Board 8 > transience's video game topic 56: lift your skinny fists like ports to the sky.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I unintentionally took a pretty long break with Persona 5 somewhere around the 5th palace, which usually kills an RPG playthrough for me but I think it actually helped in this game. I ended up powering through the rest and loved almost everything about it.

and regular battle themes are fine and all but I hope we can all agree that Rivers in the Desert is the best
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transcience posted...

I think you'd really like 5.

I have always viewed my liking of Persona 4 as such a one off that I didn't pay too much mind to P5. Those monstrous 100 hour RPGs gotta have a good hook these days, haha.

You know me, we have to be talking Dragon Quest VII tier!

SomeKindOfJoke posted...

I unintentionally took a pretty long break with Persona 5 somewhere around the 5th palace, which usually kills an RPG playthrough for me but I think it actually helped in this game. I ended up powering through the rest and loved almost everything about it.

I think even more than other Persona games, 5 has a nice serialized structure to it. I played through the game one investigation at a time and then moved on to something else.
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here's what I know about you - you really care about style in your games, especially your RPGs. Persona 5 really knocks it out of the park here.

there's also some stuff you'll object to. but it's the same stuff you'd object to in 4.
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Hmm.

Persona has the style down, to be sure. I haven't kept up with anything else about the game, but it's something to keep in mind. Too many other games to play to get trapped in the infinitely long RPG hole right now, haha.

I realize I am hours late, but I felt I should throw my top 5 in here.

1. Night in the Woods
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
3. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
4. Nier:Automata
5. Heat Signature
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all top 5s are welcome as long as they include nier
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It's silly that you can't filter for friends balloons in balloon world.

balloon codes really Nintendo
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oh wow, the Yakuza 6 demo that Sega put out this morning was actually the full game. I have the entirety of Y6 on my PS4 right now.
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Does it work the same as the full game, with trophies and everything?
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yep.

trophies don't sync with the server but do show up locally.
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I was going through my PSN library last night and remembered I bought Divinity 1 EE on sale like 3 years ago and never played it.

Going to give that a shot today I think.
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good game.

also a good game, Gravity Rush 2, is on sale for less than $20 on PSN. I think it's the best open world game from last year specifically in the context of using its world design and side stories to reinforce the themes of the game. All the side interactions are meaningful, which is not something I expected going in. It's a game where things make sense in the world.
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I swear if someone had told me that there would be a Sims gear pack for Final Fantasy XV I would not have believed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NC-J2Ac9M8
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1. Hollow Knight
2. Pyre
3. Night in the Woods
3. Nier: Automata
5. PUBG
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KamikazePotato posted...

This place was pretty good! Next area was too, although I liked it a little less. The swamp area after that is a pretty big notch down. I'm judging the game kind of harshly considering I'm not very far in, and I'm also probably suffering from franchise fatigue, but out of five games in the series three of them in the series made me feel a sense of wonder (Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne) so it's not like the magic is impossible to recapture. I'll just have to keep playing and see if it picks up for me.

Also, best area in the series will always belong to World 3 of Demon Souls. Absolutely stellar level design and atmosphere.

undead settlement branches off into two main areas that you can tackle in either order. road of sacrifices, the area right after the settlement with its own titel card, is pretty much just the crossroads for the swamp area, farron keep, and one of the best levels in the series, cathedral of the deep.

i still had the sense of wonder through most of dark souls 3! well, not exactly "wonder" but i still felt that primal feeling of dread and awe just navigating the world.

i don't agree with icon's take that exploration in 3 doesn't lead to anything that's worth the exploration, but maybe it's because i'm just a sucker for all the immediate lore implications in the nostalgic imagery and item placements.

i'm also at that perfect level of being lore-curious that i don't resent the plot and world-building connections between all 3 dark souls games just being a mess as bonfireside chat exposes! people saying 3 is like the greatest hits of the series are not far off, and i just lapped up all the throwbacks and subversions to the throwbacks.

there are also enough weird scenes, sidequests, and story bits that kept me entranced for numerous playthroughs.

iiicon posted...

I want to play Observer. Man. That game looks cool.

observer is like pure aesthetic for me haha. i was just in it because of how well realized the look, the sound, and the tone are. that gross, grimey af cyberpunk take is nothing i've ever experienced in games before.

speaking of aesthetic, yeah, persona 5 is the fucking king. goddamn that game styles on everything. buuuuuuut yeah echoing everyone else who said the writing is all over the place and it draaaaaaaaags. icon's way of playing it might just be the perfect antidote for that problem, but that's just now how i play rpgs!

4>3>>>5
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oh right all this souls talk just reminded me that the demon's souls' servers are gone for good and now i'm sad

that's the one remake i'm getting day 1 100% even if i'm broke
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Tried Divinity for about an hour or so and bounced off it real hard. I think something about the controls on the console version put me off, they felt a little clunky.

Downloaded Rime and SotC instead.
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TVontheRadio posted...

i don't agree with icon's take that exploration in 3 doesn't lead to anything that's worth the exploration, but maybe it's because i'm just a sucker for all the immediate lore implications in the nostalgic imagery and item placements.

i mean, that's what i'm there for. the story, atmosphere, and exploration are what sets the best of fromsoft's games apart from the games that followed. but i found the answer to nearly every question ds3 posed to be disappointing.
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that's unfortunate! i enjoyed the mysteries of the cathedral of the deep, the farron keep connection to the artorias dlc, the imagery in the profaned capital, basically all of irithyll including the characters that play out their stories there, the civil war in lothric and the princes' roles in it, the whole royal family, the cult of londor, the nameless king, and the whole timeline links in the cemetery

yeah, the resolution for some of them don't have as concrete foundations and weighty thematic resonance as the three "original" souls games (demon's souls, dark souls 1, and bloodborne), but i'm fine with that. i've always approached these games as sort of entering a dream-like state that not everything has to fit nicely or wrap up neatly when i'm processing the experience "in the now". almost every one of the strongest narrative points in the three aforementioned games didn't come to me anyway until after i consumed lore analyses from outside sources. and yeah, the big moments in dark souls 3 just left my mouth agape! the increased visual fidelity definitely helped, too.

maybe i'm too easy on it for being kind of all over the place in its... writing? but fuck it my mind interprets the whole thing as just the whole souls universe smashing up together and falling apart (i mean that's literally what's happening in the end) and it makes sense to me! but i'll shut up now before i slip up and spoil kp!
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okay, i still want to do write-ups, but i also want to share my goty list while everyone else is doing it so i'll just kill the suspense:

1. Nier: Automata
2. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy
3. Prey
4. The Norwood Suite
5. Gorogoa
6. Pyre
7. The Sexy Brutale
8. Night in the Woods
9. Dujanah
10. West of Loathing
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Played through the first three colossi in SotC.

I'm...not sure this game is doing it for me like it did back in 2005. There's a little too much fighting with the controls for me to really enjoy it. I understand this is supposed to be the point to an extent, but I'm not sure I have the patience for that kind of thing these days. Agro still controls like trash and I'm finding the way the camera continually rotates to be behind Wander pretty annoying.

I should probably stop getting remakes/remasters of PS2 games, every single one of them has made me like the game less than my memories of it.
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The Mana Sword posted...

I should probably stop getting remakes/remasters of PS2 games, every single one of them has made me like the game less than my memories of it.

This is my feeling about most of the library of the PS2. Theyre best left as memories, rather than something to be played again today.

ya'll are crazy
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best gen.
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I thought the SotC remake controlled really well. I had no problem doing what I wanted besides for some weird Agro stuff.
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Is there anyone here who's played Shining Force II who can tell me if I should grind at some point or if grinding isn't really necessary in this game.
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I have played it, but that was about two decades ago so I honestly don't remember
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Yeah, Dark Souls 3's quality spiked dramatically once I got out of that dumb swamp. The Road of Sacrifices might be my least-favorite area in the series. Currently in the Catacombs of Carthus and I'm really enjoying the environmental/strategic ways you can dick over enemies. There was a Mimic chest right next to a tough miniboss, so I (intentionally) led the minoboss over to the Mimic and had it burn the Mimic to a crisp by using myself as bait. I then (unintentionally) baited the miniboss into jumping down to a lower level of the area, where he promptly got surrounded by 10+ completely generic skeletons and got hacked to pieces. Also having fun leading enemies into boulders or pushing them off ledges! This is the kind of stuff I was missing.
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haha god yes catacombs of carthus isn't really interesting narratively at all, but by god is there plenty of dumb, dickish things in it that i hate/love about the souls series. it's basically the catacombs+sen's fortress. also it's kind of a nightmare online with invaders just being the biggest trolls haha.

too bad the optional area that kp seems to be heading toward fuckin suuuuuucks
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You're talking about the Demon Ruins, right? I thought it was pretty good! The boss at the beginning was great and I liked the maze-y interior. In general I think every boss in the game so far has been very good. Each one is visually and stylistically unique and has an interesting moveset/gimmick to deal with. Anyway, the fire orb summoner enemies were assholes but that's what fire res clothing + Flash Sweat is for. And putting that ballista out of commission was super satisfying.

I actually don't know where to go now though. I need a doll to pass a barrier? I probably just forgot to explore a passageway at some point, will take a look at my progress tomorrow. This is the kind of Dark Souls I love. Being lost is fun.
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yep. i really liked the boss fight! the lore significance of everything from the arena to its behavior as the fight went on were just fantastic. and yeah, fighting it was great.

it was just super frustrating traversing that maze of an area. never managed to deal with the fire orb summoners properly.

also, i totally missed the boss room from the start because i was obsessed with locating the ballista. after a couple of hours wandering and dying over and over, i finally found it and disabled it. but i spent maybe another half hour going around the dungeon area trying to look for the boss. was really annoyed when i "gave up" and exited the area only to see that big ass doorway.

ah so you also went the same route that i went through on my first run. yeah, time to go back to the previous areas and go look for that doll!

also that view after you get out of the darkness of the catacombs? my god
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I'm not deep into the Dark Souls lore so I'm definitely missing references, but it's impossible to miss all the faded and ancient corpses/statues/ect. of stuff that was in the previous games. All those poor Stray Demons! Entropy has done a number on the world. Specifically, the petrified corpse of Quelana really got to me. She was too good for this world.

My strategy to deal with the fire orb dudes - besides stacking Fire Res - was to use the Bandit's Dagger. Five quick hits and it stacks enough bleed to do a ton of damage and stun him for a long time, letting me wail on him more. In general I've been using the Dagger and Bandit Dagger more than anything else. Dagger gets busted out against enemies immune to bleed because its DPS is higher. I took a real liking to the weapon type in Dark Souls 1, I think it's very underrated for PvE. Your damage output is way higher than you would expect and they're really safe due to low weight, low stamina per hit, and attack animations that end quickly.

I saw the boss room from the start but avoided it because of the giant eel thing. When I finally made my way to that part of the room, some online messages led me to a small rock that somehow protected me from both the eel and the ballista, while at the same time putting the eel in the line of fire of repeated ballista shots. Kind of felt like I was robbing myself of a good fight by cheesing it like that, but hey, I was willing to accept the 'assistance' after dealing with a bunch of giant enemy crabs.
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Into The Breach is wonderful
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As far as Carthus goes, I always liked the theory that Wolnir is the main character of Dark Souls 2
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Xenoblade 2 yes or no?

it's the best xeno game
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well thats not true at all
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Hmm!

Anything to be prepared and/or wary about heading in?

dont ignore your blades affinity charts
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don't let your significant others see it
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The Mana Sword posted...

dont ignore your blades affinity charts

This made me want to take a step back already, haha.

transience posted...

don't let your significant others see it

Are you saying there's something embarassing about this character design???

https://media0dk-a.akamaihd.net/77/82/84276a1277ed736e9e3ba10a25d2b781.jpg
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The Mana Sword posted...

well thats not true at all

look i like xenonauts as well but sometimes you have to accept the truth

heroicmario posted...

Anything to be prepared and/or wary about heading in?

there's a big patch going up tomorrow

also you have to manually go into affinity charts to earn the bonuses. it's weird. i don't think they've fixed that yet.
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What's in the big patch?
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https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/xenoblade-chronicles-2-director-takahashi-reveals-new-update-information

there's some spoilers in there but I don't know if anyone has a spoiler-free article about it.
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BTW, if you're looking for some eShop classix HM, you might want to look into Blossom Tales. It's a bit of a LttP-like:
https://kotaku.com/the-switch-gets-an-excellent-2d-zelda-clone-today-1821505503
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a bit
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well it seems like it's in equal measures LttP and LA
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heroicmario posted...

Hmm!

Anything to be prepared and/or wary about heading in?

Did you play 1?
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