Lurker > cyko

Grand Kirby posted...

I really like these writeups, so thank you for doing them. Normally it makes want to get interested in trying out new games but for obvious reasons it's going to be a while before that happens...

One thing I've noticed is there are a fair amount of games I really enjoy that aren't on here, so I wonder if you've never played them or if you just don't like them that much. I haven't played a large amount of board games so I could understand if if we just have different libraries and tastes, but if you have the time I wondered if you could tell me what you thought of these games:

Push
Lords of Waterdeep
Impact
Villainous
Spyfall

If you want to hear my opinions on them I'd be happy to expound on them further when I have time.

I always enjoy reading other people's thoughts on board games, so I say offer up your opinions.

Push - Never heard of

Lords of Waterdeep - It's a pretty solid Worker Placement game. I've played it 2 or 3 times and I enjoyed it. After my first couple of plays, nothing about it jumped out as being too impressive - at least compared to other WP games like Agricola, Russian Railroads, Marco Polo, Viticulture or Anachrony. It seems a little straightforward - (take cubes, trade in cubes, take cubes, trade in cubes, etc...) but I would play it again, though.

Impact - Never heard of

Villainous - I own this one and the Be Prepared expansion. I love Disney and have a number of friends who also do, but I have only played it once so far. I thought it would be great to bust out with some of my casual gamer friends who are Disney fans, but after the lone 2 player game I tried, it's more complicated than I thought. This is not a light and fluffy game - most of the characters are surprisingly deep. And it seems like a no-brainer now, but it's also an extremely mean game. I mean, who would have thought that a game about playing as Disney villains would be mean?

But seriously - the game is built around screwing each other over. Typically, I hate those types of games, but I think the theme of Villainous is enough for me to look past the amount of meanness in the game. The artwork and the theme of each villain's cards, map and goals are excellent. Each villain is different and feels like you are actually playing the villain. Plus, you can play as Ratigan from the Great Mouse Detective!!! I would like to play it more to see if it is still fun or if the meanness is too much for me.

Spyfall - Heard of it, but never played it.

After looking at the five games you posted, you seem to like some randomness blended in with your games. If you enjoy Lords of Waterdeep, you should really try Viticulture. It's a fantastic (and similar) type of game (Worker Placement) with a theme that is carried out very naturally and very well. It flows well enough where the learning curve isn't that steep. The card decks leave just enough element of chance where even newer players can have a chance to keep up. Voyages of Marco Polo has a little steeper of a learning curve, but is another one you might enjoy.

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It's not so much that I didn't like it - it's just that it didn't jump out at me. I thought it would be a sure-fire hit since I like multi-use cards, too, but the graphic design, theme and gameplay were just kind of "meh." I don't think I would refuse to play it again, but even looking only at Feld's other games I have played, I would rather play Castles of Burgundy, Amerigo, Macao, In the Year of the Dragon or Notre Dame.

Plus, Bruges is VERY color-blind Unfriendly, which created some issues for me - or rather for my friends who had to answer the question, "What color is that?" every 30 seconds...

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Naye745 posted...

yeah i read about that, and my misgivings with queen games aside, i'm intrigued

interestingly my excitement and worry for each game is the complete reverse:
macao has god-awful graphic design and a truly nonexistent theme, so a visual redesign is super compelling and welcome, but man i am going to scrutinize every gameplay change because the original is a masterpiece

bruges on the other hand is a really neat game but i think could take a step up with some reworkings - the card draws in particular can be painfully random at times and the game can feel a little too "hope and pray" kind of tactical, but i really liked the art and theme of the original, the canal-building and buildings are specific to the city, and the 165 (!) unique pieces of character art were absolutely joyful. the retheme should be fine, but it already seems a lot less compelling

A couple more thoughts -

• I have never played Isle of Skye, but I have always wanted to.
• I only played Macao once and I really liked the way the mechanics came together, but the theme was drier than week old toast, which was a big turn off to some of the friends who played it with me. The friend who owned it ended up selling it off. Maybe the remake will be worth checking out.
• I also played Bruges once last year and that one didn't grab any of my group at all. I could best describe it as "adequate". It's a nice victory point game that was put together well, but absolutely nothing about it stood out from all of the other victory point games. When you have played 350+ different games over the years, games start to blend together and a solid game with good gameplay needs to do something notable to stick out - whether it's the theme, the components, a new twist on a mechanic, it's sense of humor - something. Bruges wasn't bad, but noone in our group felt compelled to play it ever again after the first playthrough.

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22. Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Played this once and it seems like an awesome light/middleweight euro. Only question is if it is

Yes. Yes it is an awesome light/middleweight euro. There's a handful of great tile placing games where you place tiles to build you own little city or castle or whatever. The mechanic of bidding for tiles is fun, but what I think sets Castles of MKL apart are the designs of the castles and how the different individual named rooms form a unique (and sometimes absurd) castle for everyone. Everyone I have played with (including myself) gets a big kick out of explaining their castle design at the end of the game pointing out why you have a bowling alley down the hall from your private kitchen, which is around the corner from your personal torture chamber. It makes for a fun experience.

25. New Frontiers

• Know nothing about it other than it's some recent hotness, so in the "like to try" column.

As I mentioned under Puerto Rico, New Frontiers is basically a refined version of Puerto Rico with the symbology and space theme of Race/ Roll For the Galaxy. I think I might actually like it a bit more than Pueto Rico because of how it's streamlined, but I have only played it three times (which is actually really good for me considering I have only had it for about a year!). There are enough minor differences where it's not just a rethemed version of Puerto Rico, but I think I need to play it a few more times to see which I prefer.

For example in New Frontiers, you can adjust the player order with one of the 7 actions, which I prefer to the player order always staying the same in PR. But in PR, I think I prefer loading up your goods on the trade ships that each player shares instead of producing and consuming on your own board in NF. But then again, in NF, I really like how everyone selects a different starting board with a different special ability.... and NF is very color-blind friendly!! So, yeah, they are very similar, but I am still a little torn on which one I prefer.

27. Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small
29. 7 Wonders Duel

• I have actually played 7WD! I don't know that it can merit a spot in my shelf unless I'm sure I can get it to the table many more times. Watergate is my only 2P game aside from Codenames Duet at the moment. With ACB&S, is it different enough from the base game to be worth a buy? I don't own Agricola and might consider getting it, but it seems a little heavy to be playing 2P. Is ACB&S faster to set up, easier to get played, and just as good at 2P?

I am surprised you don't have more 2P games, especially during this pandemic. A:ACB&S is absolutely different enough from Agricola worth a purchase - IF - you play 2P games frequently. It is easier to setup, easier to teach and shorter to play than standard Agricola. And if you track down the ACB&S Big Box, it's a better 2P game than Agricola. The expansion buildings add a lot of variety and a lot of replayability. As you can see, I personally love Agricola, but ACB&S does a really nice job of capturing the same feeling in a shorter time frame. It's great in quick bursts.

I also really enjoy 7 Wonders Duel, but I think I like ACB&S just a little bit more because it's easier to teach and seems to appeal more to casual gamers. I do like that 7 Wonders Duel has three different victory conditions. It helps keep the game from getting stale when you constantly need to watch all three categories. There's more to it than simply being another victory point game. I have nothing against victory point games, but with so many great games out there, having something unique that works well really helps a game stand out, which is what 7WD's multiple victory conditions do for me.

30. Shadows Over Camelot

• Avalon was my first favorite game, and doing research, it seemed like SOC was a logical next step. It never really wound up happening, and most of what I read about its design seems a bit... clunky? Help!

My friends and I played this one a LOT when we first got into board gaming. It was a game we picked up soon after Puerto Rico. The design is a bit clunky, but it was the first time we had ever heard of a co-operative board game. AND it played 7 players, which was great since we had a fairly large gaming group. After each player's turn where they try to help one of the multiple quests that is going on, you reveal a card from the deck of really bad stuff to progress evil, which does something bad to one of the quests or all of the players. To this day, in any co-op game, whenever the AI or the game takes a turn, we still refer to it as the progression of evil. It was already a tough game, but then the game makes one of the players a traitor who is secretly working against everyone else to tank the game.

The concepts of a co-op game and figuring out the traitor were very novel to us, which I think is what added to the fun of the game. Especially when everyone starts accusing every other player of being the traitor -

Player 1 - You drew a card?! That seems like something a traitor would do!!

Player 2 - You're accusing ME of being the traitor?! That sounds like traitor talk to me!

Player 3 - You idiots! You're both probably traitors!

Player 1 & Player 2 - HE'S THE TRAITOR!

By today's standards, it's probably not that great. After you get the hang of it, it becomes easy to see the optimum moves, which opens up the game to have major alpha gamer potential. In turn, that makes it harder to be the traitor when it's obvious what your next move should be if you're one of the good knights and you don't want to do it. The traitor also becomes more powerful if he just blatantly does harmful things right from the start, which can be a fun way for the traitor to play, but does kind of go against the spirit of the game. We also had to make some house rules about making formal accusations - otherwise we had a couple of players who mathed it out and proved that it was more beneficial to spend the first turns of the game accusing other players of being the traitor so that you could weed him out before he got to do much damage which also went against the spirit of the game.

I don't typically like social deduction games, but I think I make an exception for this one because of the nostalgia from how much I've played it over the years. Plus, it is much more structured than most social deduction games. When everyone gets into the spirit of the game, it can still be a lot of fun. The people playing the game will make a big difference in your experience here. It might be worth trying at some point if you love the idea of a co-op game with a hidden traitor. Otherwise, I have never played it, but I hear Battlestar Galactica takes everything Shadows Over Camelot did and makes it better.

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17. Millennium Blades

• played this once and kind of found it overwhelming and not that fun. Love the theme and concept though.

I have commented on this one before and it really is better than the sum of its parts. The actual card game that you play in the 3 tournaments (over the course of the full game) by itself isn't that exciting and can be determined completely randomly by the cards you collect in the planning phase. But the game is about so much more than the tournaments. Getting overall points for Collecting cards, selling cards, throwing actual wads of cash around and even getting rewarded for the friends you make along the way!

Millennium Blades really does an amazing job of capturing the feeling of spending a year or two being involved in a CCG/LCG and wraps it up in 2-4 hours. I'm sorry it didn't grab you as much as me. You're right that with so many moving parts it can be overwhelming, so it does make a big difference to have someone experienced to teach the game. I also can't imagine this game being nearly as fun with only two or three people.

18. Voyages of Marco Polo

• want to play, but to be fair, nothing sticks out enough about it for me to consider buying it as a another midweight euro.

Naye is right. I was a little skeptical on this one at first, but it really grew on me. The character abilities are so different that each one affects the way you approach the game depending on your character, you can focus on moving around the map or collecting contracts or a balance between the two. The game also makes clever use of the dice. It's a very interactive euro that is easy to teach, has a lot of replayability and has multiple paths to victory. It's just a really well designed game that is fun to play.

20. Fuse
- never even heard of this one! It sounds awesome. Do you find that its player count and its weight are counteractive at all? It sounds like a party game, but seems to work best at 4?

I wouldn't quite call Fuse a party game, but it is a huge hit with casual and non-gamers. So I guess it is sort of a party game. It's a quick, chaotic, fun filler game. Since it's a real time co-op game, it's very difficult for an alpha gamer to play the game for everyone. Nearly everyone I have played with (including non-gamers) pick up on figuring out what they need pretty quickly and start demanding the dice they need along with everyone else, so everyone stays engaged.

The whole game works solely because of the timed aspect. If you Take away the timer and make it turn based, then most of my gamer friends would get bored of it pretty quickly. The pressure of having only 10 minutes gives the game it's frantic nature that is a lot of fun - similar to Captain Sonar. The turn based version of Captain Sonar is okay. But once you start the timer, everyone is full steam ahead and the game becomes great. Fuse is very similar, just in 10 minute bursts - which is almost the perfect amount of time to keep up a frantic pace. It still works at 2 and 3 players, but I have had more fun with this one with more people at 4 or 5 players.

21. Anachrony

• have two plays of this, so it would now rank somewhere - probably not super-high, as I don't necessarily regard it as better than other games in its genre - but I do like the asymmetric powers and the two-tiered worker system. I haven't experienced a ton of its breadth; I did not take a single research action in the two games I played.

- I will admit that I only played Anachrony twice, so maybe my ranking is a bit skewed. As you can tell, I do love worker placement games, but for me, what sets it apart from most other worker placement is the uniqueness of how the theme ties in with the gameplay. There comes a certain point where the world is about to end and the goal of the game completely changes which can be at a different point in different games. I love the way the game builds up with more options opening up each round until the meteor starts crashing down and your options suddenly become more and more limited. It's just got such a great story arc that you don't see very often in Euro games. It also helps that the two-tiered worker system is very satisfying to work with. Even though it is kind of a long game, I constantly think about Anachrony and would really love to play it again.

23. Star Wars: the Queen's Gambit

• Heard this is really neat; almost certain I'll never play it, though. Know almost nothing about it, and isn't it out of print?

Yes, this game is very out of print and since it was tied in to Star Wars Episode I, it has a 0.00001% chance of ever being reprinted. Star Wars Risk was loosely based on Queen's Gambit, but it's nowhere near as good. This is another game I have only played twice both times at gaming conventions. I loved it so much that I would consider this my grail game the most expensive and hard to find game that I would love to add to my collection.

Basically, the game simulates the climax of Star Wars Episode 1 by having you play four different games at the same time. It sounds weird, but all four sub-games interlock together and it works really well. One side plays the Trade Federation (Dark Side) and the other plays Naboo (Light Side). On one map, you have the battle on the plain between the Gungan forces and the droid army, which connects to ---- A 3 tiered palace where you have the attempt by Naboo forces, led by Queen Amidala, to storm the palace and capture the Trade Federation viceroys, which is also connected to - the fight between Darth Maul and the two Jedi Knights on a power reactor map. Off to the side, you also have the space battle where Anakin's starfighter is trying to destroy the Droid Control Ship.

I am not usually impressed by a lot of miniatures, but this game is a real sight to behold when it's set up with miniatures across three separate boards, including that totally awesome multi-level palace. The action is driven by two decks of cards for each side. Each turn, each side simultaneously chooses four action cards from a hand of ten, and places them in order. The actions are then carried out one at a time, alternating sides. Combat is resolved using special attack and defense dice. Each side needs to carefully weigh which of the four battles is more important based on the cards you have in your hand. The different battles can affect each other, too. For example, If Anakin makes it through the final space battle location, he shuts down the battle droids, making it easier for the Gungans to win their battle. Or the winner of the Darth Maul/ Jedi duel joins the palace battle and can use their special moves there.
I've never played anything quite like this game. It's unbelievable that Hasbro went through the trouble of releasing a game this intricate as a movie tie in. I really wish I had heard of it before it was long out of print since it's now almost impossible to find for under $200. If you ever get a chance to play this game somewhere, do yourself a favor and at least try it once. It's meant to be just a two player game and The card draws and dice can be fickle at times, but it's still a great experience.


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Okay, so this is why I don't have time to do my own write up - it took me the course of a week just to come up with responses to your commentary! Here are my thoughts -

1. Eclipse
- want to play, but it will be a long time before I do, if I ever can. Already gonna struggle getting more plays on my near-new copy of Root.

For me, this is just such an epic game with the right balance of everything that makes a game fun - planning, interaction, different strategies, theme, different factions, tactical decisions and epic space battles. I love everything about it! I really hope you get to play it.

It's off topic a bit, but Twilight Imperium is similar to Eclipse in many ways, but I prefer Eclipse for two main reasons - First, the board for TI is set at the beginning of the game which eliminates the excitement of exploring. It's also very possible for someone to completely screw you over with the initial placement of system tiles - which can be very demoralizing to realize that you are starting off a 6-8 hour game with a major disadvantage right from the start. Second, Politics play a much larger role in TI, including the use of some cards that can have a major negative impact on someone's game. It makes it much easier to gang up on a player to eliminate or severely handicap them, which usually isn't fun (...unless that player really deserves it!!!).

I bring it up because Twilight Imperium 4th edition really is another great epic space game that you also might love - especially if you prefer games that have a lot of politicking and backstabbing.

I highly recommend Eclipse with 6 people, but have still enjoyed it with 4 or 5. I have never tried it with 2 or 3 people. This is also one of the very few games that I have successfully played with 9 people. It does seem overwhelming to new players at first, but once they understand the basic flow, almost every noobie I have taught this game to wants to play it again.

3. Star Wars Epic Duels w/ custom decks
- I played an old copy of someone's at a meetup a few years back. It was... okay? Maybe the custom decks change things up? I do think that a lightish team game is a winning formula.

Epic Duels is hands down my most played board game of all time. Nothing else even comes close. The original game could be played as a free for all or with teams. The free for all mode was pretty mediocre because it was inevitable that whoever struck first pretty much always lost and whoever hid in the corner and waited for everyone else to fight first usually won. But the team game was always a blast. There's not nearly enough games (especially non-party games) that give you that feeling of winning as a team - most games are cooperative or competitive. Playing as a team against another team gives you the best of both worlds! In Epic Duels, playing 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 also helped mitigate a poor opening hand of cards. Usually, two players together could adapt together long enough to survive if one or even both of them had a terrible opening hand, which was difficult to do as a single player.

The original Star Wars characters were fun to play with, but some of them weren't very well balanced (Obi-Wan was clearly better than the rest). However, the core system was VERY well done and once we discovered the custom decks from all across the Star Wars EU, the game really started to shine. Even though the system is not complicated at all, the different characters add a lot of depth. There were a couple of fans who designed some excellent custom decks. Then my friends started getting in on the fun by creating our own custom decks.

I am not usually a very creative person when it comes to customizing games, but I took this a step further and created a full set of custom Super Smash Bros. Epic Duels. I took time to customize each deck to the character's personality and playstyle. I am obviously biased towards my own decks, but after hosting several events at Gencon over the years, I have heard nothing but positive feedback about Super Smash Bros Epic Duels. Undoubtedly, those positive experiences have elevated my personal opinion of Epic Duels.

Recently, Rob Daviau remade the Epic Duels system into a game called Unmatched. The characters aren't nearly as interesting as Star Wars (or Smash Bros!!), but the game has gotten great reviews and seems to be better balanced than the original Epic Duels. I haven't tried it yet, because the price seems crazy high ($40 for 4 characters) compared to what you got with Epic Duels ($50 for 12 characters...), but I would like to try it.

7. Puerto Rico

• only played once, but as the granddaddy of role selection I have a lot of appreciation for it. I don't know that I'd ever get it due to the use of obvious slave colonists, but I'd definitely play it again in the right setting (which is very crowded to be fair - so many mid/heavy-euros to play...)

Puerto Rico was the very first Euro game my core gaming group and I ever played (Even before Catan or Ticket to Ride). That had to be at least 15 years ago. It not only introduced us to the concept of Role Selection, but it introduced us to the concept of Victory Points in games for better or for worse. I fell in love with the game, but as we discovered more and more games, it got played way less frequently. We last pulled out Puerto Rico about two years ago and played it twice. I was surprised that it still holds up very well. It's a very interactive Euro game and still a lot of fun.

The colonist thing doesn't really bother me, but I do understand and respect your viewpoint about it. If that is a bit of a barrier, then you really need to check out New Frontiers. It's basically a refined version of Puerto Rico with the symbology and space theme of Race/ Roll For the Galaxy.

8. Russian Railroads

• would love to play this, but doubt I could buy it before I tried it out, and I'm not sure where I'd get to try it out...

I can't quite put my finger on why I love this game so much, but it's a very well polished, very strategic worker placement game where every action feels important. It's definitely in the same genre as Agricola, but different enough for me to enjoy both. RR definitely rewards skilled players, though, so it can be a little tough for newer players to break into. The German Railroad boards really open up the game without making it too much more complicated. It is out of print, but if you want to try it online, you can play it at www.yucata.de or www.boardgamearena.com

9. Race For the Galaxy
- played it once and thought it was really neat - more fun than Roll. Might be one worth taking a flyer on as a 2p game, though I'd like to get a few more reps before committing the shelf space to it.

Roll and Race are indeed very similar and both fun games - similar enough where I don't really see a need to own both. I have played Race a number of times at all player counts and it does play very quickly and pretty well at 2p. Two of my friends prefer Roll over Race solely because they like the feel of rolling dice. To them, that's the only real difference between the two games. For me, I prefer Race over Roll mainly because of the dice allocation.

In both games, you are trying to predict what your opponents will do and capitalize off of their actions. In Roll, it's much more crippling if you predict incorrectly - all of those dice you allocated to a phase that didn't get chosen go back in the cup and you can lose an entire turn. It just doesn't feel good. In Race, if you predict incorrectly, your turn may be less than ideal, but at least you still have the option of using each phase that was selected. It doesn't "feel" as painful. It's a minor gripe, but that's the only real difference between the two games for me.


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I don't have time for detailed write ups, but maybe I will some day. Here are my Top 30 favorite board games -

1. Eclipse
2. Power Grid series
3. Star Wars Epic Duels w/ custom decks

4. Agricola
5. Keyflower
6. Dominion series
7. Puerto Rico
8. Russian Railroads

9. Race For the Galaxy
10. Pandemic Legacy Season 1
11. Azul
12. Ticket to ride series

13. Scythe
14. Castles of Burgundy
15. Through the Ages
16. Viticulture Essential

17. Millennium Blades
18. Voyages of Marco Polo
19. Captain Sonar
20. Fuse
21. Anachrony
22. Castles of Mad King Ludwig
23. Star Wars: the Queen's Gambit

24. Time's Up Title Recall
25. New Frontiers
26. Terraforming Mars
27. Agricola: All Creatures Great & Small
28. Sagrada
29. 7 Wonders Duel
30. Shadows Over Camelot


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I didn't know about the Hansa Big Box! Thanks for the tip on that one. For $35 with the expansions included, that seems like a no brainer! I think I will need to pre-order that one. If nothing else, it will look good on my shelf.

I will pull my list of favorite games and post it later. It looks like there are about 30 games I rated 8.5 or higher on BGG. After a quick glance, it looks like 7 or 8 of my Top 30 are also in your Top 30 (and 4 more between 31 and 40). And I think about half of my Top 30 aren't on your list at all.

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Wow. That was an unexpected number one. Hansa Teutonica has been on my Wishlist for a long time, but it always look like the theme was very lacking. It doesn't quite look like the definition of a Soulless Euro Style game - it does seem more interactive than most Euro games - but still dry on theme and components. Those aspects don't bother me - I love Euro games, especially Euro games that can be interactive without being directly mean (I hate Take That games where all or most of the decisions you have made in a game can be rendered meaningless by one action taken by anther player). But as we have gotten older, a number of my friends have grown fonder of flashy games with great pieces and a strong theme. Some of them have gotten burnt out on what they consider "dry victory point games".

I definitely prefer games that reward multiple plays and develop a metagame. The problem with that is that my gaming friends and I simply own WAY too many games. Unless it's a filler game or one several of us know how to play, we rarely play games once a year because everyone wants to try the latest game we picked up. We are also a chatty bunch, so in a 5-6 hour gaming night, we would typically get through only one or two games. So, who knows if we will ever get to Hansa Teutonica.

Either way, thanks for the great list! It took a while, but it was very interesting to read through your opinions and see where our tastes align and where they differ. I don't have time to do a full write-up, but I think I know my Top 25 or 30 board games, which I could post here.


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Suikoden

- a thousand times Suikoden!

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Great choice! I picked up Times Up Title Recall about a year ago and. I think it has become my favorite party game. You need to think on your feet and be willing to be a little ridiculous. The game also creates new inside jokes and some great stories. It definitely scratches a different itch than a strategy game, but it's a very entertaining game.

You also nailed why I don't like CaH or Apples to Apples. There's Always One or more people that just pick their cards arbitrarily or they intentionally choose the stupidest card and it really kills the entertainment value of the game.

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160 h 10 m

Baten Kaitos Origins

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My choice would be Theatrhythm Curtain Call

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Ogre Battle 64

although the rest of my Top 5 would probably be -

2.Super Mario 64
3.Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask
4.Paper Mario
5.NFL Blitz 2000

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Most of your observations about the series match my own -

- Ahsoka started out as a completely worthless character but improved as the series went on until she finally became a great character by the end.

- Cad Bane is an amazing villain and kept me from giving up on watching the show.

- Padme and Anakin still managed to have very little chemistry as animated characters.

- Ventress was pretty cool.

- Hondo was funnier than he had any right to be.

- The story arcs about Mandalore were all worth watching.

- The droid episodes were weak, but I did enjoy the scene where R2D2 and C3P0 were forced to fight other robots. C3P0 ran away like a whiny kid, but R2 busted out all of his weapons and basically said, "Bring It, *****..." That was great.

- Maul and Savage were kind of stupid, but whatever.

- the scene where Sidious fights Maul and Savage is outstanding.

- Season 6 isn't bad, but nowhere near as great as Season 5.

- The final arc of Season 5 was one of the best in the series. It was impactful, we'll written and added quite a bit to the Star Wars universe overall. I haven't seen season 7 yet, but I have no idea how they can top the ending to Season 5.

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Suikoden (Playstation)
X-Men vs Street Fighter (Arcade)
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Arcade)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (Super Nintendo)

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The original Xenoblade is probably the last game I played on the day it came out. It took me about a year to beat it and Xenoblade is still in my Top 3 RPGs of all time and my top 3 games I played last decade. If you have any kind of interest in RPGs, do yourself a favor and pick up this version!

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So now it's sexist for female characters to wear no clothes AND for female characters to wear too many clothes?

I am pretty sure that at this point anything a person does is going to offend someone.

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streamofthesky posted...

Wow, I never even heard about that before!
I wasn't even going to bother bringing up the sexist character designs and why that pissed off a lot of longtime fans, but when put side by side with just how insanely gory the game is to the point that it fucked up the people working on it, the hypocrisy is just too much.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/03/29/liana-kerzner-mortal-kombat-11s-changes-to-female-characters-is-sexist/

Beran noted:
(mind you, there's still plenty of dudes with bare chests and other unprotected areas)

Seriously, go fuck yourself NRS.
You don't get to be selectively preachy while pushing the most graphically violent game in the series, to the point that you drove your own developers to

I definitely see the hypocrisy in claiming that an unbelievably violent game is sensitive to people's ideals.

But on the other hand, is that lady really complaining the game is sexist because the females wear too MUCH clothing? I felt like I was in bizarro world reading that - like there's no way this lady is for real, right? She has to be trolling the internet.

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Even thoigh our opinions seem to differ on a number of things, This was Excellent to read. Kudos and well done!


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Man, I loved HxH. I only got about halfway through before the free episodes on the Roku channel ran out, though.

The exam arc was incredible with how it developed the characters. I still can't believe they actually had an episode that consisted almost entirely of running through a tunnel and it was absolutely riveting.

The first half of the heavens arena arc was a little dull with too much "Nen, blah, blah, balh" stuff. But the end of Episode 9 and Episode 10 was epic!!

The Phantom Troupe arc was also outstanding from start to finish.

But that''s where it stopped for me. Does anyone know of anywhere to watch the last 3 story arcs dubbed? Or do I just need to wait for Netflix/ hulu as mentioned earlier?

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The only CCG/LCG I really got into was Pokemon. I had a ton of fun playing it with my friends. Our experience mirrors yours except that I had a group of 6 I would play with every week and some or all of us would travel to various tournaments. I am still friends with all of those guys and most of them are still part of my core gaming group.

We got into it at the very beginning, but after abut two years of playing frequently, our interest faded when the initial Base, Fossil and Jungle sets were declared no longer valid for tournament play. We were dumbfounded that the cards we had invested so much time and money into acquiring were no longer allowed to be used. Basically, if you wanted to keep playing, you were required to buy new sets.

The reality that CCGS exist to make money set in and it completely erased my interest in CCGS - even though I loved constructing decks and had a lot of fun with Pokemon while it lasted.

My main deck for tournaments was a Moltres wildfire deck and it served me quite well - I managed to take 2nd place twice in larger tournaments but I never did win one....

...Until about 3 years ago at Gencon - one of my gaming buddies persuaded me to join a sealed deck tournament - just for old time''s sake. We practiced a little before the tournament and when the time came, I took the cards I was given and assembled a deck just like the old days.... and I went undefeated. 5-0 to take first place. And I only defeated one little kid (in the first round, lol).

Man ... just reading about your LCG experience got me VERY nostalgic... and it wasn't even the same game!!

Listen up - anyone who has never gotten into a CCG/LCG, be warned - THEY WILL CONSUME YOU!!!


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banananor posted...

side question- what was the last RPG you found fun enough to play through a second time?

i have a bunch of games that i truly loved, but i can't make it through a second time

Radiant Historia.

I played the original on DS back in 2014 or so and I played the 3DS remake in early 2019. Other than that, I can only think of a handful of RPGS I have played through multiple times -

Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Suikoden
Suikoden II
Chrono Trigger
Secret of Mana
Final Fantasy Tactics - (although that one was mostly because I made it nearly to the end and my memory card got deleted....so I went through it a second time...)

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 64.72%


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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 54.49%

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Another excellent choice! Keyflower is another one of my all time favorites. It's an incredibly interactive euro-style game and it scales really well at different player counts - even all the way up to six players.

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 69.79%


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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 55.49%

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I absolutely love Through the Ages. It really captures the feeling of building up your civilization. Its definitely a top 10 game for me. I will play it anytime.

My only two complaints are -

- the incredibly steep learning curve makes the barrier of entry very high for new players. I've had multiple people who tried the game and hated it because they felt like they didn't have a chance and had to suffer through a six hour game they knew was impossible to win.

- it's virtually impossible to win if you ignore military. You dont need to go all in on military, but If one person ignores military, War On Culture becomes almost broken. Which sucks even more if you're not the non-military player and you don't pull any War on Culture cards.

I hear the expansion makes non-military strategies more viable, but I am still waiting for it to show up so I can find out!

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Zelda LBTW

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 68.67%
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 60.19%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 57.42%

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Super Mario 3D LAnd

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 78.26%
Mass Effect 2 - 54.61%
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 54.49%
Xenoblade Chronicles - 60.15%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 57.69%
Persona 5 - 55.38%
Dark Souls - 55.36%
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 54.71%

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Kirby

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Fire Emblem


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Theatrhythm

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It feels kind of.... Awesome.

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So wait a minute - Allen basically made the Oracle contest an official contest for the last 15 matches? Did i miss something? Have we done this before?

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Fire Emblem
Pokemon
Bravely Default

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Dark Souls - 59.26%
Batman: Arkham City - 51.42%
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 60.41%
Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version - 54.81%

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Bravely Default
Dual Destinies

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Turducken posted...

What if you're not an essential worker but still want to be referred to as a hero?

You know,I haven't seen a single sign or commercial or anything Thanking anyone in the construction industry. I don't consider myself remotely essential - yet, I am apparently essential enough where I have had to go to work every day since this thing started.

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Metroid
Zero Time

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 78.49%
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - 56.73%

Mass Effect 2 - 60.45%
Resident Evil 2 - 57.81%

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 65.18%
Super Mario Odyssey - 74.83%

Grand Theft Auto V - 55.16%
Xenoblade Chronicles - 60.58%

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 60.28%
God of War - 65.76%

Persona 5 - 56.18%
Portal 2 - 54.29%

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Kid Icarus
Theatrhythm

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Dark Souls 61.24%
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 54.61%
BioShock Infinite 53.76%
The Last of Us 56.20%

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 78.10%
Mario Kart 8 61.18%
Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver Version 70.45%
NieR: Automata 65.84%


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Luigis Mansion
Radiant Historia

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I am in the Top 10 All Time. Does that count?

.... Wait.... I might actually be 11th All Time...

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 84.25%
Final Fantasy XV - 69.83%
Monster Hunter: World - 57.08%
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - 75.67%

Mass Effect 2 - 53.21%
Horizon Zero Dawn - 56.83%
Resident Evil 2 - 70.24%
Fire Emblem: Awakening - 52.19%

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 80.29%
Marvel's Spider-Man - 56.51%
Octopath Traveler - 52.18%
Super Mario Odyssey - 80.06%

Grand Theft Auto V - 55.84%
Persona 4 Golden - 56.49%
Xenoblade Chronicles - 72.58%
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 61.59%

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 63.56%
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 66.83%
Dark Souls III - 54.28%
God of War - 75.61%

Persona 5 - 74.53%
Sonic Mania - 58.31%
Portal 2 - 55.27%
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 56.18%

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Metroid
Kirby

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