What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Hunter Sopko]

Infamous 2: Finished, started over as evil.
The evil side did indeed get screwed, but it's ok for a second playthrough.
I've tried a few internet missions submitted by players. The random ones show some effort, while the highest rated ones are all about unwinding (5625 enemies trapped in two square meters, kill them) Disappointing player base.

The highest rated ones are usually more about quickness and/or simplicity for getting the UGC trophies for Platinum.

Evil Side is indeed not as strong as Good this time around, but Napalm Grenades make killing large enemies a hell of a lot easier, whereas Ice Rockets were better for human sized foes.

[Captain K.]

Injustice: Why is Aquaman so badass?  Also Wonder Woman in Slave Girl Leia outfit, I approve.

[SnowFire]

Games with powerful candy bars:

* Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 3
* Pokemon
* Deus Ex Human Revolution

Just finished the DLC, The Missing Link.  Fun and reasonably meaty for DLC (~5 hours of gameplay?  That's a lot), although it's tight corridors 24/7, and the usual incentive to spam quicksaves to get perfect takedowns & stealth.  And once you get to the final third of the game there's no reason not to unleash candy bar broken like crazy as usual.

Plotwise, the DLC is 100% consistent with what happened in DE:HR, which is cool, no crazy curveballs with THIS NEW CHARACTER WAS SECRETLY BEHIND EVERYTHING OH SNAP, but flipside you don't really learn anything new either, so eh.  As usual, women who are part of evil conspiracies are the ones most likely to have doubts about the wisdom of murdering hundreds of people, while the men either shrug or else cheerfully run the program.  Although I guess in fairness some of the hacked emails from the (male) chaplain are all "uh the soldiers have some doubts about this, can you clarify why exactly we're doing this and the legality of it to improve morale?"  Yeah, I'd think that kidnapping hundreds of people who really obviously aren't terrorists if you bother to talk with them at all, which some soldiers clearly do, might raise some eyebrows.  Oh well, conspiracy theory fiction, where guards shrug about this and nobody falls in love with a prisoner and nobody mentions off-handedly to their girlfriend back home about this.

Random annoying oddity: Our Villain's name is Pieter Burke, and he's part of a mercenary operation, which is like the most stereotypical South African name + profession I can imagine, but he has a South-Southern accent instead.    As in, Southern US.  Weird.

Also, for all the self-generated hype about the boss fight...  there isn't really one.  It's just some more gameplay, which is fine, I like DE:HR gameplay, but I was one of the people who *liked* the MGS-esque change-ups for the boss fights in DE:HR.  Totally unrealistic, but sure, having enemies that can take like 15 shotgun blasts to the chests and have wacky gimmicks is interesting and changes the pace.  Ideally you can fit some stealth options in there too, but the final section of Missing Link is just more "eat candy bars, be invisible, shoot people at point blank range with a stun gun while invisible."  Boss battles gave you a chance where that strategy just plain didn't work in DEHR, which was *good.*

[Fenrir]

Yeah Sopko I think I was underestimating the evil side a bit.
The bad rockets kill titans amazingly quickly too. And you get full regeneration with the ionic power.
They're not that unbalanced, I just miss the ice jump. There's little point to the dash, you can slide through the air indefinitely but this consumes too much energy.
 
You can see the problem with achievements there. They made a few quick mp achievements to get you to try the mode. Instead the majority of people just does insanely quick no challenge missions just to get the platinum more quickly.

[kokushishin]

Went through a sizable chunk of Mirror of Fate  (I heard it was short, but this is a bit much) and towards the end of TO.

Success is based on your stats.  So later in the game you are doing stuff the easier it is.  There is technically some on the fly risk:reward benefits you can do on how frequently you should save when making a piece of gear.  It is mostly just a pain in the arse and so blatantly and obviously terribly designed that is offensive.

It's pretty difficult to not have good base stats, at least not without falling to Naked Bard Orlandu levels of "It's my constitutional right to play retarded if I want to, hurr durr!"   With Necromancers you can switch to Ghosts (and maybe low level ones if you refuse to use mages) but even still their stat spread should be decent for mage gear.

A lot of the Wootz steel items are carried by randoms, and even the uniques that require it aren't necessarily that much better than their predecessor.   There's no Iron Dagger spam or Fabricate shenanigans, but the orbs do sell for a lot more than it takes to make and they're quite strong in battle to boot.

[Grefter]

Stats requirements is entirely an observation on how crafting feels early game and the impact it has on scaling of the crafting system as you progress.  Things that start being RNG as fuck become super easy given time.  By the time you are doing shit with Necromancers you have all the stats you could need.

[Otter]

Played some fluffy games this past week or so.

Dishonored: finished it in a day.  It's fun to blink around and stop time and pretend you're Stocke from Radiant Historia.

Hotline Miami: finished it in one sitting.  I am kinda guaranteed to enjoy stuff with stealth puzzles and quick action and encouragement of speedrunning (see Dishonored for prettier, more elaborate version of same).

Ys Origin: ran through Yunica (normal), Hugo (normal), and Toal (hard) routes, finishing at level 49 all three times.  Fun game that was very easy to get into.  Might try Oath next or try to determine which of the oldschool Ys titles is most accessible.

[Captain K.]

Injustice:  Beat story mode.  Damn, just when you thought the Joker couldn't sink any lower.  Also, poor Shazam.  O_o

[Dark Holy Elf]

The Last Story -

"Gosh Blue Dragon was pretty good, but kinda disappointing."
"Gosh Lost Odyssey was... okay, but very disappointing."

And here I am playing more Mistwalker games, I dunno. I blame Uematsu.

I'm about six hours in, stormin' the enemy fort.

Gameplay's kinda weird. Rather ambitious in some ways, I like some of what they are going for here. Positioning matters, you can draw attacks (or not), there's even a little battle preview screen to help you plan your offence before most battles, items and MP done away with. This seems like it could be a great ARPG with positioning and teamwork both at the core. Unfortunately the execution largely feels like a bit of a mess. You can't change which PC you control (bleh) and camera control is really limited so it's hard to get a good sense of battles, which are fast-paced and hectic. It's chaotic and seems like it could be punishingly hard, and the designers realised this and decided you had to be killed five in a battle to lose, which is kinda bleh. The game feels kinda like FF13, but it inherited all of FF13's battle system flaws and piled on a few more for good measure. Well it wouldn't be Mistwalker without disappointment!

Fortunately the writing is pretty good. Not perfect, certainly; it is heavilly cliched at points (although plays those cliches well), and at times the game kinda glosses over some mechanical things the party should be doing, but eh, overall it's pretty good, and the scenes between the two leads tend to be quite good, so there's that. Still too early to tell where the writing quality of this game will end up.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The Last Story's battle system fixes all those problems in like the last two chapters... and in Multiplayer. You can choose which PC to use and all those positioning tricks are a lot less clunky when there's fewer targets on the board. Uematsu is indeed still the selling point of TLS, but the plot and writing never get egregiously bad like LO. Not perfect, but certainly a better story than FF13! Unsurprisingly, the whole last act feels ripped out of FF4, but with better dialogue. So you have -that- to look forward to.

Play Xenoblade instead.

Kid Icarus Uprising: Back to this, still playing on "Baby's First Rail Shooter" mode because the game hates lefties. On Ch23, and my opinion of Viridi has changed completely from "Oh jesus fuck another eco-antagonist" to "holy shit best-written character in the game". In general, the entire cast is pretty outstanding and I'm never disappointed where they take the humor next! I feel like I'm playing a Nippon-Ichi-made railshooter. Not sure if that's a glowing recommendation to anyone but me, but I mean it affectionately.

[Dark Holy Elf]

As one of the people on the board most likely to be put off by the phrase "Nippon-Ichi-made", KIU is awesome and everyone who hasn't played it yet is doing themselves a disservice. You don't even have to enjoy the gameplay (which is pretty great once you settle in with the controls!) for it to be worth your time.


I can't even begin to imagine how TLS multiplayer would work. Due to time constraints, it seems like it would have to cut out giving commands to your allies and Gale which are two of the better parts of the system at the moment. Good to hear the gameplay gets better, not so happy to hear there's a conservation of story and gameplay quality at work apparently...

I don't own Xenoblade (and due to a stupidly low print run this is too expensive to change. Thanks, NoA!) and the description of "it's kinda like FF12, and has lots of exploration and sidequests!" is quite offputting (although it sounds decent past that). Semi-interested in borrowing it from someone at some point, but backlog. I feel like I should get through some of the games I actually own first!

[Luther Lansfeld]

I never bought it because no one talked about anything but the sidequests. Meh.

[AndrewRogue]

As one of the people on the board most likely to be put off by the phrase "Nippon-Ichi-made"

I'd challenge you for that title, quite possibly.

[Grefter]

I will fight you and become champion.  Is there a title belt?

WA:XF - I am doing stupid things instead of progressing.  3-4 or so saw a massive jump in item quality enemies had and I was taken by surprise.  Wow enemies all competent suddenly? Oh +5 weaponry would do that.  I enjoyed going into the battle where there is a big Shut Out section in the middle with Widespread set on Engimancer Clarissa already.

[Meeplelard]

KIU is awesome and everyone who hasn't played it yet is doing themselves a disservice. You don't even have to enjoy the gameplay (which is pretty great once you settle in with the controls!) for it to be worth your time.

I"ve been saying this since the game came out!  No one listens to anyone about KIU.  I should avatar Palutena out of spite of everyone but...meh, laziness...

Arkham Asylum: Completed.  Didn't realize the game was as short as it was; the % listing is misleading like that, guess it's a reference to "everything found" and not story or something.  Whatever.

Overall, can't say the game is to my liking.  I respect it for what it is and how much effort they put into the "Full Batman Experience" but honestly...that just isn't my thing.  Combat is a bit eh, game's too slow moving when combat isn't involved, bosses aren't that interesting...yeah.

Not saying it's a bad game, just not a game I could really get into.

[Clear Tranquil]

Star Ocean 4- Cleared the main game. Final stats/set ups and stuff can be found here -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_9q62MmP3s&list=PL0-L-Wk7FQUp-LdOcijjhsmCp9PdFOsz4&index=3

I was lazy in the end and didn't bother getting Laser Suits for non Bacchus/Edge/Arumat peeps, stuck with the arena stuffs for some peeps. Game was good too me re Red Dragon Scales, I used the two from the treasure chest in the final dungeon to make Meracle's Big Foot Claws so I only needed four for Edge and Arumat's armour, funny thing is the two of them that dropped quite quick I wasn't even controlling Myuria for (though I'm not entirely sure you have to be controlling/landing the final blows for the character increase specific drop rates skills to trigger but I used Myuria and Bacchus a lot while fighting for the ingredients for final equips anyway)

For anyone interested in seeing the final boss fight (SPOILERs and stuff) -

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0-L-Wk7FQUp-LdOcijjhsmCp9PdFOsz4

I've done two versions so far (Plot Relevantish and Ladies Night) and I am also planning on doing an all fighters and mage orientated versions too =)

Game is a definite improvement on the 360 version I think, much more player friendly and gameplay balance has been revamped/reworked to make things interesting, different and more challenging. Not particularly fond of the Reimi and Meracle nerfs but I'll get used to them/adjust to/with them for the postgame I hope. X Claw was nerfed too (no longer an indefinite juggling auto win button) =( So were Black Hole Sphere's DM% modifiers I think =(

Otherwise the changes have been mentioned before in chat/elsewhere but yeah mage weapons have been revamped with INT increased across the board, most noticeably for Faize who gets quite a significant boost with his arena weapon (haven't seen his post game weapons yet), critical hit rate activation has either been reduced and/or enemies have become more resistant to critical hits, some Item Creation recipes require more/different ingredients to make stuffs (to prevent you from becoming completely overpowered with IC from very early I think though I didn't do this in 360 version anyway) some items do different things when synthed i.e Potent Attack seeds only give 7% ATK boost when synthed to a weapon as opposed to the 18% they gave in 360 version, treasure chest locations have been changed, switched around, and/or hold different stuffs.

For the player friendly bit, a few aesthetic stuffs like choice from Japanese or English VA, Anime or Modern character portraits/menu/etcs, switch individual voices on/off (dunno if the 360 version already had this one though) but the big deal is no disc switching so no more switching discs every time you travel between the Calnus and a specific planet for respawning for harvesting, mining, etc, as well as for returning to places on different planets for sidequests, shop orders and such. As a result this also makes the game much more accessible for players who want to get the achievements/go for Platinum.  Well everything seems to just run a lot smoother in general and I currently have 50% achievements and am working on battle trophy collections as well. I dunno, I actually seem to be quite enjoying this now for some reason.

Oh yeah game doesn't freeze as much and it's possible to change targets in battle!~

(it still freezes some like when if playing for an extensive amount of time then encountering a long cut scene, happened to me earlier on and then again during extensive ending but this might just be my PS3 since it happens some with ToGF too)

I got all the endings including Faize and Crowe's =)

[Fenrir]

TO LUCT: Looked at a faq to better understand mechanics.
...
SCC time!

So far I've played the L path up to the end of chapter 3 with a bunch of warriors. Pretty crappy class, but they can equip bows and crossbows. I've sniped every boss so far to maintain high chaos frame and get the "at least you're not dead?" ending this time.
Soon: Full blowgun team.

I expected Serious Vyce's portrait to be a bit cooler. But ah well, unique class. I can't not have him.
All the plot additions to the remakes are... middling. What I've seen so far: Ozma is nice, Ravness' story (ugh), light hearted CODA stuff (I've only seen the first battle), Diego stuff. None of that really fits well with the rest of the plot.

[Grefter]

So like the wacky police slapstick in the original Last House on the Left? (One of the seminal mirder/revenge flicks)

[Fenrir]

Vanilla TO is SRS BSN most of the time. In contrast:

- Ozma is nice isn't that strange in the context of the game, but that's like a Suikoden 2 remake with Luca Blight as an actually nice party member who's Pesmerga's secret lover.
- Ravness thought she was in a Wild Arms game.
- The early Coda stuff was like a zany barfight with your old and serious party members. It's the first battle where neither side is really serious about killing each other and it's much more difficult than most serious battles in the game.
- I'm fairly sure Diego was trying to be Jack Sparrow?

The team was pretty commited to faithfully rewriting Tactics Ogre (And committed to having the most faq bait recruitment since Suikoden) and then adding some cool random shit they thought about.

(By the way WWF references are lost on me. Sorry)

BTW seeing the Galgastan fight back in 3L was a bit surprising compared to 3C. But I guess that has to do with Serious Vyce in 2L raising an army against the Duke, as opposed to Nice Guy Denam in 2C running the fuck away.

Edit: Oh man I have gotten the Glamrock axe.

[SnowFire]

- Ravness thought she was in a Wild Arms game.

wat.

(Ravness is...  okay.  Kind of disappointing that the best excuse they could imagine for Ravness to rejoin was "Denam conveniently saves her life twice in battles" but oh well.  I don't see the WA connection, though!)

Also if you are doing the Diego nonsense you are brutally overpowered, it's balanced for *aftergame* when Denam can run around doing silly non-serious hijinks like tracking down Canopus's sister.

Although, question, since I haven't messed with a time travel replay yet.  I saw that normal characters in the past re-become guest characters and refuse to follow your orders to change class or anything.  After Ravness bites it in the Chaos playthrough, does she mystically rejoin the party thanks to time travel?  Or do I have to directly travel from C4->C2 in order to keep her alive or the like?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Paper Mario - Completed this. Around 22 hours, level was also... I believe 22. BP was maxed, I built the other two stats pretty evenly.

It was fun! To some extent I think it goes downhill a bit late because the higher stat scale gets a bit away from the game when it's truly in its element, but it still does "efficient clearing or randoms" better than at least 90% of the genre. Bosses it largely relies on some cute designs for, when you get down to straight slugging with them (hi final boss) it gets kinda boring since the optimum single-target damage to a given target is extremely obvious. Still, without a doubt the best gameplay of the Mario RPGs. Badges give it enough customisation for the game to be quite replay-friendly obviously which is a plus (this will certainly happen at some point), otherwise the game is simple and so very strong at what it does.

Writing-wise it is the weakest Mario RPG. Bowser is still pretty funny (not nearly at the level he is in some other games though) but that is about it. Its plot is far closer to that of a standard Mario game than any of the other RPGs (oh look, Bowser does supervillain things, collect shinies and stop him. also he kidnapped Peach just because). There are some gems in there like Bowser's diary but they are too few and far between. Whatever, this rapidly becomes a "don't play this for writing" game, but that's disappointing seeing as even SMRPG was notably better at this.

Not too much else to say! It was fun. Fans of RPG gameplay should check it out, even if you don't take to it is definitely quite unique and worth seeing.

edit: oh yeah and I beat the optional fight against the three Anti Guys in the final dungeon. Now that was pretty rough, had one reset then slipped through with 2 HP and 0 FP remaining when I won!


The Last Story - The last hour reminded me of a few things. First of all: the "you see with Zael's eyes, look for things" feels like a transparent attempt to add immersion and when the game uses it too much it gets grating. Oh well, better than a silent main. Second: The game's optional quests (which I assume the Yurick/Mirania backstory on the island, and then the archeology stuff with Horace both were) are a little weird, especially the most recent one where I just wandered back to prison when it was done. Third of all: Cutscenes remain where the game is at its strongest. I want to punch Jirall in the face. Interested to see how the Dagran/Evil Uncle Edgar Count Arganan plot shakes out at this point.

[Fenrir]

I've went to the Diego battle and immediately reloaded >_>

You keep your entire team when you go back in time, so you can do Chapter 1 with Deneb, and fight Arycelle with Arycelle. When they rejoin the game assumes they rejoin but you get no prompt screen. If they die, they're dead in the plot and the game won't act like Catiua is alive when you just murdered her even though she's in your team.

One really weird thing about this (AFAIK, I haven't tried it yet): Arycelle takes a massive loyalty hit in the neutral path. If you have a high loyalty high stats Arycelle from Chaos / Law path and get to the neutral path, she'll take that loyalty hit normally and might leave later on. But if you kill her in battle (not as your PC) she won't be in the plot anymore and won't take the loyalty hit. But you'll still have her as a PC.

I wasn't really aiming at WA in particular and could have said Tales. Her arc was definitely un-Tactics Ogre in any case. She was a strong and nice girl who died in Chaos path to get you worked up against " Vyce", and had a kind of irrelevent arc in the lawful path where she eventually kills some generic enemies and does a lot of self reflection. In the last battle before she's recruited, she and Denam are basically just praising each other as if no battle was taking place.

[Cmdr_King]

You should now steal a copy of the second Paper Mario from Excal or something.

[Luther Lansfeld]

FFD - Not sure how this game manages to have worse plot than FF5, but it is impressive. Still fun as hell gameplaywise though. Cid upgrades his robots to be fabulous and pink. Cid coolness +1.

SMB2 - Eat it, Wart! Now trying to play the game with people besides Her Royal Floatiness. (Autocorrect asked me if that should be Flatness. Dunno what you're trying to say, iPad...)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

<Ciato'siPad> I'm insulting you.