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

[GloatingSwine]

KotOR 1 thinks blasters are dumb and for losers. Even before you become a Jedi you do way better with swords. (SWD20 blasters do 3D8 damage, in KotOR that's 1D8)

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.

[Anonymouswizard]

I pretty much always play a scout; I am an utter slave to having the right skill, at the right time, and a high-int scout is a big part of that.

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed. Plus Soundrel gets more skill points anyway, going Scout is pretty good but it's not the skilliest.

Honestly the reason I'll probably restart and do Scout->Sentinel is the same reason my ME characters tend to focus on Tech powers: I like being the girl up to her elbows in machine parts.

Being forced to swap to a Jedi class is what made me drop KotOR. I just...don't care, man. I wanted to shoot my blasters. Being abruptly forced to swap to something you did not have in mind at the start of the game and which may not fit your stats or previous Feat choices is dumb.

I mean, it is called Knights of the Old Republic, and the protagonist is implied to be Force Sensitive pretty early. The bait and switch is annoying, I think KotOR2 did better by just starting you as a Jedi*, which also avoided the other trick up the game's sleeve (aligning the skilliest normal class with a less skilly Jedi one).

Although I will admit the first handful of levels as a Jedi suck, especially if you're not going Guardian (I always miss Force Jump when I don't have it).

* and not giving you amnesia, it's actually more interesting.

KotOR 1 thinks blasters are dumb and for losers. Even before you become a Jedi you do way better with swords. (SWD20 blasters do 3D8 damage, in KotOR that's 1D8)

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.

I remember speccing Carth into dual blasters and doing okay, but it probably helped that it was a soldier->guardian run with a saber staff so he could have been throwing water balloons and everything would have died.

But blasters hold their own in the early game, simply because they fire off multiple shots for basic attacks. Their main issue is so few being upgradeable, and those that can only having one option per slot.

[LibraryOgre]

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed. Plus Soundrel gets more skill points anyway, going Scout is pretty good but it's not the skilliest.

Honestly the reason I'll probably restart and do Scout->Sentinel is the same reason my ME characters tend to focus on Tech powers: I like being the girl up to her elbows in machine parts.

Ah, Scoundrel! That's what I meant.

A good option was actually Scout->Guardian... the Guardian Leap would combine with Sneak Attack for some massive first hits.

[Aeson]

Being forced to swap to a Jedi class is what made me drop KotOR. I just...don't care, man. I wanted to shoot my blasters. Being abruptly forced to swap to something you did not have in mind at the start of the game and which may not fit your stats or previous Feat choices is dumb.

To be fair, there's nothing that actually requires you to trade your blaster(s) for a lightsaber. You kept all the feats you had prior to class change, I don't recall there being any real reason to max out all three of the attack feats, and even if you did want to max them all out I'm pretty sure you could continue taking blaster feats as a Jedi if that's the way you wanted to develop your character (or was that only KotOR2? It's been a while...); about the only thing you'd actually miss out on would be the higher-level versions of the starting class's special bonus.

Anything not called Persuasion (and in KotOR2 Awareness) can be shuffled off to party members if needed.

I don't entirely agree; there's a couple of segments in both games where you don't have access to your party members, can't (easily) change your active party to for example pull T3-M4 off the bench for a repair/computer check, or simply haven't yet acquired one of the party members who start with a decent score in whatever skill you want, and KotOR2 even penalizes you (slightly) for breaking containers open rather than picking the locks beyond just the missed XP. The main character is the one character that you (almost) always have in the active party, which is already enough to justify making them the skill monkey if you want to ensure that you always access to the 'right' skill, and they're the character that you control by default, which makes them a more convenient choice for a skill-monkey than anyone you'd otherwise be switching over to any time you want to pick a lock or recover a mine or whatever.

There's also the "I don't want to feel compelled to keep [party member] in the active group just to have access to [skill]" angle. Sometimes you just want to run with HK-47 and Canderous (or whatever other party you want to use as an example) because you like the characters, simply want to see just how good Canderous/Zaalbar/Hanharr can get with the best swords and +Strength gear money can buy and all the buffs a pair of Jedi can keep on them, or are just relishing the opportunity to give all the Sith and Dark Jedi a taste of all the save-or-suck medicine a full party of Jedi can serve up after that last go around where everyone in the group apparently decided to repeatedly fail their Will saves in unison, or whatever. Lack of access to the full range of skills unless you take them on your main character doesn't exactly prevent this, but it does discourage it, especially in bits of the game that you can only visit once per playthrough, and it doesn't help that it very often feels like skills that aren't at the maximum possible rank for your current level aren't useful, especially since most party members barely have the skill points to keep the skills that they started with current, let alone branch out into anything else.

KotOR 2 makes them a lot more viable, with special abilities for doing things like breaking through jedi deflection. But KotOR 2 wasn't finished.

I still don't think I'd call blasters good in KotOR2. Putting the lightsaber or the (vibro)sword or the quarterstaff down means giving up a lot of defense due to the loss of parries and blaster-bolt deflection while combat ranges in the game are short enough that ranged characters often only get a round or two of attacks before melee characters are on top of them (especially when your gun-armed characters, with visibly-clear lines of fire to the targets, decide to go over and say hello before they start shooting), so crowd control abilities are at least very useful if not essential to have, but grenades and weapons that inflict status effects are mostly kind of useless later in the game while a lot of the better Force powers can't be used if you're wearing armor.

Also, regardless of whether we're talking KotOR or KotOR2, it doesn't really matter what weapon you use when you're locking enemies down with Force Stasis or Insanity or the like, and Sneak Attack triggers on incapacitated enemies if you're close enough to them so stunlocking things can also help overcome the blaster damage shortfall.

[warty goblin]

Wrapped up Scars Above. Overall I liked it quite a lot, though I think it did drag a bit at the end. There's a part where you have to go get three plot coupons, which require going through some new areas in existing biomes, fighting the same monsters as the first time you were there. These aren't bad by any means, the elemental combo based weakspot sniping combat is a lot of fun and your expanding arsenal does a good job of opening up new tactics, but it kinda kills the forward momentum and sense of discovery that made the strongest parts of the game.

Everything else however worked for me. The story turned out to be pretty tightly written, without much in the way of loose ends or obvious holes, and even some of the more gamish game mechanics are reasonably well integrated. It also goes some weird places, and is a pretty interesting riff on some decently large sci-fi kinda ideas. The main character works quite well I thought, and while there's acres of technobabble (of greater or lesser accuracy) she does approach things analytically and scientifically, which is pleasant. Also pleasant is that the game really likes that approach, and while there's cautionary elements to the narrative, they are just that, cautionary. The supporting human cast is a bit (or a lot) underbaked, but for a game that cribs so much structurally from 2012 Tomb Raider that's very nearly a requirement, and ultimately it doesn't really harm the overall experience that much. You may not really care about them, but it's reasonable that Kate, the protagonist, does, so her motivations remain consistent.

It took me about 10 hours in total. This is about perfect. There's plenty of chances to mess around with the surprisingly deep combat mechanics, without the story ever feeling padded or getting stale (excepting that very little bit at the end.) There's no open world bits or side activities or anything, there's just the story, and poking around for XP and the occasional upgrade, which keeps things very focused. It was actually really pleasant to play something that had a beginning, middle and end that flowed naturally into each other and wasn't bogged down with "I'll progress the main story but first I need to go get Villager Jane a date and also buy that +3 Thingy from the shop and..." This was pretty much a movie or book as a game, so while it had a lot more combat than most exemplars of the previous media, it had the same structure and focus, and honestly would make a good sci-fi novella. I'd say a very strong 8/10, for a team that seems to have previously only made hidden object games this is shockingly good. I definitely look forwards to whatever they make next.

[GloatingSwine]

But blasters hold their own in the early game, simply because they fire off multiple shots for basic attacks. Their main issue is so few being upgradeable, and those that can only having one option per slot.

They actually don’t. The game animates multiple shots per round but only one is a real attack. Same with the melee weapons.

The only way to get more than 1APR is to dual wield or use Flurry.

[Anonymouswizard]

They actually don’t. The game animates multiple shots per round but only one is a real attack. Same with the melee weapons.

The only way to get more than 1APR is to dual wield or use Flurry.

Huh, I swear I saw multiple damage numbers from a blaster rifle basic attack before, maybe I just didn't notice a special one.

Although tbf everything on KotOR pales in comparison with the double bladed lightsaber. +1 attack per round without dual wielding penalties? Yes it's a bug, but not even Malak can stand up to a saberstaff+master flurry+Master Speed.

[Form]

I've finished Slay the Princess. There's a lot of different possible routes, but I'm content with the wholesome experience I got out of it, so I'm probably not going to replay it just to see the other paths. I'm not the type to go achievement hunting.

Spoiler: Final thoughts

Show

So, it is not about abusive relationships like I initially hypothesized. It's a straight up love story, like the game tells you. You do hurt each other, whether you want to or not, but you grow together and grow closer as a result. I joined Her at the end instead of slaying Her. I suppose I could say it's because growth and transformation are important and death needs to be a part of the world and all that, but honestly, I just wanted these 2 characters to have their love story with a happy ending and the world be damned!

... and I'm a little bit miffed I didn't get that 1 route where you kiss her. Maaaaaaybe I'll replay it one more time after all just to get that one.

[Zevox]

Progress in Persona 3 Reload has slowed a bit since my vacation ended, but still chugging along. I'm in December now.

On non-spoilery thoughts, they've definitely made it easier to max out all of the social links compared to the original game. Granted, I'm making sure I gain as many points as possible at each level-up (because even in later games you kind of have to if you want to max them all in one run), but with 16 social links all on day time, most of them school links that have significant chunks of time where they're unavailable (summer break, holidays, the entire week before each exam week), P3's always been by far the hardest, and I have no doubt I'll get there at this point despite not really planning things out. At December 10th, not counting the automatic links, all I have left to do is four links that are already at rank 9 and one (Mitsuru) at rank 7. Plus the Aeon link of course, but that's not until January. I think they significantly increased Mitsuru's availability once her link opens up because of how little time you have for it, she seems to be available every school day now, and is even still available to hang out with during the week before the December exams (which is really good because I'd have nothing to do those days if she weren't, since I already maxed all my out of school links).

I also greatly appreciate the extra night time options they give you with the party, as I'd have long since run out of things to do at night without them. Although some of the power-ups they unlock for the party members are a bit nuts - I now have Yukari casting all of her healing spells at 1/4 SP cost and Aigis with a free Phys Amp in a game where that skill doesn't even otherwise exist, to name the two craziest I've acquired thus far. Also, some of those URLs you can buy in Club Escapade have some surprisingly useful stuff behind them: a whole game mechanic that lets you get ambush attacks on Shadows from a run in Tartarus, and a number of upgrades to it. I kind of wish I'd used those sooner. Definitely would've prioritized them over the two night social links if I'd known.

On spoilery thoughts, well,

Spoiler: Yes, I'm using a spoiler tag for a 20 year old game's story.

Show

I remembered how well the game sells the sheer weight and despair of the situation after Ryouji tells you about Nyx, but it's one thing to remember it, and another thing to see it again. I mean, Junpei's explosion of frustration on the group meeting the week after just really hits hard, especially after a whole game of him being the goofball of the group. Or Fuuka talking about how she called Natsuki due to wanting to hear her voice again because to what's going on but, when Natsuki immediately realized something was wrong, found herself unwilling to say anything to her about it, because how could she tell her friend that the end of the world is coming soon? Or even Mitsuru, the level-headed leader of the group, having already resolved to move on despite her father's death, being brought just as low emotionally as everyone else, and talking about how she's never really contemplated her own death before and seeming paralyzed in making a decision by that. Even knowing that Nyx can be stopped because I've beaten the game before, the weight of what everyone's going through here can just be felt so clearly.

And of course it helps that this is coming off other major story moments that are thoroughly dark in the past couple of months - Shinjiro's death in October, and Chidori's in November. No matter how many times I've played this game, those scenes hit hard, and they did them damn well in this remake. P3's emotional lows just hit hard in general, I suppose.

Also, it turns out the method to save Chidori, to the extent that you can, has changed, and I missed the new one. Oh well, nothing for it now, I'll just keep it in mind for the next time I revisit this game. Chidori's death being truly final certainly remains an appropriate outcome, given everything else.

Edit: Oh, I should probably mention, platonic social links with the romance options is definitely confirmed. Everyone seems to get a moment at rank 9 where you can either enter a relationship or choose to remain just friends, and it's clearly telegraphed, as it has been since P4. Although you can really tell that some of the scenes earlier in the links were written with the assumption that the relationship would become romantic. Yuko and Fuuka aren't as blatant about it - in fact, I didn't even get an option to tell Fuuka I loved her in the scene where it seemed like that was coming, so I think at least some of these might have certain answers you need to pick earlier on to flag the romance as a possibility, like Naoto in P4 - but it's pretty obvious with Yukari and Chihiro.

[Errorname]

Tried to get back into my KOTOR run, mostly made myself want to play Mass Effect instead.

[tyckspoon]

Edit: Oh, I should probably mention, platonic social links with the romance options is definitely confirmed. Everyone seems to get a moment at rank 9 where you can either enter a relationship or choose to remain just friends, and it's clearly telegraphed, as it has been since P4. Although you can really tell that some of the scenes earlier in the links were written with the assumption that the relationship would become romantic. Yuko and Fuuka aren't as blatant about it - in fact, I didn't even get an option to tell Fuuka I loved her in the scene where it seemed like that was coming, so I think at least some of these might have certain answers you need to pick earlier on to flag the romance as a possibility, like Naoto in P4 - but it's pretty obvious with Yukari and Chihiro.

For Yuko I think you have to choose the 'haha but what if not joking?' options during the "I'm sorry the kids keep calling you my boyfriend" segments, although the actual hard commit to dating doesn't happen until rank 9.

On non-spoilery thoughts, they've definitely made it easier to max out all of the social links compared to the original game. Granted, I'm making sure I gain as many points as possible at each level-up (because even in later games you kind of have to if you want to max them all in one run), but with 16 social links all on day time, most of them school links that have significant chunks of time where they're unavailable (summer break, holidays, the entire week before each exam week), P3's always been by far the hardest, and I have no doubt I'll get there at this point despite not really planning things out. At December 10th, not counting the automatic links, all I have left to do is four links that are already at rank 9 and one (Mitsuru) at rank 7. Plus the Aeon link of course, but that's not until January. I think they significantly increased Mitsuru's availability once her link opens up because of how little time you have for it, she seems to be available every school day now, and is even still available to hang out with during the week before the December exams (which is really good because I'd have nothing to do those days if she weren't, since I already maxed all my out of school links).

Glad to hear this - I've got several school links I have hardly done anything with at all as of mid October and was feeling like it'd be a time crunch to do them (Emperor, Lovers, Temperance, Fortune all at start or low levels and haven't even made it to opening Mitsuru or Aeon yet) and that's even with knowing ahead of time that non-school links weren't a priority and could be done during things like summer break or exam prep periods (one of the errors I made the first time I played this game was doing the Heirophant link too early and losing days that should have been school mates.)

[Zevox]

For Yuko I think you have to choose the 'haha but what if not joking?' options during the "I'm sorry the kids keep calling you my boyfriend" segments, although the actual hard commit to dating doesn't happen until rank 9.

No, I don't believe I picked those options, but I still had the opportunity to tell her I loved her at rank 9. Fuuka's the only one I didn't. Though of course that doesn't mean there aren't flags on others that I just hit incidentally.

Add Mitsuru to the "obviously intended to be romantic" list btw, given her rank 8 event, now that I've seen that. Though they do a great job with her reaction if you turn her down at rank 9.

Glad to hear this - I've got several school links I have hardly done anything with at all as of mid October and was feeling like it'd be a time crunch to do them (Emperor, Lovers, Temperance, Fortune all at start or low levels and haven't even made it to opening Mitsuru or Aeon yet) and that's even with knowing ahead of time that non-school links weren't a priority and could be done during things like summer break or exam prep periods (one of the errors I made the first time I played this game was doing the Heirophant link too early and losing days that should have been school mates.)

Depending on where you're at with the rest it might still be a bit of a time crunch, but yeah, that doesn't sound impossible at least.

Oh, something that comes up later: the guy who sells URLs in Club Escapade will sell you vouchers for a dating site late in the game (starts late November or early December I think), which for some reason you can use to boost your points with any social link as a night event. And you buy multiple copies, unlike other URLs he sells. So you can avoid wasting days on just gaining points with that when time starts to get down to the wire.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm only in June and all my first act school links are at 4 or better (with Yuko at 7). To be fair I'd be further but I took a break after an annoying wipe. The exception being Fuuka, I have not ground Courage to anywhere near the required level.

It definitely seems easier to me, but on my first playthrough I was so bad that I blitzed Kenji's link in the first term, I think without a Magician Persona, and only completed two links total by the end.

[LibraryOgre]

While still actively playing BG3, I've also restarted on Jade Empire. The Spoose and I have been watching Blue Eye Samurai, and it made me crave martial arts action in an RPG, and Jade Empire is what I've got. I've gotten as far as Tien's Landing... I got to the Imperial City last time I played, but I am a constant restarter.... I have actually restarted Jade Empire three times since starting it on Tuesday, the most recent time because my Eldest started up, then chose the exact same character as me, so I can't tell us apart in savegames.

[Sapphire Guard]

The EULA for the PS5 has some interesting parts.

"If you are in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia, Oceania, India, the Russian Federation or Ukraine, all games and other software made available for use with your PS5 system are licensed to you, not sold"

"To the fullest extent permitted by law, residents of the United States, countries in North, Central, or South America, Japan or country/area located in East Asia or Southeast Asia, you hereby waive any rights or expectation of privacy, confidentiality, or publicity for any information in your gameplay or communications via your PS5 system, except as described in the PS5 User's Guide and Privacy Policy for your region."

[Zevox]

I finished Persona 3 Reload tonight.

It's a truly wonderful remake. Very faithful to the original (to a fault at times, though they were clearly taking steps to address the original's flaws as well), but adding quite a bit as well. Theurgies, new night time activities, numerous new mechanics for Tartarus, pseudo-social links for the male party members (plus Ryoji), obvious modernizations of the series' mechanics, tons of less obvious quality-of-life changes, plenty of characters getting voice acting that didn't before, and other miscellaneous small changes. It definitely obsoletes FES (unless you like The Answer, and even then you can just fire up FES solely for that, since it's a separate mode anyway), and is definitely the best way to play the game now unless you specifically want to play the female protagonist route from Portable. Persona 3 was already tied with its sequel for my favorite game of all time, and much like when I replayed Persona 4 after Golden was put on Steam, this has only reminded me of why; so basically, barring the unlikely event of something new taking title this year, this is going to be my favorite game of the year, all but guaranteed.

I should probably elaborate about those psuedo-social links for the male party members, since they're not obvious at first glance. Basically, when you see one of those characters with a pair of blue exclamation points over their heads (or marked with explanation points on the map), that's one of those events. There's four or five for each, culminating in a last event in January (aside from Shinji and Ryoji, for obvious reasons), and each one does actually lead to you getting an item that unlocks a persona for fusion, like an actual social link. (Actually, Ken and Koromaru's unlock personas who are ingredients in special fusions, so technically they unlock two personas each.) I actually managed to complete all except Junpei's despite not knowing this until quite late in the game: Akihiko and Ken's are night time events, so I did those just because you have plenty of time at night; I prioritized Shinji and Ryoji's because I wanted to see any new stuff they'd added for them given their roles in the story; and Koromaru's it turns out you can do entirely in the month of January even though it first pops up far earlier. Junpei's though I missed, since I didn't feel it was as important to pursue new events for him, and they were early enough that I was still in the mindset that I might have a hard time completing all of the social links by the end if I stopped to do something like those. As a result, I couldn't fuse Surt.

Spoiler

Show

Also, this is why I missed reviving Chidori, one of his events is needed for that now.

I'm very happy they added these honestly. They're not all top-notch, but Shinji's is a great addition, and I liked Ken and Akihiko's a fair bit as well. Plus it's just good to have these since they hadn't yet established that party members should all get social links when P3 was first made.

Oh, and I should perhaps also add a small warning: if you go to kill the Reaper near the end of the game, expect the final boss fight to be trivialized. Not because the Reaper's a harder fight (though he probably is), but because he's worth an absolute unholy ton of experience. I kid you not when I say that beating him catapulted the party members that were with me from being around level 76-78 straight to the low 90s. They actually wound up higher level than my main character (who got jumped from the low 80s to 89), and I didn't even think that was possible. I remembered that if you can beat the Reaper you won't have issues with the final boss, but I do not think he used to just power-level you that much in one go.

Also, for anyone curious, the Theurgy moves I found for the main character over the course of the game:

Spoiler

Show

Cadenza (Your starter one.)
Jack Brothers (Jack Frost + Pyro Jack, medium almighty AoE, high chance to knock down. Great early-game Theurgy.)
The King and I (King Frost + Black Frost, heavy ice AoE, medium freeze chance. Good mid-game Theurgy.)
Best Friends (Decarbia + ?, give one ally Charge/Concentrate. Never used it.)
Scarlet Havoc (Mithras + Sigfried, severe slash AoE. Arguably the best Theurgy for the MC in the game, make sure you fuse those two just for this. I never used the earlier ones after getting it.)
Trickster (Loki + Susano-o, massive almighty damage AoE, high chance of a status effect. Since it's harder to pump almighty damage than slash and the status effect doesn't work on bosses, I didn't use this much.)
Armageddon (Satan + Helel, reduces your HP and SP to 1, but deals 9999 almighty damage. Obviously insane, it one-shots the Reaper, and I wouldn't be surprised if it one-shots Nyx's last phase, but the cost means you're not using it casually.)

I didn't 100% the compendium (think I was at like 80% by the end), so there could be more, but those are what I got.

[warty goblin]

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.

The game's plot is that you play as Mordred, who's been resurrected by the Lady of the Lake after the battle of Camlann, because Arthur has turned into some sort of absolute nightmare creature after arriving at Avalon. You need to rebuild Camelot, recruit knights, and retake the land, which is in a very cursed state. So that setup sounds like bad fanfiction, but in practice it works pretty well. Because you are literally reborn, you explicitly get to redefine Mordred, I prefer a take where in this sort of mirror Britannia you are actually a good dude. Also being a good dude lets you recruit Lancelot (eventually) so that's a clear argument in favor for me.

The tactical battles are pretty nifty as well. It's kinda standard 4 dudes AP on a grid stuff, but developer Neocore really leans into the whole knight thing. That is, your heavily armored knights are absolute unstoppable death-tanks. You have a boatload of armor, and, in an unusual twist for a tactics game, the dude with the giant axe just absolutely crushes things. You aren't really blocking for the spellcaster or archer, you're just smashing faces as fast as you can get to them. The archers and spellcasters and rogue-type guys are useful support as well, they just aren't the combat monsters than the frontliners are. There's a class system, but because all the knights are named characters from Arthuriana, they all have unique appearances and abilities; even two two-handed guys in practice play quite differently. This handily sidesteps the XCOM problem where sure you have three different Heavies, but because there's a totally obvious optimum build for all them, you really have one Heavy with 3 HP pools so you can hot-swap them between missions.

The knights as characters bit also plays into the choice system. The game uses the same alignment chart that all Neocore's Arthuriana games do, Righteous - Tyrant on the vertical axis, and Old Faith - Christian on the horizontal. Various knights have their own alignments, and making choices in accordance with that alignment boosts their allegiance, which translates to a nice damage boost if you keep it high. There's also little questlets that pop up for specific knights, which can boost their allegiance further.

Overall I think this is definitely worth a play, if your feeling like moving dudes around a map. Yes you could play Baldur's Gate 3, but the combat in this feels a lot more...mmm... grounded and properly heavy. Less superheroes jumping around like bouncy balls, more iron-plated titanically strong champions hammering each other into the mud. And frankly I like Arthuriana better than the Forgotten Realms.

[Anonymouswizard]

So part of P3R I've noticed is some changes to the party's characterisation, most notably Akihiko's. And while for the most part it doesn't matter I really like that Akihiko has a LOT more focus on his intelligence than later installments give him. Notably not only is it basically back to protein powder being barely mentioned but a lot of focus on the actual nutritional value of his meals (even if they can be ridiculously basic).

Also I'm liking how the hangout events in the dorm give bonuses after a few times. It's made me de focus on grinding social stats, but the only one that might be too low is Courage and I'll have a lot more free time in the summer holidays. Really looking forward to seeing Shinjiro's.

I'm also amused that Junpei's resent comes up right when I benched him because so few fire weak enemies were coming up. Although he'll be back in if Akihiko still only has his physical skills allotment as Sonic Fist and Fist Master.

[Lord Raziere]

Been playing Pokemon Unbound, a pokemon romhack thing:

Spoiler

Show

Its the only pokemon fan game where you can join a biker gang, get into a gang war and no one sees this as morally bad. its also the only pokemon game where your starter is like either larvitar, beldum or deino. y'know, pseudo-legendaries? its also the only pokemon game at all where you start in an ice area and like get ice pokemon as your low-level pokemon while bug pokemon are like saved for later areas. furthermore, your pokemon start at level 10 rather than five and it has this weird effect where all the levels are higher for the game so my pokemon are like level 60 at the seventh and eight gyms where normally they are 40 or 50.

furthermore it does interesting things with Gyms where each one has weird rules and things to adapt to rather than just different typings. like for example, the fighting type gym just outright bans some moves are strong against fighting types based on a system of how much moves of that type you have compared to other strong moves, and before you can face the gym leader you have to face three pokemon in a row with only one. so you have to rely on strategies that don't involve/rely on typing to succeed. though my strategy is often "use a strong pokemon with neutral moves, maybe a defensive typing" and it works.

the Borrius region is big, has a lot of towns and a very particular pokemon selection that almost forces one to go with a different team than usual. my starter is now a tyranitar, a pokemon I rarely if ever use, then starting out I caught pokemon like Bewear, Walrein, Crobat which I've used a couple times before, Pyroar, and....well the sixth slots ever changing and often these days I feel get things done with like five out of six pokemon anyways, the sixth pokemon often feeling like a leftover or extra party member that maybe gets called in as a reserve or when the rare opportunity for them to help comes up, or gets beaten because I misjudged the situation, while other pokemon get a lot of screen time to shine because the game rewards using them more.

my team is different from that earlier one, because for some reason the game gives you starters from Sinnoh, Unova and Alola regions at certain houses you find when you agree to look after said pokemon in some other persons stead, so now I have an Infernape and Primarina on my team. also it gave me a cosmog for free which I raised into a Lunala to face this games rocket boss and now I have the games actual legendary: Hoopa, which has been using portals to summon uncatchable legendaries throughout the game to fight me, so I feel having a legendary of my own to beat them is just fair play and I still had to raise cosmog up from like level 15 anyways so its not as if was completely free.

thing is, the fact that it provides you so many options for power speaks confidence that they can still make it challenging or memorable because they constantly throw weird rules changes at you here and there to keep you on your toes and not just in the gyms- some of the most memorable fights I've had so far are where I wasn't in full control of the pokemon available to me or what they can do, often having to make do within the limitations imposed on me.

and the eighth gym, which I haven't beaten yet? outright says to me that pokemon don't gain experience in it and that when defeated they revert to an earlier form, as it has this weird backwards de-aging theme based on something called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (they call it benjamin Butterfree) and I'm not facing it yet because I'm not sure how to approach it yet. like the reversions are probably all temporary and such, but the very weird ruleset for once gives me pause.

really good pokemon fangame though, I recommend it for anyone who is into pokemon and especially into romhacks/fan games.

[Taevyr]

I might have to give it a try: had a blast with pokémon Reborn a few years back, doing a normal and MonoIce run back-to-back, so I imagine I'll enjoy this one.

[Zevox]

With under two weeks until Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth releases I found myself in a bit of an awkward spot for picking a new game after finishing Persona 3 Reload. I could maybe squeeze in a replay of FF7 Remake, which I had intended to do before I learned P3R would release within a month of Rebirth, but I'm not sure I'd make it, so I've decided against that. So looking for something to play in the meantime, I saw that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was on sale for $10 on PSN, and picked that up.

Liking it so far. It caught my attention a while back for being based on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and uh, yeah, it very clearly is. Plenty of similarities here to Castlevania in general, and SoN in particular. Hell, the villain even stole most of his look from Dracula, with that big black cape wrapped around him. I'm playing as Miriam, since she was the first character on the select list and seems to be the game's intended protagonist, in case that matters (I don't know what differences there are between the playable characters, the select screen was just a list of names and told me nothing else). I'm not far in, only gone a little further than the supply post. I'm so far favoring the two-handed weapons due to the big swing arc, which seems very useful against the early game enemies, though I do notice the slow speed makes the weapon type terrible at protecting me from bats. I do think it's cool that they've got fighting game style special moves you can unlock like SoN did though, if those didn't burn SP so fast I might be using the martial arts boots instead right now just for that.

I've also still been playing some Granblue Rising alongside my single-player games, albeit less of it since Reload came out. After playing Zeta for a while and not really moving my rank with her much I switched over to Anre, the game's least-played character and one of the characters I was surprised I liked when I tried everyone earlier. And to my surprise again, I was able to make him my second character to reach S+ rank. For a supposedly defensive character he has some surprisingly solid offensive tools too, including a fantastic throw bait air special, a special that can be canceled into a command dash for pressure resets, and a couple of different safe (if low reward) frame trap options with his special moves to discourage foes from mashing on defense. So yeah, I'm definitely liking him a lot more than I ever expected to. Glad I went and tried everyone like that.

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.

Huh, sounds neat. And I see it's actually getting a console release in a couple of days. I'll have to keep that one in mind for the future.

So part of P3R I've noticed is some changes to the party's characterisation, most notably Akihiko's. And while for the most part it doesn't matter I really like that Akihiko has a LOT more focus on his intelligence than later installments give him. Notably not only is it basically back to protein powder being barely mentioned but a lot of focus on the actual nutritional value of his meals (even if they can be ridiculously basic).

I don't think that's a change in how P3 characterizes him, it's more that his characterization changed in the spin-offs. Mostly I think because they gave him more of a comic relief role there than he has in P3, probably due to the large cast of characters the spin-offs tend to have, since most of them cross over the casts of multiple Persona games, and he generally wasn't chosen to get that much focus.

Also I'm liking how the hangout events in the dorm give bonuses after a few times. It's made me de focus on grinding social stats, but the only one that might be too low is Courage and I'll have a lot more free time in the summer holidays. Really looking forward to seeing Shinjiro's.

I'd still focus on maxing Courage and Charm early, to unlock Yukari and Fuuka's social links (plus the others that require rank 4 instead of max of course), personally. Less of a rush for Academics for sure though, since Mitsuru's won't unlock until late November at the earliest anyway (and also the last rank of Academics takes a ton of points to get). Though the Watch TV and Read Books hangouts do give you social stat points, so may as well take advantage of that while you can.

The bonuses you unlock from the night hangouts get really good. Yukari, Aigis, and Junpei's especially. Ken's is a big help to him for Tartarus exploration purposes too.

I'm also amused that Junpei's resent comes up right when I benched him because so few fire weak enemies were coming up. Although he'll be back in if Akihiko still only has his physical skills allotment as Sonic Fist and Fist Master.

Akihiko's physical skills are Sonic Punch, Gigantic Fist, and God's Hand. He does not get Strike Boost/Amp, if that's what you meant by "Fist Master," though you can get those for him through certain equipment.

[Batcathat]

I started playing Life is Strange: Before the storm over the weekend and so far my main takeaway is realizing how addicted I had gotten to the ability to rewind time. Though considering who the main character is, it might help with the role-playing since making an impulsive choice and then having to face the consequences seems very on brand for Chloe.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't think that's a change in how P3 characterizes him, it's more that his characterization changed in the spin-offs. Mostly I think because they gave him more of a comic relief role there than he has in P3, probably due to the large cast of characters the spin-offs tend to have, since most of them cross over the casts of multiple Persona games, and he generally wasn't chosen to get that much focus.

Maybe, it's been a long time since I played vanilla P3. I remember his original characterisation revolved around his relationships with Shinjiro and Miki.

I'd still focus on maxing Courage and Charm early, to unlock Yukari and Fuuka's social links (plus the others that require rank 4 instead of max of course), personally. Less of a rush for Academics for sure though, since Mitsuru's won't unlock until late November at the earliest anyway (and also the last rank of Academics takes a ton of points to get). Though the Watch TV and Read Books hangouts do give you social stat points, so may as well take advantage of that while you can.

I tend to boost Academics/Knowledge to 'ace the exam' levels first before focusing on the other two. Of course I'd forgotten that both Fuuka and Yukari have ridiculous prerequisites for the male protagonist, I mean it's not like Fuuka's cooking routinely sets the kitchen on fire.

I'm currently at 4/4/3 at the beginning of exam prep week, and planning to use the days to focus on Charm and Courage.

The bonuses you unlock from the night hangouts get really good. Yukari, Aigis, and Junpei's especially. Ken's is a big help to him for Tartarus exploration purposes too.

Yeah, I've only got them for Mitsuru and Akihiko right now but they seem great.

Akihiko's physical skills are Sonic Punch, Gigantic Fist, and God's Hand. He does not get Strike Boost/Amp, if that's what you meant by "Fist Master," though you can get those for him through certain equipment.

Fist Master is a skill he got in the old versions which improved his basic attacks. This was the first Phys skill he learnt after Sonic Fist, which meant his high Strength stat was actually worth something again, although it's still not great.

(I'm not too bothered about him only getting Strike skills, he has multiple worthwhile uses for his SP including the Zio line.)

[Zombimode]

After wrapping up Scars Above, I felt like a change of pace, so cycled back to King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a rather odd tactics game from a year or so ago. It recently got a big patch, and while I don't remember the pre-patch version well enough to say much about it, it certainly feels good to play now.

King Arthur: Knights Tale is an absolute treat!
The combat is for me without a doubt the most fun of this kind in recent years. You're spot on in that it feels heavy. There a amazing combos and alpha strikes you can pull of.

Personally I love the bulking knight archetype and as you might imagine King Arthur delivers on that front. I also really enjoy the portrayal of Mordred in this game.



On sunday I finished Lunacid. In short: it's very good!
Lunacid is a first person exploration/dungeon crawling game in an early 3D look (think Thief 1&2). It has fantastic and varied level design, with lots of verticality, many secrets and great use of sound and lighting. The atmosphere is thick and dark.

A quick rundown: in the distant past a creature awoke in the world (which is either the real Earth, or a world very similar to the modern real world) and ushered in an age of darkness and magic. The world reverted back to an archaic state. Many eons pass while the world is on a downward spiral. In essence this is a world destroyed by the use of magic. It brought Vampires, Undead and reality-altering curses. One event caused the moon to melt and pour down on the earth.... yes, it is that kind of setting.
In time a pit evolved that is used to ger rid of people deemed undesireable. The player character is one of those who gets thrown into the pit. The range of characters to pick ranges from the mundane to the excentric.
While the whole game is confined the pit so we never see how things are on the survace it is implied that any kind of orderd society has ceased to exist.

The gameplay consists of navigating the various areas of the underground, while dealing with hosts of enemies. There is a strong focus on finding secrets and hidden areas. Some secrets are pretty much impossible to find without a guide but most of them will reveal themselves to the astute player. As a hint: the actual moonphase has an impact on the game (though you can manipulate this by setting the date in your system...).

As a word of warning: players who have trouble with orientation will likely find Lunacid prohibitively difficult as the game has no map of any sort nor provides any guidance ("quest compass" etc.) whatsoever.

[Errorname]

Playing Mass Effect again, finishing up a playthrough from back when Legendary Edition came out that stalled out on Omega. There's still a lot of stuff that annoys me about Mass Effect 3, but I'm into the Leviathan DLC, which is a massive step-up in quality from most of the base game and the Omega DLC.

[Sapphire Guard]

Started Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

This premise seems vaguely interest- oh, it's fromsoft style. Dangnabbit.

[theangelJean]

Anyone else playing Islands of Insight?

I swore off MMOs a few years back, and actively decided not to install Steam on my last computer and this one, to the point where I had to reactivate my account after not having used it for over ten years ... But ... Puzzles!

And so far it's not actually a MMO, yet. There's no co-op experience or player interaction, you can just see other players characters moving past and their activity shows up in a feed. And the puzzles are many and varied :)

[Rynjin]

Started Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

This premise seems vaguely interest- oh, it's fromsoft style. Dangnabbit.

No, it's Team Ninja style. The Ninja Gaiden series was doing the "Soulslike" action combat gameplay but with even more brutal checkpointing long before Fromsoft decided to take King's Field in that direction with Demon's Souls. The Nioh games, while taking From's more forgiving checkpoints and resource systems, retain their own identity with superior and more complex combat. Wo Long should be similar to Nioh by my understanding.

Also is Wo Long on gamepass or something? Not sure why you started a game from a genre you don't like otherwise.

[Zevox]

Maybe, it's been a long time since I played vanilla P3. I remember his original characterisation revolved around his relationships with Shinjiro and Miki.

That's certainly at the core of his character and development in P3, yes. What I mean is more that he never came across as the sort of single-minded meathead he sometimes can in the spin-offs. He was always about as serious about his studies as and about as intelligent as Mitsuru. I remember noticing this about the spin-off portrayal of him, and other characters, before. Basically I think the Persona writers don't bring their A game to the spin-offs, except sometimes for the new characters in them, and especially characters who wind up with little focus in them tend have certain traits of theirs over-emphasized for comedic effect instead of doing anything serious with them. For another example, compare how much Chie's love of meat is brought up in the spin-offs to how much it comes up in Persona 4 itself.

I tend to boost Academics/Knowledge to 'ace the exam' levels first before focusing on the other two.

Oh sure, but you only need it at 3 for that early game, and getting all of the stats to 3 early is pretty easy. It's after that where you really need to pick and choose.

[warty goblin]

King Arthur: Knights Tale is an absolute treat!
The combat is for me without a doubt the most fun of this kind in recent years. You're spot on in that it feels heavy. There a amazing combos and alpha strikes you can pull of.

Personally I love the bulking knight archetype and as you might imagine King Arthur delivers on that front. I also really enjoy the portrayal of Mordred in this game.

Yeah, I love just forming up my heavies into this line of steel and inexorably grinding through a wave of undead or whatever. It actually makes being tanky fun, which isn't generally an archetype I find particularly enjoyable. Probably it works here because the tankiest dudes (well, second tankiest behind the shield guys) also hit like wrecking balls, so you don't have to deal with silly things like aggro or taunting guys or whatever. You just march forwards and smash things in the face until such time as further face-smashing is unnecessary. It's a weird glimpse into some alternative universe where fantasy games are tailored around the knight fantasy instead of the wizard fantasy.

Also agree on Mordred. It sounds like such a dumb idea, but the full inversion of the traditional Arthurian saga ends up paying off in surprising ways. The fact that all the stories you know already happened saves you from repeating stuff you, well, already know, but still includes the familiar stories and characters, which is entirely the point. It works out to be a sorta ingenious way to refresh the traditional narrative without undoing it. I wish the knights had a bit more characterization, personal missions, and so on, but what they have is really good, and despite the kinda gonzo high fantasy makeover everything's gotten, it still feels appropriately Arthurian. Not traditionally Arthurian, this definitely isn't Mort de Artur or even Idyls of the King, but it's solidly taking part in the tradition. One of the fun things about Arthuriana to me is that there's isn't really a canon, there's just characters and common plot elements, and every author more or less does with them as they will.