What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[halfeye]

Last night, I picked up Stronghold (1993) again. It is so very fun.

So, it's based on D&D... likely Rules Cyclopedia, given the year (RC is 1991). You make your "Baron/Baroness" from one of the classes (Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Mage, Dwarf, Elf, or Halfling), and up to four other characters. Each generates units of their type, with their stats, and you build buildings and improve your stronghold, building up an economy (and army) for when the monsters attack.

Was this on the PC?

[Cygnia]

Was this on the PC?

If they got it from Steam or GOG, then PC is an option...

[LibraryOgre]

Was this on the PC?

...why would it be on anything else?

[GloatingSwine]

Other videogame platforms did exist in 1993...

(Though for the removal of doubt this one's actually called D&D Stronghold not Stronghold. Stronghold is a different series.)

[Errorname]

(Though for the removal of doubt this one's actually called D&D Stronghold not Stronghold. Stronghold is a different series.)

Yeah I was mildly confused by that at first, being only familiar with the more historical and non-D&D castle builder game called Stronghold.

[Cygnia]

Still playing "Cats Love Boxes" and I found my cats in the gallery!

[halfeye]

...why would it be on anything else?

At about that time I had an Atari STe, others had Amigae, both were better than contemporary PCs, and there were already consoles.

[LibraryOgre]

Was this on the PC?

Other videogame platforms did exist in 1993...

(Though for the removal of doubt this one's actually called D&D Stronghold not Stronghold. Stronghold is a different series.)

Yeah I was mildly confused by that at first, being only familiar with the more historical and non-D&D castle builder game called Stronghold.

At about that time I had an Atari STe, others had Amigae, both were better than contemporary PCs, and there were already consoles.

I suppose a clearer version of the question is "Why would I be playing a PC game, clearly identified in the post by both its name and year of release, and released only for DOS and two Japanese personal computer systems, on something other than a PC?"

Was I playing it on a system it was never released for? Maybe I was referring to a game that came out eight years later than the release date I specified? Maybe I should have used a name that gets used on a catalog, not the one I've been calling it for thirty years, that you see every time you boot up the game? Should I have been more specific than the first thing that pops up when you search "Stronghold 1993" on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia?

[Anonymouswizard]

Started another run of Rogue Trader, with an Imperial World Ecclissiarch Offider. It's working much better than my previous attempts at an Officer build, but I think that's because I nabbed as much Willpower as possible and decided to lean into AoE weapons (primarily shotguns and flamers).

No to bench Idira until the game finally lets me do what the Imperial Creed requests and get rid of the witch.

[Zevox]

Been playing FF7 Rebirth for the past couple of days. It's quite good, as expected. Combat is FF7 Remake's but with more stuff added on, and some tweaks. Everyone now gets dodge attacks automatically, no need for the Deadly Dodge materia, for instance; and there's now a real parry mechanic where you hit block just before an attack would connecting with you and fully negate the damage, making blocking way more useful, so you're no longer necessarily just dodging as your defensive option of choice. Some characters movesets have had slight tweaks - Aerith's old special move, where she charges up and tosses a magic crystal attack at the opponent, is now done by holding her regular attack button, and her special move now teleports her instead, either a short distance in a direction you're holding to to a ward that she's set up. Red XIII joins your party pretty much right at the start of the game, and he's quite different, being built to encourage him to be a tank - he charges up a "revenge" mechanic by blocking and parrying, and when he activates revenge mode (which he can do at any time as long as he has some charge, the charge just determines its duration) he gets a big damage and speed buff. Which is kind of wasted on average enemies, but could make him an effective boss fighting character. There's also new team mechanics, Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities, where two characters do something together; the Skills are freebies you can use any time and come in offensive and defensive (usually counters) types, while the Synergy Abilities are ATB moves that are big and flashy and often provide a potent side-effect, but require characters to have used Synergy Skills enough first. For an example, Cloud and Barret have a Synergy Skill where Barret shoots bullets at Cloud, who then swats them at the enemy with his sword like it was a baseball bat; makes no sense whatsover if you think about it, granted, but it looks cool and works effectively to give Cloud a ranged attack he'd otherwise lack.

Writing remains good - although even with the solid writing quality the remake has had, it didn't do anything to make Sephiroth's turn from famous hero to omnicidal maniac any less abrupt, he still goes from zero to crazy and murderous in no time flat in that Nibelheim flashback. It's also a touch more open-worldy than I'd like. It doesn't seem as though it's going to be that bad in that regard, the areas are big but manageable, particularly once you have a Chocobo to ride, but some of the side-quests for Chadley are kind of fillery (Life Springs most notably). Amusingly enough when you ride a Chocobo, everybody else in your party also hops on one from nowhere, including Red XIII. Yep, this game has a dog riding a giant chicken, and it looks just as silly as you'd expect.

Surprisingly it's taking a little bit from Bioware's playbook - you get a dialogue wheel at times where you need to pick what Cloud says, and party members have a relationship stat with you that can go up from talking with them or using synergy skills for the first time. I'm assuming this is to facilitate the date event at the Golden Saucer eventually. Most people will probably aim for either Aerith or Tifa; me, I'm half thinking about going for a bromance with Barret. He's the best character in FF7 IMO, so why not?

Also, DBFZ on PS5 with rollback was just not working for the first couple of days (couldn't get matches, got disconnected from lobbies whenever I tried), but trying it today, seems like it is! Feels good so far, but oh boy, will it take some readjusting to. Been three years since I last played it, and it goes at a much more break-neck pace than Granblue Rising. Trying out Lab Coat 21 since she was added after I stopped playing, and she seems cool from the time I've spent with her in training mode and the little bit of play time I've given her. Need to figure out the team I want for her though.

[halfeye]

I suppose a clearer version of the question is "Why would I be playing a PC game, clearly identified in the post by both its name and year of release, and released only for DOS and two Japanese personal computer systems, on something other than a PC?"

Well, I didn't know the name, and it was easier to ask than mess with Wikipedia.

There were many multi-platform games at the time, most worse on PC than ST, and allegedly better still on Amiga. For example I was told that Dungeon Master had better stereo on the Amiga. Civ was on the Amiga, on the ST, and on the PC.

I spent a lot of time playing on the ST, but I certainly played a lot less than half all of the games produced for it, it may well be that I played less than 5% of the games that were produced for the ST, and I possibly don't remember the names of all the games I did play.

[Beelzebub1111]

Palworld and Helldivers 2care a good example of how price affects perception.

If either of these games were 70-80 dollar AAA titles they would not have been as successful as they are. But people feel a lot better purchasing them and recommending them at their 30-40 dollar price point and have gained such a wider audience and much larger return despite their lower price-point.

I think there is something to be learned from this.

[Cespenar]

Trying out something called Terminator: Dark Fate: Defiance, which is a very interesting RTS from Slitherine, the "good but jank" fellows.

As far as RTSs go, it's pretty unorthodox in several ways. It has kinda realistic ranges and damages, so you sometimes engage at silly distances like two city blocks or whatever. Or a tank just appears from the fog of war and just wastes your humvee with one shot.

Also, you need trucks or jeeps to tow other vehicles, which in turn need drivers, who can be normal units with the normal driving skill, but tanks need a tank driving skill, etc.

Oh yeah, and it's a very "russian school" kind of game, with ammo, fuel, permaloss of units, etc. -- case in point, I lost my only tank in the third mission and said what the hell and just continued. The next mission was thus as hard as the last missions of normal games.

[GloatingSwine]

Started another run of Rogue Trader, with an Imperial World Ecclissiarch Offider. It's working much better than my previous attempts at an Officer build, but I think that's because I nabbed as much Willpower as possible and decided to lean into AoE weapons (primarily shotguns and flamers).

No to bench Idira until the game finally lets me do what the Imperial Creed requests and get rid of the witch.

Idira is part of Cassia's cheerleader/cleanup squad for me. Uses buffs to start combat then knocks out anything that the Emperor's Own Delete Button didn't make it round to.

[warty goblin]

Trying out something called Terminator: Dark Fate: Defiance, which is a very interesting RTS from Slitherine, the "good but jank" fellows.

This is on my "to be played" list, your description makes it sound right up my ally, so it got moved up the queue a bit.

But it'll have to wait. I'm not allowing myself to start any new games until I wrap up Knight's Tale, and I just hit Chapter 3 (of 5, but I think the last chapter is some sort of ongoing 'seasonal' style stuff I'll probably mostly skip.) I finally got high enough on the Righteous track to unlock the Lancelot recruitment mission. Sadly, it's a level 14 mission, and my two highest level heroes are 12. I might chance it if I had four level 12s, but I think my 11s and 10s would be utterly obliterated by a 3-4 level gap. The scaling isn't super ridiculous in this game, but the number of enemies is often borderline nutso, so your chosen party either needs to be able to tank all day long, or else dish out a lot of hurt to keep the tanks from getting overwhelmed. Mordred has become a borderline unkillable block of iron, thanks to a couple items that give +Armor on a kill, and Merlin is legit bonkers broken, but I don't think they can hard carry through that. Better level up a bit first. Ah well.

Also, Chapter 3 brings the Fae, and the Fae are scary. They move fast, hit like tons of bricks, and have a lot of abilities that ignore overwatch, so you can't even set up the usual line of death and cleave everybody's face before they even get a swing off.

[Bohandas]

I've become somewhat obsessed with Infinite Craft. Is any of you remember Doodle God it's like that but it's got a word-associating AI programmed into it so that the game is really endless


https://neal.fun/infinite-craft/

[Zevox]

So I've reached the Golden Saucer in FF7 Rebirth. Feels like roughly the midpoint of the game, with all my characters at level 30 now. Still greatly enjoying it - the combat's just fantastic, Remake's combat was already the best action-RPG combat system I've seen, and this is just that but better, with more options and characters to play. I've added Yuffie to my team at this point, and while I got to play her in the Integrade DLC for Remake, having her alongside the party members really reinforces just how much fun she is to play. Her ability to rapidly swap between close-combat physical attacks and long-range magical attacks in the midst of a fight is just a joy to employ, and makes her the most flexible character in the party by far. It's hard for me to leave her out of the party now, which is a bit of an issue since it is a 3-character party size, just like the original.

They integrated Yuffie into the story this time, too, and she gets a lot more building up as far as relationships with the others in the group and her role in the team dynamic go since they now know when she'll actually be present during the story. She was a character I kind of disliked in original FF7, so this is all a huge improvement to me. Not that it makes her my favorite (besides to play) or anything, that's still Barret for sure, but the fact that I'm not questioning why we even keep her around alone is a big deal compared to the original game.

Spoiler: How she joins now.

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You first run into her in Junon's undercity, where she's taken refuge after the events of Integrade; you save her from the sea monster attack there instead of the random girl from the original game. She doesn't join you then though - turns out the mayor of Junon's undercity has hired her to assassinate Rufus Shinra while he's in town for the parade. She comes close to doing so, but of course fails (though ruining a deal Rufus tries to strike with Cloud in the process, as he assumes the assassin to be working with Avalanche). After that you see her briefly as a stowaway on the ship to Costa Del Sol, then she finally joins you properly in Costa Del Sol, after jumping in to help you deal with Hojo's nonsense there.

Minor aside, but having just played Persona 3 Reload, boy was it distracting to hear Mitsuru Kirijo's voice coming from a Shinra Commander in this game. Not inappropriate, she has that kind of commanding presence and tone, but still pretty distracting.

Should probably say, it feels like the game's relationship system is stacked in such a way that you get more opportunities to improve your relationship with Tifa and Aerith than the others. I've had random story events improve my relationship with them multiple times, and thus far only a single such event affect anyone else. Kind of feels like I'm going to need to deliberately sabotage my scores with those two if I actually want Barret to be my highest - if I'm not too late already, that is.

Another thing I should perhaps note, this game is just as heavy on mini-games as the original, if not more so, but thankfully most of them are actually fun this time around. Playing through original FF7 I know I was incredibly off-put by how awkward the mini-games were and just felt like they were getting in the way of the parts of the game I wanted to see; but here I'll actually go out of my way to play everyone I can in Queens Blood, or do the hard mode versions of the Fort Condor stages, or win every prize at the Costa Del Sol games. The one exception is the sit-ups mini-game with the gym folks, that one sucks; it's similar to the pull-ups/crunches mini-games from Remake, but they somehow made it harder. Fortunately none of the prizes from that one seem like anything of any significance, so I don't think skipping it will matter.

My only real problem so far, aside from the open-worldy elements padding things a bit much at times, is that the combat's proving a bit too easy. After being on normal for a little bit I turned the difficulty up to "dynamic," the hardest setting available at the start, which is supposed to adjust the difficulty based on your skill somehow, but doesn't really feel like it's doing anything. I'm sure a hard mode will unlock after beating the game once, just like in Remake, but in the meantime I'm still routinely a little sad by how quickly bosses die - I don't even get to unload Limit Breaks out them more often than not. Only Chadley's fights with the summons seem to be providing much challenge, and there the full-power versions are clearly not beatable until much later in the game, you just can't survive them pulling out their big mid-fight attacks and difficulty spikes when you first get access to them.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Mostly just reply to people in these threads, so I figure I should share my own thoughts on what I've been playing. This is a lot of text so I'm going to spoiler each game section to keep it compact. None of these have major story spoilers, though.

Spoiler: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

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I really enjoyed LAD7 and its change-up to the series, though it had some growing pains from the shift to turn-based combat, so I was excited for LAD8 to go all out. After finishing it, however, I found myself disappointed overall. While they did address most of the major complaints about the combat with new additions, I feel like they didn't go far enough to make it shine. The new movement options and greater control over contextual attacks is appreciated, but I still found the class system underwhelming and it once again breaks down into mindless usage of your strongest "spells" past the midgame. Most of the classes have near identical movesets, covering the full range of single and multi target attacks; plus knockbacks and grapples, which made class changing and skill inheritance feel redundant. In the end, the combat is serviceable enough, but I found it started to drag before the game was over.

Story-wise, I found this to be the weakest entry of all the Yakuza games I've played (0, Kiwami, LAD7 and LAD8). The series is trying to move on from revolving entirely around the Yakuza, but it hasn't managed to land on a consistent theme. Much of the game is taken up with gazing back at the rest of the series, especially the Kiryu portions, and it doesn't leave much else to say. The main plot almost feels like a side story, with a cast of weak villains save for one and a laughable scheme from the main antagonists. It also feels terribly paced, with no captivating hook until Chapter 6 or 7, and a deluge of interruptions, especially that of the Sujimon and Dondoko Island minigames. Personally, I'm not a fan of Pokemon combat or Animal Crossing, so both fell flat - especially Sujimon. Frankly, a minigame centered around a stripped down version of a turn-based RPG (Pokemon) feels very out of place as side content in a game that's already a turn-based RPG.

In the end I did finish the game so it held my attention long enough to see it through, and I did enjoy the bittersweet memories of Kiryu looking back on his life, but it made me feel uncertain for the future of the series. If they've already ran out of interesting ideas in the second game of the new style, where does it go from here?

Spoiler: Helldivers 2

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Arrowhead's Helldivers was one of the best sleeper hits when it released years ago, so the trailer for Helldivers 2 immediately caught my attention. Happy to say it's better than the original in almost every way, while keeping the same zany mix of serious action and hilarious friendly fire. It's taken the gaming community by storm, so there's not much more to be said. Especially since they've tamped down all the launch issues now. If you have any interest in a tongue-in-cheek co-op shooter that somehow makes you feel like special forces and a total stooge in equal parts, give it a go.

I should probably give this game props for its monetization, too. You can find the premium currency in fairly decent amounts strewn about the levels and the "battle passes" have no expiration dates at all. I'm far more offended by FOMO baiting than paid content, so this all sits well with me.

Spoiler: Pacific Drive

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Haven't finished this one, but it's hitting me in the same way Subnautica did. It's a chill game about driving through a creepy, ever changing zone straight out of the movie Annihilation. Armed with not much more than an old station wagon, you plot routes into the unknown, following orders from a trio of bickering scientists that have been trapped for too long. Unlike most survival crafting games, this plays out like a roguelite, Tarkov-like extraction run. You move from map to map, harvesting resources and dealing with the oddities the Zone throws at you, before opening a path back to your garage to rest, research, restock, and return to the drive. Perhaps the most interesting part of this game is how you're very rarely under any immediate threat, but you always feel on the edge of danger. It's the essence of "95% uneventful, 5% pants-wetting terror." Many drives consist of scavenging the various shacks and abandoned detritus left behind by the researchers without issue, to the point you may wonder if anything can kill you at all. And then you'll have that one run where everything goes horribly wrong in an instant - maybe you wander just a bit too far from your car and while your back is turned, you hear an alert from your HUD mixed with the sound of wrenching metal and spin to see your ride getting dragged into the forest and off a cliff.

Honestly, I'd recommend this just because it's a fairly original mix of ideas, even if most of those ideas are individually pulled from elsewhere.

Spoiler: Last Epoch

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I'm not sure why I picked this up, to be blunt. It got a lot of good press, but I feel as though I've grown tired of the hack-n-slash ARPG. I suppose after Diablo IV gave me those thoughts, I wanted to give the genre one last try to win me back. Last Epoch is a decently well-made game, though its not winning any awards for plot; originality; or presentation. It has some neat elements in the customizable skills and varied mastery classes, but many of the skills don't have the visual/aural oomph that really sells the power fantasy these games are known for. I can't say how well it stacks against Diablo or Path of Exile, only that it definitely hasn't rekindled any love for this style of game.

Spoiler: FF7 Rebirth

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I'm only about six hours into it so far, so I can't say much. The beginning scene of the game felt very out of place and actually confused me, though Kalm and the Nibelheim flashback right after were well-done. The open-world gave me a small wave of revulsion, especially once I saw the first Ubisoft tower, but I'll admit I don't have any feelings specific to this game's world yet. Combat is fun and flashy, though the addition of the new Synergy skills and abilities feel unnecessary at the moment, even if they're fun to see. So far I'm expecting to enjoy the combat and main content of this one, but probably hate the navel-gazing plot and excessive side content.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: FF7 Rebirth

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I'm only about six hours into it so far, so I can't say much. The beginning scene of the game felt very out of place and actually confused me, though Kalm and the Nibelheim flashback right after were well-done. The open-world gave me a small wave of revulsion, especially once I saw the first Ubisoft tower, but I'll admit I don't have any feelings specific to this game's world yet. Combat is fun and flashy, though the addition of the new Synergy skills and abilities feel unnecessary at the moment, even if they're fun to see. So far I'm expecting to enjoy the combat and main content of this one, but probably hate the navel-gazing plot and excessive side content.

If you'd like some answers about that opening scene, I can give some (not based on spoilers from later in Rebirth, just based on Remake and older games); although I'd say that they intend it to be confusing at this point, as it's something they're doing that's entirely new, not a part of the original FF7, and even what little more I've seen of it hasn't told me much I didn't know going in.

Spoiler: Opening scene.

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Basically, Zack's events appear to be occurring in another timeline entirely. If you know the original plot of FF7 (or Crisis Core, the game they made to focus entirely on Zack's story), Zack is supposed to be dead; but at the end of Remake, we saw a scene where he survived the fight where he was supposed to die. The implication being that this was made possible when you defeat the Whispers, who were keeping "fate" on its predetermined course, at the end of FF7 Remake. But that's incompatible with the regular story occurring as it has in the main timeline we've been playing through Remake and Rebirth; hence alternate timeline.

I'm not sure where they're going with that exactly, Zack's timeline hasn't shown up much more for me yet despite being quite a bit further in the game , though I have some guesses based on what little more I've seen. They're highly speculative though, could be way off-base.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

Oh, I totally understood it from a plot perspective. I was more confused why they'd open the game that way. It was an awkward transition and, according to you, hasn't had much relevance on the plot so far.

I think part of it is that particular character is a director favorite or something, while I've never found them that interesting. Maybe it'll be more important down the line when the inevitable exposition dump happens, though.

[Zevox]

Oh, I totally understood it from a plot perspective. I was more confused why they'd open the game that way. It was an awkward transition and, according to you, hasn't had much relevance on the plot so far.

I think part of it is that particular character is a director favorite or something, while I've never found them that interesting. Maybe it'll be more important down the line when the inevitable exposition dump happens, though.

I have a suspicion on that matter as well. I think it's because they want the game bookended in certain ways, basically. They told us before the game came out that Rebirth ends at the end of the original game's disk 1 - aka the single most famous event from the game. So...

Spoiler: Opening scene Rebirth/original game.

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The game opens with Aerith's death in Zack's timeline, and ends with her death in the main timeline. That's the baseline a rationale I saw upon first watching the scene. I suspect it goes further than just that too, but that gets into some of my speculation, which is based on information from scenes you haven't seen yet, and could be off-base anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

Idira is part of Cassia's cheerleader/cleanup squad for me. Uses buffs to start combat then knocks out anything that the Emperor's Own Delete Button didn't make it round to.

I'm trying to roleplay as a very dogmatic priest(ess), so Idira as an unsanctioned psyker is very much someone I don't like. I will do a more Iconoclast or Heretical run at some point, probably as a Psyker/Officer, but it's just not to be this run.

Like build-wise she's fine, she's a buff monkey and I've learnt how to use her, but this run she's staying benched. Heinrix will serve as my resident psyker for now.

[Zombimode]

This is on my "to be played" list, your description makes it sound right up my ally, so it got moved up the queue a bit.

But it'll have to wait. I'm not allowing myself to start any new games until I wrap up Knight's Tale, and I just hit Chapter 3 (of 5, but I think the last chapter is some sort of ongoing 'seasonal' style stuff I'll probably mostly skip.)

Terminator: Dark Fate: Defiance is on my list as well :-)
But I'm in no hurry. Terminator is surely a game that will benefit of a round of patches :-)

Regarding Knights Tale: yes, the seasonal stuff can be skipped. The game properly ends after act 4. The seasonal extra content is gameplay-focused and comes a with a huge spike in enemy HP...
Personally the extra content was not for me. These are not "proper" story DLCs and the 5-fold* increase in HP kinda destroyed the combat dynamic.

*Probably an exaggeration, but you get the idea.


I've wrapped up the Burning Blood campaign of Spellforce 3. It was pretty good :-)
The weakest part were the RTS sections. Doing a "hero rush" to destroy the enemy headquarters was almost always possible and much quicker and easier than actually engaging with the RTS mechanics.

[Saph]

I've been playing a new game that's been making the rounds of the roguelike community, called Balatro. Roguelike poker, basically.

It is REALLY hard. I've managed to get to the top difficulty, but I've yet to beat it in 5-10 tries, though I've come close.

[Cygnia]

I've been playing a new game that's been making the rounds of the roguelike community, called Balatro. Roguelike poker, basically.

It is REALLY hard. I've managed to get to the top difficulty, but I've yet to beat it in 5-10 tries, though I've come close.

It's not a lootbox type of game to buying certain packs with Real Money, is it? Hubby likes poker and his birthday is next month...

[Cespenar]

Nah, no "actual" gambling in it, fortunately. it's just the latest numbers-get-multiplied deckbuilder roguelike that came around.

It is extremely slick and pretty addictive, though.

[Saph]

Yep, there's no betting/gambling, just "make the best poker hand you can". You get a certain number of hands and discards, and you have to beat a certain target score to go up to the next level.

You can also get jokers (that provide permanent bonuses to each hand), level ups (that make each type of hand score more), and bonuses that multiply your hand score. Then you can get bonuses that multiply the multiplier on your hand score. All of those things are multiplicative, so you quickly get ridiculously high scores . . . however, the target score scales up just as fast.

The basic mechanics are very simple, but there are a huge variety of jokers, each of which skew your run in a different direction, so each run can feel quite different.

[Zevox]

Some Persona 3 Reload news: The Answer is coming as DLC (along with some other more pointless stuff bundled in an "Expansion Pass") this September. No mention of price, or if the DLC will be available individually rather than just as part of the pass, but there should be an answer on the latter soon since the first of the less important DLC, music from some of the other games, drops on March 12th.

Personally, definitely a "wait and see what people say when it's out" one for me. The Answer was tedious and grindy and I never finished it in FES, just watched the cutscenes on Youtube instead. To some degree the modernizations of the game, like selectable skill inheritance, controllable party members, and the addition of things like Theurgies should help with that, but I'm not sure they'll eliminate it. And as much as I love Persona 3, I am not eager to pay extra for The Answer of all things.

Now, if this portends them doing the same thing with the female protagonist path next year, that'll be another story. That I'd be happy to toss a decent amount of extra money at them for. But not The Answer, not without some major improvements.

On FF7 Rebirth, I'm now into Gongaga Jungle. Just a few remarks to make:
- My initial Golden Saucer date wound up being Tifa, although it feels like Barret wasn't even an option for plot reasons at the time anyway.
- Barret's backstory was quite well-done, a head-tilting moment or two aside. Loved the callback to Barret's line to Tifa after the fall of Sector 7 in Remake.
- I now have Cait Sith in the party. I believe the technical term for his gameplay style is "f***in' weird." Which, you know, it's Cait Sith, so I kinda saw that coming, but still. He's instantly the character I want to play the least and is now my designated bench-warmer and materia leveler (since, thank heavens, everyone gains XP and AP even when not in the active party). Though at least him joining you is a bit less forced than in the original - he makes himself more useful. And Barret remains skeptical of him, which, knowing what's coming with him, good instincts there.
- You still get the dune buggy, to my surprise. That was always a weird bit of FF7 to me, and felt like it was probably unnecessary in the remake, especially after I saw you could swim in Rebirth, since its original main purpose was crossing rivers for some reason. But it's still here, and actually faster than walking this time, so that's nice.
- Gongaga Jungle feels like it's going to be the area that bugs me the most on a replay. I'm okay with it so far on the first time through, but it's big, dense, maze-like, and is kind of giving me Dragon Age: Inquisition area vibes, which is not a compliment coming from me. (Inquisition is the one Bioware game I've played but never been able to finish a re-run of because of its giant areas.)

[Cygnia]

Just finished demo'ing "Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death". It's hilarious, but the mechanics are a tad janky. Even though it's on sale, holding off buying it for the time being...

[Anonymouswizard]

My build just felt too distant for a Rogue Trader even before the end of Act 1, especially as I couldn't use my weapons AND Officer abilities in a single turn. So restarting, minmax time, let's go for the least lore appropriate option.

That's right, Voidborn Sanctioned Psyker (Pyromancer) Officer, Willpower pumped as high as I can go, trained to be part of an Imperial Guard psyker squad, snatched up by an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor to help deal with a Xenos artifact, and then dumped on Theodora due to a mixture of her heritage and a tendency to keep setting things on fire.

Then I got halfway through the prologue and I'm getting the idea that psyker is the intended choice.

Likely also going to pick up Telepathy, but mainly building to throw out fire and extra turns.