What Games are you playing 2015?

[Fenrir]

I don't think this is actually a bug Grefter, I often feel like there are too many fucking game giant spiders in DA:I but then this one time Yattaf said "wow I just killed too many spiders. Alone. The arra is clear now"

I liked Geralt's voice a lot in witcher 2 (he's so calm) but the game had terrible controls and Witcher 3 hasn't improved on that at all. I'll pick it up for cheap later. It looks like Dragon age inquisition ++

[hinode]

FF Record Keeper: Started this on a whim last week, up to ~25 on my main party right now (Cloud/Kain/Wakka/Rydia/Lenna). The game works well enough as a time killer + nostalgia vehicle, and the pay 2 win elements seem pretty nonoffensive provided you don't care about equipment completionism or completing all the hardest challenges, both of which I am happy enough to ignore. The gatcha rates on rare equipment sounds really bad, but it's not like those are even remotely necessary for the main game.

My biggest complaint so far is that the RNG keeps giving me high end spears: first a 3 star one at the start of the game, and then a 5 star one from my first 50 mythril pull. I am thus pretty much stuck with Kain unless I find a better spear user AND get the time to grind him/her up.

[Fenrir]

You're lucky, the rng has fed me five staves. I am stuck with using a two stars weapon on Wakka because I only have three non-staff non-harp weapon with 3+ stars. Magic is really lackluster so I'm not running a mage team

[Dark Holy Elf]

Shovel Knight - Beaten, ~138 deaths and 62% I think. Fun times, it is Mega Man and Zelda 2 put in a blender with some Castlevania and Duck Tales thrown in. Very solid platformer, with some pretty cool stages and fun boss fights. Music's fun as far as NES-like stuff goes, and in general the game very much captures the feel of a (good) NES game if that's something that works for you (it does for me; I don't consider myself super-nostalgia driven but this is the era I grew up with). I don't have much bad to say about the game. Relics could have been a bit more interesting I guess? Only a complaint compared to better Mega Mans, but they're for obvious reasons a fair comparison here. Anyway, it's good; it's easy to compare to Duck Tales Remastered and with all due respect to DT this game is clearly the better one. Exactly how good is something I will need replays to pin down. Fortunately for the game I can say quite confidently that the replays will happen.

Also still playing Hyrule Warriors.

[Sierra]

I'm still picking away at that. It's good but mostly does not strike me as great outside of the obvious effort applied to making it look and sound like a production from the peak of the NES era. I've beaten all the knights (propellerhead's stage was super annoying) and stopped at the start of Tower of Fate due to there being too many ways to fall down for my patience to accommodate this morning.

It would've been nice if there was some easy way to switch back to relics you'd previously bought other than replaying the stage in which they were sold, but so far as I can tell this is not a thing. It's mostly just annoying because some of the bonus stages require a specific relic just for you to progress in them.

[Fenrir]

I'm sorry Cid but now you're officially like guys who keep dying against Evrae because they don't know they can spend points in the sphere grid
I guess the inventory button might be hard to find if you play on a keyboard?

I bought witcher 3 on a whim, will report after I finish dragon age checklistition (which is almost an idle game at this point)

[NotMiki]

I guess the inventory button might be hard to find if you play on a keyboard?

It's um...not.  Not hard to find.  Sorry.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hey I actually spent some time pressing random buttons on the controller before I figured out you were supposed to just use the touchscreen.

[Meeplelard]

My friend told me about the Gamepad aspect when I was first trying the game out at his house to see if it was worth buying.  when I finally buckled down and bought it and played it on my own...I had forgotten this too, but knew the game couldn't have had this poor game design since this isn't the 80s/early 90s anymore and somehow figured out the gamepad aspect.

Curious what the newer console versions do in this regard.  Assuming they just do like Press Start for Menu Screen.  Either way, I just want Plague of Shadows to come out because damn it, I wanna play as Plague Knight!

On a different note...

Yoshi's Island Advance: Stage 2-3.  It's the SNES game but with some a few changes that are generally for the worse, due to usual SNES -> GBA port.  I'll grant the music is pretty faithfully kept at least unlike, say, FF6 Advance, so that's fine!  What isn't fine is the smaller screen distance (which is an aspect of the console I'm aware), because a number of areas become harder than they were on the SNES version.  Notably, in 2-1, there's that fallen segment and you have that much less time to react due to less vertical visibility, and it's even misleading since you can be off the screen and not die (SNES version, that was basically the typical "screen scrolled = you die") which should be fine but it does put you into panic mode and yeah.

Also had to insert the Yoshi's Story Voice into things which I have always hated (...don't get me started) which unfortunately I know is here to stay, but it wasn't in the SNES version, we didn't need to insert it here.  I wanna say physics are a little less responsive but I've since adapted to them, so may have just been me.  They did make the Red Coins harder to identify though; original SNES version, there was a subtle difference but if you knew there was a difference, you could spot the Red Coins pretty easily; the difference is there but even more subtle in this version.

Note that none of these changes actually ruin the game; it's still Yoshi's Island and all the major elements are still good and there and that's what matters.  Just these port specific issues do make it a worse experience than the original, though really, since they can't put the SNES version on the Virtual Console (due to Super FX Chip licensing issues from my understanding?), this is the best we'll get and the version is good enough.  Just that nagging "IT SHOULD BE BETTER DAMN IT!" thing is in the back of my mind and it's annoying!

[Captain K]

P&D SMB:  Got all the way to the end of World 3 without dying at all.  Then Morton Koopa hit me for twice my max hp.  Ah well, I knew the grinding was coming at some point, just wanted to see how far my existing P&D skills would carry me before I had to start.

Prime World:  It is League of Dota with leveling up characters/customizing their skillsets.  Pretty neat.  Granted my existing MOBA experience is exactly three games of Dota2, so I don't have much to compare it to.

[Fenrir]

Dragon Age Inquisition solo:
Just wanted to mention that I got the best bug since the Disco Wharf in Dark Souls 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThY0sfdatxk


I am totally playing this as a power fantasy, and am greatly enjoying thinking about enemies going "Who is this Yattaf who has destroyed half our army alone!? Oh god it's all over. Tell Maria I'm sorry"
Game over rate has gotten from 2 in every fight to 0 in 20 hours. I think this setup has to be one of the best defensive setups in a videogame (for all that, as always, it still cannot be better than what that random dude from Dragon Slayer Gaiden had)

[Grefter]

Dragons's Ages's Inquisitions - I ran around and did some stuff and recruited a couple of dudes.  Then ran around a bunch more.

I can see what some people see in it as "The sweet spot between Dragon Age and Skyrim".  I disagree, but I see where they are coming from.  To me it feels like Dragon Age with a bunch of stuff gating the plot away and a bunch of time sinks that fill my hours.  The story is cool when I get to it, but running around a big empty area to find some shiny things, some connect the dot puzzles and 2 NPCs is the polar opposite to Dragon Age 2's problem.  I have also heard praise for the combat with it being a slightly polished DA2, but ehhhhh I don't necessarily agree.  The PC controls at least feel super shitty.  Melee feels very uncomfortable.  I really just want to be able to click to walk and interact and I can't.  I could use the Tactical mode which has the shittiest tactical camera I can imagine (Zooms out slightly overhead and you need to drive it around just like you do your character...). 

It feels like they straight ported the controller setup they had for DA2 to PC and didn't keep the differentiations they made between PC/console setups they were so adamant about doing in DA2.


Things are a bit better now that I have rebound "Search" from V to Z so it is easier to mash constantly (and you need to mash it constantly) because what we wanted was to have worse "Find interactables" setup than Baldur's Gate 2.

I could not do side shit and just focus on the story, but there is NCPs tucked away in side shit at least early on soooooooooo...

[DjinnAndTonic]

Final Fantasy Record Keeper:
The Synchronicity bonuses are ridiculous so I've been using a lot of the PCs where most of the early game dungeons are based on. Namely FF4 and 6, of course. My only options at the moment for that are Rydia (yay), Cyan (ok?), and Kain (of fucking course). Cyan is unsurprisingly trash outside of FF6 dungeons. Rydia isn't bad and Kain is sadly great. Stop doing that Square.

Since roughly half the characters are gates behind Events that show up at the whims of the creators, I don't have as many options for named PCs. My ultimate goal for a party would include Terra, but who knows when her event will be available again. Instead the event that was running when I started playing allowed you to get.... Rinoa. God fucking dammit.

Currently planning on a Cloud/Rinoa/Rydia/Snow/Tyro(original character who is a battle librarian who can equip anything but has lackluster stats). Still need to get Snow. I would like to use Wakka but there is only one good weapon for him and its drop rate sucks. Currently hovering around 25-35 for levels.

My boyfriend is playing the Japanese version and it is notable that the American version is significantly more challenging. So that's cool I guess.

[Fenrir]

The japanese version must really have been an auto battle fest.

This still isn't very hard but it requires some thought. Asura was the first really nasty boss because she kept spamming Curaga. You are supposed to cast Reflect but 1) I didn't have it on because there are only two ability slots / character 2) I couldn't even buy it. Thankfully I could still autobattle her because my party is all about autobattle.


My party is Cloud / JOSEF / Kain / Lenna / Cyan. Cyan gets replaced by whoever might have a bonus in that dungeon.
Cloud has the three stars weapon from the beginning, he he's had the best damage nisce the beginning of the game. He can autobattle + some spellswords.
Lenna has her unique five stars staff, she is a white mage (Not canon, she's supposed to be a monk/dancer) with 8 shots of healing and 2 shots of very powerful Lightning +. Her limit break also fully revives. So she will be in every team i create from now on, pretty much.
Josef has a four stars fist weapon, he's nearly on par with Cloud, he's great. This game is pure FF nostalgia, and who am I using? Fucking Josef. Awesome.
Kain has a four star spear, he's slightly not as good as the other two physical attackers but still, he autobattles well. At one point I fought Kain with Kain and nobody said anything.
Cyan has a three stars weapon, he does about half Cloud's damage. Canon.

Rydia has been terrible for me, she can summon a bomb once for about as much damage as Cloud's physical. Okay. I've been using her as a healbot but she's a lot worse than Lenna, even in FF4 dungeons.
I only could get a Chakram for Wakka so his damage has been very lackluster. Still, he's in the back row, and gets a spell that boosts Attack (unlike every other physical attacker here)
The first two generics were awful compared to PCs and don't get synch bonuses, so I haven't tried any other.
The main character is allright, but I dislike his face so he's on the bench.

I actually tried really hard to get Rinoa (her sprite is cool?) but I only had less than two days left after I started playing, so I couln't get far enough in her dungeon.


The game does that FTP stamina thing. You have to wait in real life to play again.
However you can get some gems that extend your stamina bar + fully heal it, and the main game showers you with gems, so you can pretty much keep playing forever.
Playing that way is kind of a waste of stamina healing, so after every full stamina healing I like to do one side dungeon (either a current event or a harder version of a main dungeon) then wait a tiny little bit before going back to a main game dungeon. I think this is the most efficient way of playing but also the one that ruins your real life the most

[hinode]

So my first try on the Golbez/Shadow Dragon fight in Record Keeper, the RNG decided to faithfully recreate the original with Golbez using Shadow Hold right off the bat to paralyze my entire party. He then refreshed it a few turns later, and by the time it wore off the Shadow Dragon ID'd most of my team. Unfortunately they left out the part where (adult) Rydia joins the team so this ended in a gameover and a huge stamina loss, since I was planning around a full refresh from that dungeon.

Second time around I used the save/load trick I learned from the internet a few days back: force close the app if something goes wrong in battle, then when you open the app again it goes back to the start of the battle with no stamina penalty. Took three tries to not get screwed by the RNG with status moves.

Apparantly high level stuff requires lots of this kind of save/load abuse if you don't have godly equips, to get low rate status moves to hit ASAP or to dodge status on key team members. Personally, I'll just stick to playing classic dungeons and lower difficulties where I can get my doses of nostagia in a more casual manner, plus some of the lower levelled elite stuff.

Rydia does tons of damage to me (~1.8K with -ra spells when not hitting weakness, more in all those FF4 dungeons), but then I have good equips for her: a 4 star rod from an easy elite dungeon, 4 star Hypno Crown from gatcha, Earrings from the Rinoa event.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Saints Row 3 - So, there are many ways in which you can extend your influence and tighten the Saints' stronghold over Steelport even beyond advancing the plot. Among them, we can count:

- Drug traffic
- Snatching missions where you rescue people from rival gangsters
- Helicopter escorting missions where you protect your allies while they do shady stuff and splurge their earnings on gas station-bought potato chips
- Mayhem missions in which you blow up things with either your own weaponry (which includes amenities like rocket launchers and aircraft carpet bombings) or a military tank
- Insurance fraud heists which involve ragdolling yourself into cars and discovering humans can fly as long as they fall into car bumpers for long enough
- Car escort missions in which middle-aged ladies discover the joys of pickles-induced sexual therapy
- Scooter races in which you ram things while being literally set on fire
- Tron racing
- A children's game show in which you shoot people dressing as mascots in the head while dodging electric fences and flamethrowers, but shooting pictures of pandas is an ethical no-no
- Driving around the city on a convertible with a TIGER ON YOUR PASSENGER SEAT for snazzy youtube videos

I don't -think- that's quite how international organized crime works. However, I can forgive all coherency lapses as long as I can do all that sporting a posh steampunk outfit.

EDIT: Also, apparently BDSM-themed chinese cabs are combustible, considering I managed to make one explode. This is Post-Dadaism: The Game.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Yeah, I've been using Rydia as a Black Mage. I have two summons, but powering up summons is awful since you can only get the material for it in the Special Events.

Luckily I got Rinoa, who is actually a better Black Mage and has a cool sprite. Too bad I hate Rinoa, but I'm trying to use as many characters with new sprites as possible.

Once you FINALLY clear all the FF4 and FF6 dungeons, you unlock the new basic Dungeons that were added earlier this month apparently. This also adds Snow as a PC when you get to the FF13 dungeons. And he's a good addition. He can replace JOSEF as your Monk, too.

I wish I could get Lenna's special gear to get her awesome Soul Break. Full Revival sounds like a godsend. I keep getting my ass kicked on the countering bosses.

Current party is now Cloud/Snow/Tyro/Rinoa/Lenna. I've also got a trained up Kain, Rydia, Cyan, and Wakka. Of those, I mostly want to use Wakka because he's got a new* sprite while the others are recycled from their original games. I'd also like to drop Lenna because she was the least interesting part of FF5 AND is using a recycled sprite, but I need a healer and my other options are abysmal. Apparently Aerith is amazing and versatile, but also locked behind timed events so who knows when I'll be able to get her.

[hinode]

Vanille should be either the next event or the one afterwards with a skillset of Black Mage 4/White Magic 5/Support 2, so there's your future healer.

[Fenrir]

Rydia doing 18k? Jesus

Apparantly high level stuff requires lots of this kind of save/load abuse if you don't have godly equips, to get low rate status moves to hit ASAP or to dodge status on key team members. Personally, I'll just stick to playing classic dungeons and lower difficulties where I can get my doses of nostagia in a more casual manner, plus some of the lower levelled elite stuff.

I hope not
I think it's way more tempting to cheat in this than in a norma game because of all the FTP bullshit elements, I'd still rather not do this

Once you FINALLY clear all the FF4 and FF6 dungeons, you unlock the new basic Dungeons that were added earlier this month apparently. This also adds Snow as a PC when you get to the FF13 dungeons. And he's a good addition. He can replace JOSEF as your Monk, too.

I actually think that Bald UOM Weak to: Boulders > Anime Xtreme Surfer Kurt Cobain? I don't hate Snow or anything though.
I did Daryll's Tomb just now, that was really rough. Cyan actually saved our whole team. (The first boss wrecked my team, so I wasn't ready for the second at all. But Cyan's paralysis attack worked on it)


Age of Mashing L3:  Inquisition:
Killed all ten dragons. Became even more OP. lol

[hinode]

Sorry, 18K was a dumb typo, especially considering the old fashioned FF damage cap.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Rayman Origins - Finished this game. It's a pretty difficult platformer, although overall less difficult than the DKCR/TF duo. The more advanced mechanics (always having the floating, wall/jumping and running, and the more potent attack command) makes the game more complex and robust than the new DKs, I think, and the secret stages, while still challenging, are less tedius than their DK counterparts. The difficulty ramped up in a pretty good way, too. Anyway, the game is fun and beautiful and I recommend it to anyone who likes platformers, as long as you aren't looking for plot.

Fire Emblem 7 - Now with more TV! I picked this up for the WiiU Virtual Console, so I'm having to hack through the early game tutorial maps again. I just picked up Lucius and Nils and now I am going to recover Ninian's ring.

DDRII - After mostly being in a statis for a while around Difficult 6-9, I have been working on some Expert 7-11 tracks, but only American songs. I fear the chibi songs on Expert still.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper - So far I have Wakka, Cloud, and Kain. Already kind of bored with the game to be honest.

[NotMiki]

Final Fantasy Record Keeper - So far I have Wakka, Cloud, and Kain. Already kind of bored with the game to be honest.

I am happy it exists because those sprite graphics are fantastic, but that never translated into a desire to play more than like 15 minutes of it.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Yeah, I love the sprites, which is why I've played as much as I have.

[Fenrir]

Sprite Rufus!


I loved Rayman Origin's plot and think it beats every other platformer. There was the fun intro + great plot twist I absolutely didn't see coming at the end, and that was about it.


I'm near the end of Dragon Age Inquisition but apathy is reaching unheard levels. Amazingy I nearly beat the entire Orlais ballroom quest without any weapon or armor equipped because I didn't realize they were auto removed at the beginning of the mission. I still didn't have much trouble and could have beaten the boss. I'm still playing solo. I'm not kidding guys, this build is completely ridiculous.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Final Fantasy Record Keeper - So far I have Wakka, Cloud, and Kain. Already kind of bored with the game to be honest.

I am happy it exists because those sprite graphics are fantastic, but that never translated into a desire to play more than like 15 minutes of it.

It falls into the same category as TAY where I'm simply curious as to which FF6 sprites they hacked up to make the PCs for the game.  Like how Cloud is very clearly Cyan with new hair and Tidus is a repainted Locke.