ph14basicbitch
shinra merch buyer
- AKA
- koda
An appropriate game to play right now... Since it's... Almost Christmas.
What games are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Purple
- Start date
Leafonthebreeze
Any/All
- AKA
- Leaf
Fuck yes I love those games so much. I was playing through all of them in release order (having played the first three aa a teenager). The Great Ace Attorney has my heart these days though.
GamerSkull
Pro Adventurer
Working my way through the Persona games again.
Going backwards as I’m currently playing P5R and then I’ll do Persona 4 Golden.
Going backwards as I’m currently playing P5R and then I’ll do Persona 4 Golden.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
I've been playing Fantasian, the PS5 says I'm 80-some% done, and I'm having a very good time with it.
Though the characters are fairly standard JRPG archetypes, Sakaguchi just has a way. He still knows how to make them more interesting than the archetype would suggest. But...we have already had two characters with amnesia
Depending on whether the wife was doing other stuff in the room or general mood, I've played significant chunks of the game with voices on and off. I have no complaints about the English voice acting, but it also feels more retro just reading the boxes (not to mention faster).
Combat is fun. Fully turn-based (with an on-screen turn order), and instead of the go-to gimmick of real-time elements, it has fun with AoE placement. Spells and several attacks move along a line or trajectory, so you can try and bend it to hit as many enemies as possible, for instance. Every character attacks at range (swords do blade beams, fists send shockwaves, etc.), which is a bit weird, but I'm sure it made animation easier, haha. A lot of weapons will have abilities like piercing to allow an attack that normally just hits one enemy to attack all on a line and such. As you progress through the game, you get a lot more fun equipment abilities to play with.
Oh and the QoL random encounters mechanic is fun. You can toggle a device that, when on, will turn off random encounters, but every enemy you hit gets 'banked'. And if it gets full, or when you choose, you fight a bit battle against all the enemies you postponed. This is more efficient, as it drops buffs to help, but sometimes I do feel like experiencing a dungeon the old fashioned way and just fight as I go.
It has two very distinct "halves," as it was previously released in two episodes on the Apple Store. So you can sense where the first "final boss" was, and the second half introduces a completely additional chracter progression system. But it immediately feels consequential and satisfying.
The second half has a decidedly FF6 feel in that your party is scattered and you have access to the whole map to do sidequests and re-gather your party members.
Uematsu does the soundtrack off course, and while it hasn't completely blown me away or anything, it's great to still feel his touch, all the songs fit and I haven't heard a bad one yet. Also, this release lets you change the battle music to one of all the recent FF releases, or even more fun, to randomly apply them. It doesn't override boss battles that have a specific new battle theme for them or anything, so it's been very enjoyable as well.
And of course, the star of the show are the "prerendered" backgrounds being physical dioramas put into the game. They look so cool, and I love how you can know that any "depth of field" effects are because an actual camera photographed them.
Though the characters are fairly standard JRPG archetypes, Sakaguchi just has a way. He still knows how to make them more interesting than the archetype would suggest. But...we have already had two characters with amnesia
Depending on whether the wife was doing other stuff in the room or general mood, I've played significant chunks of the game with voices on and off. I have no complaints about the English voice acting, but it also feels more retro just reading the boxes (not to mention faster).Combat is fun. Fully turn-based (with an on-screen turn order), and instead of the go-to gimmick of real-time elements, it has fun with AoE placement. Spells and several attacks move along a line or trajectory, so you can try and bend it to hit as many enemies as possible, for instance. Every character attacks at range (swords do blade beams, fists send shockwaves, etc.), which is a bit weird, but I'm sure it made animation easier, haha. A lot of weapons will have abilities like piercing to allow an attack that normally just hits one enemy to attack all on a line and such. As you progress through the game, you get a lot more fun equipment abilities to play with.
Oh and the QoL random encounters mechanic is fun. You can toggle a device that, when on, will turn off random encounters, but every enemy you hit gets 'banked'. And if it gets full, or when you choose, you fight a bit battle against all the enemies you postponed. This is more efficient, as it drops buffs to help, but sometimes I do feel like experiencing a dungeon the old fashioned way and just fight as I go.
It has two very distinct "halves," as it was previously released in two episodes on the Apple Store. So you can sense where the first "final boss" was, and the second half introduces a completely additional chracter progression system. But it immediately feels consequential and satisfying.
The second half has a decidedly FF6 feel in that your party is scattered and you have access to the whole map to do sidequests and re-gather your party members.
Uematsu does the soundtrack off course, and while it hasn't completely blown me away or anything, it's great to still feel his touch, all the songs fit and I haven't heard a bad one yet. Also, this release lets you change the battle music to one of all the recent FF releases, or even more fun, to randomly apply them. It doesn't override boss battles that have a specific new battle theme for them or anything, so it's been very enjoyable as well.
And of course, the star of the show are the "prerendered" backgrounds being physical dioramas put into the game. They look so cool, and I love how you can know that any "depth of field" effects are because an actual camera photographed them.
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X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
Been bashing around in Dynasty Warriors Origins lately. Even though it's a bit clunky in its presentation places and feels like they stitched a more linear story together with a different more branching RPG for the narrative parts, it's still that fun Musuo gameplay that I'm admittedly rather nostalgic for, and aside from occasional minor annoyances with the lock-on it's been a good time so far. Given that they've got the 3 main paths through the story, and have a mechanic to make it easy to revisit them, I expect that I'll have plenty of time to meander through all the various scenarios. I'm only in Chapter 4 of my first playthrough at the moment, so I expect there's still a decent amount of content in front of me, even just with the last chapter being where things split out into the more faction-locked paths.
I also checked out the demo for The First Berserker: Khazan which I REALLY enjoyed. The whole presentation of that game is absurdly gorgeous, and while the combat can be fairly brutal (especially in the final boss for the demo), it's got a satisfying rhythm to it. Something that offsets the difficulty is that loot drops all scale to your level, so being able to get better versions of your gear as you progress is really nice since they have set bonuses, though I'm curious if that'll have an upgrade system or something so that more unique boss gear doesn't just fall off from being underleveled.
X
I also checked out the demo for The First Berserker: Khazan which I REALLY enjoyed. The whole presentation of that game is absurdly gorgeous, and while the combat can be fairly brutal (especially in the final boss for the demo), it's got a satisfying rhythm to it. Something that offsets the difficulty is that loot drops all scale to your level, so being able to get better versions of your gear as you progress is really nice since they have set bonuses, though I'm curious if that'll have an upgrade system or something so that more unique boss gear doesn't just fall off from being underleveled.
X
niis
Survivor
Been jumping between a few games lately, depending on my mood. Sometimes I go all in on strategy-heavy titles, but other times I just want something simple and fun to mess around with. Recently, I’ve been revisiting some older action RPGs - there’s just something about that classic feel that modern games don’t always capture. That being said, I also like throwing in some casual games to break things up. Eggy Car has been my latest go-to when I need something quick and frustratingly fun. The physics are ridiculous in the best way, and it’s one of those games where you tell yourself "just one more try" about 50 times before realizing an hour has passed.
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
About a month ago I finally finished my Kingdom Come: Deliverance playthrough which I started two years prior, 
. I've been playing it on PS5, but also had it on PC. I don't remember why I quit playing back then, but imo the game is a bit more slow paced so it's nicer to play on console. That one was locked at 30FPS and had a lot of asset pop-in even on PS5 though.
BUT, they more than made up for it with KCD2, which is also more in line with their ambitions for the first one. Visuals are much improved, environments are fuller, and yet it's still the same atmosphere that they managed to create with the first one. It's just full with nostalgia because the environments are quite similar to the ones I live and grew up in - bird noises and such, not so much the wolves.
I can't give this game a 10/10 like many review outlets do though; while it's the kick up the arse that first person RPG land needed (many people compare it to Morrowind), there's still quite a few moments that don't do it justice; some dialog trees that are duplicate, some jankiness (vague term on purpose), and in some places the main quest feels like it's rushing you, where you only have a limited time to explore and if you don't progress the quest quick enough the NPC will just move on and you'll have to meet them, so you miss out on a bit of dialogue. I don't object to timed events like that, the ||section in Trosky where you have 12 "bells" to do the thing|| was well-done imo, but a follow up where ||you have to talk to the people in Nebakov and figure out what's going on|| was rushed. Possibly on purpose? Not sure.
Anyway, that's going into very specific details, overall it's a strong contender for GOTY.
. I've been playing it on PS5, but also had it on PC. I don't remember why I quit playing back then, but imo the game is a bit more slow paced so it's nicer to play on console. That one was locked at 30FPS and had a lot of asset pop-in even on PS5 though.BUT, they more than made up for it with KCD2, which is also more in line with their ambitions for the first one. Visuals are much improved, environments are fuller, and yet it's still the same atmosphere that they managed to create with the first one. It's just full with nostalgia because the environments are quite similar to the ones I live and grew up in - bird noises and such, not so much the wolves.
I can't give this game a 10/10 like many review outlets do though; while it's the kick up the arse that first person RPG land needed (many people compare it to Morrowind), there's still quite a few moments that don't do it justice; some dialog trees that are duplicate, some jankiness (vague term on purpose), and in some places the main quest feels like it's rushing you, where you only have a limited time to explore and if you don't progress the quest quick enough the NPC will just move on and you'll have to meet them, so you miss out on a bit of dialogue. I don't object to timed events like that, the ||section in Trosky where you have 12 "bells" to do the thing|| was well-done imo, but a follow up where ||you have to talk to the people in Nebakov and figure out what's going on|| was rushed. Possibly on purpose? Not sure.
Anyway, that's going into very specific details, overall it's a strong contender for GOTY.
Conr
Lv. 1 Adventurer
- AKA
- Connor
Final Fantasy 8 is what I'm currently playing. I just finished Disc 1, and the story isn't really landing with me. I like the characters well enough, though. I find Laguna in particular to be endearing.
The Draw mechanic and Guardian Forces are interesting, but I think the latter are way too strong. I do like that magic is pretty relevant, I was pleasantly surprised to see an SMT style "de-barrier" skill used by a boss when I gave myself shields.
I hope the game picks up for me! I think the game is good, but I really hope I find a moment where it truly clicks.
The Draw mechanic and Guardian Forces are interesting, but I think the latter are way too strong. I do like that magic is pretty relevant, I was pleasantly surprised to see an SMT style "de-barrier" skill used by a boss when I gave myself shields.
I hope the game picks up for me! I think the game is good, but I really hope I find a moment where it truly clicks.
null
Mr. Thou
- AKA
- null
Playing Oracle of Ages now! At the part where they worship the left and right nut. Or something. Not reading all that again.
This game is best described as… a link to the past. Too bad Super Zelda ran off with that name. Can’t wait to play Seasons next, which of course also “links” with this game.
This game is best described as… a link to the past. Too bad Super Zelda ran off with that name. Can’t wait to play Seasons next, which of course also “links” with this game.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
I've been bashing around a bit in The First Berserker: Khazan and... I'm VERY conflicted on how I feel about it.
The visuals are spectacular, I love the VA cast so far, the narrative is pretty bare-bones at the moment, the combat system is really tight as that sort of Sekiro-meets-rhythm-gaming-Souls-like and they do a lot of great things like giving you a bit of XP every time that you make it a ways into one of the boss fights, so that you never run into an issue where you're not still making progress even if you're just grinding against a single boss for long periods of time. The more I found out that it was to mitigate the challenge of the boss fights, the more it made me wonder why it still does the Souls-like XP loss on death at all, since you just grab it outside the boss door, and the more I felt like this as a central gameplay loop itself diminished everything about the character that I'm meant to feel, because the game design & the story itself are in complete emotional juxtaposition to one another as an experience.
Let me clarify:
In the Souls / Bloodborne / Sekiro / Elden Ring games – you're an absolute nobody. Even in a game that very spectacularly emulates that sort of Souls-like experience like Lies of P, you're still very much the underdog. That's why literally ANYBODY you run across can absolutely just mash you into the floor until you know how to deal with them. The experience of overcoming these monstrous bosses is you going up against the odds, and wrestling through adversity to survive in a world that is vastly bigger than you (why it uses things like extreme architecture & huge boss size to invoke that sort of "child looking up at adults & dwarfed by the scope of the world around them" psychological perspective for you as a player).
NONE of that's true of Khazan. He's a legendary general who defeated the Berserk Dragon, and is supposed to be unbelievably incredible. He was so feared that when accused of betrayal, they severed the tendons in his arms and had him caged up – before the Blade Phantom fused with him & healed his wounds at the start of the game. The man is supposed to be an absolute killing machine... but most of the time playing as him feels like you're a porcelain doll with a foam bat.
You're barely ever fighting more than a couple enemies at once, and unless you're memorizing block strings and enemy attack patterns – you're gonna die constantly. Even if you didn't lose your Lacrima (XP) upon death, the combat system doesn't want you to ever be overwhelmed by normal enemies, and it's the enemy's attack patterns that determine the cadence of the fight – not you. You have to play EXTREMELY well to succeed, and so the system disproportionately encourages approaching every combat encounter with caution, and blocking over aggression which is... antithetical to what Berserkers do by definition.
Compare this to the Musou combat system for Dynasty Warriors Origins where you're meant to be one of the 1 vs. 1000 legendary warrior heroes, and having played this most recently, Khazan feels like he's struggling to be more intimidating than a random nobody even AFTER he's been superpowered by a Netherworld Phantom beyond his legendary human potential as THE warrior general. Playing as Khazan never shows us what combat is like without his limbs at their peak function or anything like that... whereas in Asura's Wrath you're the legendary warrior general framed for betrayal, and you literally have to fight through sections without any arms at all, and still keep going against all odds – because that game's combat system literally just forces you to fight until you're furious enough to win – the core of a Berserkser's fighting style.
That's a key feature of how the combat design in some very different types of games REALLY nails that feeling of you as the player being the Berserker / Legendary General where there are still elements of precise timing involved, and those combat system are by no means as well-polished – because they don't have to be for the experience they're establishing that the main character is supposed to face. By comparison, the Souls games & Lies of P have the death mechanic literally built into the mythology so that you're SUPPOSED to experience that constant grind against insurmountable odds over & over & over again. That's why having the fragile Souls-like gameplay feels so heavily at odds with who I believe that Khazan is supposed to be for the average player's experience – even though the combat system in The First Berserker: Khazan has refined that experience itself REALLY DAMN WELL.
The first post-hub-world boss, Viper was rough getting through... and then you're presented with the reveal that he's got a phase 2 with another full bar of health. The first patch significantly nerfed him AND boosted assistance for Easy mode, and even then I've seen Souls streamers who are way WAY better at these games than I am spending massive chunks of time to get through him. For me, getting through that boss just felt... like an exhausted frustration was finally over. Rather than overcoming insurmountable odds and being full of rage about what I was experiencing I was just... tired of it and mildly relieved I'd finally be able to do something else. It's just so odd, because – despite neither the story or the gameplay being bad individually AND me loving everything about both of those things – playing it feels like the game's narrative & the combat system are just relentlessly pummeling each other, and I'm enjoying both of them less the more that I play it.
It's very odd, and I'm not really sure if I stick with it or not, or just find someone else's playthrough to enjoy the story, and then play it without that element feeling like a factor, or what.
X
The visuals are spectacular, I love the VA cast so far, the narrative is pretty bare-bones at the moment, the combat system is really tight as that sort of Sekiro-meets-rhythm-gaming-Souls-like and they do a lot of great things like giving you a bit of XP every time that you make it a ways into one of the boss fights, so that you never run into an issue where you're not still making progress even if you're just grinding against a single boss for long periods of time. The more I found out that it was to mitigate the challenge of the boss fights, the more it made me wonder why it still does the Souls-like XP loss on death at all, since you just grab it outside the boss door, and the more I felt like this as a central gameplay loop itself diminished everything about the character that I'm meant to feel, because the game design & the story itself are in complete emotional juxtaposition to one another as an experience.
Let me clarify:
In the Souls / Bloodborne / Sekiro / Elden Ring games – you're an absolute nobody. Even in a game that very spectacularly emulates that sort of Souls-like experience like Lies of P, you're still very much the underdog. That's why literally ANYBODY you run across can absolutely just mash you into the floor until you know how to deal with them. The experience of overcoming these monstrous bosses is you going up against the odds, and wrestling through adversity to survive in a world that is vastly bigger than you (why it uses things like extreme architecture & huge boss size to invoke that sort of "child looking up at adults & dwarfed by the scope of the world around them" psychological perspective for you as a player).
NONE of that's true of Khazan. He's a legendary general who defeated the Berserk Dragon, and is supposed to be unbelievably incredible. He was so feared that when accused of betrayal, they severed the tendons in his arms and had him caged up – before the Blade Phantom fused with him & healed his wounds at the start of the game. The man is supposed to be an absolute killing machine... but most of the time playing as him feels like you're a porcelain doll with a foam bat.
You're barely ever fighting more than a couple enemies at once, and unless you're memorizing block strings and enemy attack patterns – you're gonna die constantly. Even if you didn't lose your Lacrima (XP) upon death, the combat system doesn't want you to ever be overwhelmed by normal enemies, and it's the enemy's attack patterns that determine the cadence of the fight – not you. You have to play EXTREMELY well to succeed, and so the system disproportionately encourages approaching every combat encounter with caution, and blocking over aggression which is... antithetical to what Berserkers do by definition.
Compare this to the Musou combat system for Dynasty Warriors Origins where you're meant to be one of the 1 vs. 1000 legendary warrior heroes, and having played this most recently, Khazan feels like he's struggling to be more intimidating than a random nobody even AFTER he's been superpowered by a Netherworld Phantom beyond his legendary human potential as THE warrior general. Playing as Khazan never shows us what combat is like without his limbs at their peak function or anything like that... whereas in Asura's Wrath you're the legendary warrior general framed for betrayal, and you literally have to fight through sections without any arms at all, and still keep going against all odds – because that game's combat system literally just forces you to fight until you're furious enough to win – the core of a Berserkser's fighting style.
That's a key feature of how the combat design in some very different types of games REALLY nails that feeling of you as the player being the Berserker / Legendary General where there are still elements of precise timing involved, and those combat system are by no means as well-polished – because they don't have to be for the experience they're establishing that the main character is supposed to face. By comparison, the Souls games & Lies of P have the death mechanic literally built into the mythology so that you're SUPPOSED to experience that constant grind against insurmountable odds over & over & over again. That's why having the fragile Souls-like gameplay feels so heavily at odds with who I believe that Khazan is supposed to be for the average player's experience – even though the combat system in The First Berserker: Khazan has refined that experience itself REALLY DAMN WELL.
The first post-hub-world boss, Viper was rough getting through... and then you're presented with the reveal that he's got a phase 2 with another full bar of health. The first patch significantly nerfed him AND boosted assistance for Easy mode, and even then I've seen Souls streamers who are way WAY better at these games than I am spending massive chunks of time to get through him. For me, getting through that boss just felt... like an exhausted frustration was finally over. Rather than overcoming insurmountable odds and being full of rage about what I was experiencing I was just... tired of it and mildly relieved I'd finally be able to do something else. It's just so odd, because – despite neither the story or the gameplay being bad individually AND me loving everything about both of those things – playing it feels like the game's narrative & the combat system are just relentlessly pummeling each other, and I'm enjoying both of them less the more that I play it.
It's very odd, and I'm not really sure if I stick with it or not, or just find someone else's playthrough to enjoy the story, and then play it without that element feeling like a factor, or what.
X
Replayed RE2 Remake for the 5th time, this time on the PS5 with all the enhancements, It still holds up so well, I cleared the game in just over 3 and a half hours and I am probably going to do it again tomorrow this time with Claire, It is the perfect evolution of survival horror never gets held it is a shame that Capcom regressed it in RE3 Remake and RE8 didn’t even try, RE4 Remake tried returning to that formula but honestly I found RE4R really mundane and not that enjoyable to play, I was not the biggest fan of the original either but I could still see that it was an amazing game just not for me that might be true for the remake also but honest to god I can’t give RE4R more than an 8 at best, I tried replaying it multiple times on different difficulties from professional to standard and I end up getting bored by it and dropped it ultimately.