Playin' any games today, Flying Nun? (WGAYP - 2011 Edition)

[Luther Lansfeld]

FF13 - Complete! Moving on to RH next.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Legend of Mana: complete! I followed a walkthrough/LP so I think I managed to do everything in one playthrough. I really liked the weird setting, though the terrible translation hurt it at times. (and other times made it awesome)

Final boss was decently challenging. Though the reasoning behind fighting the Mana goddess managed to be more random and unexpected than even the rest of the game, which included random Pirate Penguins and teapot-shaped golembots.

Silent mains still suck.

[Tide]

You play LoM hopefully for the pretty art and music. That's pretty much what sells the game and what brings me back to it. Otherwise, there's better ARPGs out there.

[Magic Fanatic]

You play LoM hopefully for the pretty art and music. That's pretty much what sells the game and what brings me back to it. Otherwise, there's better ARPGs out there.

The world-building (not the "place the lands here for mana levels" kind) is also fairly interesting.  The history on how the Seven Wisdoms came to be is a nice read.

[Clear Tranquil]

FF:TA2- Wrapping the main story up. Did the Ritual but doing more quests before heading to the final fight. The Ritual was fun, the boss managed to take out two of my best PCs, a Viera with Ultima Masher and Adelle. Hurdy with Smile Toss managed to the save the day, giving extra turns to Luso and my Viera Summoner for damage/healing. The optional Incubus boss from one of Adelle's Heritor sidequests was also fun. Got thrashed the first time since I didn't give Adelle the weapon given to me at the start of the battle (hey I'd just given her the dual wield teaching weapon before the fight <_<) >_> In general though Ultima Masher, Smile Toss and Dual Wield are fun fun fun. Smile Toss is such a great ability. I looove it~

[Shale]

Batman: down goes Deadshot. The Bat-forensics on display were absurd, of course, but that's the point. Good fun. Now I guess I'll do some more secret-hunting and hope to come across either the Watcher or an Identity Theft victim.

[superaielman]

FF13- Beat the C11 boss. Went back to hunt shiny turtles. That is such a cute gimmick boss, and remarkably easy for the rewards you get. Gotten two platinum ingots and a trap... thingy. The money and CP (40k) is nice, but the ultimate weapon upgrade item is the real price.

[Glen Veil]

Persona 1) At the final dungeon, random frequency is starting to feel a tad on the high side for all that my party doesn't really feel threatened much anymore.  Will probably play take a break before I go on to do the Snow Queen plot thinger.

So for the break in between persona plots I'm planning to do a replay of LoD(This is totally not so I can do a memory refresh for Sharanda hype in the dungeon nosiree >.>)  Should turn out interesting since I've tended to avoid using her in past play throughs because of her lame physical <.<.

Also planning to mix in LFT with that since why not.  Planning to run Pimp Ramza and all Females built close to whatever Wild Arms character I name them.  Planning to use a party of Kanon, Marivel, Virginia, and I guess Anastasia for the last person.  Planning for Kanon to be a Ninja/Thief, potentially with Charge secondary and bouncing between the two classes depending on if I want to go on a stealing spree or something.  Marivel will be an Oracle/BlackMage, Ginny is going to be a gun toting Chemist/Summoner.  Anastasia I'm slightly on the fence on, if I do her I'll be using a filler until I get Meliadoul, who I'll rename and then just use her in her base class with White Magic.  As for Ramza, I honestly have no clue what I want to make him >.>. Currently leaning Samurai with Guts or something? I have no clue, mostly just established with myself that I MUST RESIST the urge to be lazy and whore out with Mime Ramza.

So yeah, got up to Dorter 1, highlights include Kanon being mvp and killing shit with her fists because I stuck her in archer before bows were available, finally getting a crossbow only to do less damage~  Me being an ass and killing Delita over and over/using him as bait.  Oh, there is also Marivel the accumulate spamming black mage, so yeah, pretty much early game going ons.

[Fenrir]

Ciato: I'm playing the Snes version. I could use savestates but I'm trying to play like it's 1996. (No one would allow this to happen nowadays)

Soma Bringer: uuuh in some volcano.
My main got even more broken and the game got even more mindless. I got a passive skill that increases attack power the less attacks you have assigned to buttons. So I know have only the big damage move equipped, not even the normal physical attack anymore. So I'm eating mana potions like I'm breathing air, but I don't care because I've got pretty much unlimited money at this point.

Dark Souls: Got the last trophy.

Sly Trilogy:
Sly 1 is still really good. I think the others will end up disappointing me, since I really liked the Crash Bandicoot style of the first one, but we'll see.

[Meeplelard]

Ninja Gaiden 2: Chap 3 complete.  you know, I was thinking bosses were better in this game until THIS bullshit.  Its fine outside of the spawn that come out of nowhere IN THE MIDDLE OF ANOTHER ATTACK at any moment with no way to predict them, and they have idiotically good homing such that dodging them is not conceivable.  That alone made the fight poorly designed.  I was able to figure out how to avoid everything else, but the spawns?  No.


Sonic Colors: Oh look, a good sonic game!  That said, 4 worlds down.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mario Kart 7 - It's pretty cool. Seems generally slightly improved over Wii (I'll go into more detail later), which is to say it's certainly a solid game though not vying to be the best in the series. It's kinda sad how easy I find these games nowadays; I've sunk about 5 hours into the game and already beat everything on 150cc. That said there's certainly still a fair bit more to do.

Cthulhu Saves the World - A bit over 3 hours into this, just beat Nyarlathotep. Playing Hard Mode. I'm enjoying this quite a lot, it makes a lot of design decisions I heavilly approve of. Healing HP after battle is something I'm an ever-increasing fan of, as is not penalising dead PCs on exp (and in this game, MP regen) and letting you save anywhere. The game's quirks of increasing enemy damage with time and total non-randomness also work well to create a positive experience gameplaywise. It's not perfect - in particular, early HM felt a bit poorly-balanced at points, as there are random battles that I'm pretty sure you just CAN'T win (barring very good luck) but saving anywhere means this isn't the end of the world, just unsatisfying. Writing-wise the game is more fun than I expected (granted, the expectations were low), the game does parody fine so far. And it's fast! No sceneskip (that I've noticed?) but you can mash through both scenes and battle results as quickly as you'd like. So yeah, this one's promising.

[Niu]

Though the reasoning behind fighting the Mana goddess managed to be more random and unexpected

I assume you skipped Pokihel's long speech to Nunuzac.

BTW have you read the credits carefully? It contains the answer why is this game so SaGa like.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cthulhu - Fun fun. Just beat the water shrine dungeon. Well, the writing feels like it has declined fairly sharply since the first ~3 hours (Dacre joined for... what reason? In fact, what was the point of that quest?). Also I still hate world maps, thought I'd share. Despite that I'm still enjoying this a lot. The game has gotten a bit easier with more tools to play with (it's probably fair to say each dungeon has been easier than the last for randoms, although it's a gentle decline and seems to be levelling off) but that's okay, it's still great. Saga Frontier fans should play this because it's another rare example of rocket tag battles done right, really good stuff. Bosses are fun enough but randoms are the real highlight, which makes for better gameplay than those that do the reverse.

PC thoughts so far...

Cthulhu: Went through a stretch (mostly Paws' dungeon) where I was quite annoyed he was forced, but has improved since then mostly due to stepping up his MP regen a lot so he can at least spam his best stuff. Still kinda lacks a niche, but at worst he does a bit of everything (ST, GT, insanity, multihits, finisher), including Protect to ensure October survives to see a turn. (Plotwise, the best character of course, gets most of the best lines.)

Umi: Umi's weird. Surprisingly strong fighter... not on Sharpe's level (though faster ever since the Warp Trident) but good, and all her attacks add good status (which is great). Downside of her as a fighter is that all her attacks are one hit and singletarget. She also has decent GT/MT magic options and some healing to round her out, as well as great unites (Girl Power and Call Kraken have been really useful). Too bad about the durability, but she's often in the party anyway.

Sharpe: Hits single targets so hard (even before his Str+50% buff). Wind Strike stings, has multihits which sting almost as much, and a crazy finisher (saw it do 9000 to Shoggoth). Also tanky and can use Protect when his ST damage isn't needed, and his MT magic backup is... serviceable although it went through a horrid stretch before its recent upgrade. How good he is in randoms varies by how much you want ST (Sharpe rocks) vs. MT (he's okay) vs. GT (ew) but he's a staple for bosses (even has MT Haste!).

October: Slow as fuck, but brings the GT/MT pain like nobody else when she finally sees that turn. Great MP lets her often do the lion's share of damage in randoms, and has generally been second to Sharpe against bosses (currently swapping tomes from fire vs. randoms to elec vs. bosses). She's not guaranteed a party slot for either, but she's good.

Paws: Weird PC design here. Fast, but not great on damage (GT's fine, but ST and especially MT are lacking). Can draw well into random-mashing teams when I want GT. I like him in boss fights, though, because Regen All is great, and he also act as a healer when need be, while still being able to drive up the combo rating when it's not. Weirdly tanky for a PC who doesn't get Protect (this might be a jeigan-y thing).

Dacre: I could see him surpassing (perhaps even far surpassing) Paws as a boss-fighter, since he also gets Regen and just picked up his first buff (defences) as well. For now, the bad speed and no damage has made me favour Paws against bosses. Laughably worthless against randoms, October speed with no offence at all! Hahahaha.

Oh yeah, add "all PCs get full exp even when not in the party" to the list of good design decisions this game makes.

It'll be interesting to see how this changes as the game goes on.


I'm also playing Mario Kart 7 (a lot), but there's less to say about that, currently working through Mirror Mode GP.

[Shale]

Batman: cleaned out the museum for Riddler stuff, bashed my head against advanced AR training for a while before deciding it's stupid and can die. Still trying to figure out how to break wooden walls when they're above my head. Hoping I don't need an upgrade from AR training for that.

Bastion: Hey, I own this! I kinda forgot about that. Got through the first six areas. Good fun, great style. Using the hammer and bow.

[OblivionKnight]

Dacre has a reason for joining, although it's not really clear until the Cthulu's Angels mode.  But yeah, it's fairly random in the normal mode of the game.

Dacre is the one who sealed Cthulu's powers, but was driven insane by it.  IIRC, he went to the water shrine to do it, which is why he's still there, wandering around.

[Sierra]

Batman: cleaned out the museum for Riddler stuff, bashed my head against advanced AR training for a while before deciding it's stupid and can die. Still trying to figure out how to break wooden walls when they're above my head. Hoping I don't need an upgrade from AR training for that.

You do, for one of them. You get a grapple upgrade from doing I think four of the AR segments. The first four are comparatively inoffensive (comparatively. The later ones are horrifically frustrating, and the only thing they get you is an achievement). The upgrade's needed for the Riddler trophy in the underground area. You know the one. I assume the other one giving you trouble is the one in the tunnel in the steel mill area (the ceiling trophies gave me the most trouble too). Apparently Batman can't jump and use explosive gel at the same time, so you'll need to move a platform in there to get some extra height.

[Shale]

Oh, I did the basic four right off - Zzasz would have been way more annoying without the grapnel boost. This is the "pull out of a divebomb and thread a path between a glass ceiling and a near-invisible fence, then turn a corner that has two banners hanging from the top that fail you if you so much as graze them" set. And if there's only an achivement for them , then yay.

Edit: It's not just one particular area; I've seen....I don't know, a half-dozen, maybe ten places around the game with a weak wall above head height, and I don't know how I'm supposed to break the things. Can't spray explosive gel above arm's reach, can't glide-kick without a goon to lock on to, can't punch while balanced on the tightrope, and none of the gadgets seem to have enough force to break them, even a boosted batarang. I initially thought I needed the three-clawed Batclaw, but that's the one gadget they dropped from Arkham Asylum.

[Sierra]

Yeah, there's no real reason for caring about the rest if you already have the grapnel boost.

Personally think the one that makes you fly through the steel mill tunnel (which, you know, is ground level) is by far the worst of the lot.

EDIT: Ah, those. If you fly straight at them, Batman will automatically shift into a flying kick if you're on target. And there's at least one concrete wall that requires you to make floating ice platforms and pull yourself forward with the batclaw to get close enough for explosive gel.

[Meeplelard]

Ninja Gaiden 2: Just beat a giant Water Dragon by standing on a platform and firing arrows, jumping whenever it seemed he was going to do an attack.  Why do I get the feeling the recommended strategy would involve some elaborate melee shenanigans and swimming and running on water that would take twice as long to do?

Sonic Colors: Completed!  Not much to say other than it was a good game overall and generally lived up to its hype.  I will say that it was at its worst when it tried to be a classic style Sonic game.  Not that it was BAD when it did this, just the other parts of the game were notably better.  Thankfully its well balanced overall for this kind of thing, so its only annoying in the few stray long stages.

Also, Mach Speed Bosses are fun!  If you had told me this after I had watched the Sonic 2k6 LP, I'd get you committed <_<

[superaielman]

FF13: Almost finished. wanted to post this now in case I don't finish it today.



There's a lot to say with FF13, both positive and negative.


The game starts off with several nominally unconnected stories. It tries to start off with a bang with several points of view, as one group is breaking out of a train leading them to a purge/ethnic cleansing, while another is a rebel group who is trying to fight the baddies. My problem is (and this will be a recurring theme) is that the actual plot flow is awful. They jump around way too quickly and rely on flashy scenes and the party's interaction to tell the story instead of showing what's going on. I think this is partly a budget limitation and partly a choice, but regardless you don't get much actual information about what the hell's happening outside of the datalog.   I don't mind the lack  of towns and a world map, but it does lead to a very disjointed feeling world. The settings are stunningly pretty and the music's fantastic, but you don't actually develop any real connection to it due to the way the game is sliced up.

The entire game has this problem. It chooses to focus instead on interpersonal dynamics of the split up parties and their conflicts (Hope/Snow, Light/Snow, Vanille/Sazh). The actual main story suffered tremendously- said 'story' is you moving as fugitives from one part of the world to the next with no real connection to the places or events. The plot from C1-C9 is entirely about setting up the six character arcs of your party (five in effective, Fang has zero development until late). Everything else is window dressing for this. Calvary in particular stands out as a mess- you have one-two scenes with Snow and Fang together, then they completely drop off the face off the earth until late.  Raines, Rosch , and EVILBOOBS all fall victim to this. You just don't interact with/don't see them enough to give a flying fuck about the characters. The actual plot after C9 is amazingly awful and falls off the rails into nonsensical land, but oh well.  The datalog is not a substitute for plot and writing, and ultimately the game's plot falls into the bad range due to this.


 In some way I think the game would have been far better off if they had chosen to ignore the story entirely and just make it a nameless, faceless dystopian government instead of the plot they set up.  The later plot isn't worth talking about, it's bad. See: C12 boss, C12's intro, etc.


While the plot is largely a mess, the character arcs were an ambitious attempt to build up a real group of strangers into a party of friends and allies. I appreciate the effort and thought put into it.  That said, the actual writing did not meet the challenge a lot of the time. Hope was miserable for the most part, and Lightning wasn't much better. The entire cast did mature and grow into respective roles, and tried to be very cohesive as far as building a team goes.  It just wasn't good enough for me to justify the intense buildup period and the way the game kept them split up for ages.


There is one scene I am going to call out in particular, and that is around the time Sazh gets his summon. To start with Sahz's entire arc was a fucking mess. He goes from happy to sad to happy in literally a matter of two or three game scenes. The way the game just offhandily brushes it off afterwards in C9 is awful writing. What really pisses me off though? That entire scene right before they're captured. 'Faking' a suicide like that is not powerful writing, it is an awful appeal to emotions and completely cheapens both him and Vanille as characters. The game cutting away and going 'haha nope fakeout' a few minutes later is appalling and offensive. THEN as stated above, they just completely ignore that and pretend it didn't happen? fail. No matter how little I like hope or Rosch, this was by far worse. What a waste.  The added pile of shit on top is the way the game generally references things and interactions afterward, this scene isn't. It's just an attempt to use a very serious concept for shock value and then doesn'te ven bother to correctly use the fallout from said scene to do anything. Fuck off FF13. The villains have absolutely no redeeming value and are literally just addons to give you something to fight instead of a generic PSICOM soldier.  Haven't finished the very end plot, don't especially care since my opinion of the plot can't get any lower.


Gameplay is excellent. It moves at a breakneck pace and streamlines a lot of the normal shit in RPG. Dying has no drawback, saves are plentiful and you even can sometimes jump formations after you die and revive. It tends to push you pretty hard as far as damage/etc goes. The game heavily favors offensive, blitzing builds. Medic is only useful if the randoms are extremely damaging/you're fighting bosses, SENT is largely a dead zone for use, syn is outclassed by sab/damage classes. I don't mind though, it's gameplay I found appealing. Even paragrims were a ton fo fun, let you bounce between the classes as needed and encouraged you to be creative with party build.  The gameplay takes off once you hit C9, and C11 lets you do missions/get really powered up if you so wish.  Even if you do level, fights will kick your ass if you're not smart about setups/equipment. It's the best normal RPG battle system I've played in years, and the best the FF series has had since at least 6.


The biggest drawback by far of the system is the way it splits you up. you have a full team by the end of C3! Combat is fun, you're getting the hang of the gameplay and then whoops, nope! You split off into two person teams for several chapters. FF13 combat being fun is directly proportional to the number of PC's you have. I find the decision to split up the cast into two person teams mind boggling, especially a team where you have no good commando.  It's a terrible choice and hurts the game overall, but oh well.

Fang is the best PC in the game hands down (Best commando+has Sab).  Cast was largely well balanced outside of Sahz having bad stats. There are tons of small bad polish issues (Main character death=game over, no 100% ID blocker, etc) but for the most part they are managable.


All this negative ranting though? It doesn't matter, the game is *so* much fun to play and so addictive. I will forgive a game much for combat this good.   It's failings were at least ambitious in scale and effort, and outside of the aforementioned spoiler text it's nothing too terrible. Likely an 8/10? It taking way, way, way too long to get going and some truly miserable plot elements hold it back.

[Grefter]

I still have not a single clue what you people find engaging about that gameplay.

That said on the plot thing in tiny text.

When characters get their Summon/Eidolon/GF/Aeon whatever the fuck they are calling them this time they are supposed to resolve all the dischord and worry the person has in their personality.  It isn't particularly obvious in Snow because he got it so early, but if you reexamine the characters you do see it.  After they get their summons they are almost universally more focussed and content to follow the path set before them by the Falcie.

So that is all well and good except it means that thing where you talk about character development is lolno.  They didn't develop, they got fixed by magic.  Which is one more giant fuck you to this game.

[Shale]

Bastion: Up to what the game claims is the final area. Upgraded all the buildings, got a bunch of Vigils for cash. Game is still loads of fun with loads of style. Going with mortar/spear as my primary weapon combo, and have cleared five proving grounds. I should be able to get a sixth once I upgrade the pistols again, and after that...uh...not sure what's within reach. Definitely not the machete, fuck that place, and the cannon is bullshit all around. Repeaters, maybe?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cthulhu Saves the World - Beaten. Game time was about 13 hours (pretty short but no shocks here), levels were about 41. Also beat the optional superboss(?) at about Level 35. Bosses got less interesting as the game goes on, I settled on a party of Cthulhu/Umi/Sharpe/Dacre, open every battle with Regen All then pile on more buffs while Sharpe/Umi buff themselves and tear into the boss, with Cthulhu either using Protect or adding damage depending on the type of fight. Siren's Call to call down an unholy blitzkrieg at the end. The fight against Dem at least puts a ripple in this in that you pretty much have to use Siren's Call earlier and there's a time limit effectively, ended up using the Cursed Sword there and dealing with improved offence throughout so I could blitz him better. Final's not bad exactly, things would have gone badly out of control in a couple extra turns probably, but still felt like a predictable affair. The maingame bosses leading up to the final were bad on the other hand, especially Dagon of the "I'll waste all my turns summoning if you kill my support, btw said support is OHKO-bait". Oh well.

Randoms were pretty much a joy throughout. Against my expectations they started picking up again; the last three dungeons were considerable steps up. Deep Ones were especially painful opponents. For a while I tried to MT mow everything down but after I got Death I switched to ST destruction using Death, Wind Strike, and Cthulhu's HP-Bane-enhanced Dark Strike (or whatever else in case of resistance). GT options got way worse as the game went on, not enough more damaging than MT (and there's almost always at least 2 groups) and much less damaging than ST.

Lategame PC notes~

Cthulhu: Still goes through points where I kinda wanted to bench him. He's generally not as good a fighter as Umi/Sharpe and the magical side really doesn't seem to keep up although I stopped trying to build for it. Anyway his damage was a bit spiky with vulnerability to both HP Bane and darkness and at worst he offers Protect, as always. At best, he has great offence and gets the best combo finisher.

Umi: I kinda admire what they did with Umi, she has everything. Great enemy control, great physicals (although they need some setup in the form of insanity, status, or a turn on the str+100% self-buff), decent MT magic, good speed. She might be MVP but her durability is awful, worse than the mages. Still generally worth working around. Oh yeah, and Siren's Call is kinda broken, but at least it's restricted. Totally great for bosses, randoms depends on if you're going MT or ST.

Sharpe: Continued to do exactly what he did all game, and do it reasonably well. His MT magic takes a dive but otherwise, still smashes things, Wind Strike could OHKO some reasonably durable and very annoying randoms late.

October: Queen of MT damage (double-boosted Void is sick), and once she gets Death she's queen of ST "damage" in randoms, too. Of course she's slow and on the fragile side. Doesn't offer much for bosses besides Girl Power and Fragile.

Paws: Man, I kinda figured he was a bit of a jeigan. Just gets bad as time goes on. I have no idea what his niche is supposed to be; Dacre totally steals his healer role, he isn't nearly the fighter Umi or Sharpe are, and I don't even want to talk about his meagre attack magic options. I guess he has stun or something (though only the ST version is accurate), you could probably do some cute things to bosses with Fragile/Paralyse/Stun Strike or something.. And uh he's fast! I probably didn't build him as well as one could but still.

Dacre: I predicted he'd surpass Paws and indeed he did. The various hymns, not to mention his regen being much better, push him ahead, which was expected. Less expected was the fact that there are no super-fast bosses late so either Slow Strike or Speed Hymn can reliably get him to go before most. Also, Holy was a pretty nice pickup, the MT version made him part of the MT blitzing team and he actually had some use in randoms after all.

Ember: Very tanky, so if your goal is "have Cthulhu and two other PCs attacking" then he's your man dragon for protecting everyone. Also has some not-bad but quite limited MT physical damage, and otherwise doesn't do much. Well, Volcanic Aura during a brief window where Fireball is decent damage for both October and Cthulhu.

Dem: Didn't use.


There's not too much to say about the game that hasn't already been said. Its gameplay is fun and obviously has some love put into it, even if there's some tinkering I'd do with the enemy balance at points (although I assume it's balanced for a more casual player on NM while HM is just multipliers, may be part of it). The game has lots of good design decisions. HP healing after battle, MP regen tied to battle speed, saving anywhere, enemies who are tough enough to demand you think about how you face them.

I just wish the writing had kept up... at first it felt like a very fun parody of RPGs coupled with the utter silliness of Cthulhu trying to be a hero and some fun fourth-wall breaking. Later on it just feels like it's going through the motions and what little writing there is is just an excuse for gameplay. Instead of parodying a Dragon Quest it becomes one (with way better gameplay, and freakin' Cthulhu replacing instead of a silent main, and faster cutscenes, and... okay, it's better than Dragon Quest). Dacre's joining pretty much sent up huge warning signs of the problems, it doesn't really recover from there.

There's some polish concerns as well, though that can really only be expected from a game made by a devteam of I believe three. Most things to do with equipment (the shop screen, the equip screen, the fact that there's no indication of which weapons you have multiple copies of) felt a bit awkward and dated. There are occasional typos. But generally, nothing too major here. Dungeon design is quite maze-like, which I don't really have a problem with but I can see how some might. World maps as ever annoy me more, I don't have the patience to explore them fully so it felt pretty random if I found those little optional dungeons or not.

Not sure where this one ends up being rated. 7 or 8 probably, it's quite unique and I'm still not sure how I compare it to high-budget, writing-heavy games which it resembles not one bit. What I know is I will come back to it at some point, probably play Cthulhu's Angels at the very least.

[Niu]

I still have not a single clue what you people find engaging about that gameplay.

It can be engaging if you care about getting 5 stars after the battle. A lot of the fight in the later half of the game required much planning to get a high score. The problem is that you have to care about 5 stars grade to begin with....

[Pyro]

Mass Effect 2: Completed. No DLC done.

I am way overdue on completing Mass Effect 2, but I figured with the third game coming out I'd polish it off. The game is very typical Bioware RPG, only less RPG and more shooter. The game deserves credit for continuing to improve the formula by voicing the main character (and voicing him well), but if you don't like Bioware games you should still stay the hell away from this.

The core of the gameplay is like any other game of this type: You have a main quest you start off and you gather elements to complete that main quest. In this case, the elements are explicitly your party members and their loyalty rather than 3-4 random artifacts. This upgrades the tradition of fetchquests into one of straight up character arcs, with two for each character. Between these and the fascinating individual conversations that each character has, the cast of the game comes off as lively and diverse. From Mordin's cold and calculating yet surprisingly personable self to Jacob's straight man, everyone adds something to the cast. My biggest comlaint is that cast interaction is comparatively limited due to most of the interaction occurring with the main character. This reduces the chance for the varied personalities to shine through, but it doesn't change the fact that talking to your crewmates is a blast.

Mass Effect 2's gameplay feels more like Halo than any RPG I have ever played. With that said, the combat is too much on the simple side really, with almost every fight boiling down to "get behind cover, pop up to headshot things whenever you can". It is surprisingly easy to die in the game, as a few seconds of concentrated fire has you down even if you built up durability buffs and so on. But being behind any cover makes you... pretty much invulnerable as long as you aren't being hit from the sides or behind, and it is very rare that you will find yourself under crossfire. Enemies don't use tactics like flanking and so on, so I found that the most pressing fights were against the mindless zombie-like enemies that came at you to perform physical attacks. With that said, the actual enemy variety was sufficient, just not the enemy tactics. I was also pleased to see that enemies don't spam instant-win moves that own your face like the stasis fields in Dragon Age and so on. Status is strictly a PC->Enemy thing.

I mentioned that the game improves upon traditional Bioware games with the main character, but I didn't mention that a lot of that comes from the Paragon/Renegade action system. Sometimes during conversations you can 'interrupt' someone to perform a nice (paragon) or not-so-nice (renegade) action. One in particular that stands out was during a team member's loyalty mission, when a mercenary captain was talking about how he had a bead on all of your team members, a renegade interrupt had Shepard pulling out his gun, his team mates immediately taking cue, and shooting a crane load down behind the mercenaries, blowing it up while the squad-mate's gunfire took down the remaining mercs, leaving only one very shit-faced Salarian to face you. Other than this interrupt system (which sees use very frequently), the speeches and lines that are given to the main are good no matter whether you play Paragon or Renegade. I always vastly preferred this "tough guy" vs. "Nice Guy" approach to the "Baby Eater" vs. "Saint" morality systems that litter WRPGs nowadays.

All in all I enjoyed ME2 a lot. There aren't any particularly dumb gameplay elements since the quests systems don't have you going around in a stupid rover all the time anymore (Hot&Cold resource hunting isn't required too a great extent, you can max out research projects without doing much at all). I really enjoyed ME2 and I hope that ME3 can deliver in kind.