What Games are You Playing 2018?

[SnowFire]

Fire Emblem Echoes
Finished my Blitzkrieg playthrough:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UuonatO50J2Dakyo2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NswBTojVWefVlA5x2 (just boring achivement-proof pics here)

Pretty fun.  Mostly went pretty similar to my first playthrough despite having less levels, which just goes to show how grinding out a few extra levels post-promotion does not in general matter THAT much.  I'd argue that grinding in the Thieves Shrine DID weirdly pay off though - speeds up and makes C1 safer by a good bit.

Alm didn't have enough power to insta-KO Jedah without a crit, and he somehow managed to miss both crit opportunities (despite being hugely boosted!) AND not dodge the Death.  Thankfully I healed up before going in, of course, but still, a little scary.  (Reverse thing happens in the Rudolf battle - find a brave volunteer to bait him, and Mila's Turnwheel if one of his two hits crits.  Or have a Baron bait him, but that can be difficult to set up.)

500 turns is a a pretty generous limit - of course they only tell you your PLOT map count at the very end of the game, but I suspect that I had plenty of room for grinding battles.  (And certainly attempting to skip content would have made no sense, i.e. skip Tatiana / Zeke would be dumb).  So measuring out a few of those when needed and it'd help is definitely worthwhile.

It'd be interesting to theorycraft if recruiting the DLC characters would help speed things up.  Oh well, didn't try it.

--
Azure Striker Gunvolt
I figured this would be a very quick play in-between other portable gaming.  3DS version.

It's...  better than I expected?  But expectations weren't hugely high.  Quick & fun "MegaMan but we own the IP" type game but not interested in playing it to death or anything.  The biggest complaint is that Gunvolt's electrical powers are very visually noisy.  Some enemy projectiles get blocked by his electric forcefield, some don't, you get to pick out which is which while half the screen is getting zotted by GV.  Also, getting good stage scores seems to be based on zipping through Sonic-style which isn't really my jam.  There are some MINOR rewards for completionists who want to poke their nose into every nook & cranny, but for the most part, the game would rather you just dash on through.  Also, why on earth do you have to select the Challenges you're attempting?  And why does it reset if you don't complete them every single time?  This is incredibly dumb.  (Basically, you don't get an in-game achievement unless you declare you're going for it.  And you have to continually re-declare "Yes, I want this" every time.  Luckily the item creation it enables doesn't matter THAT much.)

I had to look up some of the bosses special attacks on the Internet to figure out how the hell I was supposed to not get insta-killed.  Carrera's Quasar Collapse being a good example; I didn't know about the dash button until I looked this one up, and that fight is flat impossible without it.  Arguably my bad, but since you can go through without dashing before then or only using the double-tap a direction to dash, it might have been worth being a little noisier about that gameplay point.

EDIT: Oh yeah, worth mentioning that 10-4 did the localization, and did a great job.  For characters with very few lines, they did a great job in immediately giving lines that both made sense in-context and provided character to the various bosses & NPCs, and also were sometimes funny.  Cut the Horsejitt indeed.

Anyway, I got the "bad" ending.  We'll see if I feel like grinding up the good ending.

And oh yes, Inti Creates.  If you're gonna make a plot wherein the Big Evil Corporation wants to use J-Pop to rule the world, I think it is worth investing in some GOOD J-Pop.  I dunno, maybe NotMiki has opinionz on this, but Lumen's main power-up track is peppy but forgettable.  (Checking YouTube, Lumen apparently has other stage-specific songs, but it was always Anthem - Reincarnation for me?!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUg3Wy9sXPw&index=39&list=PLNFxflsE6IYzcXj0ky7Pu7XcLcLpfWGHK

[Luther Lansfeld]

Omega Quintet - For reasons unknown, I was conscripted by Snowfire to play this game. So I started it last night.

Thoughts about the first two hours:
-holy fuck is the voice acting bad
-Momoka is actually pretty funny and was a highlight in the otherwise dreadful cast (commentary on idol culture?)
-The male lead is somehow a worse version of Itsuki, good work
-There is a lot of dialogue and 95% of it is bad
-Gameplay seems like it could be okay, but right now it just seems like it has too many different gauges to fill and solo RPG gameplay is super boring and the game STILL hasn't given me a second PC!
-There is a scene where the female lead (who is a total moron) runs into the breasts of one of the other idols and there is bouncing followed by a scene where she keeps her head drove into her coworker's boobs. Awk.
-There is another scene where the female lead's clothes randomly fall off. Awk.
-It is sooo low budget. There are just a few generic backgrounds where people talk.
-The people zooming in and out when they talk to you is really weird
-I hate you Snowfire

[SnowFire]

Hey, I wanted to suggest Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars.  Blame Grefter for Omega Quintet instead!

Also the fact that 5% of the dialogue is comprehensible is an achievement - the scouting YouTube videos I looked at seemed to be just pure nonsensical blather that said nothing, but slowly and in great detail.

[Pyro]

Why would you do that to someone?

Playing Okami. It is still amazing.

[NotMiki]

La-Mulana: sure is a game.  I have no idea whatsoever how far I am in it, but I do know that I haven't gotten badly stuck yet, so there's that!  The delta between the time this game must take to speedrun and to play normally must be vast.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Conception II is a role-playing video game with turn-based battles, in which players control a student at a high school that doubles as a training facility for demon hunters. The protagonist possesses an extremely high amount of ether in his body, which allows him to conceive Star Children to fight demons by 'classmating' with his other classmates.

That's a sweet euphemism you've got there for a child sex ring, Conception II.

[Meeplelard]

Dissidia Beta: It's fun but I'd like stabler online and actual single player content that doesn't involve REALLY BAD LOW LEVEL AI PARTNRES WHAT THE HELL SHANTOTTO HOW DID YOU GET KILLED BY THAT!?

Dragon Ball FighterZ: It's fun but I'd like stabler online and actual single player content that isn't just a boring training mode so I could actually learn my GOD DAMN CHARACTERS SOME!

Pokemon Ultra Moon: In the Desert, trying to find a Gabite via an SOS Fight because apparently that's the only way to get them.  If I fail, I'll stick with Goodra instead, since Garchomp and Goodra are really the only two Dragonites that are feasible to get in the main game due to shear levels.

Also Totem Togedemaru was far more competent than it had any right to be.

[Sierra]

Dragon’s dogma Dark Arisen:
Finished everything.

They figured out that the best thing in Dragon’s Dogma is jumping on roofs in a city (Assassin’s creed, take notes) and put them in the DLC. Much appreciated.
More than 10FPS made the game extremely pleasant. I tried every class and there are so many cool ones, but chose Magick Archer as my final class because Ricoshet Shot is fucking absurd in BBI.

Did Cid play this recently or is his level infinite Sophitia cosplay pawn a relic from the PS3 days? Regardless, I never did use her or she’d have ripped the challenge in half. Sorry.
I tried to have the most stylish UOM as my pawn and one rando player liked him so much he added me as a friend on PSN and sent me a message praising him. (?)

Hard difficulty was immense bullshit and I’d not recommend it to anyone. I still enjoyed it more than I would have normal though.

Save files from the original Dragon's Dogma don't carry over to the PS4 version, so what you're seeing there is my file from when I replayed on the rerelease last summer. (Besides, I was cosplaying the protagonists from Noir this time.) BBI really is the best part of the game, and Magick Archer really is stupidly good there. Ricocheting everything to death is soooo satisfying. I wound up liking all the magic classes markedly better than the pure physical ones, but MA was usually my go-to out of that lot. Filling up an enemy with explosive bolts and then making them all explode at once might not be the most efficient way to down a boss, but it's so fucking cool to watch. And hard mode is so, so stupid on a new file.

Fenrir have you done a bare fists run yet.

Nioh: chewed through endgame and DLCs 1&2 at Grefter's place. Final boss was respectable. Giant enemy that isn't ass for engagement and doesn't fuck up the camera, can't just blitz it down with living weapon because multiple targets. I'll take it. Killed me 4-5 times? Better than any of the other endgame bosses, which all got torched in one or two tries. Clone boy was a no-hit kill on the first attempt--which is in stark contrast to dealing with him in the Tower of London basement in the epilogue mission. Holy shit that was a nightmare, and only Okatsu gave me more trouble as far as maingame content goes. (Ozzy Song Boss got burned on the second try, though.) DLC notes:

-Lady Maria was fucking bonkers. DLC bosses generally were good at making the game hard again, but this was just off the charts. I probably died like twenty times, never getting her more than 40% down (and dying before dealing damage more often than not), before giving up to go do DLC2 instead. Then I came back and threw all the kunai and beat her without getting hit. I don't even know. I guess if you can just survive long enough for her to power up, she's a sitting duck.

-I was so mad at DLC2 for starting off with the Ringed City Infinite Arrow Works bullshit, then I noticed afterward that there's a consumable that protects you from arrows. Whoops.

-Tonfa are pretty rad, I might start leveling up skill now since everything else of importance to my build is at the point of diminishing returns. Unfortunately, I mistakenly traded in my awesome flaming tonfa for glory.

Oh yeah, I saved up 70k glory while grinding weapon levels and burned it all on Ginchiyo skin (I decided she had better fashion than Okatsu). Worth it. Also, I'm not sure how I'm not done with maingame. There are no missions left on any region map or in the dojo, but I didn't get that All Missions trophy, so there's gotta be something out there. They don't count twilight missions, right? Those alternate randomly, and the devs for this game were generally pretty smart about not holding anything vital to RNG (loot excepted, but you pick up so much random crap that it's a moot point).

Thinking I might go back and finish Nier: Automata before hitting DLC3. Is there anything permanently missable I need to worry about on the C and beyond routes? I read something about a skullface quest that requires all maxed weapons to unlock it, and that sure isn't happening without grind.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Mario Odyssey - This game is ridiculously easy to pick up and play when I'm not doing anything. Look at the Switch charging, pick it up, whoops I just blazed through another kingdom. I'm about to begin Metro Kingdom, finally saved up enough monies to buy Mario's undies outfit. I'm yet to tap into the best Fashion Odyssey around, but I love swapping outfits every kingdom. I also like the overall design a lot - Mario's kinda slippery, but the game's entirely designed to take this into account and the platforming feels very organic because of it. I also love the 2D/3D integration done on the 8-bit segments, it all looks obscenely gorgeous in a strange-ass way. Currently up to 80 moons, too. The concept of mixing up Mario platforming and pseudo-open world shenanigans sounded way too foreign to work, but I'm definitely digging it, and Cappy's possessions are a JOY to pick up.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Fire Emblem Warriors: Finally got around to starting this thing. It is a joy. It is also frustrating. I wish mission assignment and completion notices were properly instant instead of this weird delayed thing that Warriors games loves to do. Not knowing what the current objectives are supposed to be at any given time is irritating beyond belief.

I found I had this problem with Hyrule Warriors when it came out, but I assumed that it was just me not being able to read Japanese fast enough that was the problem. So I waited for FE Warriors to come out in English and yet I'm still finding myself raging at mission objectives not being made clear. Guess it's just the Warriors series's intention? I suppose in an actual war, sending and receiving orders would have some significant lag too? Is that what they're going for? ...cause I hate it.

The rest of the gameplay is great though. Most problems can still be solved just by mashing buttons (therapeutically fun and visually rewarding!), but the game actually rewards you for learning how to push the buttons with intent this time around. And Weapon Triangle matchups, along with character-switching-on-the-fly, means there's some actual strategy to the game beyond the button combos.

The story is dumb cheese and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Unless that way included Ike, goddammit. (Why isn't he in the DLC!!!!!? RAGE!!)

[Grefter]

Did you get the Season Pass?   I don’t think it is quiiiite as good as Hyrule Warriors stuff was, but I am generally enjoying it and like that it is giving the game more legs.

I only just unlocked Anna last night on a 40 minute grinder of a map.  Celica should follow soon once I get some levels into her and Niles/Takumi (ugh).

I should also really play Zelda more but Warriors is so cathartic.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I'm boycotting its DLC ever since I discovered there's no Ike coming.

[Shale]

Hollow Knight: Picked this up on the Steam sale, been playing it for the past couple weeks. 2/3 dreamers down, just finished the first two challenges in the Colosseum of Fools. I've found the game alternately great and infuriating – the visual style is really really good, and when the exploration clicks it's hugely engrossing. On the other hand, tougher fights really show the weaknesses in the controls (mainly that there's so much cooldown on basically every animation), and there's a frustration snowball effect when you have to go back to the scene of your defeat to get your shadow, so you attempt the boss or the platforming challenge or whatever over and over and over, eventually getting so irritated that you slip up on the way there and lose all your Geo. I've probably dropped about 4K that way, which isn't great. Still, enjoying it on the whole.

Bayonetta: Felt like playing something on an actual console for a change, realized that while I've played the crap out of the sequel I never even booted the copy of the original that came with it. The game holds up! Still quite challenging and also fun as hell to get into a groove with, and it's been long enough since I played it that stuff like the Alfheim challenges feels new again. Almost to the halfway point with C10.

[SnowFire]

Azure Striker Gunvolt
Finished up.  Final final boss was decent, but still felt like a little less epic a showdown than the old final boss?  And the miniboss of the final final stage was a complete and utter chump.  I guess there's still Challenges to harvest, but that's all "complete the stages extremely fast without getting hit" stuff that I'm not super into.  I'd rather survive a harder game than master an easier one, I guess.  Apparently the Steam version has more stuff and optional stages & modes & stuff?  Oh well.  Still pretty enjoyable overall.

Also, as a random shower thought, there's an odd tendency of the female characters in this game to have some sort of multiple personality-ish thing...  weird.

Oh, and one other thing.  Considering the MegaMan heritage of the game, I was amused at Copen's gimmick.  (he steals the abilities of the robot masters adepts you've defeated...  hmm, sounds familiar.  But he's an antagonist, not the PC.)

[Niu]

Oh, and one other thing.  Considering the MegaMan heritage of the game, I was amused at Copen's gimmick.  (he steals the abilities of the robot masters adepts you've defeated...  hmm, sounds familiar.  But he's an antagonist, not the PC.)

He is, in the second game.
He also plays by a completely different mechanic, including how his points system works.

[Grefter]

I'm boycotting its DLC ever since I discovered there's no Ike coming.

Find attached, now get that DLC.  It has some good stuff.

I was actually going to grab a link to some and PM you then tell you to check your PMs and then make the same joke, but this being the number 1 return on a search for that was too good to ignore.

[NotMiki]

Hollow Knight: Picked this up on the Steam sale, been playing it for the past couple weeks. 2/3 dreamers down, just finished the first two challenges in the Colosseum of Fools. I've found the game alternately great and infuriating – the visual style is really really good, and when the exploration clicks it's hugely engrossing. On the other hand, tougher fights really show the weaknesses in the controls (mainly that there's so much cooldown on basically every animation), and there's a frustration snowball effect when you have to go back to the scene of your defeat to get your shadow, so you attempt the boss or the platforming challenge or whatever over and over and over, eventually getting so irritated that you slip up on the way there and lose all your Geo. I've probably dropped about 4K that way, which isn't great. Still, enjoying it on the whole.

There's a charm you can pick up (fairly late but if you've beaten 2 dreamers you likely have access to it by now - it's in Kingdom's Edge and you need double jump to get it) that increases your swing speed by, like, a lot.  That should help with bosses and the Colosseum.

[Shale]

Yeah, grabbing that is literally the next thing I'm planning to do in the game. I didn't find Kingdom's Edge until I went through Deepnest, so I may be a bit behind the curve.

[NotMiki]

The curve is pretty elusive in HK.  Once you pick up Mantis Claws, the routes you can take are VERY open.  Getting to Deepnest has fewer prerequisites than Kingdom's Edge - you can even do it straight from the first time you visit Mantis Village - but many players dip into Deepnest then nope the fuck right out of there.

p.s. there are 2 endings, and once you meet all of the prerequisites for the good ending (it'll be pretty obvious) you are locked out of the bad one.

(My favorite crazy thing that can happen - go to Deepnest at your first opportunity and pick up the Tram Pass, then use the tram to enter Resting Grounds from crossroads without ever touching Crystal Peak.  The Path of Most Resistance!)

I should add: it's possible to get to Kingdom's Edge without touching Deepnest, but it requires finding the entrance from the eastern part of City of Tears.  So it's not all that likely on an initial playthrough.

Also: how did you initially get into Deepnest?  There's a few ways in, that deposit you in varying levels of "nope"

[Sierra]

Nier Automata: "I am coming for all your heads. Fuck you."

Route C cleared. ...And, apparently, route D. "What's this, chapter select mode? Yoko Taro must be getting generous in his old age." So reload, do that fight over again from the other side to see what happens. Okay, looks like the same credits. I need to hit the bathroom, I'll sit the song out this time. Walk away, start to hear dialogue, which includes the word "deletion." Oh boy. I say "No" because Nier ending D was a thing, then suddenly it's bullet hell credits. This looks okay at first. I might get through this on the first try? Then the Squeenix logo shows up and everything goes to hell. Die a couple times. "I'll keep trying, this is probably close to the end." Die a few more times. Dammit game, stop it! It's late! I just want to go to bed! Force hard shutdown of game because I can't deal with this danmaku shit right now.

So this is where the real troll was hiding.

[Cmdr_King]

Jackass, best android.

[Shale]

I found the main entrance to Deepnest shortly after getting the Mantis Claws, but died to the Mantis Lords fight and noped out. Then I found the side entrance and cut through a corner of it that links.....Crossroads and Fungal Wastes, is it? Something in that area. Found a few shinies but nothing to indicate it was more than a foreboding but largely empty network of tunnels with jump-scare bugs. Then after getting the double jump I went back to the Mantis Village while hunting around for Spirit Roots, remembered the boss fight, and beat it to open the main door.

[NotMiki]

Sensible!

[DragonKnight Zero]

More blather about Chrono Trigger: Flames of Eternity

  Difficulty in a few sentences: Start out merely "harder than the original game" until about 25-30% of the way in, then gets dangerous for the most part until finishing The Darkness of Noon chapter.  It relents somewhat (wiping in randoms is unlikely) until the final boss.  Just about any party (when you can choose) is viable and still win required fights (though don't use Crono, Lucca, Magus in segments where you're locked into the choice unless you stock up on items).

  Turns out I need to level grind anyways for want of magic defense.  I've gotten to the last savepoint with a party average of about 40-41 (Ayla being about 4-6 levels higher) which is not enough.  The last boss' strongest magic attack does 4 digit damage with a magic defense of 81 and it's MT.  High defense is also desirable as it has a physical (thankfully only single-target) tech that does about 650 to a 200 defense character.  I have won at about 42-43 with a certain game-breaker item but would like to avoid resorting to it.

Quick thoughts on PCs:  This is under the context of no Tabs, which are very scarce, and little Tech grinding.

Crono feels like the team scrub.  Simply by restricting his weapon availabililty, his damage capabilities lag.  He's still an important member for using Triple Techs but is nowhere near the dominance of the original game.  Until one finishes the grind for the Rainbow, that is.

Marle somehow feels improved despite her damage output being worse.  The only change to her techs in Haste being full-party.  Some of this is that the game overall is more dangerous so her role as a healer carries more weight.  Her status weapons are quite useful for the period they're found.

Lucca feels one-dimensional.  Full-party Protect is nice for physical-heavy opponents.   Her Techs are otherwise unchanged and being only one element means shes either really good at sniping fire-weakness or nearly deadweight on high magic defense opposition.  Low speed drags her worth down too.  There's also some forced Lucca/Robo fights that are easier if she's dead which doesn't help my perception of her.

Glenn has a slow start.  However, he gets a very strong weapon from a sidequest that can be completed quite early.  It also does double damage on Magic enemies making his physical one of the best against Scouts (which have over 3000 HP now).  He can inflict poison status.  Since there's no way to poison enemies in the original game, I guess the programmers slacked off with handing out immunity so it can tag some boss type enemies.  Poison also lowers enemy damage and increases the damage the victim takes so it has its applications.  Balanced defense and magic defense make him survivable at the last boss earlier than the others.  Feels like one of the best characters in this hack though mileage will vary.

Robo is most useful for his high HP pool, healing techs, and decent damage.  He's useful early but not really viable for endgame due to game worst magic defense.  He's the main source of the Stop status which is handy at times.  Has a bunch of changed techs that end up quite MP intensive.  Having game-worst MP, this will result in greater resource consumption.  Mid Ethers are easy to come by so it really depend on one's playing style.

Ayla's subjectively awesome.  The way I go through the game, she joins several levels higher than the party so I rotate her in from time to time when I want someone to punch past a roadblock.  Still has great Dual Tech options.

Magus feels like a Jeigan though in some ways different.  He starts strong with his level 2 magic but it's a long time until he learns a tech with higher damage (if at all as I haven't bother to grind out his last skill).  He remains useful with groups, less so with lone opponents.  Does fall off temporarily due to his HP growth curve.  Enemies that have high magic defense or absorb all elements make him cry, though to a lesser degree than Lucca.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Full-party buffs sound crazy good in CT, unless the effects themselves have been nerfed. And Crono being "dominant" in the original game is... not something I agree with, to put it mildly.


Fire Emblem Fates - Conquest Lunatic Classic

It's in progress and progress is slow, both due to other things going on and the intensity of the game. It remains pretty great, albeit not something I'd recommend to many people. But for me and my tastes, I'm so very glad it exists. I'm not sure I've ever played another RPG that does high challenge this well.

Chapter 20 (wind map) was absolutely grueling. The swarm from the northwest corner (which guards the chest with money) has a brutal array of enemies and once you aggro them, you get reinforcements at the end of the subsequent enemy phase. The extra complication of the wind is very tricky. As I mentioned in chat, I enjoyed this well enough, but I couldn't do a whole game of it or anything close.

Chapter 21-22 were both much easier. The dragon veins on the Eternal Stairway give you plenty of what amount to almost free turns, which is good because the stone throwers do incredible damage. As for Sakura's map... man I can't believe that on my first playthrough I mostly ignored the dragon veins. You can set up for some incredible player phase blitzes to neutralise all the nasty traps the enemies have. Definitely a battle which rewards minimal pair up use.

In between I did Siegbert's map which was very nasty. I've recruited Percy, Sophie, Ophelia, Dwyer, and Siegbert this run, although Sophie got benched pretty quickly. Kana's sitting around if I ever need him I guess, but I usually find Kana underwhelming so I'm not bothering unless I need a lategame exp push. I could write more team details (I've done lots of reclassing this time: Corrin, Jakob, Elise, Odin, Camilla, Effie, and Percy have all eaten at least one Heart Seal) but I'll save that for when I'm done.