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Author Topic: What Games are you playing 2016?  (Read 124086 times)

Fenrir

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #400 on: February 14, 2016, 05:58:23 PM »
NEB I've read your Bravely Default Fiesta run and it's been fun. However I am very disappointed you didn't roll something terrible like Freelancer / Merchant / Summoner.

Legend of SaGacy: So far, not good? It seems they have removed all the rough edges from Saga and that's what made them good.
At least I don't understand anything going on about magic and the balance is completely out there. That's something.

I have a heretic-burning team of Owen (1H swords), Garnet (Spears and water magic). Plus a frog. (Bows) Owen always greets people by saying he's on a mission to destroy false gods so I like him.

Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #401 on: February 14, 2016, 06:47:50 PM »
Mass Effect 3 - Done! The last hour was a bit of a slog, with bad gameplay taking center stage and the ending plot being relatively unsatisfying, but I still enjoyed the game overall.
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Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #402 on: February 14, 2016, 07:28:08 PM »
Tomb Raider - So hey, that game everyone was saying was really good a few years ago, it's really good!
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Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #403 on: February 14, 2016, 08:13:12 PM »
NEB I've read your Bravely Default Fiesta run and it's been fun. However I am very disappointed you didn't roll something terrible like Freelancer / Merchant / Summoner.

why do you hate me so

I am pretty interested in seeing your reaction to Legend of Legacy, because I think we come at these games from completely opposite directions (<NEB> where is my BMG, I must understand everything to enjoy it <Fenrir> I don't understand what is happening this is awesome). I wasn't too impressed with the game myself sadly.

Tomb Raider is good times, even though I wish its gameplay were better. Glad you've gotten around to it, Gref.


Splatoon - I don't think I ever mentioned that I beat the one-player mode. I think the one-player mode is often kinda forgettable but it has a very enjoyable final boss battle, I will give it that. It's a single battle which incorporates tons of gameplay elements from throughout the game, is reasonably challenging, and very fun. Totally made it worth it.

Otherwise multiplayer is generally thoroughly more enjoyable, although I'm probably getting to the end of the time when I'll desire to play it often. May abandon it after the next Splatfest next week, which also coincides with Fire Emblem coming out, so.


Kid Icarus: Uprising - I played more of this, mostly working on some of the nastier achievements I hadn't yet gotten. Now up to 310/360, which is pretty good considering a decent chunk of the ones I'm missing involve the multiplayer in some way. In marked contrast to Spatoon, this game has great 1P and its multiplayer is something I could really do without.


Super Mario Maker - I've unlocked all the stuff, still making stages. This will likely be a background game for a while. Kinda questioning how much of myself I should invest in it just because my creative energies are probably better spent on other things... but hey I do enjoy it.


Final Fantasy X - Replaying this, about to leave Besaid. I've been thinking of writing a bunch of stuff about the game's plot like I did for Xenogears, but not sure if I really want to invest the time in it; FFX's narrative is dense. Also not sure if I want to do anything wacky with this file gameplaywise. We'll see.

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Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #404 on: February 14, 2016, 08:17:03 PM »
Quote from: Tidus
This is my story
FFX's narrative is dense.

Preach.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
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Luther Lansfeld

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #405 on: February 14, 2016, 09:57:05 PM »
A little more blurb on Mass Effect 3 -

Generally I think the game is strongest when you are dealing with loose ends from previous games and old conflicts between characters. I think that the stuff related to the Illusive Man, the plot surrounding the genophage, and the Rannoch plot were the best parts of the game. I generally enjoyed all of the sidequests where you revisit your characters from ME2, and although I was a little annoyed that more of those characters didn't make a more prominent appearance in the main plot, it was still good times to see all of them. The fates of Miranda and Jacob are both outlined in their sidequests, but I think it's a little silly that both are just magically not part of Cerberus in the beginning of the third game, which largely just leaves them an organization of unsympathy.

Mordin is still my favorite character in 3 even though he's not in the game for that long, which you can take from what you will. I thought Miranda was a little weaker than in the second game, though, since she loses most of her edginess that made her fun in exchange for her revenge plot. Jack is still glorious. Garrus is always glorious. The geth/quarian stuff was quite good as well, with both sides being well-represented and I even ended up choosing the geth (initially, before I was able to Jesus out of the situation). Not really what I expected.

In many ways, the endgame is somewhat what I expected, with more generic storytelling about the battle against evil taking over for the character-driven narrative of the previous sections. As a result, the last hour to hour and a half of the game are a bit of a slog, and to a lesser extent, the dungeon before that is a bit of a slog too. The ending is fairly incoherent and unsatisfying; I wasn't even 100% sure what I was selecting when I selected it (I did the Destroy option, I guess). Not the worst thing ever as hyped (if anyone wants to see a truly legendarily bad ending, read Warbreaker), but not good.

The game's weird fascination with the small child was definitely over the top and felt very ham-fisted. It seemed particularly odd to show just the child in this dream world when Mordin had just died, and I don’t really quite understand the choice there.  And of course he was in the ending. Because of course. Kai Leng is basically Frank from Shadow Hearts 3 in a game that took him seriously and was set in outer space. He in some ways wasn’t as bad as I expected, but still pretty bad. (Maybe ME fans exaggerate a small amount.)

I used an Engineer and mostly through out Turrets and Drones while shooting fireballs and lightning at bitches. As my bonus ability, I grabbed Flare, which is super good at fucking up Barrier and Shield enemies. I mostly used Garrus and Tali once I got her, going back to the classic team from ME1. Tali is pretty Engineer-like but if one Combat Drone is good, two is better. The gameplay is largely repetitive and unengaging but can occasionally keep you on your toes. Banshees are such douchebags.
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Fenrir

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #406 on: February 14, 2016, 10:32:17 PM »
I like the mystery behind opaque mechanics but Legend of Legacy is just being very repetitive right now! Why do you have to hold down X to fast forward animations.
The best parts about the game so far have been the satisfying feeling of filling a map (the game's much better than SO3 in that regard) and the little blurbs of world building when entering a new area.


Bravely Default: I got a lot farther. Here is my tentative job review:

Freelancer: 2/10. Okay, Dungeon Master helps a lot for the volcano. Treat is decent earlygame. JP UP sounds good but is very underwhelming.
Monk: 4/10. Solid offense early, lacks a real good skillset. Godlike with grinding. Not much to say about monks.
White Mage: 9/10. WM's group healing is an invaluable niche compared to items throughout the whole game (and of course it saves money) Fuck Raise though.
Black Mage: 6/10. God earlygame, falls off hard once spell costs skyrocket and your money doesn't.
Knight: 10/10. Source of the allmighty Dual Hand and Equip Sword. Cover is also nice earlygame. I checked the stat topic and it apparently becomes pretty godly with the level 14 skill. Allright.
Thief: 5/10. Best damage for a short while. Stealing isn't too hot but I always end up taking Mug anyway against bosses. It's good!
Merchant: 3/10. More money is one of the best passives you can have. Otherwise, merchant is just too high maintenance to bother with.
Spell Fencer: 8/10. Spellfencers tend to nicely replace black magic and can allow some sick combos when paired with other classes. Very useful against randoms.
Time Mage: 1/10. Super disappointing class. Some sort of alternate black mages that come past its prime, with only one element and with weak buffs.
Ranger: 6/10. Dominates a small part of the game so I have to give credit for it. Falls off hard, has an underwhelming skillset save for Targeting.
Summoner: 0/10. This game's practical joke
Valkyrie: 2/10. Eh, I'm still not impressed. Crescent Moon is an allright skill against randoms but I'd rather take something else against randoms? Jumps fill weird niches but that's about it.
Red Mage: 3/10. Terrible on paper, in practice has a few weird niches (Revenge is the main one), that make him sort of allright at points.
Salve-Maker: 7/10. Nice alternative to White Mage. Cheap full revival is the best. Turning 40 MPs Ethers into 250 MPs is really really cool for awhile. I'm sure there are really great mixes I know nothing about but I'm too lazy to bother with them.
Performer: 4/10. Surprisingly disappointing. Buffs do not matter that much or last long enough. Def debuffs are near mandatory for a short while though. The last skill is great but you have to get there. 
Pirate: 6/10. Sorta like performers except they debuffs instead of buff, and do damage too? I wish we had gotten the atk debuffs earlier than lvl 10 and 11, but I'll take it. The def debuffs don't seem to do much though.
Ninja: 9/10. Dual wielding is cool. Dual wielding assassin daggers in Chapter 3, instant killing randoms, is super super fun. The auto-evade skill also gets some use.
Swordmaster: 4/10. I really like the idea behind swordmasters, and they're good against a select few bosses, but it's hard to have a counter based skillset when there are four potential targets in the PC team. Has anyone ever been able to active "The worm turns"? The damage could see some boosts too. Also they are frauds. They only have a B in swords.
Arcanist: 9/10. Initially a summoner-level job with a bunch of nonsense skills (Raises magic damage by 1.5 if your last digit is 0?) it also gives you Status Amp and Exterminate which have been the source of 90% of my damage against lategame bosses. Lo, ye shall look upon the calamities of heresy with beclouded eyes. POIZN.
Spiritmaster: 10/10. Full MT status immunity, elemental res/immunity, a passive that boosts healing magic by 2.5x. Stillness is so overpowered I try not to use it.
Templar: 8/10. As far as I'm concerned, Templar's entire worth is Rempart. But it is so good!
Dark Knight: 9/10. Total rockstar. Tons of fun to use and really super powerful. Very annoying to train at the beginning of Chapter 5 though.
Vampire: 1/10. Thx Marivel but this is really lategame already, and I already have 3 times too many skills to choose from. I don't want to go out of my way and check faqs to get 3.1x too many skills to choose from instead.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2016, 11:10:38 PM by Fenrir »

Nephrite

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #407 on: February 14, 2016, 11:39:53 PM »
Summoner bothers me (I'm near the end of C4, for reference) because for some reason they seem to think unfocusing MT damage is worth being 40 MP when you have like 110 or so when you get it.

It isn't.

Summoner could've been a cool niche if it'd functioned like the Truth/Untruth spells maybe and had multiple hits of damage on random targets or something. The reason Summoner was so good in FF5 was because the summons were all relatively cheap and if they weren't they did a ton of damage. This game's version uh... ... ... ...yeah.

I think I'd generally agree with those assessments too (I don't have DK or Vampire yet though) but I'm not sure I really understand the point of Arcanist and Spiritmaster -- it feels like they wanted them to be cool additions to Black and White Mage, but they end up feeling kind of tacked on.

SnowFire

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #408 on: February 14, 2016, 11:41:41 PM »
Trails in the Sky SC: Finished this a week or so ago (as might be obvious from me posting a stat topic on it).  I really liked it!  As usual it's hard to talk about too much.  Gameplay wise, I very much like the slight amount of movement & positioning on top of a mostly standard RPG battle system, along with "good times to act" that you can see coming and try & juggle the turn order to favor you.  Hard difficulty was about perfect I felt, with mostly challenging boss battles that weren't pure BS, with the obvious exception of the Prologue which is very much "okay just lose these fights and click the "replay on a lower difficulty level" button."

Plot-wise, it did a lot of things I really liked.  It's the usual Trails thing of having a very large cast of other characters that all have their own personalities, plots, etc. that you get to interact with.  There's interesting and threatening situations that arise, and it's quite enjoyable seeing how they deal with them, usually.  Some random comments:

* Yes, it's "anime", but it's the good crack, not the bad crack.

* It's a little weird seeing the army portrayed so positively in this game, after they were basically the villains in FC.  They're in pretty much full-on redemption mode.  Now, there's a good & proper reason for all this, so fine, but still strange, and a little bit too bad, I wish more games acknowledged that over-powerful armies can be their own interesting threat to their own societies.

* As usual, the game does a good job of not immediately upping the stakes to "save the world" but still making things interesting.  For example, people are preparing for an international conference where there's a treaty that's going to be signed in Chapter 3, but someone has sent threatening letters off warning of disaster if this terrible treaty is signed.  Except, when you talk to people...  the treaty is not a big deal.  An ambassador outright tells you she thinks it's stupid but harmless.  The letters are weird precisely BECAUSE, well, who would be against a vague feel-good treaty?  What is there even to get upset about?  Who indeed...

* There's one very notable bit of interaction between two characters that makes just NO goddamn sense.   The years don't add up.  Oh well!

* The game - or at least the English localization - does a fine job at handling some of the stranger plot points simply by owning them.  In Game A, the character does something crazy & stupid, and everyone else acts like they're a genius?  Bleh.  In Game B, a character does something seemingly crazy & stupid, and everybody else goes 'what?  DOes he know something we don't?  Was that crazy or does he have some secret plan?", and suddenly it's totally fine.  (See: G2 Ryudo, SH2 Yuri.)  I like how the party explicitly asks some of the villains "Uhhh why are you going along with this exactly??"

* So, FC had a bit o' mind control & memory manipulation going on in the shadows, which was used as an excuse to set up some antagonists who could still be portrayed somewhat positively.  I'm pleased to report that this is much less common in SC, basically only being used once for some dumb easy boss battles.  There is one key unresolved mind control concern from FC that people who played it will know about, and SC handles that reasonably well I thought.

Anyway, there's a saying that someone / something's greatest weakness can be its greatest strength pushed too far, and I think that applies to Trails SC as far as negative things to say about its plot.  Trails' greatest strength is tons of detailed characters whom obviously received a lot of love & thought from the writers.  This is, 98% of the time, great.  The love, unfortunately, carries a bit too far in parts, most notably the villains.  The writers think the villains they wrote are cool too, which means they're very nervous about having them lose, or die permanently, or be entirely foiled.  When it works, this is great, because it feels like both the Heroes & Villains get to both act rationally and do cool things and come to some sort of draw; but other times, it feels like letting the villains off the hook too much.  They are *villains* after all, it's okay to have them lose!  I think that it may have been a mistake to make several of the Ouroboros members bloodthirsty kill-kill-kill types if the dictates of the plot structure - and the fact that the writers love all the other characters - mean they can't actually do much killing, nor can they easily be killed.  Rewrite 'em a bit more nobly and the fact that they spare people and Our Heroes spare them makes more sense.

Still, this is mostly minor quibbling, I can imagine far worse criticism of other games' villains, and at least the Trails villains show up and have slowly unfolding backstories etc., unlike some Western RPGs which go too far the other direction of having the villain show up at the end and have 3 lines.  Still a 9.5/10 game overall.  Play it!   (Or FC if you haven't played that yet.)

SnowFire

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #409 on: February 14, 2016, 11:56:14 PM »
Also, Fenrir, now that you're far enough along.  The thing you said I found amusing was the Western QTE button-pushing minigame with the crystals.  It's so simple!  How could you possibly screw it up?!  I too was puzzled by its inclusion early, but I eventually found it very rewarding, myself. :)

Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #410 on: February 15, 2016, 04:42:27 AM »
Having replayed until chapter 5ish recently.

Summoner actually is pretty good on Normal.  I used it even from Chapter 2.  It absolutely needs to be used as a secondary just for AoE with Black Magic as your main action though (maybe Time Magic???).

Later on it can pinch hit as your primary, once you have Salvemaker or some other MP management choice.  It like all other magic skills lives or dies by BM's Pierce MDef skill.

In practice it is pretty much just pay extra to cleave down some additional trash while hitting weakness on the bulkiest enemy in the party (so far it was Sweeping pretty consistently in those configurations) or for straight up cleaving down a pack weak to the same element.

Non-Elemental summon is like the biggest waste of 20mp in the game most of the time.

Edit - Don't read this tiny text Fenrir.  Snowfire, what do you think the odds of him accidentally getting the second ending is?
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 04:46:06 AM by Grefter »
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Anthony Edward Stark

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #411 on: February 15, 2016, 07:38:14 AM »
Kai Leng is one of the shittiest characters of all time.

All the worst parts of the game were written by one person with no outside input: Kai Leng, the ending, all the stuff with that little kid...

Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #412 on: February 15, 2016, 11:29:15 AM »
Tomb Raider - I am pretty sure there is a thousand or two word post in this game if I could be bothered ranting about it well after everyone that has cared has finished it years ago.  The play loop is pretty amazing and the story telling loop is pretty amazing in contrast to Uncharted 2.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Fenrir

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #413 on: February 15, 2016, 12:56:59 PM »
I do not comprehend.


Arcanist is a support for black magic, and what makes it viable lategame.
Spiritmaster boosts healing, but overall it's its own thing; a defensive class geared towards protection from elements and status.

Reading the ranking topic I see my own rankings are surprisingly close to the norm. The big differences are Performer/Vampire hype and Arcanist anti-hype.

Let me talk about arcanists. I can definitely understand the lack of hype for them. Their fashion sense is terrible, Victoria is terrible, and you need a right setup to make them work. The first time you use them, you see passives like "Doubles MP cost and multiplies damage by 1.5", think about using them with Firaga, and go "eeeeeh nope fuck this class".

I only got to see how completely nuts they are because I have an unlimited and mostly unrequited love for status effects and especially POIZN, and wanted to see whether POIZN was viable or not.
Well in Chapter 5 POIZN has a 30% hit rate against bosses, does roughly 1000 damage per round and never goes away. Already pretty allright. Then you get Exterminate, which deals 8000 damage to poiznd enemies (with no damage boosting passive) and only costs 4 MPs. It is 100% nuts. All the nuts. Dark and poizn immunity own this combo, but they're more rare than you'd think.
Arcanists have a few other tricks (I like sleepy times murdering randoms) but they always need to be paired with black or red mage. They are useless in a fiesta if you haven't gotten either of these two other jobs before. There's some arcanist/summoner synergy but I doubt arcanists are badass enough to compensate for summonerds being terrible. (On hard)

I don't really get the love for performers, especially considering how close you get them to pirates. Is there something I'm missing? Are debuffs a ton weaker than buffs? Buffing your entire team seems to yield the same results as debuffing the enemy, pirate just does damage on top of it and can be useful against randoms. As I see it, My Hero is the only thing it really has going for it. (it's pretty good, mind!)

Dark Knight is so cool. Against randoms you can just equip Hermes Shoes and go Auto Condemn + 3 super overpowered MT attacks and nuke any enemy team. If things go wrong, See You In Hell triggers and wow you've won gg.
Against bosses I like to unleash All The Damage and leave my Dark Knight at 1hp then revive her with phoenix downs so she can See You In Hell/Minus Strike forever.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 01:11:34 PM by Fenrir »

Nephrite

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #414 on: February 15, 2016, 01:33:23 PM »
Performer was how I got past stupid Eyeball boss since you can stack the defense buff twice easily!

Beyond that I just use it for the attack buff because I haven't seen much use in its other abilities. I guess the BP one to the party is okay? It's spending 2 BP for 3 BP, effectively.


Fenrir

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #415 on: February 15, 2016, 02:40:02 PM »
Yeah the defense buff did help me against the big eyeball too. It got outclassed hard later on though.

Hmmm I just found out that poison rods can POIZN with regular attacks, soooo maybe you don't actually black magic to have a wicked arcanist. Black magic is still a good fit because Group-cast POIZN is ace.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 02:41:33 PM by Fenrir »

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #416 on: February 15, 2016, 03:10:32 PM »
MT offence buffs are way more effective than defensive debuffs, and the MT defence buff can also be extremely effective in some situations, and at worst you get them earlier than the pirate stuff. But honestly I think the skillset is worth it just for the "give 1 BP to an ally" skill, incredibly versatile. Sometimes you want your Spiritmaster to get more BP, sometimes you want your healer to have more BP, sometimes you want to put that into offence. Using a Performer is better than using a second Spiritmaster, White Mage, etc.

I'm largely with you on Vampire (it would be seriously amazing if it were easier to access, because its MT damage is super-badass. Just, DK's is even better and doesn't require a 7-boss sidequest). Arcanist I knew about being able to do that on paper but hadn't tried it myself, cool to see that review.

The other major place you differ from me/consensus/etc. is over Valkyrie. Crescent Moon is just the best thing in randoms: no MP cost, damage is at worst equal to two attacks (2.5 with a spear/stick, and sticks go through a phase in C3-4 where they're the strongest 1H weapons anyway) against 2 enemies and just gets more efficient from there, and MT attacks bypass physical counters like those in Vampire Castle or those mushrooms who make spore copies of themselves. And you can stick status/elements on it. Even on HM you can easily mulch through randoms with 2-3 PCs with Crescent Moon. The rest of the class is pretty whatever (though has some uses) but who cares.

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SnowFire

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #417 on: February 15, 2016, 10:08:18 PM »
Fenrir don't read this either.  Who knows, Grefter?  The shock of careening from failure to failure has loosened Fenrir's already tenuous grasp on reality.  The man is a loose cannon.  Who knows if words like 'ending' or 'morality' even hold meaning for him?  I half expect him to play Ar tonelico 3, or reveal that he's really been playing a hack of FF14 with Bravely Default classnames.  All that remains is to see how deep the twisted roots of madness have grown in the remnants of his psyche.

Grim Fandango Remastered: Filler Vita game before FE Fates.  I am reminded at how brutally, brutally tough its puzzles are, sending me off to online hint sites...  despite having played through half the game before!  The dialog is still really funny, so good times.

Ori and the Blind Forest: Holy crap, this really is Hayao Miyazaki's Metroid, strange as it sounds.  I can see why it won basically every 2015 award for art direction: this game is *beautiful*.  It'd be worth a look on that alone even if it didn't also have solid gameplay.

I'm at about the halfway point.  Game already had one of the most epic escape scenes ever, complete with great music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGn3_V54Is .  Perfect to keep your spirits up & the pressure on despite dying repeatedly.  It's funny to compare it to some similar scenes elsewhere: Metroid games tend to not balance the time-bomb set sequences too hard since it'd be anticlimactic to lose so late.   Ducktales Remastered has one, but it's the worst kind: it's not ACTUALLY very hard, but you have very few lives, and a single mistake usually ends the attempt, and if you fail ~2-3 times, haha you get to do an entire long stage & boss again.  Ori picked a long 3 minute escape with room for error - you can screw up, several times, and keep going - but that's still balanced quite challengingly, with infinite attempts to awesome music to dull the pain.  Made it incredibly rewarding to succeed in the end.

The only flaw: had to plug in my XBox One controller to play this, and it still seems like said controller still blows up my computer?  It may have corrupted and perma-damaged my memory.  Again.  We'll see.  (I'm writing this from my laptop right now.)

Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #418 on: February 15, 2016, 11:01:34 PM »
Elf, where my current play through has halted out in a malaise of no fucks is that spot where Poles are king and you know I am compulsive enough to hoover up all the Vampire moves.

Vampire has an A in Staves.  Everyone has 2 Handed pretty much of course.  Edea is my Vampire.

The world burns.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
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Pyro

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #419 on: February 15, 2016, 11:06:11 PM »
I am saddened by the lack of respect for Summoner/Red Mage. MP-Free-In-The-Red and a speed boost results in a wounded PC doing 4x summons and randomsweeping without having to bother with much in the way of planning out a strategy. Am I the only one who did this? (admittedly it was on my second playthrough).

Performer's Auto-buff is also great because it makes all buffs permanent too.

Celestian Tales: Old North.

I played the game as Issac and rather enjoyed the story. It isn't incredibly complicated but there is a certain amount of tension running through it (is Issac going to get caught? Are the PCs going to be thrust into a situation they can't handle?). In most games this kind of tension is handled because one expects a fantasy romp with lots of monster-slaying, but the human focus of Old North makes things seem less comfortable. It manages to be 'edgy' in the sense that it is gritty at times and people die, but it doesn't feel like it oversold it to the point where everyone is horrible. A good place to be in storytelling.

Didn't care too much about the setting although I thought it was well constructed. There is an actual governing coalition that exists beyond the King and his wicked advisor or some such. Lords, vassal lords, heirs, allied kingdom friction and so on. That all of this is taking place offscreen gives a sense of scale to it... it allows for more of a fly-on-the-wall feeling than one where you are controlling the 'good guy' decision makers and have to grind your teeth when they do something stupid. Speaking of which that is another thing I like... The PCs are generally reasonable and relatable. I enjoyed them all. Reynard was annoying but he grew on me. Ylliana I thought I would dislike but for the fact that she sticks to her job in spite of the bad stuff going down.

The combat system was a ton of fun. I loved getting new skills to play with and swapping up party formations to see what would happen. And some of the skills were a joy to play with... Reynard's Adrenaline being refreshable was cool (but not broken since stun/poison/bleed could get right through it). Issac's skills made for awesome ST overkill in a game where bosses aren't all that durable. Aria's defensive and healing skills were very potent and helped turn random encounters from concerning to controllable. Lucienne's threat-management was something out of an MMORPG (which is unusual in this style of JRPG-like game), and Ylliane had some incredible passives (like initiative and all allies start with +1 Stamina) and a god-tier ultimate move. Reynard and Camille were at least decent enough to have MT damage, and healing after every battle made Reynard's 'consume 1/2 HP for an ultimate strike' a more viable option. Camille could have been a bit stronger, but having the best initiative is nice for randoms.


Anthony Edward Stark

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #420 on: February 15, 2016, 11:36:52 PM »
Tomb Raider - I am pretty sure there is a thousand or two word post in this game if I could be bothered ranting about it well after everyone that has cared has finished it years ago.  The play loop is pretty amazing and the story telling loop is pretty amazing in contrast to Uncharted 2.

The beginning feels weirdly like a snuff film though.

Fenrir

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #421 on: February 15, 2016, 11:56:06 PM »
I am very trustworthy so I'm not going to check that text but I'm going to plot your imminent demise


Pyro, Summoners have the lowest speed so you can only get good things out of this combo with summoning as a passive ability. It's also a lot of work! How do you get to low HPs easily?

Wait when did sticks get so good? I guess Valkyrie is not that bad but you should just literally only use the first skill and not have anyone actually use the class. It has a short period after getting the job with shitty spears only, and nothing gotten late in the class justifies it.

I just read about the s1ckest combo in Bravely Default which also involves POIZN (!!!). Have BP Recovery equipped on everyone (get 2 BPs when hit by an ailment, costs 1 slot, Red Mage JL9) and Group-cast 3 POIZN + Esuna on your own team.
= One character spends 4 BPs and everybody gets 6 BP from it.

Random Consonant

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #422 on: February 16, 2016, 01:50:52 AM »
Quote
Summoner: 0/10. This game's practical joke

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Stick hype is basically storebought Iron Pole in C3 and the free Diamond Staff you pick up somewhere in either C3-4, which are largely better than what you can get in terms of spears around that point.  Valk is sill Crescent Moon/10 and if that weren't a thing it'd probably struggle to beat the likes of Freelancer and Merchant though.

Quote
I am saddened by the lack of respect for Summoner/Red Mage. MP-Free-In-The-Red and a speed boost results in a wounded PC doing 4x summons and randomsweeping without having to bother with much in the way of planning out a strategy. Am I the only one who did this? (admittedly it was on my second playthrough).

Yes.  Yes you probably are.

Grefter

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #423 on: February 16, 2016, 01:54:57 AM »
The beginning feels weirdly like a snuff film though.

The entire game so far is pretty much that sequence where Nathan wakes up bleeding out in a train that progressively falls down the cliff.

It works for completely different reasons.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

The Duck

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Re: What Games are you playing 2016?
« Reply #424 on: February 16, 2016, 01:32:08 PM »
That Dragon, Cancer - I did end up playing this and it is not a perfect experience by any means, but it is something very personal and has quite a lot of value to me in due to its subject matter. Its highs are really affecting but its lows are kind of a nuisance. I do think that it is something that did not necessarily need to be a game, and while there are some instances where having gameplay and choice is meaningful, there are pacing issues that ultimately hinder the final experience.

*The opening scene also involves you playing with Joel at a playground and the main points of interaction involve doing things like being on a swing or going down a slide, and there is a sense as a player that you can just stay in this forever and part of me really wanted to, but it was effective in showing that moments like this are precious but fleeting.
*At some points, the interactivity is melded with what the director is wanting to convey in kind of a smart way, like when the son with cancer (Joel) is crying and in pain and there is essentially nothing that you can do to assuage him. You can try to mess around with everything in the room you can to calm him down, but the crying continues unabated and there is this sense of helplessness that you get because nothing you do works. The cries are all recordings from Joel the actual son, so there is some verisimilitude here.
*There is another scene where the parents are talking to doctors and you can get the inner thinking of both parents, the doctor, and the nurse, and this is really effective because it involves giving and receiving the worst possible news you can hear.
*When the game is grounded in reality, it is very effective in its delivering its message. However, it much less effective when things are more abstract and there are several sequences where you are interacting with an abstraction of cancer or a metaphor where it seems to lose the thread. Probably about half of the vignettes are more abstract and a lot of them didn't land well very well.

One of the best touches in the game happens where you start in a hospital ward and you read personalized messages from kickstarter backers. Each message is personally meaningful and I spent probably a half hour just going through the entire ward reading through each one, and I did so dutifully because I knew each one was associated with a great deal of personalized pain and grief, with dreams of futures that can never be realized or a remembrance of a life lived well together. Some plead for more time or convey the sadness of achieving new milestones but not having someone there to experience it with you or be happy. As a document of shared grief and bringing the feelings of those who have experienced loss together, it is a brilliant stroke. I cried quite a bit because these messages of loss were all things I have felt and experienced and could easily empathize with. This was a real highlight and alone made the experience worthwhile for me.

Where this becomes slightly ineffective is in moments where little things like how you interact with things are not quite as smooth as they should be. The way that you interact with things is a little awkward and you can often end up interacting with the wrong things. This gets in the way when you are trying to read a certain card and end up picking up with something you've already read. This seems like a minor quibble but it really does take you out of the experience. There is a similar sequence where you are a bird of some sort and you can listen to the mother's diary entries, which involve her struggling to contextualize her faith with what is happening to their son and their family. These are also pretty poignant but again, the awkward means of interactivity means you end up having to chase these down or end up choosing the wrong thing, which is a pace killer.

The other thing that will be a little contentious is that the lead designer (Ryan) and his wife (Amy) are Christian and talk a lot about their faith. They don't proselytize, but they are open about how important their religion is and how it informs how they cope and grieve. Amy generally sticks with her faith, but Ryan seems to have moments where his faith is shaken. There is a lot of talk about how they are hoping for a miracle as well and how Joel was already a miracle since he survived as long as he did. I don't begrudge anyone their faith and this is their personal story so I wasn't especially bothered by these portions, but it also wasn't something that I could personally relate to. I can also see how it could be offputting, as there are parts that are a little hokey and can come off as Christian rock-y. The Richard Dawkins-esque (praying for recovery from your stroke buddy) reaction from rabid atheists seems to miss the point.

Without some of these hitches, That Dragon, Cancer could have been an unreservedly great experience. As is, it does have major flaws. It also has moments that resonate like nothing I have experienced in a game, things that were absolutely devastating but at the same time cathartic for me. Whether its messages were best conveyed in a game is an open question, but it is probably something that needed to be made regardless of format. More things like this should exist because it is earnest and nakedly honest and has things to say, things worth hearing. I do wish it had cleaned up some of the flawed aspects because then I would be telling everyone to play it, but as is I would have to be a little more selective about recommending it. I think anyone who has gone through loss or have had a loved one with a protracted illness will be able to relate to this but I can also see understand how other things like being a parent would prevent someone from ever wanting to see what this game has to say.