Lurker > KamikazePotato

Murphiroth posted...

It'll be interesting to see what you think of the game's Anor Londo equivalent, it seems to be the most divisive area in the game.

This place is really big! I like it so far though. At first glance it appear like an impenetrable maze but honestly it's fairly straightforward in to get through.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

The 'base' of the combat is very much like a Souls game but it's much quicker and has a lot of wacky special moves.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I'll give this one last bump. Thanks a lot to everyone who participated! The discussions were fun and I got some recommendations to look at.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

tcaz2 posted...

I LOVE games that let me play dress up with anime girls though.

You should probably move the game farther up on your list then, lol

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Yea a 70 on metacritic and 75 on opencritic is higher than I thought it was gonna get lol, I was a cheerleader for this game but I was absolutely not expecting good reviews really

I guess I'm just used to anything on metacritic being below an 80 meaning people think it sucks.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

https://www.metacritic.com/g00/game/playstation-4/code-vein?i10c.ua=1&i10c.encReferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8%3d&i10c.dv=19

Not the best critic scores

User reviews are more positive though, and on Steam it has a Very Positive rating (which was actually the tipping point for me to get it)

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Yeah, more I play of this game the more I'm surprised it reviewed so badly. Even if you don't like the anime aesthetic, the combat, customization, and music are all very solid.

Every girl is a fashion disaster though. Fix your strap, Mia.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I take it all back, this game was a mistake

https://www.reddit.com/r/codevein/comments/depff6/and_thus_the_marginator_has_been_created/

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I've seen a decent amount of enemy variety so far. Unfortunate if it doesn't expand as the game progresses

I really enjoyed the two bosses I've fought though.

skullbone posted...

I thought this game was more like waifu Monster Hunter instead of waifu Dark Souls. Am I thinking of a different game?

Not sure which game you're referring to but CV is definitely not Monster Hunter.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Someone on B8 has to have played this game!

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Up

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I figured it was going to be a Dark Souls waifu simulator knockoff. Turns out it's a Dark Souls waifu simulator knockoff that's actually fun! Really enjoying the combat (like how fast-paced it is) and the character customization. Playing dressup in a edgy anime apocalypse land is way more enjoyable than it should be.

My character at the moment:

https://i.imgur.com/Clo6TXS.png
https://i.imgur.com/0wp0Tzd.png
https://i.imgur.com/FX1iTbZ.png

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

For example of what I'm talking about: Horizon Zero Dawn is a very well-received game, but it was also a hyped game. It's always going to have a higher standing in the gamingverse than something like Nier Automata, which had to claw and scrape for the recognition it got. Not saying Nier Automata is intrinsically a better game, but yeah

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Yeah I would agree that what's considered a 'timeless classic' is usually a result of pre-release hype. The game still has to be great but if there's not already a push for the game to be considered a big deal beforehand, it's very rare that it will be considered one of those Hall of Fame experiences.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Faile has the misfortune of getting caught up in the worst storyline in the series for like 3-4 books straight.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I really don't like Elayne. She's basically the only main cast member that I don't.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

CoolCly posted...

Then they'll both tackle the problem. Neither side is actually incompetent.

Honestly, most of the Aes Sedai (main cast aside) seem pretty incompetent, and they're the most important organization in Wheel of Time Land and 100% female

Overall you're correct though

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Wait they made an SCP game??? Why did I not hear about this - okay apparently it's only inspired by SCP, which is cool but not as cool

It didn't get a super high metacritic average though, and didn't have Kojima behind it, so I'm not sure why it was chosen over some other picks anyway. I'm very out of the loop with it though, only nominee I knew nothing about

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

What is Control and why is it apparently better than Three Houses

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Weird, because Sekiro on Steam has very positive reviews. Reviewed critically well too.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/6569-best-of-2016-portables

Three Houses has a lot of ground to make up if it wants to challenge Pokemon.

Honestly, the difference in reception between Fates/Three Houses and SunMoon/SwordShield is pretty huge.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Leonhart4 posted...

Mortal Kombat 11 is one of the best selling games of the year and is still chugging along.

Noted. Fighting games have never done well at the general game awards though, so I would be shocked if it got a lot of recognition whether or not it deserves it.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

skullbone posted...

Other big releases this year:

Borderlands 3
Gears of War 5
Mortal Kombat 11
Apex Legends
CoD: Modern Warfare

I don't think any of these will win necessarily but the general public might have different thoughts.

Did any of these games have a lasting impact? Not being sarcastic here. From what I've seen, all these games either had a mixed reception or were well-received and then forgotten about.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Actually, I forgot about The Outer Worlds. It's got some decent hype right now and released at a good time to be recent enough for people not to have picked apart its flaws.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

ertyu0078 posted...

Devil may cry 5

I wish.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Sekiro was well-received as far as I know. From Software games just aren't that popular here, and the series is never going to be mainstream enough to win all the awards.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

LeonhartFour posted...

I guess there's always the Link's Awakening remake because LAW

...oh, right

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Actually, Three Houses might get do well. I don't think it'll be #1 overall but every other major JRPG-style game this year bombed, so it could sweep those corners of the internet.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Sword/Shield's reception has been pretty bad so far even outside of the pre-release drama. It'll do okay on GameFAQs simply due to recognizability, but other than that...

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Question can apply to GameFAQs and outside of GameFAQs. I don't think there's been a single game that universally swept everyone off their feet. For example, Death Stranding is clearly going to rack up some wins but it's too divisive to be a clear #1. The only major WRPG (Fallout 76) bombed and that's usually the default. Nintendo didn't release anything with a big enough name outside of Pokemon, and uh, yeah. Kingdom Hearts 3 was really high profile but it's reception was mixed at best.

Resident Evil 2 is what comes to mind for me but even that doesn't feel right. It would be a fringe choice in a normal year simply due to its genre.


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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Light Novels are something I go back to every now and then. I'll check out Baccano's next time I do.

I tried getting into the Witcher game series several times and it never clicked for me. Are the books better/worse?

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

cyko posted...

And as an adult, i also really liked the Belgariad and the Malloreon. Both are excellent fantasy series in my opinion.

And, of course, the Star Wars Hand of Thrawn Trilogy - since you consider it fantasy in sci-fi cosplay. Have you ever read any of those?

Haven't read any of these, and I'll keep them in mind for the future when the fantasy itch needs to be scratched again.

NFUN posted...

I love how you can give a fan a minor crisis just by mentioning "the Bowl"

I see your 'The Bowl' and raise you 'The Shaido'

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Also it has a badass rock song about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCLsqg05boo

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Yeah like, I can absolutey 100% see why someone would not be a fan of Wheel of Time but I love it so much

I actually liked Crossroad of Twilight way more than pretty much anyone else, simply because it had a lot of Mat scenes. Overall it was definitely filler though.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Apologies for any typos - I spent an hour writing that and it's getting late.

FINAL LIST:

TIER 1
Wheel of Time
A Song of Ice and Fire
Schindler's List
Berserk
Worm
Breaking Bad
The House in Fata Morgana
Monster

TIER 2
Metal Gear Solid 2
Rakuin no Monshou
Cycle
Watchmen
Nier Automata
1984
Planescape: Torment

TIER 3
Nier
Chrysalis
Transmetropolitan
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pluto
Ender's Game / Speaker of the Dead
Dragon Quest V
American Psycho
Locke and Key
Deadly Premonition
Catch-22
The Truman Show
Silent Hill 2

TIER 4
Harry Potter
Bastard
Black Lagoon
Re:Zero
Undertale
Paranoia Agent
Tales of Berseria
(Final Fantasy X)

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Thanks a lot to everyone who read through this topic and enjoyed my self-important ramblings.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

It's the world that makes reading Wheel of Time so engrossing, but I also do love the characters, even the ones I complained about earlier. The overarching story is simple (the main villain is literally named The Dark One), and so the intrigue mostly stems from the pressure that being the most influential people of an apocalyptic era puts on the main characters. There's far too many characters to talk about it one writeup, so I'll focus on two: main character Rand and best character Mat. Rand deals with the pressure by diving headfirst into his role while Mat runs away from it as much as possible, and both of them fail and succeed in ways that make for a highly entertaining contrast. Every scene with Mat is amazing and Rand's internal mental degradation over a long period of time is like watching a car crash in slow motion. If the series was just about these two, it would already be a great series. But you've also got Lan, Moiraine, Nynaeve, Min, Aviendha, Thom...I could go on. I'll remember some of those characters forever.

When it comes down to it, though, the most important thing will always be the emotional connection I have with a work. And while other works like Fata Morgana and Schindler's List have perhaps surpassed it in terms of eliciting a strong, intense emotional response, Wheel of Time is too near and dear to my heart to ever be overtaken. Let me set the stage: back in the late 2000s, we learned that Wheel of Time would be ending soon, and that the author Robert Jordan was having health problems but intended to finish the series before his condition got too severe. Hearts went out to him, but people weren't too worried about the series itself going unfinished. Robert Jordan's pace of writing has never slowed, and his passion for the series had never waned. It was unthinkable to imagine that when we finally crossed the finish line, Robert Jordan wouldn't be there waiting for us with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

He wasn't.

I was gutted when I learned that Robert Jordan had passed. I don't know if I realized how much I had invested myself in the world until that moment. Even worse then the story going unfinished was the notion that Robert Jordan wouldn't get to finish it, because everything I'd read about him painted him as an upstanding guy who loved to write and loved his fans. It didn't feel fair. Then, out of nowhere, his wife picked a replacement writer named Brandon Sanderson (a huge fan of the series and a very good fantasy writer, definitely recommend his original work) to help finish the saga, and somehow it turned out better than anyone could have expected. Robert Jordan had left a ton of notes and had pre-finished the biggest scenes once he realized he wasn't going to make it. Sanderson took all that and synthesized it with his own writing style while still staying true to the original style of the series, and the outcome is basically a miracle. The last three books are up there with the best of them all.

The gravity of what this all meant to me didn't 100% come to a head until I sat down with the final book in my hand, a book that by all rights shouldn't even exist. It felt like we, the fans, had made it, and that Robert Jordan had made it there with us too. I spent an entire day and night reading the book, and it blew me away completely on its own merits, then blew me away again because of what it represented to me. A Memory of Light is my favorite book and always will be. It completed a part of me that had been there since childhood. I got to see the end of the journey, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be.

That may sound dramatic - but as far as I'm concerned, the fantasy series deserves nothing less than the most dramatic writeup I've ever written. And oh look, they're making a high-budget TV series now! The new turn of the Wheel, and a new beginning. As it should be.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

#1. The Wheel of Time
Book Series

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

So: some context. I consumes a LOT of fantasy stories when I was a teen. It was and still is my favorite genre in fiction. There's just something about swords and sorcery that's always managed to captivate me. I've sat through dreck with a smile on my face because it was fantasy dreck. I have standards, but I know my biases.

There's a lot of great kinds of fantasy stories out there. Berserk is dark fantasy. A Song of Ice and Fire is medieval political fantasy. Star Wars is fantasy cosplaying as sci-fi. Dragon Quest V is simple-but-effective fantasy. If you had to pick one single piece of work that represented the fantasy genre as a whole, most would pick The Lord of The Rings, and for good reason (in retrospect, LOTR should have been on the list, I just forgot it). But for me, when I think of fantasy - not any specific type of fantasy, I mean fantasy, something that defines my favorite genre for me - I will always think of The Wheel of Time before anything else.

It's hard to recommend WOT to people who aren't big fans of devouring long fantasy books. The series has issues and its most ardent fans won't hesitate to describe exactly what they are. WOT suffers heavily from 'fantasy writer got popular' syndrome, where the scope of the story continues to expand around the same time that the author gains editor immunity. WOT is an incredibly long series and the middle 1/3 of it just...isn't that great. It never becomes bad but the pacing crawls to a halt. Additionally, while the author creates a lot of strong independent women characters, he struggles at making the most important ones outright likable, even if their attitudes make sense in-universe. I ended up liking almost all of them by the end of the series regardless, but yeah it's an uphill battle for a while. And to be as vague regarding spoilers as I can, the series struggles with killing off important characters.

So why, despite all that I've said, is The Wheel of Time #1 on this list? Why am I already feeling the urge to reread a 14-book long fantasy series that I just admitted has poor pacing? Because Wheel of Time is awesome, that's why. It's so unabashedly fantasy in everything it does. People speak like they're straight out of a fairy tale and the prose is dramatic, earnest, and engrossing all at the same time. Prophecies are revealed and mulled over ever five minutes. Destiny is a semi-tangible, real thing that has to be accounted for when making decisions. Magic is super strong but comes with a price, and overuse leads to insanity. People name their sword techniques! And yet, despite all that bullshit that might as well be from an anime at times, it truly works. The worldbuilding of Wheel of Time is honestly phenomenal - aside from having highly nuanced characters, cultures, and locations, the series also strikes an extremely delicate balance where just enough is defined to make sense and be logical, while still leaving enough wiggle room for fantasy bullshit to happen, while STILL making that fantasy bullshit never break the willing suspension of disbelief. I feel like I 'get' the universe of Wheel of Time better than I do any other I've ever experienced. 'Semi-Realistic Legend/Fable' is the tone it goes for, and it nails that perfectly.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Dels posted...

i consider it a masterpiece and the only reason i haven't finished it is because it's so good i'm waiting for the "right" time to watch it

Glad I'm not the only one who does this sort of thing. Sometimes I'll feel bad for consuming trash/generic media instead of starting or finishing something I know is substantial, but like to wait until the 'right time' to start the latter so I don't 'waste' it and sometimes that can take a while.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

I haven't seen the Monster anime but just based on the episode count vs manga chapter count it seems like it would be slower-paced than the manga.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Will post the writeup for the overall #1 tomorrow - was a bit busy today.

MasaomiHouzuki posted...

Also for people who like worm

Go on...

MasaomiHouzuki posted...

*and* can handle unfinished works

Damnit

Well, can't be any worse than waiting on some of the other stuff I am.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Oh yeah Higurashi's a good one to play if you want something like Umineko that doesn't get worse in the second half (the second half is actually a big improvement here!).

Will keep that in mind.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Monster
Manga Series

"Doctor Tenma, for you, all lives are created equal. But you've finally come to realize it now, haven't you? Only one thing is equal for all, and that is death."

Another manga by Naoki Urasawa. Have I mentioned before that he's a genius?

Monster follows Dr. Kenzo Tenma, whose life is flip-turned upside-down when he performs lifesaving surgery on a child who was next in line for surgery, instead of pre-empting the child in favor of a wealthy and politically important figure who also needed it. The figure dies, and then...well, go read it. Monster's initial hook is one of the strongest I've ever read, and I don't want to ruin it for those who are unspoiled.

It brings with it the same qualities that make Urasawa's other works special: expressive character art, deliberate-but-perfect pacing, and excellently-written characters that feel like real people. There's a distinct 'feel' you get from reading one of his manga that nothing else manages to capture. The smallest actions/words feel important. Violence is used sparingly, and thus feels far more dramatic when it happens. While the concept of the story is 'unrealistic' in the sense that it would be exceedingly unlikely to see outside of fiction, everything still feels grounded. The characters are put through an emotional wringer and it's extremely easy to get invested in them. And perhaps most impressively of all is the consistency; Monster has no low points. How many times making this list have I gone "this work is great, except for..."? I have no flaws to point out this time.

Monster is simultaneously fascinating and engrossing. There's a lot of themes it tackles, but if I had to summarize, I think about it as a story about the nature of cruelty and kindness. Kindness is the way the world *should* be, and cruelty is a disease that can spread at an alarming rate. Cruelty inflicted on a single person is cruelty inflicted on ten others. An excess of cruelty can even create a monster...and just what defines a monster, anyway? Truly an excellent story that I can recommend to literally anyone.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Never played Muv-Luv. Did play Saya no Uta. It was certainly a thing.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Yeah...I definitely didn't forget Ever17 until you just mentioned it.

(Put it in Honorable Mentions. Amazing highs but pacing is not so good.)

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

GANON1025 posted...

There we go!! Finally.

Well...what else could the Visual Novel have been after I ruled out Umineko? Hatoful Boyfriend?

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

The House in Fata Morgana
Visual Novel

"You awaken in a decrepit old mansion.

A woman with eyes of jade stands before You, informing You that You are the Master of the house, and she Your Maid. However, You have no memories, no concept of self - or indeed, any certainty that You are even alive."

This might be my shortest writeup, simply because I want to spoil absolutely nothing about this. Quick abstract: you are in a mansion. You learn about tragedies that happened in the past. Things happen.

Fata Morgana has flaws - biggest one being that it is occasionally too wordy. Not often, though, and it's a small complain compared to how excellent the rest of the writing is. This might be the most emotional experience in fiction I've ever head - it's right up there with Schindler's List. The music, art, characters, story, writing...all top tier. Play this game. Read this story. It's unlike nothing I've ever seen.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

LordoftheMorons posted...

I think S1 was better than S2, but yeah Im general BB is constantly improving

Agree with this. S2 is the only season I think doesn't *quite* live up to the quality standard of everything else. It's still great just not incredible.

S1 is underrated because 3-5 are so good. It's a perfect introduction.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Breaking Bad
TV Series

"Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going into work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. Disappears! It ceases to exist without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks!"

Alternate name for this show: "mid-life crisis taken a little too far".

There's a lot of components that make Breaking Bad the best TV show ever made. The acting is perfect, the cinematography is perfect, the script is perfect, the story and it's pacing are...mostly perfect, ect. I could go on. I could say that Walter White and Jesse Pinkman's turbulent relationship - their contrasting viewpoints and character development opposite of each other - is the heart of the show and what makes it so special, and I would be mostly right. But there's also side characters like stone-cold-but-polite-about-it Gus Fring and beleaguered-but-super-competent Mike Ehrmantraut who help elevate Breaking Bad, and that the series wouldn't be the same without them, and that would also be true. This is a show that both has a lot of different parts that are amazing AND is greater than the sum of its parts.

If I had to pick one thing, though, it would be something very simple - I got incredibly emotionally invested. Far moreso than I would have expected from a show that is essentially about a guy deciding to cook meth and things getting a little bit out of hand. I really cared about what happened to the characters on Breaking Bad, far moreso than any other TV show I've ever watched, and unlike a lot of other shows I liked it didn't crap itself in the final season. The episode Ozymandias absolutely blew me away and I'm still waiting for it to be topped (I think I'll be waiting for a long time). I'm trying to think of complaints but I honestly don't have any except beyond nitpicking. Truly an A+ experience.

P.S. #SkylarWasRight

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Just took a look at the Pokemon subreddit for the first time, and while the negativity on it goes farther than my personal feelings, this thread is pretty spot-on

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dvtu54/something_the_reviews_have_made_clear_a_new/

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

You know GameFreak can have some criticism thrown its way AND the Pokemon fanbase can be toxic. It can be both.

This is the correct take

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Wildbow (Worm author) is planning to edit the series eventually but at the moment I think he's concentrating new material. There have been attempts at getting Worm professionally edited and published, but according to him they pretty poorly. Some suggestions he received include wonders like: changing the opening line of the series to "Take that, you Worm!" and shoehorning in a romance that wasn't there before to hit more 'target demographics'.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Aaand up once more.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.