What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

[Rodin]

Well the Steam search engine is garbage. Anything that lets users set the tags is going to be. Off the top of my head though in the last few years we've had Code vein, Nioh, Nioh 2, The Surge, The Surge 2, Hellpoint, and Jedi Fallen Order as clear Souls rip-offs. This is obviously not including the main games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls I-III, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. The market is flooded.

You've listed 6 games spanning 4 years, and two of them are sequels. Describing that as "flooded" when over 10,000 games get released per yer seems more than a little hyperbolic. Dark Souls 3 (the last Miyazaki game) released in March 2016 - over 5 years ago.

I'm not saying you have to like Souls games. Complaining about them flooding the market is just plain bizarre due to how incredibly untrue it is. It's a niche genre with a dedicated following.

[factotum]

Stuck in hospital awaiting blood test results so I can start chemotherapy, and I only have my relatively crappy laptop with me, so I've actually been getting into ADOM. Never really played it much before, but it's kind of growing on me. Just rescued the little girl's puppy with my troll healer, now to see what else I can find...

[halfeye]

Stuck in hospital awaiting blood test results so I can start chemotherapy, and I only have my relatively crappy laptop with me, so I've actually been getting into ADOM. Never really played it much before, but it's kind of growing on me. Just rescued the little girl's puppy with my troll healer, now to see what else I can find...

Best Wishes for a full recovery.

If you have net at a reasonable price, then Go at KGS is more or less free and low bandwidth, you would need Java and to download a client, then you're good to play. There's probably something similar for chess, but I don't care about that.

[Wookieetank]

Made it to the Matador fight in SMT3: Nocturne this weekend. I'd heard the stories of how much of a wall this guy was, but didn't think too much of them having cleared over half a dozen SMT games at this point. The stories were not wrong . I'd hate to look up a guide only 6ish hours into the game, but depending on how poorly my next few attempts go I just might have to suck it up and do so.

[Eldan]

Been playing Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus for a few days now. Pretty fun turn-based strategy. Not enormously complex (some resource Management, no overwatch, cover or to-hit Chance one might know from, say, XCOM), quite a bit of unit customization, which is fun, even if most of it comes down to "gun, bigger gun, area effect gun or healing item". Difficulty is a bit uneven, a lot of missions I either get almost totally wiped, or I just clean house. Increasingly the second as I get higher Level tech priests with ever bigger guns. Was hoping for more powerful necrons soon, but so far, there's just more of the same few Basic necron warrior types.

[factotum]

Made it to the Matador fight in SMT3: Nocturne this weekend. I'd heard the stories of how much of a wall this guy was, but didn't think too much of them having cleared over half a dozen SMT games at this point. The stories were not wrong . I'd hate to look up a guide only 6ish hours into the game, but depending on how poorly my next few attempts go I just might have to suck it up and do so.

He mostly uses force attacks, doesn't he? So try to ensure you don't have a team that's all weak to that! That's what killed me the first time I attempted him.

[Cespenar]

Been playing Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus for a few days now. Pretty fun turn-based strategy. Not enormously complex (some resource Management, no overwatch, cover or to-hit Chance one might know from, say, XCOM), quite a bit of unit customization, which is fun, even if most of it comes down to "gun, bigger gun, area effect gun or healing item". Difficulty is a bit uneven, a lot of missions I either get almost totally wiped, or I just clean house. Increasingly the second as I get higher Level tech priests with ever bigger guns. Was hoping for more powerful necrons soon, but so far, there's just more of the same few Basic necron warrior types.

It gets more complex further along the game, culminating in some pretty wacky combos that you can eventually pull. And double points since it doesn't run on an XCOM chassis.

Also the OST is pretty cool too.

Stuck in hospital awaiting blood test results so I can start chemotherapy, and I only have my relatively crappy laptop with me, so I've actually been getting into ADOM. Never really played it much before, but it's kind of growing on me. Just rescued the little girl's puppy with my troll healer, now to see what else I can find...

One common issue of beginning troll players is the food one. I suggest blitzing a bit to the arena level (2-3?) of the main quest caverns, and buying all of the fried lizards off of the vendors.

Good luck on the medical stuff, btw.

[Wookieetank]

He mostly uses force attacks, doesn't he? So try to ensure you don't have a team that's all weak to that! That's what killed me the first time I attempted him.

I don't think I had anyone weak to force with me, but he hits like a truck overall. Think I managed to last all of 3 turns my first go round. Will look into having force resistant characters if at all possible, something tells me I'm too early for force null to be an option.

[Anteros]

You've listed 6 games spanning 4 years, and two of them are sequels. Describing that as "flooded" when over 10,000 games get released per yer seems more than a little hyperbolic. Dark Souls 3 (the last Miyazaki game) released in March 2016 - over 5 years ago.

I'm not saying you have to like Souls games. Complaining about them flooding the market is just plain bizarre due to how incredibly untrue it is. It's a niche genre with a dedicated following.

You're accusing me of being "hyperbolic" while simultaneously counting every tiny indie game that no one's ever heard of to inflate your point? Ok.

[Eldan]

It gets more complex further along the game, culminating in some pretty wacky combos that you can eventually pull. And double points since it doesn't run on an XCOM chassis.

Also the OST is pretty cool too.

Oh yeah, sound and visual design in general is amazing.

[Lord Raziere]

You're accusing me of being "hyperbolic" while simultaneously counting every tiny indie game that no one's ever heard of to inflate your point? Ok.

..... Ah, Yes indie games do not count as videogames now. I guess I hallucinate all those videogames because you don't think they're big enough to count. they not apart of this "flooded market", because they're too small to see and thus anyone who sees them aren't really buying games. this isn't gatekeeping, its just acknowledging that only triple A games matter to anything. which as everyone knows is an indisputable fact, because the big stacks of green rectangles say so.

[GloatingSwine]

Hollow Knight - uses Souls storytelling, gameplay is pure Metroidvania.

Dark Souls is pretty Metroidvaniaey to begin with.

Hollow Knight doesn't just use Souls style storytelling of exploring the remains of a fallen world, it also has most of the same structural features in its balance of world exploration with challenging setpiece bosses, most enemies only respawning when you die or rest at fixed points, leaving something behind at your point of death to reclaim it if you reach it, etc.

Bug Souls is Best Souls.

[Lord Raziere]

Dark Souls is pretty Metroidvaniaey to begin with.

Hollow Knight doesn't just use Souls style storytelling of exploring the remains of a fallen world, it also has most of the same structural features in its balance of world exploration with challenging setpiece bosses, most enemies only respawning when you die or rest at fixed points, leaving something behind at your point of death to reclaim it if you reach it, etc.

Bug Souls is Best Souls.

Eh.

doesn't provide the visual customization options I like. I for one like the fashion souls aspects of Dark Souls, Nioh 2 and Code Vein, there hasn't been many rpg customization elsewhere at that level since Skyrim it feels like, since people keep putting out things like Witcher or Dad of War where your forced to play a specific character. Nioh 2 allowing me to make my own playstyle is a lot of the reason I'm not going to go back to Sekiro. Sure The Outer Worlds was a recent thing that was on that level of customization but I've already played it through and found a bit too real, y'know? and I'm not playing mmo's because I don't want to get drawn into paying a subscription only to have my questing in the world ruined by players typing in chatspeak.

[Zevox]

Well, Nintendo just made a lot or people happy and/or crushed a lot of hopes simultaneously with the Mii Fighter costumes they announced are coming to Smash alongside Kazuya this morning. Lloyd Irving's costume from Tales I think everyone kind of saw coming after Kazuya was announced, since it's the one big costume from Smash 4 that wasn't accounted for and Tales and Tekken are both Namco franchises, so it makes sense to throw it in alongside another Namco character. But then they threw in three more that were not Tekken characters at all: "Dragonborn" (aka generic Skyrim dude), Dante, and Shantae.

I'm simultaneously disappointed that this fully confirms Dante won't be a playable DLC character for Smash, and happy that he's at least getting this much. And I know a friend of mine is going to feel the same about Shantae. Skyrim dude doesn't matter to me, but I'm sure he does to some people. I'll grab that Dante costume and at least play a few rounds with it tomorrow.

I am willing to bet I can guess who the final DLC character will be though. We're totally getting stuck with Waluigi. I don't want to be right about that, but I'm betting that the stink that people raised about him back when Smash Ultimate launched will have been enough for them to include him as the final, sendoff character at the end of the DLC. Especially since they've already dedicated almost half of the second season of DLC to adding Nintendo-owned characters that some people thought were good candidates for the base game, but who didn't make it back then (Min-Min and Pyra/Mythra).

Prove me wrong Nintendo, make that last character someone actually exciting, please.

Nioh 1 and 2 I'd also dispute being a "Souls ripoff" by the by. It shares some basic elements (bonfire equivalents and a focus on hard bosses being basically it), but it's really nothing like it when you get into the nitty gritty. Particularly, it's much more skill based. Every weapon has a unique moveset which can be customized, and so it plays much more like a 3D fighting game or character action game with customizable attack strings like God Hand.

It even has a very clear, very linear story. I hated Nioh 1 and everything about it so never finished it, and Nioh 2's story sucked ass, but it was there, with cutscenes and everything.

Huh. You know, I think you just moved Nioh up on my list of games to try. I've never known much more about it than that it was an action game some people compare to Dark Souls, which hasn't been enough to make me think I should prioritize it, but that description makes it sound better than Dark Souls by a fair margin to me personally.

[Anteros]

..... Ah, Yes indie games do not count as videogames now. I guess I hallucinate all those videogames because you don't think they're big enough to count. they notproducers apart of this "flooded market", because they're too small to see and thus anyone who sees them aren't really buying games. this isn't gatekeeping, its just acknowledging that only triple A games matter to anything. which as everyone knows is an indisputable fact, because the big stacks of green rectangles say so.

Sure, they count as games. However, no one is talking about them when they're talking about the market being flooded and explicitly giving examples of games from major studios. As any amount of common sense would tell you if you weren't in such a rush to be sarcastic.

You're allowed to enjoy your bird dating simulator that no one has ever heard of (or whatever) if you want. It's just not particularly relevant to the conversation, and saying "the market can't be saturated because there's a million crappy titles no one will ever play" isnt particularly helpful.

Sure, some indie games are fantastic. 99.99% of them are unplayable garbage. Saying 10000 games release per year is just being deliberately obtuse.

[Rynjin]

and I'm not playing mmo's because I don't want to get drawn into paying a subscription only to have my questing in the world ruined by players typing in chatspeak.

I've played a lot of MMOs over the years, and liked pretty much none of them. I've decided I don't like MMOs.

However, the one I disliked the least was Final Fantasy 14; I played through the base game and the first expansion, making it to level 60 something before I dropped it. That's a ton of hours.

During that time I met, count them, ZERO unsavory characters, not even a single rude or dismissive comment: completely unheard of in my time with other MMOs. That is a damn good community if I've ever seen one, full of very supportive and friendly people.

So if you like MMO gameplay, but hate the average MMO community, give FF14 a try.

Huh. You know, I think you just moved Nioh up on my list of games to try. I've never known much more about it than that it was an action game some people compare to Dark Souls, which hasn't been enough to make me think I should prioritize it, but that description makes it sound better than Dark Souls by a fair margin to me personally.

I had a ton of fun with Nioh 2, though am a bit burned out on it at the moment; I didn't get through the DLCs because the campaign was a 100 hour binge for me (and I didn't even do most of the side missions). Lots of content, and very fast paced gameplay.

I don't want to overblow the customization of moveset TOO much I'll say. Every weapon starts with a basic set of moves, divided into 3 stances (Low, Middle, and High; corresponding roughly to fast but weak attacks, and superior dodges, medium speed and strength attacks with superior blocking, and slow and heavy attacks with maluses to dodging and blocking Ki cost). As you level your skill in a weapon (by using it), you gain skill points to buy new moves. Some of these points can also be used for static bonuses if you're done filling out your moveset.

These new moves can be assigned to any or all of the stances individually (some moves can only be used by certain stances) and used to mix and match some fun combos.

Some of the moves are INSANE, even if they are equally insane to pull off. The timing on Beyond Infinity (one of the Fist master skills) (each properly timed button press increases the speed and power of subsequent moves and extends the chain, but makes the timing for subsequent presses even harder) is rough, but it mulches enemies.

So it's not exactly God Hand level of "here's a thousand moves, but them in any order you want), but it's the closest I've seen in any game since.

Throw on Ninjutsu and Onmyo Magic, plus the Soul Core abilities (basically meter burning super moves you can equip up to two of at the start, expanding a bit later) and you have a LOT of options in the moment to moment gameplay. PLUS the stat minmaxing you'd come to expect from a Souls-like is still there, though more forgiving (every stat does SOMETHING, every weapon scales with at least 3 different stats to varying degrees, and respecs are easy to come by by the midgame).

Sure, they count as games. However, no one is talking about them when they're talking about the market being flooded and explicitly giving examples of games from major studios. As any amount of common sense would tell you if you weren't in such a rush to be sarcastic.

You're allowed to enjoy your bird dating simulator that no one has ever heard of (or whatever) if you want. It's just not particularly relevant to the conversation, and saying "the market can't be saturated because there's a million crappy titles no one will ever play" isn't particularly helpful.

This argument would make more sense if most of the "flood" of Souls-like games weren't, in fact, indie games, or at least non-AAA titles.

[Lord Raziere]

Whelp, I'm sad it isn't Shantae.

I'm less sad that Dragonborn ain't getting in but it makes sense, because Mii's are nintendo's equivalent to blank rpg characters that you can fill in and customize.

as for the last one? I bet you its not Waluigi at all. I bet its something like playable Marx, or Pauline with music-based attacks, or Mipha from Breath of the Wild, or a Boo, or a Goomba, or maybe they'll just put Toad in as an actual character, or a Goron, or maybe they'll go out on a pokemon which could be all sorts of things that might be interesting....

or they're going to get something like Ayla from Chrono Trigger just to go out on something totally unexpected.

[GloatingSwine]

Obviously the only thing that now makes sense for the final Smash fighter is Sakurai himself.

[Anteros]

This argument would make more sense if most of the "flood" of Souls-like games weren't, in fact, indie games, or at least non-AAA titles.

I guess you're saying the argument makes sense then since none of the games I listed were indie games then?

[Rynjin]

I guess you're saying the argument makes sense then since none of the games I listed were indie games then?

Of the 6 you mentioned, only 2 are AAA games; Code Vein, published by Bamco, and Fallen Order, published by EA.

All the rest are from smaller developers with smaller publishers. And they're a cherrypicked sample among other popular options, already mentioned, like Dead Cells and Hollow Knight.

Even if you discount the 10k figure, there are over a hundred prominent releases from either AAA or smaller, but still kinown studios every year. 6 over the course of 4 years is a drizzle, not a flood.

A "flood" is the FPS boom of the 2000s, where dozens of shooters were released EVERY YEAR for nearly a decade.

[tyckspoon]

He mostly uses force attacks, doesn't he? So try to ensure you don't have a team that's all weak to that! That's what killed me the first time I attempted him.

He's more a check to see if you've realized that status modifiers matter in this game - if memory serves you can get access to most of the basic stat up/down spells by then. Raising your defense/agility and either removing his buff or applying a few layers of agility down so you have a chance of dodging his physical attacks + getting a force null team member to drain his turns when he tries to Mazan goes a long way to beating him.

[Brookshw]

Picked up Octopath Traveller recently, so far I have mixed feelings. At about 7 hours in I just seem to be running around picking up the characters, getting there intro stories, and slowly leveling. It's a bit disappointing, there isn't really a core story to catch my interest, feels like I'm going through lots of filler. By the time I got close to the first person's Ch 2 objective I was woefully underleveled and decided to keep picking up characters, this kind of worries me as with a larger party it seems like it will take longer to level everyone to the point they can do their Ch 2 objectives. I've seen some side quest but for the life of me have no idea where they want me to go. Not sure if I'm doing this right.

Combat system is okay, it's interesting and mildly strategic, but I have a feeling I'll be doing some level grinding which will make the system feel cumbersome rather than being able to grind levels while doing something else, i.e., watching a show or something.

Given the hype around this game I'm hoping it'll pick up after getting all the characters.

Next up, AC: Black Flag, nothing like a pirate game in the summer.

[factotum]

Problem with Octopath Traveler is that it's really eight entirely separate stories for almost the entire game--the other characters might as well not be there. The only thing that really ties them all together is the super-hard optional boss at the end, and believe me, you'll want to spoil yourself on how you get to fight that one because your chances of figuring it out yourself are pretty much nil.

[Anteros]

Of the 6 you mentioned, only 2 are AAA games; Code Vein, published by Bamco, and Fallen Order, published by EA.

All the rest are from smaller developers with smaller publishers. And they're a cherrypicked sample among other popular options, already mentioned, like Dead Cells and Hollow Knight.

Even if you discount the 10k figure, there are over a hundred prominent releases from either AAA or smaller, but still kinown studios every year. 6 over the course of 4 years is a drizzle, not a flood.

A "flood" is the FPS boom of the 2000s, where dozens of shooters were released EVERY YEAR for nearly a decade.

I picked the ones I did because they're actually Soulslikes: Games that blatantly rip off the bonfire system and also pretend having clunky controls for your character equals difficulty. Not every little thing tagged on steam as a soulslike actually is one. Things like Dead Cells or Hollow Knight have nothing in common with the series other than the fact someone thought they were difficult and steam allows anyone to tag games.

[Wookieetank]

He's more a check to see if you've realized that status modifiers matter in this game - if memory serves you can get access to most of the basic stat up/down spells by then. Raising your defense/agility and either removing his buff or applying a few layers of agility down so you have a chance of dodging his physical attacks + getting a force null team member to drain his turns when he tries to Mazan goes a long way to beating him.

Managed to squeak out a win. Was able to get the MC force Null and a demon with force Null as well. Already had the buffs/debuffs, just didn't get a chance to use them properly first go round. Ended up with 2 dead demons and MC & other survivor at only like 25% health. Matador definitely lived up to the hype. Kinda terrified to explore the Amala dungeon, should be quite the adventure.

[Blackdrop]

I picked the ones I did because they're actually Soulslikes: Games that blatantly rip off the bonfire system and also pretend having clunky controls for your character equals difficulty. Not every little thing tagged on steam as a soulslike actually is one. Things like Dead Cells or Hollow Knight have nothing in common with the series other than the fact someone thought they were difficult and steam allows anyone to tag games.

Which part of the controls of the games do you find clunky? It might just be my own confirmation bias, but I can't really remember any moment of thinking the controls were clunky, other then the few times Dark Souls 1-3 hid loot behind jumping puzzles or Fallen Order's indecision on when you have to repress the Climb button when falling or jumping.

[Rodin]

Of the 6 you mentioned, only 2 are AAA games; Code Vein, published by Bamco, and Fallen Order, published by EA.

All the rest are from smaller developers with smaller publishers. And they're a cherrypicked sample among other popular options, already mentioned, like Dead Cells and Hollow Knight.

Even if you discount the 10k figure, there are over a hundred prominent releases from either AAA or smaller, but still kinown studios every year. 6 over the course of 4 years is a drizzle, not a flood.

A "flood" is the FPS boom of the 2000s, where dozens of shooters were released EVERY YEAR for nearly a decade.

Exactly this. I picked the 10000 figure not just to illustrate how big "the market" is but to draw out a question - what EXACTLY counts as a flood? What subsection of the games released are we comparing against, and what subsection of so-called "Soulslikes" are games which are actually modeling themselves after Dark Souls?

If we're just looking at the really close imitators from major developers (like Nioh, Code Vein, etc) the answer is "almost none". Heck, I'm unaware of any big new release for Soulslikes in the past year. Nioh 2 was over a year ago, and the only other game was Demons Souls PS5, which is merely a graphical remake of a PS3 game with some QoL improvements. It's not a new game in the same way that Resident Evil 2 was.

Of course, you could always go down the rabbit hole and start pulling out really obscure indie games with only a handful of reviews on Steam. But then that pesky "10000" number rears it's head again...

Incidentally, that number is a massive underestimate. That's the number of games on Steam, so it rules out any console-only titles and any mobile games. It also rules out games that are PC but just not on Steam. These can range from the ultra-indie offerings on places like itch.io up to publishers that don't NEED Steam, like Riot and Blizzard.

[Zevox]

Wrapped up Mass Effect 2. The rest of it was just as good as I remember, especially the Suicide Mission - one of the few moments where you really feel like such a large team is genuinely working together on a major task. And as obvious as it is who's suited to each of the tasks you need to assign team members to, it does help make you feel like you're leading your squad, more so than just asking them to use powers in ordinary fights does.

Since it was asked before, the only issue I'd take with the late-game Collector attack sequence is that the thing that triggers Shepherd and the squad leaving isn't actually you going to do a mission, it just happens when you go to the star map after having the Reaper IFF for a mission or two. Thus no actual mission occurs while you're away from the Normandy, which makes it a little awkward.

I was disappointed that Legendary Edition didn't take the opportunity to fix the bug that causes Conrad Vernor to always act as if you'd picked the Renegade dialogue options with him in ME1, though. I'd assumed a long-standing minor issue like that would be one of the things they'd address in Legendary Edition, but nope, still there. Strange missed opportunity. Oh well.

Also started up on Mass Effect 3, and boy, the extra polish on the gameplay and improved power system is immediately noticeable. I remembered feeling that ME3 was solidly the best gameplay-wise, but it's been so long that I'd forgotten to exactly what extent. Good stuff - kind of makes me wish the multiplayer had been included in Legendary Edition. Well, except for the part where they probably wouldn't let you start with everything unlocked if it were, anyway.

I have run into an annoying issue though. It seems that the very edges of the screen are cut off, as if the game's zoomed in just a touch. Doesn't affect much, but a little under half of the text of the lowest dialogue wheel options is off-screen, the upper half of the names of items I'm looking at will get off because they're displayed near the top of the screen, and some descriptions that pop up on the sides of the screen when using the power wheel get a letter or two cut off on the left. Didn't have any such issue with ME1 or 2, and sure enough, googling this, it looks like it's an issue a fair number of other people playing the console versions have had. And unfortunately the fix involves screen display options that my ten or so year old TV does not have. Still, it's not game-breaking or anything, just obnoxious. Very weird though, I don't remember having any such issue with the X-Box 360 version of ME3, so it's just a new problem unique to Legendary Edition.

[Resileaf]

I was disappointed that Legendary Edition didn't take the opportunity to fix the bug that causes Conrad Vernor to always act as if you'd picked the Renegade dialogue options with him in ME1, though. I'd assumed a long-standing minor issue like that would be one of the things they'd address in Legendary Edition, but nope, still there. Strange missed opportunity. Oh well.

Apparently they're keeping the bug in because ME3 gives Conrad specific lines referencing the bug. So now it's considered a canon bug.

[Zevox]

Apparently they're keeping the bug in because ME3 gives Conrad specific lines referencing the bug. So now it's considered a canon bug.

That... is a bizarre decision . Rather than fix a problem, they keep it, solely for the sake of a joke in the sequel. Which the vast majority of fans would understand regardless.

Oh well, it's not a big deal. Just disappointing.