What Games are you Playing 2017?

[Niu]

Persona 5:

Beat this. Akechi is a good and nuanced, well-implemented character. He is not a bargain-bin Light Yagami.

Everything else about this game is great. Even the grindy bits were more fun than usual. I actually got all the first-run super-personas.

Adults in the Persona universe are shitty, but no one is more illogically shitty than the main character's own unseen parents. How dare he stop that rape from happening! It's poor choices like that which are causing the downfall of our youth. I like that the happy ending is that your friends are like "your parents suck, we're basically adopting you instead."

uhwut on EDIT:Akechi.

As for his parents... we never really get the sense of how they felt about it. They sent him to away until the story died down, sure. That's not really an awful reaction. We're never told that his parents did it out of spite or anything. We're also not told much positive stuff about them, but we're not told much of anything about them at all. It's a weird gap there they should've filled. Granted, MOST of the adult figures had that whole reaction, so it's not a far cry to assume the parents did too.

EDIT: Although I'm recalling we do get some bits from Hierophant at the beginning, but... it's hard to tell if he's being serious or just ballbusting. He is kindof a dick in the beginning

Yeah, Sojiro is pretty awful himself. He just gets enough screentime to improve. Creepy mad doctor, drunken reporter who pretends to date someone underaged, and the teacher who moonlights as a maid masseuse for her teenaged student are right up there in the 'nope, you're pretty terrible adults' category. Some of them have legitimately interesting social links, but they're always constantly brought down by these unsavory pederastic relationships they have with Akira.

I think the only adult in the game that was genuinely a good person the entire time was the Politician. Strange.

As for Akechi - I think his actual backstory and motives are fine. I think the writers' attempts at making him seem genuinely innocent for most of the game, and then sympathetic once they do the poorly-handled reveal is what gives me such distaste for him.

Like... basically the first line of the game is about how 'one of your friends betrayed you.' And then basically from the moment Akechi appears on screen it's like... 'Oh it's you. It's so obviously you, it's written all over your trope.'

Adachi he is not.

Akechi should not be sympathetic in the first place. That's where the problem is.
You should not even attempt to pity someone who has that many death counts in his hand only because he angst too much.
And how the plot try to write him as reliable to the thieves is just outright bullshit.
Having a bad dad is one thing, but thinking it is okay to kill is another.

BTW, I thought pederasty refers only to sexual relationship of two males only.

[Grefter]

No, but it is definitely part of the queer fear people have with gay men.  It is easily the most frequent context you will have seen it in.

Also you don't me to dig at DJ's horrible taste in video game men (IRL he is batting high though).

[DjinnAndTonic]

But I said I liked Sojiro? He's just fucking awful at first.

And anyone who pairs Curry with Coffee isn't actual dating material.

[Grefter]

He's Just a Friend.  Bangable from Scene 1 tho.

The sequence is coffee, mineral water, curry.  Palate cleanser then the mountain of flavour (disclaimer even I haven't)

Edit - and yeah way way more about Akechi and Adachi other than the memes (Sojiro is my personification of an aspect of my personality and I am not your type, but I think "Fuck Me" all the time).  My opinion of them is much more inverted, Akechi made me eye roll at his drawn out reveal and Adachi I was playing Golden where his social link is hanging out with Sopko.

[AndrewRogue]

Hm. Sure. I've played some games.

Persona 5: Cleared this out a couple weeks ago with Ashley. This was pretty much our lives for about 3 months. Good game and well worth the wait. Still definitely Persona, for all the positives and negatives that carries with it. I think I ultimately land in the position of liking this better than 3 & 4, but I'm going off pure memory. Ultimately there are definitely things those games do better, but I think P5 is just the better, cohesive package. Still could use a bit of a more engaging gameplay update as most of the cool stuff in 5 was about making fights faster.

Nier Automata: One of the most exciting gaming experiences of the year. It definitely has some seriously rough edges between Yoko Taro jank and Platinum jank, B Path is really meh, and some other oddball issues, but, honestly, the experience is pretty much unparalleled. The game kept me guessing every step of the way and I was never quite sure what was going to happen next (including that INCREDIBLE midgame twist). Just so much cool stuff in actual narrative design and the weird mechanics/story marriages. Plus, that ending is beautiful. Still need to clear sidequests out, though. Probably my game of the year currently.

BlazBlue: Central Fiction: The story of Ragna za Bloodedge draws to a close in a really, really, really long visual novel. It was BlazBlue. There was a lot of fun stuff, and a lot of "OH MY GOD STOP REPEATING YOURSELVES." A few characters kinda dropped off plot more than expected, but the overall story was pretty satisfying. I think. Maybe. Pretty sure I understood it. Mostly. *sighs and goes to look at a wiki* Also actually playing the fighting game a bit. Not too hard, but messing around and finding some mains to play.

Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero: I think I liked this better than Pirate's Curse, but it has a lot of problems - primarily that the transformations are like, criminally underused and that while it FELT a bit more platformer to me (which I liked), I did miss having the Metroidvania map for backtracking. Beautiful fucking game though. Gorgeous, gorgeous sprite/vector work. Just... yeah. Wish you got way more use out of the transformations. Will probably go back and beat the DLC.

Project Diva Future Tone: Currently working my through every song on hard (85 remain) and starting to tackle low Extremes. Can only handle 7/.5 stars erratically at that level.

[DjinnAndTonic]

He's Just a Friend.  Bangable from Scene 1 tho.

The sequence is coffee, mineral water, curry.  Palate cleanser then the mountain of flavour (disclaimer even I haven't)

Edit - and yeah way way more about Akechi and Adachi other than the memes (Sojiro is my personification of an aspect of my personality and I am not your type, but I think "Fuck Me" all the time).  My opinion of them is much more inverted, Akechi made me eye roll at his drawn out reveal and Adachi I was playing Golden where his social link is hanging out with Sopko.

It's mostly just the borderline child abuse in the first couple months that soured me on Sojiro. Seriously, just because he's on probation, it doesn't mean he deserves living in a Japanese attic. (Filled with the olfactory assault of coffee and curry constantly...) He's just constantly acerbic to this child he's never met. And I would accept that for the first -day-, since he's aware of the alleged assault case. But they make it clear that he's heard Akira's side of the story too. You can argue he's skeptical since he doesn't know Akira well yet, but it's still no way to treat an at-risk child, much less a generally-agreeable child like Akira.

When he eventually calms down on the 'You're a burden to everyone in your life' bit, he's actually a cool guy. And I get what they were going for, since the player can 'win over' Sojiro, the relationship is more satisfying and dynamic.

But as someone whose primary job in life revolves around childcare, he's kinda tainted by a really poor first impression, even if the character ends up in a very endearing place.

[Ranmilia]

Posts, huh.  Feels like my tastes have gone wayyyy off from most other folks here, but sure, have some recaps:

My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!! or, Ladykiller in a Bind

Christine Love, author of the also-excellent Digital: A Love Story, Analogue: a Hate Story, and Hate Plus, finally finished came out with presented ... uh... that much-hyped visual novel she spent years working on, people can buy it and read it now.  Actually, that's been the case for several months now, but I dragged my heels on posting about it due to its somewhat rocky release.  But it's out, available on Steam and Humble Store, gone on sale now and then, and looks to be in a stable version.

And it's very, very good!  The game's raked in several major awards so far, is on course for more, and they're very well deserved.  A recent reread only increased my regard for the title.  While not without its faults, Ladykiller pushes the boundaries of the modern VN market, indie games, game writing, and counterculture fiction in truly remarkable ways.  In the posts right above this one, we can already see some of its effects: Dream Daddy wouldn't be on Steam or in the public eye if Ladykiller hadn't broken the ground for it.

But I haven't talked about the substance of the game at all yet.  What, exactly, is Ladykiller?  ... uh.  Well.  It's.  Hm.  Uh.  That's a good question.  Let's see.

It's a character-driven comedy/drama, styled vaguely after Persona series social links and Shakespearean comedy, about romance, relationships, sex, more sex, society, kink, geek culture, good alcohol, anime, Instagram, and how to come out as transgender to an annoying ex.  In the day segments, take your free choice of several colorful characters to interact with.  Make friends, shoot hoops, get the Nerd started on Spock vs Kirk!  Mix, mingle and pursue their various storylines as you wish.  Every night, you can choose your major romantic route (or less romantic, if you prefer) between the titular Domme Beauty, Geeky Stalker, or both.  Of course, you're here impersonating your rich brother, so you'll have to decide who to tell and step carefully to avoid ruining his social life!

It's also a high stakes game of social politics among the next generation of Canada's elite, wherein you can flatter, bribe, lie (a lot), tell the truth, orate, persuade, backstab, blackmail, extort, seduce, be seduced, fake being seduced, prostitute yourself, prostitute others, steal secrets, hack phones, pull cons long and short, perform hostile takeovers of billion-dollar media conglomerates, get wildly rich, burn five million dollars out of pure spite, and give it all up to ride into the sunset on a kickin' rad motorcycle.  Of course, you can also ignore the politics, but your brother might've had his fingers in a lot of pies...

Oh, and all of the above actually happened last week, and now, you're narrating it to your radical terrorist interrogators as you sit tied up (in the unsexy way) at gunpoint in the cold depths of an abandoned oil rig.  (Except riding into the sunset, that only happens if you survive.)  Hope you picked up some tips on how to deal with a genre swap into Metal Gear.

If you're turned off by visual novel formats, know that Ladykiller is exceptionally user-friendly.  Unlike most games, which present you with set dialogue choices at set intervals, here you're given time- and context-sensitive options to interject, which appear and disappear independently as the conversation flows.  Including, in most cases, the option to say nothing and just go with the flow.  Lines are marked for tone, always show you if they'll unlock further options or other mechanical consequences (like raising suspicion that you aren't your brother), and options will grey out to let you know when they're about to disappear.  The sexual content is all clearly marked with appropriate warnings and opt-outs.  Mechanically, it's hard to go back to other VNs afterwards.  Every game should have systems this good!

The writing content, as you might have gathered by now, is simply fantastic.  It's so good that it feels almost transgressive - not only in the subjects it deals with, but how it deals with them.  Love's particular blend of humor, melodrama and emotional seriousness might not be for everyone, but it's a pretty big hit for me, and I suspect the same would be true for many people on this forum. 

That's not to say it's perfect, of course.  One particularly controversial scene was outright removed shortly after the Steam release, which disappointed me and somewhat tampers the whole "fearless and uncensored, queer developers presenting authentic queer experiences" hype it had going on.  Folks are also quick to point out the inherent contradiction in a game that supposedly advocates sexual consent and good practices thereof, but is based around bangin' hotties while lying to people about your identity.  The developer's line on this is "we handwave that particular point as part of the comedy-fantasy aspect; obviously it would be a total no-go IRL, but nobody could actually pull off this Hollywood twin swap in reality, so we're okay with presenting it as a fantasy."  (And every character you can sexually interact with either already knows the truth, is told before anything happens, or finds out on their own and is okay with it.)  For me that's enough to not be objectionable, but opinions on such sensitive topics will vary.

Anyway - Ladykiller in a Bind may or may not be people's cup of tea, and is definitely for mature audiences, but I highly recommend at least checking it out. 

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Pocket Mirror

RPGmaker fantasy not-quite-horror adventure, high production values.  Some folks I know had hands in this, it's no Ib but still very good for the genre.

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Open Sorcery

I think I hyped the original web version of this a while back.  It's been expanded and improved.  Strong stuff, very entertaining.  I don't think I can do a better job describing it than the site does. 

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Touhou 16: Hidden Star in Four Seasons

Took a bit of adjustment, but it's a pretty good game.  Good music.  Slightly disappointed in how few new characters it has, but eh.  Gameplay's on the more unusual side for the series, a "flash bomb" system at lower difficulties that at higher levels becomes a self-sustaining "shield" type mechanic, similar to games like Mars Matrix, Samidare and Alternative Sphere.  I'm a little lukewarm on bullet-eating systems that make Lunatic clears arguably easier than Normal ones.  Not sure how much I'll be coming back to this title in the future, but it's certainly not a bad experiment.

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Friday the 13th: The Game

Haven't been playing this so much as watching it, but it seems quite fun.

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Layers of Fear

Good horror game.  Standard haunted house fare, look triggers, stuff based on P.T., all that.  Not much in the way of choices or secrets, more of a linear thrill ride, but it brings the spooks.

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Outlast 2

This game sucks.  Takes everything that made the first Outlast good and throws it out the window.  No attention to detail, no carefully cohesive atmosphere, no environment design.  Just falls into the exact pitfalls that made people hate generic horror games of the '00s.

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Link to the Past Randomizer

Randomizers are fantastic.  This one in particular grew very popular, and deservedly so.  It turns out that LttP has very good metroidvania-style design, it just doesn't put it to any use in the vanilla game.

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PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (aka PUBG)

The latest and greatest in the genre of Battle Royale inspired mass survival FPS.  ~100 players get dropped on a large, lovingly detailed island map, with weapons and gear scattered around.  Find stuff, wander around while an electric death field slowly constricts the play area, snipe people, don't get sniped, try and be the sole survivor. 

Iyashikei FPS seems like a contradiction in terms, but that's really the best encapsulation of what these games bring to the table for me.  Other than the starts and ends of rounds, most of the playtime is spend patiently wandering the beautiful deserted landscapes, interacting with others as little as possible and generally at a great distance.  PUBG in particular has rain rounds which are just the best thing.  Great balance of tension and relaxation.

[Grefter]

Well yeah Sojiro is terrible to this stranger kid he barely knows especially at the start because the theme is that adults are fucking horrible.   If they hadn't made the motions of Sojiro being a womanizing piece of shit only out to chase tail who hates kids you might actually sympathize with an adult for the first 1/4 of the game!   I get your sentiment and personal experience is always going to colour your taste in characters, so yeah that all makes sense.  Like I said though, the non-joking part was way more about Adechi and Akachi (seriously they needed to not go with a name that literally rhymed).


I thought everyone would have heard of Ladykiller in a Bind at least by name, but *shrug*.

You solo queueing in PUBG Alexchan or done groups?  Groups is a different dynamic entirely.  None of it is for me, but groups makes it way less tense moment to moment and way more hanging out with the boys.

[Random Consonant]

Persona 5 - Played this, not as good as I'd have hoped for since it still -is- nuPersona with all the questionable gameplay decisions involved (though at least it has less of them than P3/P4 did since Atlus -finally- stopped huffing their own farts where party swapping/leaked EXP is concerned and combat is generally faster), the cast isn't quite as good as I'd have liked it to be since while it hits some high highs (nthing Makoto hype, Sojiro/Futaba end up p. good as well) it has some pretty low lows (nthing Ryuji dislike, nthing sentiment that Mishima is human garbage) and man does it fizzle out by crawling up its own ass in the end (but then, what SMT game doesn't at some point), but still pretty good speaking as someone who kinda hated P3 and didn't really like P4 either. 

[NotMiki]

It's mostly just the borderline child abuse in the first couple months that soured me on Sojiro. Seriously, just because he's on probation, it doesn't mean he deserves living in a Japanese attic. (Filled with the olfactory assault of coffee and curry constantly...) He's just constantly acerbic to this child he's never met. And I would accept that for the first -day-, since he's aware of the alleged assault case. But they make it clear that he's heard Akira's side of the story too. You can argue he's skeptical since he doesn't know Akira well yet, but it's still no way to treat an at-risk child, much less a generally-agreeable child like Akira.

I wonder if there are really any Japanese RPGs at all that treat teenagers as kids instead of as miniature adults?

[SnowFire]

Djinn:
Re the parents: Eh.  It's an important narrative tool to either get the parents out of the way, or else actually own it and make them major characters who have influence on Our Young Hero's life.  There's a reason why so many heroes are orphans, or else have their father be some grand adventurer who disappeared on some last quest!  But that has a tragic note that you don't want overshadowing characters in many stories, and is also kinda cliche, so...   yeah.  The parents don't appear even enough for the player to have strong opinions of them because it isn't what P5 wants you to think about, it wants to have Our Hero, abandoned and alone, against the world as a miniature adult.  It would almost be worse if they had the parents a LITTLE involved but not much, with some kind of bland phone call every month.  (Trails of Cold Steel has a variant of this problem with the Rean - Elise relationship...  we're supposed to believe they have this Strong Sibling Bond, but Rean blatantly never bothers to say hi to his sister for months at a time despite her being an hour train ride away, but the plot doesn't "own" this and imply they've gone their own ways and are Not Actually That Close anymore.  Well, they own it as far as Elise whining about this fact, at least, I guess, but not from the Rean side.)

As a side note, something that made me far more interested in P5 than other Persona games was how ludicrously hostile the entire world was to Our Hero, at least at first.  The constant instant adoration that slightly bland main characters get in various Japanese media makes this a very welcome change of pace, so even if the parents are horrible, that's great.  (And heck, even then, there's stuff like "Our Hero gives all of the cast a Personal Pep Talk and revitalizes their fighting spirit!!1!" which rubs me the wrong way, so there's more progress to be made here.)

Re Akechi:
Something I liked about Akechi which does set him a bit apart from a Light type character is that he's a bit of a fraud.  He isn't ACTUALLY a master detective in high school.  He's cheating via indirectly COMMITTING crimes via superpowers then "solving" his own mess.  His own motivations are far less rational than you might expect, too.  I thought that was kind of cool, that the game sorta tears him down after building him up as this coldly competent and rational sort, lol no he's an angsty kid who copes with it less well than Our Heroes.

That said, I agree with Niu about how he's played far too sympathetically toward the end.  I still never did my P5 wrap-up post, I should save that for there.

An endless stream of tears from WoW and HotS aren't very interesting from me.

I'm surprised there's even time for HotS salt, the games end so fast.  I remember queueing with metroid composite, whose ELO was way higher than my scrub level, with the result being something like "lose 3 objective fights in a row -> huge death timers, base in flames -> gg."  League of Legends, you can sometimes get stuck in situations where it's totally over but it takes 15 minutes to clean up (which is great if there's a comeback, less so if the team starts sniping each other for losing lane or not ganking enough).

[Niu]

BlazBlue: Central Fiction: The story of Ragna za Bloodedge draws to a close in a really, really, really long visual novel. It was BlazBlue. There was a lot of fun stuff, and a lot of "OH MY GOD STOP REPEATING YOURSELVES." A few characters kinda dropped off plot more than expected, but the overall story was pretty satisfying. I think. Maybe. Pretty sure I understood it. Mostly. *sighs and goes to look at a wiki* Also actually playing the fighting game a bit. Not too hard, but messing around and finding some mains to play.

Stop, no, why?
Why look at the wiki filled with false info when I am right here.

[The Duck]

Pyre - the new Supergiant Games thing.  Art is beautiful, story is a bit less intense this time, settting feels kind of pre-collapse Bastion?  It is still about a society in decline, but Armageddon scenario hasn't hit yet.

Gameplay, it is Fantasy 3v3 basketball.

You are playing 3v3 basketball to free you party from a wasteland and to return them to a decadent collapsing Rome.

I have freed my first party member as well

I really like this game. I actually didn't connect 100% with the other Supergiant games for some reason. I always like their art design and music but something didn't quite click with Bastion. Transistor I liked more but the narrative cohesion wasn't really there for me. Here, there is a really good integration of story and gameplay. Like Gref says, it is basically like fantasy basketball with some combat aspects since you can banish other players, and the game has a really varied roster where all the characters are viable and useful after you get used to their playing style. I gravitated towards the speedsters (Rukey, Gilman, Ti'zo, Pamitha) and enjoyed blitzing, although that likely works better against the AI than it does against human players. Like with other Supergiant games, there are interesting gameplay choices between the two skill trees and they are fairly well balanced.

The main crux of it comes in the Liberation Rites, where two teams play to compete to escape the underground. You have to choose amongst your most three experienced players and it becomes an insidiously difficult choice because those are the ones who you likely have a good deal of familiarity with and who you've used the most throughout the campaign. So if you succeed, your character is sent up and you cannot use them ever again and your team will become weaker. But there is also the concept that winning may not be the best option. There are some opposing teams that are fairly sympathetic and have good cases that they deserve liberation as well (or your characters have personal interactions/relationships with them where they secretly hope that your opponent will win), and throwing matches will allow them to ascend instead and you never face that team again.

The Oregon Trail aspect of it actually isn't as well fleshed out as it could be, but I can understand that to some extent because your roster is so flexible.

I really recommend Pyre. It's relatively cheap and there isn't anything like it in terms of gameplay or style.

[superaielman]

X-Com 2 - I started up a play on super easy with a save scum mod (WHY WAS THIS NOT IN BASE GAME?  Those options added to EW were greeeeat) because I am not doing a proper X-Com brain but yeah.  I am too early to have encountered any actual WotC changes, but I am doing DLC I haven't encountered before.  Stopped just on the pull of Viper King from Alien Hunters DLC, I am soooo reloading back a turn and killing that SOB first encounters. Frost Grenade going to have to be busted out for the kill and not the opener like I did first try.

If you're going to save scum it, you can execute rulers IIRC. The WOTC expansion looks really well done. The developers were inspired by the fan mods, they took a lot of ideas from them.

[Cmdr_King]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The 3rd-  And thus I am as caught up on Trails as Xseed allows me to be.

I think this might be the first time a final dungeon in a Trails game has been one of my favorite parts in a gameplay sense.  Each little mini dungeon scales exp really nicely so it really gives you a good sense of "okay just do whatever and see what each character can really do."  Helps that none of them are really soul-crushing.  I did have one reset/offset on the final, which actually came down to not realizing until then the silly thing had Faint attached to it's physicals (Grail Sphere does that), then making a really big derp that got the only character not caught up in it dead.

Kevin's story's pretty alright.  It loses something from the shift in format I feel like, but it does make sense since he doesn't have the whole coming of age aspect woven into it.

But really the game is kinda a sendoff to (most of) the Sky cast, although of course any of them can (and some do) return in the later games they had already decided to make at this point.  To that end, we're actually going to mostly talk about the Doors.

Moon 1- Orbal Gear?!  Erika Russel is the most anime thing in this series.  That is impressive after things like Alisa R., Agent of Mystery and all things Millium.

Moon 2- How Shera met Aina.  The content of the moon doors relative to the other ones is strange to me.  I mean, with one exceptoin they are the only ones with particular gameplay content, but it's largely wandering about.  Just kinda odd.

Moon 3- Misadventures of a Liberlian Schoolgirl.  While Kloe's the narrator and she does get some development here... nah, this is a vessel to introduce Lechter.  Honestly the degree to which Falcom seems to love the guy says to me the totally off the wall fan theory that he's like Anguis IV or whatever is extremely plausible.  Falcom is waaaaaay too into their supervillain organization.

Moon 4- Joshua's First Week.  There are threeish Doors that would justify the writing in the game even if they'd completely fumbled Kevin's story in the main plot (they don't, it's good, but).  Baby Estelle is the best.

Moon 5- I don't have anything pithy for this one.  It's debatable how literal the meat part of the story is meant to be taken, although it's certainly plausible.  Actually I kinda like the suggestion that this is one of the most direct suggestions of how the metaphysics of Trails works, but deliberately obscured by the child perspective.  It's an interesting idea, although I can see where people wouldn't like it since the series does generally ground stuff in science before adding mysteries on top of it rather than just diving in.

Gonna skip the Sun doors.  Sun 1 has a brief epilogue for Josette, but who cares about Josette.

Star 1- Julia's Fanclub.  Oh hey, a straight comedic bit.  Okay not entirely, but y'know, entirely.

Star 2- Report: Pillars of Salt.  Mostly here to add a twist to the knife from the villain's final demise in SC... although it does add some fuel for further Church stuff later down the line I suppose.

Star 3- SC's Farewell Dinner.  Second of those ones that justify the game.  I really adore how Kloe ends up character wise in the games, and at its core this is her being herself.  It's also the first time in the game you're likely to have lines from Estelle, and damn if I didn't suddenly realize how much I was missing her as a viewpoint character when she came in.

Star 4- Trails of Nested Vipers: Chapter 0.  Basically the only Zin-centric content in the game, and he's still not really the main character of it.  Funny that.

Star 5- Cuteness IS Justice.

Star 6- Did you learn how to play the game.  It's sorta no wonder they only use Agate in the context of the Russels and their abuse now: he's just kinda boring on his own, even through the lens of people that we've never seen much of.

Star 7- Report: The History of Science.  Unlike the other foreshadow-y ones, this doesn't directly touch on the likely direction of future events, but it does create some terminology for later use.  It's also probably the only one where I suspect this is from the existing series bible at this point, rather than written for 3rd.

Star 8- Trails of Cold Steel: Chapter 0.  This one is mostly interesting because we actually DO have existing Cold Steel games now, which I've already played, so there's a whole other dynamic to it.  Osbourne's general acceptance of challenge and potential treachery is already here fully formed, rather than just setting him up as invincible schemer in his first real appearance.  Way better than the more ambiguous setup for Calvard material.

Star 9-  No you weren't just imagining it with Anelace.  Although I think she pulls it off waaaaay better than Angelica.

Star 10- Report: Fighting Super Robot Prototype.  This one plays into Crossbell more than anything else from what I can tell, which I don't have direct experience with.  It does however gain a few extra layers in light of the backstory of the prototypes pilot.

Star 11- Report: Who IS Blueblanc.

Star 12- Okay so we need SOME Richard content.  They do allude to some crossbell stuff (like without future knowledge, you'd probably pick up by this point in the game that Crossbell, rather than Erebonia or Calvard, was the actual next area of interest), but mostly it's a way of wrapping up his story beyond basic "well he was pardoned so sure, hurray" stuff.

Star 13- Report: FC's Great Off Screen War.  Like I think the only thing they were saying here was "no, we AREN'T making the What Cassius Was Doing in FC game, stop asking".

Star 14- FORESHADOWOLOGY.  aka Meet Ouroboros, Starring Campanella.  This one is a lot of fun to come back to because we actually have faces and real names to put to three of these Anguis, and the degree with which they get across the personalities of those characters in just a handful of lines in this game is rather amazing.  I do wonder if they actually have series bible entries for the other three, wild theories about Lechter notwithstanding, but I think it's safe to say that yeah, they did have some pretty good notes about Abyss, Professor and Steel even at this date. 

Star 15- MINDBREAK.  Nah we're keeping that name.  So Dissociative Identity Disorder has always fascinated me, possibly because Xenogears is a defining aspect of my worldview.  So use of it here was kinda immediately apparent, especially with the visual cues and all.  But I can't remember a time it was used as a device... and then FAILS.  Like, causes problems because creating a personality that exists to be tortured tends to make an unstable violent personality, yeah.  But no, in Renne's case the actual alternate personalities all dissolve at the midpoint of the story and leave it back to just her.  I don't think I've ever seen that before.
I am... genuinely stunned they actually used that splash image in the actual game.

As noted this also adds some layers to the Pater-Mater door.  Essentially, whatever the precise mechanisms, the robot is another personality of Renne's, which is embodied in the robot.  Also suggests some horrible things about some of what I know about Crossbell, but of course Crossbell IS basically the mad science edition of the Zemuria Saga soooo.

But yeah, a few scenes here and there actually got me, which I didn't expect all told.  9/10.

[SnowFire]

Haven't played 3rd yet, but...

Star 3- SC's Farewell Dinner.  Second of those ones that justify the game.  I really adore how Kloe ends up character wise in the games, and at its core this is her being herself.

Good to hear, since Kloe was one of the few really notable dropped balls in SC.  I get that it's a super-long game already, but it felt like they gave her the beginning of a plot arc then had absolutely no idea what to do next.  "I am having doubts about my ability to lead" (for no particular reason, just jitters) -> ??.  Granted, I was worried for a bit that was going to end with "I've decided to renounce my claim on the throne to go be an adventurer!" or the like which they avoided at least, but doing nothing instead was odd.  (Okay, they threw in some affirmation that royals Really Are Special due to hailing from scientist Amaterasu or whatevs, but that doesn't really count.)

Star 9-  No you weren't just imagining it with Anelace.  Although I think she pulls it off waaaaay better than Angelica.

A very low bar to clear, but that's something!

[Grefter]

So I broke up with Hearthstone so now random weird phone games are my new best friend.

Egglia - I jumped straight into this.  It is a bit pricey, but is a pay all at once no microtrabsaction game that uses some standard mobile game stuff well.  Your companions (two people you bring along to dungoens just regret random loot)have stamina meters to pace your play, but you have enough stamina on one companion to do 3/4 maps with them and there is tons of companions.  You plant things and wait for them to hatch to get items and to pull spirits Gacha style, but it is weighted in your flavour heavily and you more just progressively pull from better pools.

Gameplay itself is a pretty mindless grinds get items, unlock stuff, build a town while dumb jokes are made.  The jokes are pretty smile out loud at how dumb they are, but it works.  Dungeons are simple 5ish minute jaunts where you roll a D6 to move.  Higher rolls also mean you do more damage if you attack something.   You can cast spells based on spirits you have equipped, usually 4/5 mana and you gain 1 mana per turn.  Honestly sometimes just ignoring enemies and dashing for loot is better unless you want food items.  The only complaint I have is that I wish you could see enemy stats so you could make more informed decisions.  Going in blind is a total crapshoot.


So it is a light breezy expensive phone game, why do I bring it up other than liking someone getting the pacing mechanics I like in phone games without the F2P economics?

It is a total spiritual successor to Legends of Mana. It takes the build you world map thing that LoM did and runs won it.  That is the core concept of the game.  It also has the off beat art style and humor and story that goes with it.  I don't even know who it is for, but hey if you would throw down $8US for a more laid back mobile spin on LoM, check out Egglia: Legend of the Redcap.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Microtransaction-free Smart Phone game sounds so nice I am willing to pay for it. Being Legend of Mana-based is just icing.

Who's the dev team, by the way?

[Grefter]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMM.com

Is the publisher

Googling for it a bit says it was developed by "DMM’s Powerchord Studio and Brownies" with some ad copy of "Shinichi Kameoka is the head producer and character designer, who’s also done design work on Mother 3, Sword of Mana, Legend of Mana, and more. At the same time executive producer is Michio Okamiya who produced Romancing SaGa 3, and the soundtrack is composed by Yoko Shimomura of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV fame."  mentioned in a few articles.


I picked it up based on the review on Touch Arcade because they tend to do decent reviews, even though as big as it is. It is where I go after I don't find anything interesting on Board Game Geek.

Edit - Tons of edits to make sentences less fucked up.

Edit 2 - Also a heads up that the game is super lightweight and doesn't have much substance to it, which I know you like a bit in your mobile gaming DJ.  It isn't as fairy floss as Magikarp Jump is, but it is also less outright bonkers.  If it was F2P I would say try it without hesitation, but with a cost to enter I am just tentative on saying you should try it out of hand, but that is just the byproduct of the horror that is modern mobile game markets.  If it was like half the price I would say yeah go ahead no stress but *shrug*.  I think you will dig it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is something you play 3 times and then it drops to the bottom of your list of things to do when out of Stamina in other games while shitting.

[Niu]

Speaking of Star 15, did they keep all the content or they censor the child prostitution?

[Cmdr_King]

From what I understand, the version on Steam is based on the PC version: it does have the full content of the door rather than cutting to Loewe and Joshua's rescue (I'm told that's how the PSP version handled it?)  If there's a more censor-prone version than what I played I'd rather not honestly, any more than the splash image of Renne's state prior to rescue would be in astonishingly poor taste and ruin the scene I think.

[VySaika]

Yakuza 0 - I have fallen into sidequest hell. It's fun though, I keep spending more time on it than I budget for playing in any given span which I suppose is a good sign.

The fighting styles have good variety as well, definitely keeps it interesting. For Kiryu, Brawler style has counters and the most ways to try and deal with a single strong opponent, Rush style is...not my cup of tea but has tons of defensive and evasive tricks and at least looks really damn cool.

And Beast style...well...



Beast style is the best.

Majima's stuff is good too, and not just a copy of Kiryu's with different names. I don't have his third style yet(though I know it's basically Eddy Gordo/10, to quote Jim), Thug style is low base damage with devastating Heat actions and really shows how much meaner and dirtier Majima fights on average than Kiryu does. And his other one is Slugger style. He just goes ham on dudes with a baseball bat. It's pretty great. 

In chapter 3, though at the very end of it. The best part of the game so far was probably the ch3 intro, also being Majima's intro. It just took what the series is best at, being over the top in all the best ways, and ran with it beautifully. Also having seen some of the other games, Majima managing to successfully pose as a suave managerial type is just great, considering when left to his own devices he's about as far from anything resembling 'respectable' as you can get.

[SnowFire]

Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment
Fin.  Good stuff.

Pretty decent, great level design as usual, but...   a little too easy?  And missing a Final Final Boss a la Plague Knight?  Based on an interesting interview with Yacht Club ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAvWOW4QHE ), they basically said that they found out after release that Plague Knight was waaaay too hard for many of their players based on usage / completion statistics - that there were lots of players for whom the very first screen's "bomb blast then double jump" was already at about the top of their multitasking, and adding in enemies and moving platforms and such sent 'em home.  Which, sure, I get that it's hard, casuals, but Plague of Shadows has pretty generous checkpointing, so just try again until you get it right.  As people here know, I liked Ori & the Blind Forest a lot: have some *really hard* platforming, but with save everywhere, so death ain't no thang.  While the level design is absolutely COOL and interesting, I didn't die very often until the Tower of Destiny.

Also, Troupple Acolyte backstory.  Who would have known.

Side note more related to Plague of Shadows: Know what the 2nd worst stage in that was for me, in retrospect, after Tower of Destiny 2?  Not Propeller Knight.  Not Tinker Knight.  No...  it was the FISHING POND.  Which I assumed I needed some fancy fuse / bomb combo for awhile at first as I couldn't clear the second crank, returned with max 4 bars of magic (for a stage you could hypothetically do right away!), eventually figured out bait could do it...  and had to hard-reset the stage several times after losing money permanently in a fun bonus stage.  Holy crap, there was some evil design that even having 2 Vats wouldn't save you from there.  Maybe I'm just weird.


EDIT: I also should have mentioned that Spectre's Curious were totally busted.  In general I'm fine with the "Relics/Curios/etc. optional, you can do this with base" design philosophy the devs had, but the Curios were unusually potent to the point where I kinda wish they had designed around assuming you had them.  Whee, Hover Coin / Judgment Rush skipping an entire sections, etc.
Also also.  How appropriate that the best music in Spectre of Torment is for the Lich Yard.  I really liked the remix they came up with for it, it felt much more awesome than the original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTtrxKMF3Yc

[SnowFire]

In which slowpokeFire plays PSX games released back in 2001...

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Grefter said this is a very strange game, and he's right.  It's a mix of cool, weird, underwritten, and player-hatingly-obtuse.

Of course, I've walled where everyone else who played the game walled: Joker Noriko at Club Zodiac.  Holy crap game, talk about a power upgrade on the bosses.  Of course it took like 30 minutes to actually lose (maybe even more) because she starts unloading at critical HP and my offense is way too puny to blitz through it.  Went something like Maha Aques - Absolute Zero - Absolute Zero - Maha Aques - Absolute Zero at the end, there's noooo way to survive that at my levels if the freeze procs from Absolute Zero kicks in basically ever on a healer.  Checking OK's topic, she has 1200 HP.  Katsuya's the only person who can deal damage with 50 off Single Shot.  Ulala has Magnus for like 18-20 which is better than nothing.  Baofu fails forever at damage (but hey, Soothing Melody) and Maya's Aqua is heavily resisted, even despite the TEC-heavy build.  Of course, Katsuya is also weak to water, so keeping him alive is always a little interesting and sometimes requires just straight-up gambles that I get some good luck.  Maaaybe Tower Inferno could help blitz, but that requires Baofu's turn, which is often required on setting up healing and/or setting up for a fusion risks getting interrupted by Old Maid or the like.

I was L19 on Maya, L18 on Katsuya/Baofu, L15 on Ulala.  I *guess* I could farm some cards for new personas (still using only starters), except I really hate the negotiation mechanic in P2, and I'm not sure any of them would help anyway...  I'm not seeing any of the Media upgrades for better MT healing in ones I have access to at the moment.  The main one I might want (Iris, for Ulala?) I apparently permanently missed the material required for it from GOLD gym.  Sigh.  I guess it's just grind time!  At least (after checking the Internet) I might possibly get Maia Custom from grinding, but so it goes.  At least I knew from my old college roommate's bitter experience that when I still didn't have an armor shop for the club, I knew it was time to FAQ up what I missed.  So I'm not also woefully underequipped on defense.

Also, the whole idea of rumors becoming reality is both powerful but also poorly done.  "Pay some guy who claims to be a rumormonger 3000 yen, magic happens" is about the lamest possible way they could have picked to do this.  Also, a lot of the "plot" rumors kind of make sense to me, but too many of the in-game ones are lame.  Use this emblem to protect yourself from supernatural threat, cross to a vampire style?  Yeah, that makes sense.  A blimp nobody looks at can really fly?  Weird, but sure.  Here are new rules on who becomes a Joker, announced on live TV?  I get it.  These all fit.  But things that are "hey you, other person, you actually work for the mob and sell stuff" seems like the kind of thing that rumors shouldn't override, there's way too much reality shift involving boring normal stuff to make it work.  It's also not really interesting, and just a trap (like missing out on the armor shop).  Rumors like "there's a monster called Tek-Tek secretly prowling Kasugama High" make a lot more sense, as it's involving the supernatural AND it's talking about something that might have been in the shadows until now.  Or if you could make rumors to try and get Coolest to sell more magazine copies, that'd be way more neat than rumors about...  magazine turn-in prizes?  Oh well.

[Sierra]

My wall moment with P2 first time through was the regenning monster boss late in the game (subway tunnels, I think?), because I didn't have the firepower to consistently outshoot his healing (also this was the point where the emulator's grinding hatred of the game just finally became utterly unmanageable). Bring fire, lots and lots of fire.

My recollection is that level-ups in P2 full-heal, so grinding is at least a somewhat practical option when you're stuck in a dungeon. I don't remember anything about good personas or how to get them other than that Maia Custom rocked for most of the game.