Lurker > Maniac64

Red

Mine other was early lol.

But hey that's a great result for Nanaki!

Yeah figured I wasn't getting a 2nd save

Red 13

Aerith

Bring it on Eddv!

It's awesome!

My sister is going to give the live action a try, which I'm excited about.

Just got my flu shot yesterday.

Will probably get rhe covid one at some point

I hear Diggs is going to be fine!

Welcome aboard!

Krieg is in it...briefly

Xuxon posted...

@Maniac64 If you would like to continue, switch to Aeris

Sounds good

Red 13

Laguna

I think I remember at least one wedding where after the parent/newlywed dance there was a short dance where it was both sets of parents and the newlywed couple dancing.

ivysnow posted...

wow, ziggler gone.

Do it AEW. Give us the Nemeth brothers.

@ZaziGuado Alright, lets talk about Dragon Age 2

I fully get why people dont like/have issues with this game. It was clearly made with cost cutting in mind. The number of areas is extremely limited and you just are constantly going back through the same areas. Outside of the city of Kirkwall there are like three main areas, a mine and two outdoor areas. It's very repetitive and definitely a huge flaw in the game. I will say the one time they break this and go to the deep roads is a great section. And the game does take advantage of its bottle episode nature to do some interesting things plot wise by really focusing on the city of Kirkwall. Years pass in the game and you, your companions, and your places in the city all change as time passes.

You also lose the choice of race and background that people loved in the first game. Instead you just pick male/female and class, and the only change that makes is which of your siblings survives the opening (which really just comes down to mage or not mage).

The other big issue to me is Anders/Justice. I played the Dragon Age games in order in about a year or two so Awakening was very fresh in my mind when going to DA2. Anders was a favorite from the game and Justice was really interesting. They were among my most used party members, and they were my least used in DA2 (even below Sebastian). This is essentially a pure character assassination. All the things that made the character fun are gone, Justice is used as an excuse to turn him into a violent amoral freedom fighter/terrorist. Just awful.

But outside of Anders (and Sebastian who was a DLC addition and is basically just there to represent the opposite side of Anders) the cast is great. I think the companions here are the best in the series, which is a big statement cause all the games have good casts. They are unique, interesting, and fun to have around. And the dynamics between them are the best without a doubt. The party members have their relationships with each other, completely independent of the party leader. Every combination has its own unique dynamics and its just great. My biggest disappointment going from DA2 to DAI was how much less the party members talked to each other. Its a very frequent thing in DA2, with 2, 3, and even 4 person conversations happening regularly. It felt like if I wasnt fighting I would never go more than 5 minutes without some unique conversation. I loved it and it is part of what makes the cast so strong. My favorite party was Varric, Isabela, Merrill just for their conversations or Isabela and Aveline for their rivalry. The game also takes advantage of the time skips to give everyone stronger connections and give you the chance to really see your companions grow and their relationships with each other develop from strangers to close friends. Its much more natural than in some games and everyone really feels connected.

Speaking of companions, I love the change in how the affection system works in this game. Rather than just gaining/losing affection like most games do, DA2 uses a Friend/Rival spectrum. Positive interactions move the person towards friend, and negative towards rival, but neither is inherently bad. Rivals wont just leave your party or hate you, instead your relationship is built on challenging each others views and actions. You can even have your love interest be a full Rival. The dialogue and personal quests between your character and the companion change based on which end of the spectrum they are on. This is such a good idea and I was so sad to see it gone in DA:I. Please bring it back. It makes for more natural relationships and interactions where you can actually do/say what fits your character without worrying about pissing your companion off.

One last mechanic that I love but can see others not liking is how they handle equipment. Only your MC can equip armor you find, everyone else has set armor they wear. Upgrades for their equipment can be found, it gets stronger as they level, and their outfits can change based on what happens in the story/their personal quests. I honestly liked this. It was nice not having to worry about figuring out the best equipment for everyone and made inventory management much faster. Even with the things that can be changed, weapons, accessories, Hawkes stuff, it is common to have the items get stronger as you level. This means if you have a weapon or item that is important to that character story wise they can actually use/wear it the entire game without making you weaker. Everyone basically ends up equipped with things that are meaningful to them or with some special/legendary option. Again it just made inventory a much smaller part of the game, which I really liked. Imagine if in FFX Tidus is able to use Chappus sword the entire game without being a handicap, or Cloud with the Buster sword. It also means you can do something like give Varric a truly unique weapon without figuring out what to do with finding new ones for him. It carried over a bit in DA:I with Varrics weapon working the same way along with a few key items, but I wish they used more stuff that improved with you so you dont need to replace them. In most RPGs I end up with a chest full of out of date weapons/armor/accessories because I want to keep ones that had story importance or would be meaningful to the character. This was a change that was perfect for me.

Overall for me the good of the plot, characters, and mechanics more than makes up for the games limitations. My wife and I had a blast with this game. We loved the characters, we cared about Kirkwall and its fate. Dragon Age is one time where I can be confident in my rankings of the series because of how I played through the series all together.

No Top Tier for me but I do really like Red, Aerith, and Locke. Laguna and Vanille are cool from the limited amount I have seen of them.

I'm waiting to see if it ends better than season 1 before giving it a try.

Sure thing.

No problem. It was fun.

Anyone want to do an H1 trade for Red?

RaidenGarai posted...

I will now be saving my next favorite final fantasy characters. Things are getting real!

Are we moving the trade to someone else?

Damn, that's a quick round

Red 13

Ghido

Yeah it makes sense. USFL is probably the better name to go under unless they create a whole new name and use X and US as the conference names.

DragonGargoyle posted...

btw who's your favorite Path of Radiance character?

Ike. It's boring but true.

After that Gatrie, Nephenee, and Soren.

Haha because I apparently forgot the name of the Kirby game.

I had this list going for over a year and didn't remember either Borderlands until last week lol.

MartinFF7 posted...

ok new plan, emergency meatshield Rude deployment into stats - he could only leapfrog Wakka if he finishes at least 34th place or better. Surely that could never happen!

That was my plan!

Bring in Rude to die and lift everyone up.

v_charon posted...

Also no Wakka, despite the fact he will definitely be getting in next year (Genny and I will probably spend all nominations on him).

Please don't. Especially if you aren't planning to help push him far enough to raise his stats.

Did Orochi from One Piece end up making it into this?

Go Iowa teams!

It was good there for a bit Drake!

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

I saw that

Ditto

RaidenGarai posted...

Maniac64

Did you want to continue the Red and Ghido trade another day?

Sounds good to me @RaidenGarai

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/1/2/AAB6RfAAE2vs.jpg

Damn. As a Broncos and Iowa Hawkeyes fan this is harsh. Fair but harsh.

I will look in to if any system I have can play it.

Ghido

Wasn't it an SNES game? I think by the time I got into TRPGs I know longer had access to it.

I listen to F**kface, Face Jam, Off Topic, Always Open, Red Web, Stinky Dragon, and RTP every week lol. And am catching up on ANMA. So yeah RT is still providing me a ton of content just with podcasts.

I'll be adding Gus's We Didint Start the Fire podcast whenever that comes out along with some So...Alright as well.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

That felt more like a restructure into a freelancer position than an outright firing?

Yeah his position got cut by corporate so they just hired him as a freelancer because noone actually wanted him to go.

I struggled a bit with that one but I just like the PC options in the first game more.

I imagine the authentic message would be Michael going "nobody wants to do achievement hunter videos anymore. We are all bored of it, especially me. Half the group already moved on to other things and now the rest of us want to do what we actually have some passion for. We know if we tried to do it on the AH channel everyone would be pissed so we are just ending AH and starting a new channel."

Haven't played it unfortunately.

transcience posted...

we need to talk about knights of lodis.

It's a really fun Tactics game and I enjoyed the story and gameplay immensely. I'm not great at completing games but I had no issue completing that one!

Is that not a popular opinion?

NBIceman posted...

Curious about no Tales of the Abyss given that you've got some experience with the series - haven't played it or just didn't care for it much?

Watched a friend play a bunch of it and the story didn't make me want to play it myself.

TheRock1525 posted...

I just miss Gavin accidentally flashbanging everyone and Ray getting legitimately pissed about it.

Good news! F**kFace Off may give you more of that!

I'll talk about Dragon Age 2 later cause I want a keyboard rather than a phone to type up that one. It's definitely not a popular opinion but I do feel strongly about it.

ZaziGuado posted...

If StarCraft is on your list because of battle.net, please tell me your favorite UMS game.

What was your favorite team combo in Looney Tunes B-Ball?

I actually didn't do battle.net for Starcraft. Just lots of the single player.

I don't remember many details of Looney Tunes B-Ball (which is why it's an HM). I feel like I remember Taz and Marvil the Martian being my favorites.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Play Outer Wilds

I plan to at some point lol.

I'll start with the Dynasty warriors question.

The thing that sets Dynasty Warriors 8 apart for me is full local coop for the story mode.

I was able to play through it with my wife and we had a blast. None of the newer ones have that and I'm not sure any of the older ones do either.

The way they did the story mode overall was well done. I liked how it had a small handful of relevant officers that you picked from for each battle. Jin was a good final kingdom to add as well. It's my favorite DW story mode.

It was also just a really well done version of the game. I did not like the direction it went in 6/7 with outfits and weapons. 8 felt like a return to form. It also had some nice gameplay tweaks.

Then you get the bonus alt-timeline battles from DW4 back in it for changing history in the main story battles.

As for why it's higher than Empires, it's just a better game. Empires is a fun side game but it's basically just a big mini game rather than a full DW game. That said I love playing it and keep going back to it. I have over a dozen CAWs and two full custom campaign modes. Done over a dozen runs for sure.

I love the podcasts and some of the new stuff sounds fun.

Seems like everyone was just tired of doing AH stuff and wanted to do other things more.

RaidenGarai posted...

Im good to continue tomorrow!

I wont know about Wednesday until tomorrow afternoon because work sucks, but things are good for tomorrow. Im assuming Red again?

Yep!

@RaidenGarai was that a one time trade or do you want to continue it?