What games are you playing 2014?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Rondo of Swords:

Continues to be awesome! But also terrible!

It is... SaGa Frontier-ish: Lots of really awesome stuff going on; Arcane mechanics and zero (but very necessary) documentation holding it back.

I'm playing it (about 7 years after my first attempt when it came out) alongside an LP that is carefully dissecting the mechanics for me and showing off all the hard-to-find plot and such... and it's an absolute joy knowing how everything works and knowing that I'm not missing any potentially-important plot or gameplay secrets... AND being able to properly plan out my team and kit them out and plan for different maps actually -knowing- what the PCs can do.

Flipside...  when I played it when it first came out, it was infuriating... and even knowing all the twists and turns, there's still some bullshit requirements and RNG (for getting items mostly).

Still, there's just so many strong points:
 - The writing is really solid
 - Even minor characters are decently well-developed (but even that can be all hidden behind arcane mechanics too!)
 - The run-through mechanics are unique and a fun twist on the SRPG standards (though only 1/3 of the main classes use it!)
 - The 3 main class-types play highly differently from each other (though one of those classes feels like it was added as an afterthought!)
 - Due to the skill system, even within classes, each individual PC plays highly different from their counterparts (unfortunately, RoS doesn't seem to have a problem with just throwing in one clearly superior-in-all-regards PC that obsoletes all the others on a first playthrough... BALANCE!)
 - The Promotions and Shopping and Quest system presents some variety in the kinds of gameplay available, and forces some meaningful choices (but seriously this part being undocumented is the biggest RNG clusterfuck and trial-and-error bullshit ever, particularly the Promotion items, only by playing along with the LP was this part of the game salvageable)
 - Laser Pope (there is no downside to this one)

Soooo.... yes, SaGa Frontier-ish, for every awesome thing, there is a drawback. It is a unique experience with some fascinating ideas and it feels like it ended up rushed out the door because even a month of QC would have nixed some of this lack of documentation and bullshit RNG.

I'm about to play it again on NG+ (also with the LP, though a bit more on my own this time).

[SnowFire]

Funny you brought up Rondo of Swords.  I was reminded of that while playing Bravely Default, albeit obliquely...  but spoilers, so see below.

BD: C5 & C6.
Okay, getting the alternate ending in C5 is REALLY COOL.  I wonder if that was added in For the Sequel?  Screwing up an intentionally easy "minigame" is rarely so much fun.  Airy's right, disobeying is hard, which makes it rewarding to do.  In C5 at least the hints were fairly subtle, too, but you could act on them anyway before the game hinted harder - a problem that many games have (e.g. Phoenix Wright) where the game gives you too many hints before asking for your input.

Of course, the above is dulled somewhat by the fact you aren't "rewarded" with the good ending for the above, merely an alternate ending.  The fact it's even an option is a good reward, though.  Per earlier posts with Elf, I'd kinda assumed that the alternate ending people referred to was to blindly go to the end of C5 without a break, and C6-C8 would be something different and follow from breaking a crystal.  Anyway...  okay, C6 is actually directly telling the player what's up and raising the question.  Hmm.  I'm not opposed to this but it makes me fearful C7 & C8 will be more of the same.  And this kind of reveal isn't something you can really play around with - once you give people the idea "is Airy being truthful", I don't think this is the kinda question that can be reasonably stretched out.  Ringabel's line about what would happen if the crystal was broken was funny, but it's also something that I think was a missed opportunity to make the good/alternate ending even darker - the darkening of the crystals sure did seem like a global catastrophe (which Eternie seemed weirdly blind to - evne if they're right, the death of the oceans should mean like everyone will die shortly), so blowing up a crystal should have some pretty drastic consequences, I'd think.  But oh well.

Anyway, where RoS comes in is that I thought the Serdic route in RoS has a very well done "alternate better ending that isn't the true ending."  RoS, however, has the split be not based on solving a mystery (so less a-ha awesomeness) but more on a choice, and that choice is pretty close to the end of the game anyway - you only miss out on 3 maps or so (rather than tons of chapters) to continue with the true, worse ending.  That seems right to me, because the frustration of going down the wrong path after you've already seen the "good" path is reduced if it's short.

Also, I wonder if the writers were taking any inspiration from Madoka.  (not that I've seen Madoka.)  Seems pretty similar - psuedo not-really time loops where the cute advice-giving companion who knows suspiciously too much is the villain.  Madoka apparently came out in 2011, and BD originally came out in 2012 in Japan, so it seems possible but a bit of a long-shot - the game would have already been in a development for awhile.  Maybe Japan just realized that this kind of plot point makes a ton of sense all at the same time...

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Bravely Default writing

Well, if I recall correctly, the person behind the concept for BD's plot -is- the writer for Steins Gate, if that tells you anything...

[Dark Holy Elf]

Soul Nomad - Finished the demon path. I ended up gaining about 20 levels near the start, and that was good enough to carry me to the end. I didn't beat the last map but I'm pretty okay with that, since losing gives you an ending and I just looked up the other one on YouTube.

Anyway demon path has some more pretty fun writing. I can't take it seriously at all (it is pretty inconceivable that Revya could be that much of a monster without Layna noticing) but fortunately the path itself was taken a bit less seriously than I expected, and it ended up as a fun parody RPG where you play as a villain. You even get foiled by ridiculous over-the-top displays of friendship and teamwork, how gross. I did like how the path inserted some more backstory for certain characters, though. Cast remained pretty good, although Gig oddly isn't quite as good bouncing off evil characters as he is off of good ones. I still enjoyed him, obviously, as well as the wacky exploits of Kanan, Thorndyke, Shauna, Lobo, and others.

Gameplaywise it's a bit of a mess with the wacky level curve and characters randomly leaving but it did manage to hit a sweet spot for a few maps towards the end I thought. Overall I wouldn't say I enjoyed it more than the maingame, but it's neat that it exists and I'm glad I played it anyway.

Game gets a 6/10. Pretty solid. Had fun. Would recommend. etc.


Mega Man X8 - Randomly replaying this. Hard Mode, trying to mainly focus on Zero since I run him so much less than the other two normally.


Fire Emblem: Awakening - Lunatic Mode. I am about halfway done, up to chapter 14. Chapter 2 was satan, and I've had trouble with quite a few others too of course. Current team:
Chrom - 20/4, loads of strength and pretty good stats in general.
Robin [spd+ skl-] - 20/8, very fast mage
Sumia - 20/5 dark flier, all the speed
Frederick - 20/11, finally starting to fall off but still so useful
Tharja - 20/1 sorcerer, Nosferatu is so good
Lon'qu - 20/1 assassin, have I mentioned speed is really useful in this/every mode
Panne - 10/11 wyvern rider - flying axe person the first
Cherche - 16 wyvern rider - flying axe person the second
Anna/Libra/Lissa - healin'. Lissa was OHKOed by everything early, now it is only some things! Libra's a more advanced version of her, Anna actually has some offence with the Levin Sword. The usual.
Henry - Recently obtained, dunno if he'll stick but sure giving him a try because Henry.
Lucina [Robin as mother] - Good starting stats for her level and has Veteran, so I imagine she'll be useful.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mario Kart 8 - Game is very pretty and runs very smoothly. Definitely think it doesn't compare super favorably to Double Dash/7 aside from aesthetically, the game isn't as technical as those two. Still think it's my third favorite Mario Kart game though from what I've played. The downgrade from SNES Rainbow Road to N64 Rainbow Road has to be the biggest downgrade of all time, though! Love having the Koopa Kids finally playable.

Yoshi's Island GBA - Just did the first level.

Kirby's Adventure - Beat! It is so cute. Final final boss was surprisingly bad though.

[Dhyerwolf]

Soul Nomad - Finished the demon path. I ended up gaining about 20 levels near the start, and that was good enough to carry me to the end. I didn't beat the last map but I'm pretty okay with that, since losing gives you an ending and I just looked up the other one on YouTube.

Quick trick to beating the last map: Increase the number of specials that Kanan can use, Use Encumber, have Shauna give her another turn immediately have her use Encumber again. Now all of Raksha's stats will be halved (!) because his Unlimited Stamina skill just means that he doesn't naturally lose or gain them, I believe. However, you can still bust his Stamina. Since he was by far the nastiest thing there, this works amazingly well.

[Meeplelard]

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Completed.  The special Message can be summed up as "YES WE ARE MAKING KINGDOM HEARTS 3! THIS WILL BECOME OBSOLETE IF YOU ARE READING THIS AFTER E3 2013!"

Just like the game is split between two parts, so are my thoughts for it's overall worth.  On one hand, it does do KH Gameplay overall right, the Dream Eater mechanic worked out better than I thought and issues I had with later boss fights were my own idiocy for not getting Once More or Leaf Bracer (game really expects you to earn those, because good god do they make a difference; I did at least have Second Chance!), Flowmotions and Reality Shifts seem like one of those "This seems stupidly complicated" but actually ended up restraining themselves to make themselves work in favor of the gameplay, not against it.   On top of that, Enemies felt creative this time around; yeah they were all animals, but they all had a unique look to them and worked uniquely too, unlike the Unversed which were all basically Not!Heartless.

But it's gameplay has a bunch of flaws that hold it back too.  First off, KH does not do big rooms well; too many enemy spawn points, enemies can DESPAWN, which is both a blessing and a curse depending on the situation, they attack you in large groups (though unlike BbS, you have actual allies, so it feels a little more appropriate) and a lot of enemies have annoying Full Block states which just waste your time; to top it off, dying = reset the entire room.  BbS got it right keeping rooms small so encounters were sort of self contained to one or two per room, so dying = major loss of progress didn't come up, because it only set you back a brief bit; this game sort of forgot to adjust game over style.
On top of that, as I've ranted before, the Drop Mechanic is easily the dumbest thing ever.  If they wanted a multiple perspective angle, just have forced swap points based on cutscenes; this does hurt the ability to backtrack, but there's nothing fun about knocking a boss down to 10-20% of their health only to be dropped and thus reset the fight.  I shouldn't have to escape battle, and throw a Drop Me Not (or equip them) just to finish a boss fight.


Which brings me to the other side of things: Every other flaw in this game can be attributed to one character in some way or another, that being Sora.

First off, let me make one thing clear: I don't have Sora...at least in KH1/2, I prefer not to speak about CoM.  No, he's not amazing, but he was inoffensive and kind of like-able.  Also, he wasn't written like a total moron; no, he's no Einstein, but he certainly didn't have this "fall for all villain bait!" vibe he does that this game and CoM have (and I went back on my word!)

I can deal with idiocy some, but the real issue is Sora's story serves absolutely no purpose in the overarching plot.  Everything is completely pointless and exists to, in the last 10% of the game, set up some ultra, convoluted, Xanatos Roulette by Xehanort that is completely dumb.  The worst part is that Sora's diving didn't happen because "The villains baited him" but rather "Because Riku is going too."  I was worried the game was going to pretend Riku was secondary by the end, though thankfully the reverse happened; Riku was the focus of all the end stuff, but that in turn just made Sora seem even MORE pointless.

See, here's the thing: this is Riku's story through and through.  It's Riku's soul searching quest, or at least, the end of it, to prove to himself he actually is a  better person, overcame darkness, etc.  He's earned the trust of all his friends and everyone else, but he still has that one little bit of doubt, understandably  so, thus the game serves to finally finish off Riku's character arc, and tie up loose ends.  This by itself is strong enough story to follow, and Riku after having been a 2nd protagonist in CoM and clear good guy since, he deserves to just have his own game to himself.  The game ending with Riku being named Keyblade Master and not Sora was nice though mostly because it really just emphasizes how much Riku had to work to get where he was, while Sora kind of took it for granted, on top of not trying to twist things to make it seem like "Sora saved the day!" but made it clear Riku's actions were more important, and kind of the game acknowledging "Yes, this is Riku's story!"

Thanks to this game, there's really no question that Riku is the single best written character in the franchise.  I went in liking him well enough after KH2, but this game pretty much sealed it.  No one comes close to the amount of character work put into Riku and the progression seems logical and natural throughout the franchise.  In fact, this game only further affirms just how awful Kain is because Riku manages to be exactly what Kain is hyped as but done so much better. TIME TO RANT ABOUT THAT!

See, both characters are Shonen Rivals of the main initially, that ultimately betray them because of the girl.  Kain's is because jealousy and mind control, being whiny about a girl that never was into him intimately before and he's known this...and he's an adult remember...and don't forget, MIND CONTROL, so his sob story is just that much less "Whatever" inducing...plus they do it twice.

Riku? First off, he's a 16 year old; 16 year olds are stupid and easy to manipulate.  His betrayal was less "Kairi loves Sora!" and more just being angry that Sora didn't put Kairi as his priority, thinking he put his friends behind him.  This in turn made it easy for Maleficent to manipulate him, especially since they had Kairi, and this made Riku just kind of stray off the good guy path, get dark, etc.  See, the big thing here is that Riku is still Riku, not a mind slave like Kain; everything he did was his decision.  Maleficent didn't control him like Golbez did with Kain, she played with his emotions and let him do the rest; that is actual character work.  He gets so lost in his emotions that things just kind of explode in his face, gets possessed by an evil bishie, etc. etc.

Next up is the redemption arc.  Kain's Redemption is basically "I hurt you guys, forgive me?" and they do...both times.  He doesn't do anything to really earn it, just they casually say "ok" outside of Edge who is the one person to go "He betrayed us already, WHAT'S STOPPING HIM FROM DOING IT AGAIN!?"  Then he goes off to Mt. Ordeals to train because Cecil did it, and in doing so...skips his best friend's wedding AND Coronation.  If you're trying to be a good friend, don't skip out one like the most important day of his life; that only makes you look like a total dick.  You can take one day out of training to congratulate your friend, don't give me this "I'm not worthy!" crap.
Riku's arc starts in Chain of Memories, meanwhile, where he finds himself alive, and hinted by the end of KH1, he's starting to get back to his old self.  Here he's a little angsty but understandably so, and used as a tool, but tries his best to fight back.  By the end, Riku's not taking this "THE DARKNESS IS YOU!" crap, but has acknowledged the Darkness is part of him, he just can't let it consume him.  Ok, he hasn't done much to redeem himself, but you do get a strong sense of him definitely wanting to make up for his actions, and actually aid Sora.

358/2 Days demonstrates that Riku is willing to go to any lengths so save Sora; it's partially his fault all this came down, and he wants to make amends.  The fact that he has to go to such great lengths, sacrificing his soul to Darkness to save Sora, but managing to stay himself, is already signs Riku is a stronger person.  Obviously it would have been better if he didn't use darkness, but the fact that he could maintain his mind despite it was a big deal.  This is something Kain completely lacks; the closest we get is "he failed to fight his darkness, now his darkness runs wild!"  If anything, that shows the complete opposite for Kain, in that he hasn't made any sort of progress, just straight up failed again.

KH2 and FF4TAY first half, both characters are hiding their identities because of shame and such.  Riku's make sense; he has literally turned into the villain of the first game, it'd be extremely hard to say "hey guys, I'm actually Riku, trust me!"  Instead, he does his best to aid Sora, and earn his trust first.  Revealing himself to Kairi make sense because Kairi never met Ansem, so to her, Ansem is just a warped version of Riku.  When Sora finds out, Riku doesn't try to deflect the claim, but rather "I was afraid what you'd do if you found out."  Kain's disguise is because there's another Kain running around and he's pursuing him...it's silly, and well, the EVIL KAIN doesn't even take action until after Kain dons the Hooded Man appearance.  Also the reveal scene is a dumb Rosa shouting Kain's name, then OMG! THE GOOD KAIN FIGHTS THE EVIL KAIN!  I'll grant Riku's transformation back was basically "Because Darkness exploded thanks to Ansem's machine and that's a good thing and this heals Riku because...uhh...KINGDOM HEARTS!  Ok, good, no plot holes" "...wait how does that explain how Riku got healed?" "BECAUSE KINGDOM HEARTS! Weren't you paying attention?"

Then the capstone of their development where they finally deal with Darkness.  Kain just goes "You are part of me, now merge with me so we can become...SUPER KAIN!"  and it works.  Hey remember in FF4 when Cecil fought his darkness by NOT fighting it directly?  Yeah, screw that, SUPER KAIN!  It does nothing to push the character forward, just sort of says "hey, we gave Kain a matching color scheme to Cecil, awesome, right?"   You don't really get a sense of forward movement, he just sort of jumps from spot to spot.

Now Riku in KH3D?  This story is arguably not needed, because by the end of KH2, you get a sense of "Yeah, Riku's clearly over all the bad stuff, and he's totes a good guy" but KH3D respectfully take it a step further.  Yen Sid goes "take the test of heart because Keyblade Masters!"  Sora goes "but we saved the world twice! That should prove it!"  Fair enough, but Riku's response? "I'll do it, because I need to prove to myself I am in fact over the darkness of my heart.  If I can finish this test, it will prove I am over the darkness of my heart and finally stop any doubt."  Considering all Riku's been through, the amount of times he had to rely on Darkness to bail him out, even for good reasons, it makes sense he still has a little bit of doubt in him.   Finally putting that doubt at ease once and for all, it makes sense he'd go through with this.

And considering all he has to go through, all he's willing to sacrifice if shit hits the fan, and how he makes sure any loose ends he can tie up do get tied up, he damn well earned his reward at the end of the game, as well as makes sense he can finally be put at rest.

Kain...again, he goes all HOLY DRAGOON, but this doesn't really change him.  We're too assume he's no longer obsessed with Rosa, but where is the implication?  Because Holy Dragoon?  In Riku's case, the lack of Kairi obsession obviously ended when Kairi was saved, because his goal wasn't "get Kairi to like him", it was "Save Kairi from her fate" and the Sora disdain was, as I said, "Sora's being an idiot about it, I'm the only one she can depend on!"  Oh, Riku was straight up wrong there, but then, that's why he has the redemption arc, and his story shifts entirely away from Kairi, and more about being a real best friend for Sora, and a dependable ally.  That's what they were aiming at with Kain, but really, the only hint that they got that far is "I BEAT MY DARKSIDE!" which implies "He no longer wants to sleep with the WIFE OF HIS BEST FRIEND WITH A 17 YEAR OLD SON!"

And one last thing is timeframe.

The KH series takes a little over a year to go.  That makes sense for Riku to become fixated -> get unfixated -> work towards undoing his harm.  FF4's story takes nearly 20 years to complete, and Kain is STILL all "why doesn't Rosa love me?!" until his "Redemption Arc" comes to a full circle, which is pathetic. 


So yeah, because Kain wasn't pathetic enough as is, Riku just puts the nail in the coffin further.  Riku proves that the "best friend turned evil who then goes on a redemption arc" over the course of multiple games CAN be done well, so it's not the core character that's the problem, it's the execution. 


ANYWAY, not sure what I'll give the game.  I guess 6/10?  There's a lot of good stuff, but a lot of really bad stuff too that can't be ignored, which is ashame.

[Sierra]

Child of Light: Oh right I finished this. It is a pretty game that people should play and etcetera.

Grefter I think you somewhat undersell fishgirl. Paralysis works on everything, including the final boss. It only lasts a couple turns, but that's a couple free turns you have to patch the party up after the brutal mauling you likely received while wearing down her support. Mean fight, but any single enemy is total status bait by the end of this game.

I missed one of the confessions. AUGH. With all the world to search and no idea what zone it might be in, that's one achievement that'll have to wait for someone to write an FAQ.

Roguesouls: 25 or so tries, haven't made it past Blight town yet.

Great Scythe = nope.
Good plan Cid, but it's not worth trading the Tiny Being Ring and having Cleric starting stats for this weapon.

Sorcerers are definitely way better than melee users, but there's no variety.
I'm already really tired of the lack of options at the beginning, and of the backtracking in the Undead Burg. Dark Souls 2 and Demon's Souls were way more fun as challenges.

I'm trying to imagine a world where the Tiny Being's Ring is actually worth using and I just can't process it.

DS2: Demon's Great Hammer got boring pretty much immediately so clearly the thing to do was zap that file and replace it with something less practical and therefore more fun: twin-dagger fighting. Actually--and I feel like I've said this before in what's probably a testament to DS2's superior weapon balance--this turned out to not be anywhere near as bad as anticipated (apparently you have to be as crazy as Fenrir to find a proper challenge mode in DS2). Most varieties of knives are terrible, but stick with the basic dagger and you at least get decent scaling and speed. The overall attack power is bad (like barely breaking two hundred) but you hit so fast powerstanced that this actually doesn't matter much. I loaded up PUGILISM SOULS for comparison afterward and kept saying to myself why is punching dudes so slow? I got spoiled. Also the backstab damage is highly gratifying. Depends on enemy defense but I've seen in the vicinity of two thousand damage. Basically if it's crittable you will kill it one hit or near enough.

Also, Mytha's Bent Blade hype~ It's probably the fastest weapon in the game and uses almost no stamina, though it's pretty ineffectual if not upgraded to at least +4 (and you won't have the materials for that 'til near the end of the game). Because I'm crazy, I ascetic'd Earthen Peak to get two of them to dual-wield it. This actually makes for a pretty excellent poison delivery system if you're built for it. Messed around with NG+ some to try it out (because not until the last boss in NG did I get enough materials to upgrade both of them) and it quickly became the default boss-fighting weapon. And then sometimes you start seeing 30's mixed in with all those 15's on the boss healthbar and what? Oh apparently it can inflict poison and toxin simultaneously. Takes longer for the latter to hit, normal enemies will die first and many bosses seem immune, but it's awesome when it happens. Pursuer where'd your healthbar go.

Armor set was Straid's + pimp hat.

[metroid composite]

Gone Home: OMFG this is amazing.  If you are a fan of point and click adventures play this.



Other than that, been playing lots of Heroes of the Storm alpha.  It's fun.

[Grefter]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=255767165

Steam has built in Gamefaqs Ciid.

Boring doesn't mean outright bad.  Just boring.  I hate boring even more than normal when it is replacing a fun interesting thing.  Boring sucks.

[Fenrir]

Boring is worse than bad. It is numbness. It is Borderlands 2.

Oh yeah I've been playing some Borderlands 2. It is Borderlands 1 reskinned and I find it immensely boring, which means my tolerance for this shit plummeted. 1/10. I think I was too blinded by the coolness of Lots Of Number Going Up in an FPS before to notice.


This is a game with very little skill involved compared to every other FPS on the planet and even compared to Diablo. Because the level and encounter design aren't really the priority, and numbers are everything. In most encounters you're just strafing and shooting. The main/only thing the game asks of you is to quickly aim at another enemy after you've killed one.

So it's a game that asks for your undivided attention but without really asking anything of you. I cannot imagine having a reaction to this game other than being bored out of your mind (and annoyed by the humor and the fact that the enemy/"treasure chest" ratio is lower than 1 when it should be something like 30)

I had more fun with MMOs, which says something.
At one point I felt the same torpor I felt playing Phantasy Star III




Monument Valley:
As far as indie/contemplative/THIS IS ARTOMG games go this one is really cool. (And I'm starting to also dislike these particular indie games)
I think I finished it in 2 hours but it cost 3 bucks. It's worth skipping a fast food meal to play it.


Otherwise, I had lots of Dark Souls death. El Cid: Dude more health. I ABSOLUTELY NEED IT until I can get the Ring of Favor and Protection

[Sierra]

I remembered the health increase being absolutely negligible, but I guess everything counts when your only prerogative is not dying?

Oh right I forgot to mention the shaking carriages in Aldia actually do a thing. Apparently there's basilisks in there (the dragon skull fell on the carriage this time and let one out).

[Cotigo]

So yeah the more I studied the more I realized I'm going to fail the test anyway, so fuck it poor life decisions times

Dark Souls:

16 deaths. Playing a Pyromancer. Axe to the FACE and occasional fireballs hell yeah.  Was expecting more magery but actually smashing things with an axe is pretty OK so I don't mind.

The two bosses (admittedly, the tutorial boss and then the Taurus Demon) I've faced have kind of shown the game's hand: Stupidly difficult until you know the attack pattern and when to attack, then stupidly easy. A little bit like Buster-only runs of Megaman I guess in that regard. Most of my deaths have been because I was trying to get my power back after getting killed by a black knight guarding somewhere I am not meant to go yet. Silly me.

My internet sucks too much to invade people. This is great sadness.  But, since I can't invade or be invaded anyway, is there any reason to ever go into human form?

[Sierra]

You can only kindle bonfires when human. Kindling bonfire = raising the number of estus flasks it gives you on resting there (Firelink Shrine is already kindled to 10; most bonfires you find default to 5). So basically go human when you get someplace new to do that and otherwise don't worry about it too much while exploring because if you're playing offline the only other points of distinction to being human are:

-Some unique NPC invaders will show up and killing them is the only way to get their equipment.
-NPC phantoms can be summoned in some areas (no summoning while hollow). This is admittedly a godsend for the toughest fight in the game (Oreo Smalls).

In case pyro mechanics aren't immediately clear: you don't care about your mental stats at all because they don't influence pyromancy damage. Just Attunement for spell slots, and upgrading the flame itself will boost your damage (you won't find any NPCs for this for a while though). Pyro's a good first-run choice.

Black knights = try stabbing in the back.

[Cotigo]

Ah, yeah. I was going to play the game blind but quickly decided that was going to be less fun than having an idea of what I was doing. I'm basically bee-lining to unlock the guy who will upgrade my pyromancies.

Also, good to know I need attunement. The Wiki said to focus on Endurance and Vit, but I'll put a few points into Attunement as well.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Re: KH3D
I feel like the Drop system was supposed to evoke the Reaper's Game from The World Ends With You... similar sort of "linked together even though in different parallel areas" thing.

It, of course, miserably failed as a gameplay mechanism evoking -fun-, but I feel like it was a... not -good-, interesting, maybe? attempt at bringing in mechanics from another game series (KH only has two series it pulls from with -game- mechanics, so I can appreciate them trying to incorporate that into the design, since FF is pretty well represented by all the equips and spells and such).

[Grefter]

Transistor - I finished this days ago, but have been trying to mull it over and get time to post about it when I am not in a completely dazed state.

I really liked it.  I seem to be on the counter side to the few people I have talked about it with though.  I really really dug the story telling, in medias res is a pretty good way to start something where the main character is very much not an agent of the player's will and entirely mysterious.  As a Noir story in a weird cyberspace setting it works really well to keep the motivations of the main character elusive.  Red not being able to talk lets you project all kinds of motives on to her, but during the Terminal interactions where she gets short posts and very restricted dialogue towards the end you see that she has a clear defined character.   A lot of discussions there project a determination (which she does have), but they also ultimately are about a kind of suffering and you see that play out in the end.

Any game where you have the silent main character talking with disembodied narrator by typing up posts on internet forums is going to get a bit of love from me.

I dig the way that you progress fleshing out the setting at your own pace and it influences your gameplay style, different moves used differently unlocks more side and backstory.  So trying a lot of combination of processes used differently rewards the player both with discovering interesting play and with narrative.  It is pretty cool.

The story is insaaaaanely Noir.  It is petty revenge for revenge's sake in the face of a catastrophe.  Damsel in distress who is not so much of a damsel and is really the threat.  The fact that you get to play the Femme Fatale in this story instead of the private detective is pretty great.  The setting is cyberpunk as fuck.  Like, some kind of mix of Tron and the computer part of The Matrix.  This is of course pretty great.  The really amazing thing though is that these two things don't ever really mix together.  They just work really well off each other, but it is a story that takes place in the setting, not a story that is really informed by the setting (if that makes sense).  It isn't a dark and gritty Noir story because it is a dark and gritty Noir setting (like you would get in say a Shadowrun).  It is an ultimately hella bleak Noir story set in an amazingly deep and interesting utopian cyberpunk setting.

The game shows you enough to hint at a bottomless well of interesting ideas, but doesn't reveal much of anything more than it needs to tell you its story.  It always leave me wanting more story.  I can't dislike it for being really good and something I like and disappointing me by being so good I want more of it.

The gameplay on the other hand?  I found it went on too long.  Unlike Alex my Steam play time is at 10 hours and that is from a play and a little bit, so would say it probably took me twice as long play time to beat?  I didn't really die or wipe.  I probably have some AFK time in there, but it still took me longer.  (Some of that was doing stupid thing clearing out an area that you are told to run through with dangerous enemies while I had lots of limiters on because I wanted to unlock some plot and had forgot to use one I got a while back... so lots of limiter on  took like 20 mins of chipping and kiting).  It kind of overstayed its welcome and with the introduction of the Man class enemies it got mega snoozetown to me.  Their method of attacking really pushed running a a ranged attack to poke their Haircuts and a strong burst damage attack to blow them up when they are out of stealth.  There didn't seem much wiggle room in that (I aimed to one shot them with close range backstab out of Cloak).  They pretty much single handed made the last quarter or so of the game pretty tedious to me.  Maybe there was a way to engage them that was more compelling?  I didn't find it.  I may have been too attached to Jaunt as a movement skill and could have used it to more easily engage Haircuts, but I found your movement vs enemy movement outside of Turn() to be significantly restricted without Jaunt and I would just take massive spikes of damage.  Oh and high level Fetch's are bullshit and terrible and need like half the HP.  Just fucking terrible and boring.  Please, stop having them everywhere.

I also didn't adapt to really using the two different methods of gameplay independently for the longest time.  You can cruise just on Turn and evading for so long.  It is only really later that you need to start juggling poking and then using Turn to maximise effectiveness in combat.  It felt to me like I spent a long time very slowly being introduced to new moves while having fun playing a pretty easy game whichever way I wanted to and then a sudden massive spike of finding out I was doing it wrong and had better learn how to play right very quickly.  It is massively forgiving though like Alex says, it is just more frustrating than compelling.  Tying up a power for a couple of save points is punitive in that you sacrifice fun and power (it takes your most expensive process first) in future combats.  You lose your skill now and the next fight is going to be more boring (yeah it will be harder to, but most importantly it will be boring).  I did appreciate the way that it pushed me to expand my skill choices to try new things the few times I lost a few skills, but ultimately it taught me less about skill selection than the Challenges did where artificially restricting me to a set of skills forced me to try things instead of organically having it happen as punishment for sucking.  I think the gameplay would progress better with less hand holding and unlocking way more of the Challenge rooms earlier.  I finished the game and still didn't have them all unlocked and they are time unlocks.

At the end of the day though, yep, Bastion is a better game.  I like Transistor a lot and there is a boat load of great things in it for me, but I do think the majority of people are going to come out of it a bit nonplussed.  Especially if you really don't like plots where the writer's head is up their own arse.

Anyway that is a lot of words.  The short of it is. Alex's review of it is pretty right.  There isn't anything in there that I can't see coming out of this with.  But to me personally the Turn() system is great but the game doesn't teach it to you correctly, rolls its intricacies out too slowly (it is significantly shorter than FF13, but feels like it is the same ratio of tutorial:full gameplay).  I love the story and the story telling methods.  Alex and I are probably going to have to talk about the ending and stuff a bit (I doubt I have any insights he hasn't thought of, I just want to talk about what I liked and he disliked) and hopefully some others try this out.  I recommend everyone play this some time, but unfortunately I think unlike Bastion it is going to be a brief moment in time and then it will fade from public conscious.

I will be entirely honest though for the broader DL, if you have $15 to spend on a game, I think the DL in general is probably better off buying Child of Light, it is a bit more up our collective alleys (for more reasons just than it being a JRPG).  Both are pretty good in very different ways, Transistor has higher highs and lower lows, but Child of Light is pretty damned consistently solid.  This isn't mediocre and boring vs broken and interesting.  This is solid delivery vs calculated and strange. 

I also don't know if I will bother getting all the achievements and stuff because NG+ involves scaling enemies, which was fun for the first hour or so until they start spawning Man enemies early on and fighting them for the rest of forever is not even remotely appealing.  I feel like I am being punished with shitty gameplay for leveling quickly by using Limiters

[Ranmilia]

Transistor "real talk" now that we are finished with evenhanded reviews. 

It does not surprise me at all that Grefter loved the story.  The Grefter Mind is a thing that automatically assumes things are pitch black obsidian heart noir anyway, and if you go into Transistor with the mindset that it is super dark noir and you are expecting noir-style characterization and development then it works very well, it really does.  Everything Grefter said is true.

My dislike of it is more in the realm of expectations and initial narrative development.  If you are not Grefter, or part of a relatively small subset of people who already 'get' and are predisposed to expect noir storytelling, you're going to be confused and disappointed, because *the story does not distinctly or overtly cue the player in* about its genre until it's 'too late' and most players are already going to be running on their own assumptions about characterization and tone and so forth. 

Looking on the internet, I see a lot of the people who 'got it' smugly telling others who were confused that it's their own fault for not noticing the cues the game does drop about its tone and what sort of person Red is.  I don't think that's a very productive line to take, though.  When there's a sufficiently large portion of the audience who are fundamentally misunderstanding the tone and thrust of a narrative, I tend to prefer to place the blame on the author(s) for not giving sufficient information instead of blaming the readers for not picking up on what was given. 

It is not terribly hard to see where Transistor goes wrong in these regards and some of the places it could have done better.  Most of its media hype, and the whole first act of the storytelling, is positive and hopeful in tone on the surface.  Most of the specifics turn out to be subversions, but at the time the player is not given any reason to question them.  The main song talks about "becoming one," in the context of computer binary, and people generally know enough to get that 1 is positive and 0 is negative, so... clearly this is about how Red was a 0 and her quest to become a 1, right?  She's initially painted as a pissed off vigilante, not a femme fatale.   

When Red herself is silent, and the narrator is talking about the loss of her voice being the problem, and the environmental cues are all terminals and locations talking about Red's career and status, and there are quite a few bodies scattered around making one Transistorized individual not so special - well it's pretty easy to assume that Red's mainly pissed off about what happened to herself and what might happen to the rest of the living, rather than being motivated by revenge for the dead.

In particular, I don't recall even a hint of her real relationship to Dildo Man until quite a ways into the game.  Brother, father, friend, boyfriend?  Leader of alternative terrorist cell?  It is clear that he cares for her, but not clear how much, or how much she reciprocates.   Her first reactions to him are... well, she barely even reacts, ignores most of his commands, and mostly just interfaces with the terminals themselves, only starting to converse with him later in the game, which is easily mistaken for general fighting camaraderie until they finally break out the "I love you, miss you" stuff right at the end.  So when she finally penetrates herself with the giant green dildo (and yes that is totally what happens in every sense), it can come as something of a shock to people who formed their impressions of the characters based on the first act rather than the last.

To bring up Bastion again, I would compare the situation to that game's ending choice of keeping the battering ram.  It's obviously not completely out of character, it makes sense and is within the range of supported characterizations... but for most players, it's more to an extreme edge of the possibilities, and probably wouldn't be their first choice.

EDIT addition because I thought of it later: also on the Bastion note, Bastion hit a ton of the exact same story notes as Transistor.  Chuckleheads with more technology and ideals than ethics trigger an apocalypse, disputes happen among the survivors when some of them discover others are responsible, etc.  Bastion ultimately resolved this very similar plot in a much more optimistic way, with only one of the four major characters taking things poorly, and the player has the option of saving them too.  I think this definitely plays into people's expectations and initial reads of Transistor, if you've played Bastion before you're going to notice the similarities and expect a similarly toned ending as well, or at least a dramatic choice or two, being that those choices were the most affective points and the culmination of Bastion's storytelling.

What really irks me about this is how easily the authors could have fixed it, though.  If they had placed a little more value on clarity, reordered a couple of scenes, given just a LITTLE more characterization a LITTLE earlier, it would be so much easier to understand the noir implications.  One of the major scenes I'm thinking of is Red leaving her apartment and locking it, and the dildo commenting "That's not good...".  That was great noir establishment, but it needed to be earlier, like before Sybil.  Or just give the dildo man a name, or a profession, or some sort of role where it's clear Red cares about him.

The gameplay... I have less to say about if I'm being honest.  10 hours is very o_O to me.  I felt my 6 was already overly generous because I spent a long time wandering around and using Hum() and goofing around with skills, and a "normal" playthrough where you just go where the game tells you and don't trigger optional fights would be closer to 4 hours or less. 

As for combat... I spent too many words trying to do it justice for people who are interested in it.  To fully indulge my ego for a moment, I found the game embarrassingly easy and felt like everything I did was massive overkill unless I was turning my brain off and trying to deliberately ignore how absurdly broken half the skills and Turn() are.  Enemies can do some damage if they hit you, but that's all I can say for it and they should never hit you unless you are just not pushing any buttons ever.  Jaunt() and Breach() are the first things you get and strong enough to carry you the whole game.  Mask() is broken.  Purge() is broken.  Switch() is ABSURDLY broken.  Putting anything as an upgrade on anything turns it into a fullscreen death cannon, as a general rule. 

None of the enemies really got complexity beyond "kill this thing before that thing" and other than discovering what new enemies did, the only interesting fight in the entire game was Royce.  I was hoping for a later section with advanced Mans that all had Turn() but no that was it, the end.  That is all probably just me playing games a lot though maybe.

[Captain K.]

Marvel Heroes:  Got Invisible Woman to level 60.  If anyone has thought about getting into this game, this would be the week to do so.  They're giving away a crapload of stuff for their first anniversary.

[jsh357]

Ah, yeah. I was going to play the game blind but quickly decided that was going to be less fun than having an idea of what I was doing. I'm basically bee-lining to unlock the guy who will upgrade my pyromancies.

Also, good to know I need attunement. The Wiki said to focus on Endurance and Vit, but I'll put a few points into Attunement as well.

Get enough attunement for the spells you need, as well as any STR/DEX requirements for your weapons, but like the wiki says, Endurance is almost always the best stat to raise after you have all the requirements needed for your weapons and spells.  Reason is, more stamina is always better and it also increases equip load, which makes a big difference since fast rolling is so important for dodging attacks.  Vitality investment is mostly beneficial for newer players, though having more HP never hurt anyone.  If you are going to focus on Pyromancy as your main means of dealing damage, it may be better to invest in upgrading your flame.  There's a bit more to it than that, but it's not relevant so early in the game.

Re: internet/invasions, your internet might not be the cause of your problems. Dark Souls 1 use a frankly shoddy PvP connection method that makes it difficult to play with a lot of other players in the first place. One time I had to leave the game running with a soul sign down for about 15 minutes before I was "set" in the pool of people that can interact with each other. Had to watch various guides to co-op to discern what was going on.

[Meeplelard]

Re: KH3D
I feel like the Drop system was supposed to evoke the Reaper's Game from The World Ends With You... similar sort of "linked together even though in different parallel areas" thing.

It, of course, miserably failed as a gameplay mechanism evoking -fun-, but I feel like it was a... not -good-, interesting, maybe? attempt at bringing in mechanics from another game series (KH only has two series it pulls from with -game- mechanics, so I can appreciate them trying to incorporate that into the design, since FF is pretty well represented by all the equips and spells and such).

It's possible, I suppose.  TWEWY is a Nomura game afterall, and the fact that he put TWEWY into KH3D does make it plausible he wanted to incorporate something into KH3D, and it's not like TWEWY characters were just in KH3D; they actually referenced the reaper's game and everything, so he's clearly aware of stuff (and they do reference parallels between Neku and Sora, for all that the two are kind of total opposites...)

It's still kind of a dumb mechanic.  Other KH games didn't draw from Final Fantasy games outside of naming conventions, in terms of gameplay aspects, so drawing from TWEWY like that and doing it in a way that was very different than what TWEWY did on top of that begs the question of why.  If they wanted to force you to swap between them, and not make it story-line based, they could give incentives for it, rather than making it forced.  It's a fine case, in any event, where just being original does not necessarily make the idea good.  I don't see many people finding this idea conceptually very interesting, and the execution only further demonstrates it's a poor idea.  Feels like they wanted to toss a new mechanic in there for the sake of a new mechanic, rather than just play it safe, and follow more conventional methods of Dual-Protagonists.


...and I still play other games!

Mega Man 3 Gameboy: Just beat Dive Man, who was the only MM4 Robot Master faced so far.  Game is...kind of flawed horribly in some fundamental ways, most obviously is the hit detection.  Not just for taking damage, but also for Mega Man simply hitting his head on a ceiling and limiting his jumps.  There's a jump in Spark Man's stage where you have to blast a block, run through the block before it respawns and crushes you, and stop within like a 2 pixel spot before falling off a pit.  Said spot has a ceiling right above it, so you have to be literally on the edge of the spot.  This is the kind of crap I expect from a Wily Stage, maybe, but NOT from a Robot Master stage, let alone one from the first 4 in the game.

To say nothing of how stages love their spikes.  The bosses...kind of suck so far though, but then that's probably because you're facing MM3 Robot Masters with the Mega Buster, and they are not balanced for this (though they did improve Spark Man making him harder to predict AND invincibility with his charge shot, so props there.)

[Cotigo]

Dark Souls:

Early game pyromancer starts to suck after you stop OHKOing everyone with a battle axe... until you look some things up and find out you can get a Sick Ass Sword for shooting off the dragon's tail on the bridge before the Parish.  Did some grinding to get my STR and DEX up to 16/12 to wield a bow (and subsequently the sword)... took entirely too long because I had blown too many level ups on Vitality. I'm something like level 30 now, and that was before I even beat the Capra Demon and got access to the ability to upgrade my Pyromancies. Leveled up my fire glove to +4, bought Fire Orb and Combustion, and now I actually feel like a fucking Pyromancer instead of a gimpy melee character with infinite fire grenades. Looking up PVP builds (I am going to splurge and get good internet at my next house), it looks like I probably really want the Gargoyle's Halberd, so I guess I'm grinding for that next.

Assuming, actually, that I don't just restart so I can take the Master Key starting gift. Actually, I may do that, since grinding aside I haven't actually made very much progress, and now that I know what I'm doing I can probably catch up to myself in an evening of play... having to deal with keys is bullshit.

This game is exacerbating all of my bad gaming habits.  "Ah man I got hit too many times I should run back to the bonfire and try for a more perfect run." "Well it's not that much more to the next level so I should just grind a bit... oh damn I am like halfway to the next level I should just grind a bit more before trying to take out the next boss so I don't lose it all." "OK now that I am opening up the main game time to replay the intro over and over."

[Sierra]

Fumbling around because you don't know what the fuck you're doing is a substantial proportion of any Souls experience (FAQing the hell out of these games is totally legit).

The Drake Sword's a good earlygame nuke, but don't get too attached to it. It'll become obsolete relatively quickly because: it gains no damage bonuses from STR/DEX and thus your melee offense is functionally static unless you upgrade it; upgrading it uses extremely rare materials and costs a fuckton of souls; even at +5 it's pretty sad by endgame standards. Should serve you pretty well up through Blighttown, though.

Sorcery trainer (who you should probably already have set free if you've killed Capra) sells a ring that boosts your pyro damage (says it's for sorcery but does affect both kinds of magic). It's hella expensive by earlygame standards but a worthy investment if you rely a lot on pyromancy for offense.

[Cotigo]

Cool, I'll keep that in mind. What's the ring called?

Yeah, I imagined that the Drake Sword must drop off hard because no build I looked into actually uses it for PVP and the only reason for that must be because it sucks lategame. The build I'm looking at uses either the bastard sword or the gargoyle's halberd, and the halberd looks more my style, so I'll probably farm for that and start using it once I get it upgrayedded a bit.

[NotMiki]

This game is exacerbating all of my bad gaming habits.  "Ah man I got hit too many times I should run back to the bonfire and try for a more perfect run." "Well it's not that much more to the next level so I should just grind a bit... oh damn I am like halfway to the next level I should just grind a bit more before trying to take out the next boss so I don't lose it all." "OK now that I am opening up the main game time to replay the intro over and over."

Get out of my brain.