits of stuff I've played bits of).

It's like DVDs, it's nice to have a store of unwatched things for a rainy day (I blitzed through many of the DVDs a while back), and honestly, if it wasn't for BT, I'd have been sorely breaking into that category already. But with no end to the Plague Apocalypse in sight (and it looking like it's getting worse again on this side of the pond - plus the impending comign disaster come January), might as well stock up now...

[warty goblin]

Pro tip for Dragon Commander; the RTS battles are pretty meh, and there's an absolute ton of them over the course of the game. The strategy overmap and political maneuvering/undead romancing bit is great. I auto-resolved pretty much every single battle and had a great time.

[factotum]

Well, I'm into the final dungeon in ToCS3, reckon I'll probably have that finished today. Which is annoying, because the physical disk of ToCS4 I ordered isn't going to arrive until Saturday at the earliest, leaving me with a bit of a gap to fill! Given the way the dungeon has worked so far I'm pretty sure I have one more encounter where I'll lose the remaining members of the original Class VII (Elliott, Jusis and Machias) and I'll then be facing the end boss, whatever it is, with only the new class VII and Rean--which is fine, because I've got them working pretty well together now.

[Aotrs Commander]

Pro tip for Dragon Commander; the RTS battles are pretty meh, and there's an absolute ton of them over the course of the game. The strategy overmap and political maneuvering/undead romancing bit is great. I auto-resolved pretty much every single battle and had a great time.

That's why I've not picked up Dragon Commander before, as that's basically what every review has said since it first came out - RTS is not good, rest if great.

(Not unlike Spellforce 3, actually, of which I also have one expansion to play to, where supposedly they've re-balanced the RTS again, though whether it'll ave made it passable yet is a matter for conjecture...)

[factotum]

Got to love Amazon--my order for ToCS IV is still showing on their website as due for delivery Oct 31st-Nov 4th, but it's just been put through my letterbox!

[Cespenar]

I now have about, ooh, six various stripes of graphic adventure (Longest Journey, Stein's Gate and linear bounded program and Gibbous A Cthulu Adventure), plus the Last Federation and Imperator and TW: Shogun 2 (which I got for free), which gives me at least a buffer of new stuff I've not played (never mind bits of stuff I've played bits of).

From that list, The Longest Journey is an absolute gem of an adventure game, up there on par with Grim Fandango in my opinion. Gibbous, though, was underwhelming, trying to be a Monkey Island with a Cthulhu twist, but not quite delivering on the humor department.

[Man_Over_Game]

I started playing Satisfactory again and finally got around to setting up a coal power plant. It's a total mess of pipes and belts, but now I've got plenty of power to keep building out my factory.

You might like Mindustry. It's a free Android game that's similar to Factorio.

Build conveyor belts to move resources to necessary facilities, protect your facilities using a combination of ammo-consuming turrets or energy-consuming robot units, and keep building up and up until you have no idea where to put your third Nuclear Reactor because all of your liquid cooling pipes are getting in the way of your supply lines.

What's particularly interesting about it is that you are actually a unit that can shoot, upgrade into larger ships or mechs for combat/speed purposes, and the game has a sort of RTS mechanic that involves commanding around your fleet of robots (where they otherwise just charge straight ahead at hostiles).

There have not been many games where I simply cannot keep up with all of the mechanics, and this is one of them. I'd say the only other games I've played that have done the same are things like Crusader Kings 3, or Dwarf Fortress, and they are mostly limiting by how complex they are, while Mindustry ends up making me stressed just from making me think too hard about something I made.

It gets exhausting having to review your entire conveyor belt system to maximize efficiency and building space for the fourth time over 4 hours, since it took me a whole hour to fix it the last time! I am just too lazy for that!

I can comfortably work with the mid-game content, where Nuclear Reactors and water lines start to get used, and I start pumping out some basic robots for mobile defenses and anti-air. Anything past that is something that'll take up far too much time for a guy that needs to earn a paycheck.



That being said, I can comfortably say it's the best game on Android I've ever played. I've paid $30 on a console/PC for less.

[DaedalusMkV]

Got to love Amazon--my order for ToCS IV is still showing on their website as due for delivery Oct 31st-Nov 4th, but it's just been put through my letterbox!

I have jealousy. Mine is showing for delivery Sunday, and by usual Amazon rules that means tomorrow or Saturday.

... While today is my day off, and I had some vague hope of getting to play it on release day. At the rate I play games, I'm probably going to have to avoid this thread for like a month to miss out on spoilers, since I always play the games blind (except for a handy guide that tells me about all the hidden quests, because completionism is a thing).

[Zevox]

Wrapped up the main story of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey today. On the whole, have to say, I'm impressed. Again, haven't played anything in between Black Flag and this, but this is a marked improvement - definitely the best Assassin's Creed game I've played. It feels like it has the best aspects of both of the two AC games I enjoyed, AC2 and Black Flag. Strong main character (Kassandra beats out Ezio for best lead in the series, IMO) and (mostly) engaging and fun main plotline like AC2, mostly fun gameplay and very little to do with the overarching plot of the series like Black Flag, and a great choice of historical setting like those two. Ancient Greece proved to be a particularly excellent setting for the game, honestly, with them having both great history and mythology to draw upon for it. It was genuinely fun and interesting to see them bring Socrates to life, for instance, and they didn't do half bad at it, at least to my admittedly limited understanding of him.

They also finally seem to have hit upon a combat system that works for the game. Took them long enough, after the early entries were snore-fests as soon as you learned to parry, and AC3 and Black Flag only got marginally better. But in this one, even though once you get better at it you can definitely take large groups of enemies like in the older games, being outnumbered is a markedly bigger threat than it used to be, and at least until you're high-level with a bunch of powerful special moves and crazy legendary equipment, there will be be a point where you're outnumbered enough that you will fear losing and want to retreat. And even though I mostly stuck to the sword, it is nice to see that there are varied weapon types with legitimate differences between them that can lead to different fighting styles. It could be better, sure - it's no Sekiro or anything - but it's a hell of a lot better than before. Honestly, I feel like the main thing gameplay-wise that the series needs now is a better system for stealth, which is still little if any different than I remember, and kind of awkward.

All of that is not to say that the game doesn't have its problems though. The meta-plot of the series and occasional interruptions to jump to that in modern times is still a snore that I'd rather just not be there, and relatedly I could do without the "Precursor/Isu" stuff when it pops up in the historical parts. (Though I do have to admit that the little twist you get after collecting the four artifacts for the Atlantis part of the plot is kind of cool.) Parts of the ending still end up feeling just a touch rushed*, despite (if I heard correctly) them giving the game two years of development instead of the one that used to be the series standard - though markedly better than the rest of the series after the point where they started cranking out a game a year, I admit. And of course, there's the padding, though it becomes pretty easy to pick out where it is after just a little experience. Avoid the Message Board quests and any sidequests whose initial marker color is black (unless you just need some fast money), play the ones that are marked in yellow/gold if they interest you, and definitely don't feel compelled to "complete" each little location on the map that you stumble upon unless you want to spend 200 hours on repetitive missions to retrieve random items you'll just break down for materials anyway. Oh, and speaking of, that's the biggest albatross around the game's neck, the equipment system. Thank heavens for the mercenary perk that eventually halves the cost of upgrading your equipment, including both money and materials, or else that would've eventually gotten completely unmanageable, and legendary items would've been totally unusable with how much more they cost (seriously, who thought this game's equipment having Hearthstone-style rarities was a good idea?). I did have to grind for leather occasionally before then though, and boy was that irritating. Whoever decided that you should have to butcher every animal you come across in your travels twice over to keep your weapons and armor up to snuff should not be working on video games.

Spoiler: *Ending spoilers.

Show

The final missions where you deal with Kleon and have your last confrontation with Deimos in particular feel like they were lacking something. There was some buildup, but Kleon's defeat and death still felt abrupt (it was the only mission in Macedon), and it feels like the final meeting with Deimos just came out of nowhere and only happened because they couldn't think of a natural way to have it occur, so they just had everybody arbitrarily gather at Mount Tageytos because it was dramatically appropriate. Similarly, I don't understand why there wasn't a death scene for Aspasia if you choose to kill her - she's the mastermind behind the Cult you've fought the whole game, you'd think she should get one, rather than just cutting immediately to the scene of Kassandra smashing the pyramid artifact('s energy outline? Yeah, that was weird...) as soon as her health hit 0. Also kind of wish the final cultist had been a real fight, but eh, she's a schemer and manipulator, not a warrior, so I understand.

Oh, by the way, called Aspasia as the Ghost of Kosmos after just one clue to her identity, the one you get from the easiest-to-unmask Sage. "The Ghost controls Athenian politics." Well, let's see, Perikles seems like he's a legitimate ally being Herotodos' benefactor and would be a little too obvious as the answer to that clue otherwise, Kleon doesn't seem like the mastermind type, so who does that leave who could possibly have that much influence on Athenian politics? Just Perikles' lover/possible wife, who also conveniently gave you a pretty concrete lead on where to find your mother, whom you know the Cult is looking for. And oh look, the cultist silhouette for the Ghost seems to be a female one. Yeah, didn't take Sherlock Holmes to piece that one together, did it?

So yeah, still far from a perfect game, but a marked improvement for the series, and legitimately a lot of fun. Enough so that I'm honestly considering picking up either the "Fate of Atlantis" DLC for it, or the upcoming Valhalla. Though I'm pretty iffy on both - the DLC is pretty pricey at $25 IMO (would need to be a damn big one to justify costing nearly half again as much as the base game), and while the series seems much improved, I don't think I'm at the point of having enough faith in it for a day 1 purchase yet. Plus I don't necessarily think that a Viking-themed game would be as fun for me as an Ancient Greece one.

[Ortho]

Wrapped up the main story of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey today. On the whole, have to say, I'm impressed.
.
.
.
So yeah, still far from a perfect game, but a marked improvement for the series, and legitimately a lot of fun.

Oooooh, I may have to give it a go now if it's been as streamlined as you say. Black Flag always came across as clunky to me.

[factotum]

OK, finished ToCS3 last night and had time to put a couple of hours into ToCS4. It has kind of an odd start:

Spoiler

Show

The first 20 minutes or so are just cutscenes that can be boiled down to the single phrase THINGS ARE MESSED UP, YO--which I kind of already knew when the end of the previous game showed me an evil black cloud spread out across the country? They could have just repeated that scene and it would have told me everything I needed to know.

We then go into a mission with a bunch of level 85 characters (e.g. way higher level than we ended the last game on). While it was nice to see some of these characters again, it didn't do anything toward resolving the cliffhanger from the previous game and thus was actually kind of annoying when I wanted to know what happened to Juna and the others. It didn't even offer any additional information, because the information the characters are after is "What happened in Heimdallr two weeks ago?" which, as the player, we already know because we were there!

[EDIT]
I also wonder why Falcom have this habit of making you do a difficult fight with higher-level characters at the beginning of the game, then actually give you the tutorial of how to do things later on. It's kind of backwards.

[DaedalusMkV]

That didn't take long.

Don't mind me, I'll just be over here sitting in a corner for the next three months until I finish Cold Steel 4 myself...

[factotum]

Sorry, didn't think that counted as a spoiler since they also did it in CS1 and CS3, but I'll edit it.

[oxybe]

I have beaten the main Monster Hunter World story!

I'll give my 0.02$ worth on the game pre-post game and without the Iceborn DLC.

First: the game is both hard and easy... it just depends on your mindset.

Do you have the D&D 3.5 paranoid wizard player mindset? Do you like doing research on a monster before engaging, preparing proper countermeasures like resistant armour, weapons that target it's weaknesses, preparing a slew of consumeables to buff yourself/remove status ailments/hinder the boss, etc... Then bravo, you've done about 60% of the work needed to take out an angry, flying, firebreathing minivan. The other 40% is execution of the fight and learning the monster's attack patterns and tells.

If you just go in half-cocked and try to brute force without any prep you will make things harder for yourself and get your face pushed in.

Honestly I haven't had this much gameplay fun in a long time. Swinging the big "F YOU" hammers have a nice weight to them and when you clock a dragon in the face with said hammer and send it tumbling or manage to slice off it's tail with a cleaver the size of your front door and see it jump away and roar at you in surprise and pain feels nice. Myself, I loved the aerial dance of the Insect Glaive, which basically turns you into a ballet dancer with Darth Maul's lightsaber and a pet moth the size of a bulldog... at least at the times I wasn't just hammering or swording their faces in. Dodging and diving from monster attacks, hiding behind a pillar to escape a fire breath, rolling under a monster's swipe so you can start attacking it's underbelly is so much fun. I can see why this game sold gangbusters for Capcom, the formula of "have monster, will fight" is sold gold.

I mentioned earlier Nergigante being my "wall"... and I kinda wished the Nergigante came earlier. Not the monster itself but the wall I hit. After you beat Nergigante, you have to beat 3 bosses in no particular order, then it's final boss time. Nergigante was harder for me then those last 4. I learned a lot fighting that monster and it forced me to up my game and how I prepped beforehand. Heck, the final boss was literally one hammer bonk away from dying when it gave me my first down... and even then I died because I was in a slightly weakened state and didn't think I was in the AoE radius as I tried to heal. I know exactly what i did wrong that fight. This i would like to thank Nergigante for. I really wish there was a wall earlier in the game to hit to force me to "git gud" and up my game. It was fun smacking around the Jagrases... Jagrii... however you pluralize Jagras... and while Anjanath was the first real difficult one, followed by an uptick via Rathalos and it's flight, fire and poison, it's Nergigante's oppressive aggression and wonky dive attack hitboxes that really forced me to get better and learn how to prep for a fight.

As such the next three elder dragons weren't hard, since I came into the fight properly equipped and with a gameplan on how I was going to fight. I'm not saying they were easy fights, they could have killed me had I taken them lightly, but it wasn't hard. The tight controls meant that once I got over that initial phase of learning a monster's tells, it was all about reacting and felling the beast.

But I really wish that Nergigante "learn 2 MonHunt" moment came earlier. Anjanath and Rathalos were almost that wall, and it's the sheer fun of the combat mechanics that make you want to get better. make you want to look up tutorials on how to better use your favourite weapons or try another.

I'll probably end up getting the Iceborn DLC on my next paycheck and go hunt new beasties. And I can't wait to get my hands on Monster Hunter Rise when it releases, as it looks like from the videos they have quality of life updates and even more mobility.

Plus, new armours to dress up my Palico in, and that's always a good thing.

[Zevox]

Oooooh, I may have to give it a go now if it's been as streamlined as you say. Black Flag always came across as clunky to me.

Eh, "steamlined" isn't the word that I'd use. The game is quite bloated in a number of ways, honestly. It's just that it's improved in a few key ways since Black Flag that make it significantly more enjoyable to me personally, most notably the combat and story.

On a totally different note, in a rare moment for me I just picked up Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R - an 8-year-old revision of an 18-year-old fighting game - on Steam. Two reasons for this:
1) It's currently (this weekend) holding an open beta for its upcoming addition of rollback netcode to the Steam version, which is something I very much want to support.
2) During that beta it's discounted to a mere $3.

Fiddled around in training mode... and hit the same problem I did with its more recent successor, Guilty Gear Xrd. I cannot find a character to play in this series to save my life. I mean, I could play Sol or Ky, since they're fairly straightforward characters, but I don't find that I want to play either of them - nothing about them really interests me. Meanwhile, most everyone else has something about them that's really weird that makes them either someone I'm not very interested in playing, or someone that seems hard for me to learn. I like how goofy May is, but she's a charge character; I think Johnny and I-No seem cool, but both seem to have tricky play styles I can't quite wrap my head around; Slayer seems cool, but his inability to chain his normals is a huge turn-off to me. And nobody just feels like they gel with me when I mess around with them, the way that I usually find at least one character that does (often more) in other fighting games. It's quite frustrating, since the series otherwise has all the hallmarks of fighting games I should love, and every other fighting game ArcSys makes has tons of characters that I like playing. I just don't get why Guilty Gear specifically is such a problem for me there.