Ultimate Videogame Topic 3: The Next Generation

[esuriospiritus]

I like all the FE games I've ever played, but they all kind of have their own unique flavor due to them always adding and removing mechanics and such. Awakening does some things really well, but also takes out some things that I miss (like the rock-paper-scissors magic triangle), and some people have complained about the difficulty changes (grinding is a possibility and you can have virtually unlimited reclasses, vs not in most other FE games).

So mostly I'd say that if those changes would bother you, go play FE 7 and 8. They're originally for GBA but easily emulated if you can't track down a hard copy. If they don't bother you, go play Awakening for sure.

[esuriospiritus]

Oh yeahhh. Still has the magic triangle though IIRC, and reclassing is limited.

[esuriospiritus]

also they make you use Origin, which can fuck right off

whaaaaaaaaaat?

DA:O is on Steam, somehow I thought the rest would be too

[esuriospiritus]

A friend told me that DA:I is like a Bioware'd Skyrim. And considering that when I played Skyrim I basically told him "I wish I could play a Bethesda-style open world game with a Bioware-style story" ... I may have to get into the franchise. However, I tried to play DA:O several years ago and couldn't get into it, which was partially a function of it lagging horribly on the clunky computer I had at the time and partially because I hated the combat style.

I seem to have that problem with all the early Bioware games I've played, actually. ME1 was my first game that qualified even remotely as a "shooter" so that was engaging enough the first time, but now trying to play it is torture due to all the micromanaging required. And KOTOR was so bad that I had to basically turn the combat off to get through the rest of the story.

I have DA:O on Steam, so I may have to give it another try sometime early next year (I fully expect Pokemon ORAS to keep me occupied until January/February).

[esuriospiritus]

So did I!

I'm afraid to try KOTOR2 because of everything I've heard about it (essentially, what you said with different words). Is it worth playing despite its defects?

[esuriospiritus]

Hatoful Boyfriend is amazing and all of you should play it.

[esuriospiritus]

Guild Wars 2 is on sale. Also they just announced an expansion.

Pie's current computer isn't good enough to play it but we are thinking about getting it anyway so we can play together once he upgrades. (Plus I'll be graduating soon and therefore ending my self-imposed ban from all things MMO.)

[esuriospiritus]

Sims in general just doesn't work for me.

First I play it as intended. Then I get bored with that and become a sadistic god. Then I get homicidal. Then I'm bored again and I stop playing for the next 5 years.

[esuriospiritus]

yes! It's going really slow though. I'm only on ch. 5 I think

I should also probably actually finish AS... I'm at victory road I think and haven't played at all in the last month

[esuriospiritus]

So far, everything appears to be corridors, but I'm sure that'll go away after the tutorial is over.

Not sure if you're joking or serious but nope, a good 85% of the game is corridors.

They're very pretty corridors, though.

[esuriospiritus]

I got that far in because I saw the potential the plot had and kept hoping it would actually reach that. But alas, I was hoping for Bioware-level characterization and got flat annoying people instead.

But yeah, if you can make it to endgame there are some actually challenging fights that are really fun. I wish the whole game had been at that level of difficulty.

[esuriospiritus]

I was at the midnight release with a friend who got the game; I'll ask him what he thinks when I see him next but I think his priority was the FFXV demo

[esuriospiritus]

I hope you like hats

[esuriospiritus]

steam sale?

what steam sale?

lalalalalala lalalala I can't heeeeear youuuu

[esuriospiritus]

I found KOTOR's combat system to be almost intolerably clunky, but other than that it's really solid for an older RPG.

Oh and dear god do the voices for people speaking foreign languages go on forever.

[esuriospiritus]

Aaaaaah I want to play drawful again now.

I wonder if there's an online knock off? Probably not the same without being in the same room with people though

PS: I don't really do PC games lately but I played the Undertale demo and it's definitely next on my list. My poor steam library of games I've had for ages and never finished will just have to continue to wait.

PPS: all my time at work not spent working (3-6 hours on any given night barring freak occurrences like the night a fire alarm went off three separate times) has gone to animal crossing and shin megami tensei lately. The latter is like Pokémon for adults and also somewhat thematic for Halloween! Demons and zombies and shit. Good stuff.

[esuriospiritus]

You playing jigglypuff makes complete sense.

[esuriospiritus]

Being good at Yoshi is impressive. I can never get the hang of the stupid rolling egg move. (To be fair, I haven't put a lot of time into trying.)

[esuriospiritus]

When playing 5th gen, I somehow picked up the idea of keeping something in my party until it was fully evolved, then switching it out for something else, in order to complete my dex as much as possible while running through the story.

This does not work well when most things are done evolving before level 40 but I made it work eventually.

Did it to some degree with 4th and 6th gens too (I hadn't played 4th before because I was broke af when it first came out) but I don't recommend it as a playstyle unless you're as obsessive about completing the dex as I am. (I have a living dex including all the vivillons and a bunch of shinies, etc, as of whatever was out by March or so. I haven't played in a while so if there's new things I've likely missed those.

Disclaimer: the living dex isn't as impressive as it sounds; a few of the legendaries are cloned or otherwise would not pass a pokecheck.)

[esuriospiritus]

my top 20 is just Undertale listed over and over again

Then the Mass Effect series, Final Fantasy Tactics, several Fire Emblem installments, probably a couple Pokémon games, then ???

[esuriospiritus]

I'm really jealous you got the SE.

Yep, by the time I heard about it it was gone and FE is one of my favorite series. :/