What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

[warty goblin]

So I keep getting distracted from my enjoyable French murderbot maid rampage by, of all things, King's Bounty 2.

KB2 is weird. Most of the time it's a third person RPG, you ramble around some very large but not terribly open levels, doing quests and stuff. Then you run into some bad guys, the camera zooms out, your army appears out of nowhere, and you have a turn based tactics fight. It's quite respectable turn based fighting as well, sort of a riff on the Heroes of Might and Magic thing where you get stacks of each unit, though the numbers are small enough all the dudes are individually rendered, which is cool.

But most of the time is spent doing RPG stuff. These are all very standard sorts of fantasy RPG quests, go here, rescue that person, collect this, that or the other thing, etc. This should be the most tedious, boring exercise in fetch questing ever to need me to find a senile farmer's pig. This shouldn't work at all.

It totally works for me. KB2 is the sort of fantasy game that just loves fantasy stuff, the more clichéd and standard the better. After years of each RPG trying to subvert expectations harder than the last (while of course keeping you as the supreme badass who saves everyone and is mega cool with the most awesome friends and shiniest loot and choice of the hottest sex partners) and be grittier and more realistic (while all the last parenthetical somehow still applies) while the word counts balloon faster than a hot air balloon hooked up to a jet engine, it's really nice to just go find some chickens or whatever. Its a weirdly pleasant, unassuming sort of fantasy, one that somehow both takes itself entirely seriously while also not taking itself seriously at all No fuss, no pretending this isn't deeply silly, but no ridiculing it's own ridiculousness beyond a sarcastic main character, just the fun of going out and exploring and doing stuff.

In summary, if KB2 was a person, it would have a couple Larry Elmore Dragonlance paintings on the walls. So it's basically me in videigame form, although the GF made me hang Death of Sturm in my basement workshop, where the normals won't be startled.

[Wookieetank]

Finished up Avernum 2: Crystal Souls yesterday. Overall enjoyed it, but the combat got very samey by the end of it. Final boss was a bit obnoxious, had to use one specific sword to damage him, and didn't have anyone trained in swords.

Plan on picking up Avernum 3: Ruined world at some point, but gonna give myself a break first.

Now to decide if I go back to West of Loathing or Disco Elysium, hmm...

[factotum]

It's quite respectable turn based fighting as well, sort of a riff on the Heroes of Might and Magic thing where you get stacks of each unit, though the numbers are small enough all the dudes are individually rendered, which is cool.

There's a reason for that--Heroes of Might and Magic was based on the original Kiing's Bounty game, which was designed by Jon van Caneghem for New World Computing back in 1990.

[MCerberus]

Betrayal! Splatoon 3 does not have a sound test/ddr machine

[Anonymouswizard]

Picked up Citizen Sleeper a couple of weeks ago, bounced off it being text based, and came back after time and Shadowrun made reading easier.

So far it's a nice little cozy game that I'll likely play after stressful days. Very glad that I went Mechanist as there's a good few engineering options at this point in the game, but I'm sure that'll change as storylines develop. At least I've found ways to refill Condition and Energy before either became a serious problem.

[tonberrian]

Smoke shells. She can't murder you if she can't see you.

Alas, the first encounter is before Isara invents smoke shells.

Getting into the endgame now, and suddenly these ridiculous timers to get a ranks are doable. I've entered into some sort of zen tank butt exploding mode. The main plot is... fine, i guess, but I could REALLY use something like fire emblem's support conversations. These people, aside from the ones you always use because they give you more command points, are just very generic and samey. Gameplay has some solid bones though. I assume it's similar to Phoenix Point's, though I haven't played that.

[Cazero]

Alas, the first encounter is before Isara invents smoke shells.

I think I remember shooting her with the tank's main cannon to stagger her out of suppression fire.

[Anteros]

Playing Valkyria Chronicles again. Hopefully this time I won't bounce of Selvaria Bles in that first encounter.

Man, these games are so close to being good. Every few years I'll boot them up again hoping my memory was off or my tastes have changed enough to enjoy them but they never have. Between the emphasis on speed and the way that some characters are simply miles better than others, you're far too encouraged to use a handful of characters to blitz every stage rather than treat it as a tactical squad based game. They could be so good with only a few minor changes.

[Rodin]

Man, these games are so close to being good. Every few years I'll boot them up again hoping my memory was off or my tastes have changed enough to enjoy them but they never have. Between the emphasis on speed and the way that some characters are simply miles better than others, you're far too encouraged to use a handful of characters to blitz every stage rather than treat it as a tactical squad based game. They could be so good with only a few minor changes.

That was the exact point I stopped playing the one game I tried (Chronicles 4 I think?) - when I realized it was a better strategy to simply spend all my action points on a single character rather than use any of the rest of my squad. Up until that point I hadn't even realized it was possible, and the game was much superior for it.

I suppose you could try and play with a self-imposed limitation, but then you might run into difficulties if the game is assuming you're going to abuse the ability to move one character many times and balances the map around it.

[Cespenar]

Self limiting multiple moves (as Rodin said) makes Valkyria Chronicles pretty enjoyable IMO. Plus, on the few maps that the game cranks up the difficulty a notch, you can let yourself use the multiple moves "ability" to give things an anime-like twist, if you want.

Self-difficulty saves a lot of games.

Picked up Citizen Sleeper a couple of weeks ago, bounced off it being text based, and came back after time and Shadowrun made reading easier.

So far it's a nice little cozy game that I'll likely play after stressful days. Very glad that I went Mechanist as there's a good few engineering options at this point in the game, but I'm sure that'll change as storylines develop. At least I've found ways to refill Condition and Energy before either became a serious problem.

Tough act to follow Shadowrun, but Citizen Sleeper delivers well on the writing and atmosphere departments.

[Lord Raziere]

Hey everyone this is gonna be an angry "the updated thing screwed with the original old thing I found awesome complaint/rant" thing, just to let you know, I'll keep it short

Spoiler: Fatesworn DLC, Amalur

Show

the Fatesworn DLC of Kingdoms of Amalur sucks and goes against everything the original Amalur was about. Amalur was about the ability to defy fate actually being good and such, but Fatesworn's final ending sentence was "in the end we were wrong, fate is immutable" all the while the DLC blames the Fateless One for unraveling the world in some way when it was only portrayed as positive in the main game. oh and a NPC tries to be meta about the Fateless One is actually "imprisoned" by this killing and looting and whatnot. oh and the one who says the world is unraveling is the Fateweaver master of the order, so he has selfish motive to get the Fateless one of the picture so his order can predict the future again.

its "everything about the original game was wrong and bad" writing, and now I understand why everyone complains about this. also the stupid chaos shield damage mechanic is dumb, they wanted to pad out the quests things are too long, don't get Fatesworn, its bad. uninstalled re-reckoning.

that is all.

[AlanBruce]

Hey everyone this is gonna be an angry "the updated thing screwed with the original old thing I found awesome complaint/rant" thing, just to let you know, I'll keep it short

Spoiler: Fatesworn DLC, Amalur

Show

the Fatesworn DLC of Kingdoms of Amalur sucks and goes against everything the original Amalur was about. Amalur was about the ability to defy fate actually being good and such, but Fatesworn's final ending sentence was "in the end we were wrong, fate is immutable" all the while the DLC blames the Fateless One for unraveling the world in some way when it was only portrayed as positive in the main game. oh and a NPC tries to be meta about the Fateless One is actually "imprisoned" by this killing and looting and whatnot. oh and the one who says the world is unraveling is the Fateweaver master of the order, so he has selfish motive to get the Fateless one of the picture so his order can predict the future again.

its "everything about the original game was wrong and bad" writing, and now I understand why everyone complains about this. also the stupid chaos shield damage mechanic is dumb, they wanted to pad out the quests things are too long, don't get Fatesworn, its bad. uninstalled re-reckoning.

that is all.

It has been awhile since I played Kingdoms of Amalur. I am aware there’s two DLCs: One where you end up in an island and have to deal with a Pirate. The other where you interact with a city of giants, based off Greek mythology.

I can’t recall that one DLC you mention, though. Perhaps I missed it.

[Lord Raziere]

It has been awhile since I played Kingdoms of Amalur. I am aware there’s two DLCs: One where you end up in an island and have to deal with a Pirate. The other where you interact with a city of giants, based off Greek mythology.

I can’t recall that one DLC you mention, though. Perhaps I missed it.

Those are good ones: Legend of Dead Kel and Teeth of Naros.

I'm talking about the third one introduced with Re-Reckoning, Fatesworn: that is the bad one made years after the others that does the stupid stuff that goes against everything else. of course you don't know about it, it was only added in 2021.

[WritersBlock]

So, they basically pulled a Terminator 3?


Saw earlier that they released Judgement and the sequel Lost Judgment on steam pretty much out of nowhere. There is a small chance that sega could remove that denuvo malware one day like they did with yakuza 0, and if so they will be a great addition to my game list. Sadly they do not have a good track record with such things. (Yakuza 7 LAD says hello)

On the plus side I picked up Devil May Cry 5 Deluxe Edition for 20 dollars on sale. I had no idea that they added Vergil as a playable character until just a while ago.

[Rynjin]

Saw earlier that they released Judgement and the sequel Lost Judgment on steam pretty much out of nowhere. There is a small chance that sega could remove that denuvo malware one day like they did with yakuza 0, and if so they will be a great addition to my game list. Sadly they do not have a good track record with such things. (Yakuza 7 LAD says hello)

They also added Yakuza Ishin to the list of upcoming games, which is interesting. i think this will be the first release of Ishin outside of Japan?

[LibraryOgre]

Generally, I try not to play Minecraft on creative. I know it's an option, but it feels like those invincibility cheats in other games.

However, I made an exception last night.

I started making real, proper, houses for my village. I want more people, I want more specialties, so I need to have more people. So I start making real, proper houses. Lay out spaces, build them in something resembling local style (I did not do the log roofs, instead using stairs, with a plank center), put in actual wood floors and the like. A chest to store food, especially as I now had a place for sheep and pigs (want cows, need to find).

And then, after I finished the first house and had started on the second, I woke up and found the entire village gone. No people left. At all. Just two zombies and a zombie villager.

So, I creatived in some villagers, 'cause I was big mad about it.

[warty goblin]

So there's one feature in King's Bounty 2 that I thought would annoy me, but I like; alignment.

KB2 uses a pair of alignment tracks, Order/Anarchy and Power/Finesse. Like Mass Effect, you advance on each separately; making an Order choice doesn't lower your Anarchy. Unlike ME and most RPGs, nearly every choice I have run across only has alignment boosting options, if you solve a quest with a decision, the decision is going to be between Order and Anarchy or Power and Finesse. The first two are pretty self explanatory, Power/Finesse is mostly between straight forwards solutions vs doing more legwork and showing some, well, finesse.

Where this gets interesting is that alignment is tied into progression. The skills are grouped by alignment, you need so many points in an alignment to unlock higher tier skills, and RP decisions are the only way to get those points. So pretty much all magic advancement is under Finesse, Power buffs your army, Order gives morale and leadership bonuses, etc. Basically if you want to be a wizard, you have to solve problems like a wizard. Sure sometimes you can do the obvious Power solution, but it won't let you become a better wizard.

It's a sort of obligate roleplaying, since it heavily rewards playing consistently. I rather like it.

[tonberrian]

I played several thousand hours of King's Bounty: The Legend, Crossworlds, Warriors of the North, and Dark Side. Am I going to be disappointed in KB2? Also, how easy is it to do battles without losing troops?

[warty goblin]

I played several thousand hours of King's Bounty: The Legend, Crossworlds, Warriors of the North, and Dark Side. Am I going to be disappointed in KB2? Also, how easy is it to do battles without losing troops?

Not sure, I never got into any of the 2000s King's Bounty games enough to give you much of a comparison. I can say KB2 doesn't have much of a sense of humor, it's pretty much a straight up standard fantasy RPG. I'd say the best point of comparison is probably the SpellForce games, particularly SpellForce 3. Except that instead of an RTS, you fight everything out in turn based combat on a sort of minimap. Which, pleasingly, is actually the terrain where the fight happens.

[Zevox]

Finished Cult of the Lamb. It was fun - nothing particularly deep or interesting, whether gameplay-wise or (especially) story-wise, but unique and enjoyable. I probably took way longer completing it than I needed to, given I finished the tech trees like halfway through, but eh. The second major boss was the hardest, took me several tries. The final boss was actually kind of a let-down, I was expecting more out of him, but he was the easiest since the first.

Notable point for me is that my second recruited cultist, Chun-Li, almost made it all the way through, despite the rest of the cult dropping like flies all the time because cultists age so fast in this game. Gave her one of the life-extending amulets when I realized she was already outliving the rest of my first batch of cultists, and it resulted in her living from day 2 to day 89. I finished the game on day 98. So close.

The game does have some serious performance issues though, it was experiencing some major slow-down and frame drops when battles wound up including too many enemies/projectiles - which unfortunately most bosses did. Don't know if that's just the Playstation version of the game, or if it's like that on every system, but considering it's not exactly a graphical wonder and I'm playing it on a PS5, it was very surprising and the one big problem I had with the game. Also a few bugs here and there, but mostly not major ones. The worst one was that I had enemies just vanish from a couple of rooms, preventing me from continuing a crusade because I hadn't killed everyone in the room, but sometimes I was able to just randomly attack and have it count as hitting and killing the MIA foe, and the one other time I had the escape ability to back out with, so it never hurt me too bad.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tough act to follow Shadowrun, but Citizen Sleeper delivers well on the writing and atmosphere departments.

Honestly I'm not expecting Planescape: Torment (which is still my favourite game by kilometers). But yeah, it's solid and the action limiting is a nice system, if occasionally mildly frustrating. Half of my is already convinced that this is going to end with the main character transferring their consciousness to a ship or station.

[Cespenar]

I played several thousand hours of King's Bounty: The Legend, Crossworlds, Warriors of the North, and Dark Side. Am I going to be disappointed in KB2? Also, how easy is it to do battles without losing troops?

After those, you might be disappointed. It seems to harken not to the old KB-Heroes-ish style, but tries to be more like an average 2000s RPG, with matching graphics, quests and writing. The fights are similar, but it seems to have a slower start compared to some of the other KBs, IIRC.

I admit, it has a bit of a charm, but if you're not naturally predisposed to nostalgic jank like warty seems to be (sorry ), you might not like it, especially after the other KB games.

Honestly I'm not expecting Planescape: Torment (which is still my favourite game by kilometers). But yeah, it's solid and the action limiting is a nice system, if occasionally mildly frustrating. Half of my is already convinced that this is going to end with the main character transferring their consciousness to a ship or station.

You're not too far off with that hunch (though I guess the trope comes with the genre), but there are different endings to choose from, which are not that hard to unlock simultaneously.

[Yora]

Once again back up on that Morrowind horse.

I am sure this is the time I am going to cover more than 15% of the game.

[LibraryOgre]

Once again back up on that Morrowind horse.

I am sure this is the time I am going to cover more than 15% of the game.

15% of a game like Morrowind is ambitious.

[warty goblin]

After those, you might be disappointed. It seems to harken not to the old KB-Heroes-ish style, but tries to be more like an average 2000s RPG, with matching graphics, quests and writing. The fights are similar, but it seems to have a slower start compared to some of the other KBs, IIRC.

The start is definitely slow, you kinda gotta plow through the snow map, which is OK but dull. You don't have enough units or abilities for combat to be interesting yet, and the story is mostly uncomprehensible.

Once you power through that and the subsequent dialog bit where you (sort of) figure out what's going on and get to the Crown Lands though, it gets better. There's more quests, your army gets big enough to be interesting, there's a fair amount of unit choice, and as you clear out fights you gradually open up the map.

I admit, it has a bit of a charm, but if you're not naturally predisposed to nostalgic jank like warty seems to be (sorry ), you might not like it, especially after the other KB games.

Oh I'm totally predisposed to nostalgic jank! I think the thing is I mostly like weird things, and (conventionally) good games are very rarely weird or unusual.

[Sermil]

Playing Disco Elysium. Playing it on Switch which might not have been ideal; the navigation is very obviously intended to be click-based. There's a couple of tricky routes which the game can just pathfind through if you click on the other side, but where it's not obvious what route will work when you're directly moving the detective with the thumbstick. Also, Kim sometimes gets in your way since the game doesn't know which way you wanted to go.

Otherwise, living up to its reputation as a very weird, quirky, Planescape: Torment-like game.

I just got to the big scene where

Spoiler

Show

the mercenaries confront Titus and the Hardie Boys.

I was pretty mad because I blew a bunch of 80%+ red checks[1] and everything went sideways. But I did succeed in the most important 28% red check to

Spoiler

Show

push Kim out of the way at the end

, so that's good.

I almost considered replaying the scene, but I really don't like doing that, it makes the game feel cheap. I might go back and watch a YouTube playthough just to see what happens if you succeed in a few more checks.

[1] For those who haven't played, white checks are skill checks that can be retried when you get better at the skill, like picking a lock. Red checks are skill checks that can't be retried, like grabbing a piece of paper before it blows away.

[Eldan]

It's basically one dead Hardy for every check you fail. Down to I think only two survivors. The conversation you hae with them after you wake up changes a lot depending on which ones survive.

[Yora]

15% of a game like Morrowind is ambitious.

The furthest I got in the past was taking a peek at Vivec and Gnisis and maybe meeting the Ashlanders of the Nerevarine Cult one time. Done some Fighter and Mage guild stuff in Balmora, and that's about as much as I've seen in probably five playthroughs so far.
But I think I pretty much retreaded almost all of the game that I've seen before. Already got guild quests I've never done before and about to head up North to meet the Ashlanders. From there on I have no clue what's around in the world.

This time I got a computer that doesn't even sweat when all settings are at max and with the upscaled texture pack the game looks really quite nice inside cities and forests.

[Resileaf]

Morrowind remains one of my favorite games. I don't care that it's outdated, even with the combat system, I feel good playing it thanks to the absolutely unique setting, and that's all that really matters to me.

I've completed the main quest a couple of times, but I've never gone far into guild quests. Ironically, I found out that I still got several high-end items that are acquired during guild questlines because there are no dungeons locked behind guild progress so if you know where to search or get lucky in your exploration, you can pick up some pretty awesome stuff that other Elder Scrolls wouldn't let you have.

My favorite early-game find is in a Daedric shrine between Balmora and Ald-ruhn, where you can find a staff that lets you cast levitate.

[Sermil]

It's basically one dead Hardy for every check you fail. Down to I think only two survivors. The conversation you hae with them after you wake up changes a lot depending on which ones survive.

Ya, I ended up with just two survivors.

Spoiler

Show

Elizabeth, Titus, and the rest of the Hardies are all dead. The two remaining boys weren't very happy with me.