What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[LibraryOgre]

My current phone game is Terragenesis, where you're spending a few centuries trying to terraform a planet by adjusting its temperature, air pressure, oxygen mix, water levels, and eventually biomass, while establishing a functional colony that can make enough money to improve itself. I'd class it as fairly hard sci-fi, with no unbelievable technologies, just ones that don't exist yet.; I'm about 400 years into terraforming Mars, and I'm at the point where I'm making final adjustments... my water level got WAY too high, due to my main water producer for years being a comet sling (i.e. a technology where people hunted down comets and they were aerobraked into the Martian atmosphere), and now I have to edge it down (I'm using an ice launcher, which is basically a reverse comet sling, and a bunch of grass fields and algae plantations, most of which i'll shut down once my water level gets normalized).

It's fun. It keeps running while the game is off (which is useful when you're trying to get 100,000 cm of water down at 300cm/minute), though you can come back to disasters if you let it go on too long.

[oxybe]

Trying out Sims 4. I just got a notification that the base game is free on Origin for the week so I'm checking it out it see if it's better, worse or a sidegrade from Sims 3.

One more thing to throw on my, thankfully small, pile of games to play while on vacation.

[LibraryOgre]

One thing I wish I could do in phone games...

You know how they have "Spend game currency to speed up this process"? And it costs like, 50 to speed it up, and you only have 10 right now? Let me spend the 10. Let me speed it up that much. I want the thing. I will get more points later. Let me speed up the thing NOW.

[The Glyphstone]

It doesn't make you want to spend RL $$$ to get the missing currency now? Clearly a failed design.

[LibraryOgre]

It doesn't make you want to spend RL $$$ to get the missing currency now? Clearly a failed design.

I got bills to pay and a tight budget for gaming. Pay to win is never gonna fly for me.

[Lord Raziere]

Playing more Sekiro. oh god. I've gotten to the point where all the bosses I can find are either:
1. Lone Shadows (2)
2. Headless (3)
3. Shichimen (2)

and my skills seem to have gotten....rusty. I'm not sure how I'm gonna get past these walls.

meanwhile in Skyrim SE, I've modded the hell out of it and have tons of characters. the more I play it this way, the more I just know that games Skyrim are not only built to be modded, but should be because it allows for all sorts of fun things you normally can't do in a videogame.

[StoneGS]

I've just started playing Divinity: Original Sin. Awesome game, I like the way they described the world. And the combat system is amazing - hundreds of methods for killing enemies.

[Inarius]

Well, I was playing Three Kingdoms but then after an in game event my map went blank and the only thing remaining is the UI. Good times, so thats getting shelved until they patch that and I guess I'm back to playing Fell Seal this weekend. Until that point though it was a pretty solid entry into the Total War series.

[lefty2shoes]

I've been hooked on Risk of Rain 2 :(

[Dienekes]

Well, I was playing Three Kingdoms but then after an in game event my map went blank and the only thing remaining is the UI. Good times, so thats getting shelved until they patch that and I guess I'm back to playing Fell Seal this weekend. Until that point though it was a pretty solid entry into the Total War series.

Rookie mistake. Never play a Total War game until the third month it's out at least. Learned that back at Rome 2.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well I just got me a 2DS, and as such have been catching up on the 3DS games I didn't finish before mine went for a walk. Mainly Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance (which I've had to restart because it's been too long since I played a KH game) and Tales of the Abyss, both of which I'd left just before the final boss.

But I've also bought Shin Megami Tensei IV for it, because this was the main reason I picked it up (I would have played it at launch if my 3DS hadn't walked by then). I'm enjoying it a lot, although I'm having trouble working out where the 'valuable item' for this third tutorial mission is (or if it's this X left Life Stones thing, where I'm supposed to take them). On the plus side I've managed to recruit almost every demon so far (only one level 6 has been missed), even if I did have to reload once before I got the only demon that comes with a heal spell*.

I'm looking forward to playing more tomorrow, especially as the fact you can save anywhere makes me less likely to lose half an hour's progress because my stop is here and there's no save point. I thought these games were supposed to be portable, thanks Dream Drop Distance

* Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that the game seems to delight in dragging out the death scene before you get the choice of revive or reload it wouldn't be a bad thing. But adding the revive option and a scene to go along with it just drags the process out, especially when I know I won't revive with any healing items. I'd have been happier having been dumped back at the main menu after a screen or two.

[Inarius]

Rookie mistake. Never play a Total War game until the third month it's out at least. Learned that back at Rome 2.

Less of a rookie mistake and more of I've been one of the blessed few who hasn't had any major issues with Total War games other than rolling my eyes at AI or balance issues. It would seem my luck has finally run out though.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well just beat the first proper boss in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Alraune, and I've started to see exactly why people used to Persona might say it's unreasonably hard. Battles are fast, I find normal ones lasting three to four rounds tops, with a big problem I'm facing being surprised and having one or more demons knocked out before I could act. But getting access to Fusion made everything a lot easier (even if I'm still scrounging for Macca at every turn), especially as I'm now packing several demons with healing spells as well as an upgraded Dia on Flynn. I've been warned that when I get to the Minotaur boss it suddenly becomes a lot harder, but people also claimed that Shadow Kanji was a difficult fight in Persona 4 so I'm thinking that might be a 'wake up to series playstyle' moment (and I still need to collect the rest of the buffs).

Still not overly happy with the drawn out death sequence. I'm hoping it speeds it up after the first time, because when I've just died I want to get back into the action as soon as possible. Especially if I end up at a point where I have to try the same boss several times in a row.

[Man_Over_Game]

Started getting into Far Cry: New Dawn.

While the game is pretty, it also feels....cheap. Like, whoever made the UI needs the "Old Yeller" treatment. It feels so blocky and awkward, the guns are really unbalanced (takes about 5 sniper shots with the starting sniper to kill a small pig), and a lot more.

They did a good job with the writing in the cutscenes, people feel pretty real, but you can definitely tell where they cut corners in that regard. The randos you occasionally meet often don't move their mouths right, and...it all just feels so rushed and cheap.


Quite a disappointment. They did have a few great ideas (telling you where gunfire, shouting, vehicles are all sounding from), but it lacks a lot of polish. Or literally anyone better than an unpaid intern to do the UI.

[tyckspoon]

Still not overly happy with the drawn out death sequence. I'm hoping it speeds it up after the first time, because when I've just died I want to get back into the action as soon as possible. Especially if I end up at a point where I have to try the same boss several times in a row.

After the first one I think you can use the standard skip/fast-forward cut-scene option to jump straight to the 'yes I want to buy a revive/no let me die' option. Been a bit since I touched that game.

[Anonymouswizard]

After the first one I think you can use the standard skip/fast-forward cut-scene option to jump straight to the 'yes I want to buy a revive/no let me die' option. Been a bit since I touched that game.

Well after dying about four times to Minotaur and six (so far) to Medusa I've learnt that. But I still think it should jump straight to the 'oh it's you again' part.

Anyway, I need to see if I fuse a better demon with Zan, and ideally a way to avoid Bind (which is the main reason I'm losing, I get it on two characters and I suddenly don't have the turns to keep up with healing).

[Corlindale]

I've rediscovered Slay the Spire. The game didn't quite grab me on my first attempts and I tended to die somewhere around Act II, but I think I've cracked the code now. Or at least I have for the Silent, my favourite character, as I've managed to pull off both Poison- and Shiv-based builds that run very efficiently. Especially my Poison build, which towards the end was amassing so much Block that it almost felt like cheating while enemies were just dying with more and more poison stacks.

Still not great with the other characters, though. Ironclad does not grab my attention that much, and while I want to like the Defect I haven't really wrapped my head around the strategy yet.

[Zevox]

Finally wrapped up Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations. All in all, quite enjoyed it, probably my favorite of the three paths - though good gods there are so many characters since you get both the Hoshidans and Nohrians, and recruiting all of the second gen ones takes forever as a result. Honestly don't find myself with much to say about the story, it was pretty standard fantasy/Fire Emblem, though that is a distinct step up from the facepalm-inducing story that Conquest had. Gameplay-wise I thought this path worked out pretty good - even though it reused some stages from the other paths early on, they were good ones, and it had plenty of its own too, which were also pretty good. Though the final boss fight was a touch on the bland side.

I do feel like remarking though, it's kind of weird how the two royal families worked out for me in the end. The entire Hoshidan royal family was basically godlike. Ryoma of course is one of the best swordmasters you could ask for, and turned out better for me this time than he did when I played Birthright, but all of his siblings actually rivaled him in amazingness too. Takumi edged out Mozu as my best archer, Hinoka was an amazing Spear Master (much better than in my Birghtright playthrough) whose only weak point was her low health, and good gods but Sakura was scary. She made a decent Onmyoji in Birthright, but as a Priestess with the Shining Bow in this path, she's a monster. I almost forgot she was a healer at times, she was just so good at killing whatever I pointed her at, and actually had decent defensive stats for much of the game post-promotion. Their kids were mostly pretty strong too, Shiro being a Spear Master second only to his aunt, Kiragi being possibly my best flying unit as a Wyvern Lord (his mother was Camilla), and Mitama (Sakura's daughter) being pretty good as a Dark Flier. The only one I didn't use was Siegbert (Hinoka married Xander), who was just turning out too mediocre - and well, he is more Nohrian, being normally Conquest-exclusive. By contrast the only Nohrian royals I used by the end were Elise (mostly as a healer since she was my single most frail unit still in use) and Kiragi, and of course the latter is more Hoshidan the same way Siegbert is more Nohrian. Xander and Leo were just too slow, Camilla didn't get very good rng on her level ups, and their kids other than Kiragi were just meh (or nonexistant in Elise's case).

Meanwhile, I also got into a closed beta for a game for the first time in my life that's happening this weekend. Granblue Fantasy Versus, specifically, which is a fighting game being made by my favorite fighting game developer, ArcSystem Works (the guys who made Dragon Ball FighterZ, Persona 4 Arena, Guilty Gear, and BlazBlue), apparently based on a mobile game that's only available in Japan. Wasn't really interested in it at first because of that last, but after seeing a few previews and, well, generally trusting ArcSys, I threw my name in for the closed beta, and got picked.

Short version, I quite enjoyed it. It's surprisingly different from their other games, taking more elements from Street Fighter and even a little from Smash Brothers, but it retains enough of what I like about ArcSys' games that I don't like it much less for that. It has an odd setup for its special moves: while you can do them with special motions like in a normal fighting game, there's also a dedicated button for them like in Smash Brothers you can use if you want, with each mapped to just that button plus one direction on the control stick/d-pad. But the catch is that when you use a special move it goes into a cooldown state, like in an MMO or mobile game, and if you do the move via the motion, that cooldown is shorter than if you use the Smash-style input. This also lets them give you meterless Ex special moves - they just cause a much longer cooldown than the normal version, rather than costing super meter like in other fighting games. It's an interesting dynamic which I kind of like, honestly, and which might help people who struggle with some of the special move inputs. There also seems to be some kind of dodging mechanic similar to Smash, but I haven't figured out how to actually do that yet, and it's such an odd thing to have in a non-Smash fighting game that it may take a while before I even remember to try. The online so far has performed pretty admirably too, feels smoother than DragonBall, possibly even a bit more so than BB Tag. Not that that means it's without input delay or that there isn't the ocassional lag spike, but significant issues have been quite rare.

All in all, probably won't be beating ArcySys' other games for my favorite title of theirs, just because I love the faster pace and big combos of things like BlazBlue or Dragon Ball (plus Persona is Persona), plus of course I have no attachment to the characters for obvious reasons, but I could easily see myself playing it as basically a better Street Fighter. Also, it's visually gorgeous, using the cel-shaded art style ArcSys created for Guilty Gear and employed in Dragon Ball FighterZ, which has always been just great for cartoony/anime-style visuals.

[factotum]

Noticed that a new DLC was released for Grim Dawn back in March, so I bought it and have started a new game. I really do like the way Grim Dawn plays...think Titan Quest (it's from some of the same developers) but with a graphics engine that isn't 12 years old.

[warty goblin]

Noticed that a new DLC was released for Grim Dawn back in March, so I bought it and have started a new game. I really do like the way Grim Dawn plays...think Titan Quest (it's from some of the same developers) but with a graphics engine that isn't 12 years old.

If you get the recent DLC for Titan Quest, it actually looks really quite good still. Not as good as Grim Dawn, but entirely acceptable.

[Resileaf]

If you get the recent DLC for Titan Quest, it actually looks really quite good still. Not as good as Grim Dawn, but entirely acceptable.

I assume that by DLC you mean the remastered version of Titan Quest?

[factotum]

I assume that by DLC you mean the remastered version of Titan Quest?

No, they're actually still releasing DLC for the game, despite its age--most recent one was Atlantis just last month.

[Resileaf]

No, they're actually still releasing DLC for the game, despite its age--most recent one was Atlantis just last month.

Yeah, but it was released on the remastered version of Titan Quest.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, but it was released on the remastered version of Titan Quest.

Indeed. Atlantis also upgrades the graphics a bit more. IIRC it adds SSAO and probably some other complicated eye-candy related acronyms. Having been playing it this week, I can say that it's quite attractive, though obviously the models are still lower poly than something actually released this decade.

[Resileaf]

Indeed. Atlantis also upgrades the graphics a bit more. IIRC it adds SSAO and probably some other complicated eye-candy related acronyms. Having been playing it this week, I can say that it's quite attractive, though obviously the models are still lower poly than something actually released this decade.

I treat it like AoE2 remaster. Looks quite a bit better than the old one, but it's still obviously old.

Imo, the best thing about the remaster is that it stops the slowdown that plagued the original version in many zones.

[Gray Mage]

Just wrapped up all the time pieces from Hat in Time. All in all a very good time, movement is good, some of the achievements are actually challenging and it aims just high enough that they can deliver. Might do deathwish/online stuff later.

Maybe going to go and advance Yakuza 0's story, I always get distracted.

[Forbiddenwar]

Just finished Shadowrun returns (the first one, dead man switch). It was a lot of fun, but I got a bit tired of the tactical combat at the end.

So I started Fallout New Vegas for the first time ever. The steam cleaning event encouraged me to look at all the old games that I never played. I keep hearing this one is still good. But wow, it's very brown, isn't it?

[Triaxx]

I mean... it's set in a desert. There is some greenery, but it's not really in the starting area. Also there's an orange filter over things, which enhances the brownness for some reason.

[Lord Raziere]

So I started Fallout New Vegas for the first time ever. The steam cleaning event encouraged me to look at all the old games that I never played. I keep hearing this one is still good. But wow, it's very brown, isn't it?

New Vegas is good. played it after trying FO4, and like New Vegas better

It is indeed brown. kind of true for Fallout in general I'd say. though it might also be the cowboy aesthetic. get used to that. its not going away any time soon.

I've finished Cat Quest myself, nice cute little game. the twist at the end though small, actually made me hate the villain and rage a little inside, and I roleplayed the hero cat fighting the rest of the monsters in sidequests in despair afterwards.

[Razade]

Just finished Shadowrun returns (the first one, dead man switch). It was a lot of fun, but I got a bit tired of the tactical combat at the end.

So I started Fallout New Vegas for the first time ever. The steam cleaning event encouraged me to look at all the old games that I never played. I keep hearing this one is still good. But wow, it's very brown, isn't it?

"It's very brown, isn't it?" is the tourist slogan of the Mojave in real life. What did you expect from a game set in the post-apocalyptic Desert South West? A genre all but defined by its muddy color pallet of choice and a region not particularly well known for its vibrant wildlife or rich floral habitats.

Spoiler Alert: It's going to be a lot of brown.

Just count yourself lucky that Fallout: New Vegas wasn't done strictly by Bethesda and thus its coding isn't nearly as crash happy. Not to say that it doesn't have its bugs but it's not like anything Bethesda has spat out.