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2021 VIDEO GAME CATCH ALL THREAD


RIPPA

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Curse you, Dragon Quest XI, for getting me all wistful today.

Spoiler

Won the martial arts tournament and found out about the linkage between Old Man Rab and the Luminary.  The scene where the Luminary finally gets to visit his parent's grave and then participates in a funeral ritual with Rab was very heartwarming.

 

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4 hours ago, J.T. said:

Curse you, Dragon Quest XI, for getting me all wistful today.

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Won the martial arts tournament and found out about the linkage between Old Man Rab and the Luminary.  The scene where the Luminary finally gets to visit his parent's grave and then participates in a funeral ritual with Rab was very heartwarming.

 


Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that that feeling isn't going to subside.

I was looking at a suggested level chart and, apparently, I'm already overleveled for the end of Act 2. I might have 10 hours or so before I reach that point, though. Went a little too hard into the grind. Not a big deal, as I'm mostly playing for the story and grinding is hella relaxing.

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1 hour ago, Shane said:

Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that that feeling isn't going to subside.

Yeah, the last bout of the tournament was full of the feels.  I am a sucker for warrior honor stuff like that.

I did enjoy the jabs at PEDs and MMA.

And then I kept on playing and the game dropped another emotional bombshell on me.

I love how Rab has a Scottish accent, dresses like a Middle-Easterner, and still fits the kung-fu movie trope of don't fuck with the old guy, he will beat your ass.

Now that I know about the existence of the BBEG, Mordegon, I am certain this game is going to pull some Golbez shit on me when I storm the Heliodoran castle to hand King Carnelian's ass to him and I will hate every minute of it.

Edited by J.T.
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I beat Yakuza: Like A Dragon and that was one of the most perfectly bittersweet endings I've seen in 40 years of video gaming. And now, for the first time since I got into the series in 2017, I don't have another one to play next. It's a little weird; I have to decide what my next "big" game is now. (Leaning toward Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which I bought the day it came out for Switch but never even downloaded)

 

Meanwhile, that NGPC ten-pack for Switch fucking rules, but it's also reminding me how painful bonus character unlocks were at the turn of the century. On the bright side, it's reminding me why I loved the NGPC Metal Slug games but never cared for the arcade series.

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I think the programmers of DQXI have embedded code to make sure that gamers don't get too depressed while playing.  After having my soul crushed by the star crossed lovers / mermaid storyline, I hit all sevens on the slot machines at the casino in Puerto Valor.

The Tockles can go fuck themselves.  I hate their stupid quests.

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2 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

So I've finally gotten tired of waiting around and want to see if I can finally get my hands on a PS5.

Anyone got any tips?

Spending a couple hundred extra on eBay would be my advice.  That's the route I went.   That's probably not the best solution for everyone, though.

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10 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

So I've finally gotten tired of waiting around and want to see if I can finally get my hands on a PS5.

Anyone got any tips?

Best Buy had a drop today. 

I looked at the sale and there was a one week delay on picking it up. 

Amazon is supposedly sitting on 46,000 units, but they did not drop them yesterday as reported. 

I want one, but I'm not sure that I want it for the right reasons. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Travis Sheldon said:

Best Buy had a drop today. 

I looked at the sale and there was a one week delay on picking it up. 

Amazon is supposedly sitting on 46,000 units, but they did not drop them yesterday as reported. 

I want one, but I'm not sure that I want it for the right reasons. 

 

Yeah, I've been sort of keeping an eye on Amazon. With any luck they'll drop them here soon.

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12 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

Yeah, I've been sort of keeping an eye on Amazon. With any luck they'll drop them here soon.

Seriously, I have refreshed Amazon 65156156165165165156848189487979999 times since yesterday.  I know Target has had 3 different drops in the last month, so I feel like I'll get one eventually, but damn this is getting frustrating.

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38 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

So I've finally gotten tired of waiting around and want to see if I can finally get my hands on a PS5.

Anyone got any tips?

I just got mine last week and helped a friend find one by following @mattswider on Twitter. He frequently posts in-stock alerts and they're always accurate. The Digital Edition seems to sell out faster but the Disc version package deals on Best Buy and Gamestop stay in stock the longest. I ended up stuck with a game I didn't really want, but it was way better than overpaying for one on eBay.

 

All that said it took about three solid months of near misses before I snagged one from Gamestop. 

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20 hours ago, Gonzo said:

So I've finally gotten tired of waiting around and want to see if I can finally get my hands on a PS5.

Anyone got any tips?

Even if you aren't a twitter person, get twitter just to follow accounts that post when PS5 goes in stock. My other advice is to go ahead and set up an account at Best Buy/Walmart/Game Stop/Amazon so if you see a drop you can get through checkout quickly without having to type in your address and payment. Then its just hoping you are near your phone or computer when it drops.

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I played through the Outriders demo last night. The game seems aggressively fine, a solid 6/10 (on a real scale, not an IGN scale). It feels like a dumbed down version of what  a game would be if Gears of War and Mass Effect had a baby. I disagree with it being called a "loot shooter" though, Borderlands is a loot shooter, Outriders doesn't have nearly enough loot around if that is the route they are going.

I don't want to overly judge it as some things in the demo weren't available of course and they will add more content I imagine, but right now it falls in the category of "fun game but nothing special." May be worth playing for free with GamePass but definitely doesn't feel $60 worthy. It could be more fun with a group of three though, I just played it solo.

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Finished Drakengard 3 earlier in the week.  It was.... interesting.  I'm at the point where an "interesting" is enough to get me to sink some time into a game.  I'm increasingly gravitating towards certain creators and studios who sort of work in the indie style but aren't working with the typical indie budget (ie, Platinum Games).

Anyway, Drakengard 3 isn't great, but it's a fascinating experiment.  It was directed by Yoko Taro (Nier, Nier Automata) so it's brimming with a lot of strangeness and neat ideas.  Cavia just wasn't the studio to bring Taro's ideas to life.  Didn't have the budget or personnel to translate what Taro wanted to do to something fun for mass consumption.  Combat is an issue with all the Drakengard games, for example.

Still, D3 has a lot of originality, so it's a decent experience.  I can honestly say it's the best game starring a murderous nymphomaniac anti-hero that I've played recently.  I'm a big fan of both NieR and Automata so I'm hoping Taro partners up with a studio that can do more with his big ideas than Cavia ultimately did.  

Also played Yoshi's Woolly World (Wii U).  Really liked this one.  Probably one of my favorite modern Nintendo platformers.  The art style is amazing (everything made of yarn, basically) and works better for me than Kirby's Epic Yarn did.  Criminal that this game got left on the Wii U, though the developer did do a very similar sequel where everything was made of papier-mâché and other art supplies,

Speaking of criminal, played Catherine recently and loved it (original Xbox 360, not the PS4 remake which changed the story somewhat).  Loved it.  Definitely would make my top 10-15 from the PS3/Xbox 360 generation.  I haven't played Persona since the PS2 days but this bumped P4 Golden and P5 closer to the top of my backlog.  Catherine's the kind of game I want larger studios to do, but they seldom do.  Original, risky, aimed at an older audience, etc.  A friend of mine observed that the explosion of indie studios has inadvertently led to larger studios and publishers taking fewer risks, as there's now a thriving indie market for those sorts of games.  He's probably right.

Starting Transfomers: Devastation tonight or tomorrow.   

Edited by Eoae
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I BOUGHT DAN IN STREET FIGHTER 5 AND HAVE SINCE GOTTEN BACK INTO STREET FIGHTER 5 [2]
this game fuckin sux but you cant choose your coping mechanisms sometimes lol

LOOP HERO [4]
Early front runner for game of the year. I remember watching trailers of it and thinking "this looks awful." I  remember hearing it described (poorly) and thinking "this sounds awful." Eventually I just gave up and picked it up because I needed to see it for myself and OH BUDDY. I won't try to explain it because I don't rightly know how, but honestly it should be enough that it's a game that defies description while also being REALLY well written with an extremely metal premise.

OUTRIDERS DEMO [3]
There's a cutscene early on where you knock on a door and the slide in the door opens and someone talks to you (I want a door like this) and says you cant come in, and so you knock again and they stick their fingers through to make a gesture and your character grabs their arm and then breaks it and then uses magic powers to explode the door, and then they mismatched the timing of the fade up from the cutscene so every time you come up from it you're getting shot by like 8 people.

anyways it's gears of war but destiny with no live team and no games as a service aspiration but the demo is one of the most on-fire games I've played in years so maybe don't get it at launch

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Two more Dragon Orbs down and finally a couple of sub-plot stories without a depressing conclusion.  No matter how much I grind, the bosses in DQ XI still seem pretty tough.  I don't think any of my characters have been killed during boss fights, but they've come dangerously close to getting dropped on several occasions.

There's definitely a rhythm to the combat in DQXI.  One bad AoE or Ailment spell and you're suddenly on the defensive, munching down meds and casting heals.

Traditionally, I have never given a shit about resistance gear or recovery items in RPGs, but the status debuffs that enemies use in this game are no fucking joke.  I am constantly burning through Wakerobins and Antidotes to eliminate sleep spells and poisons and cold resistance items and spells were a blessing in this latest boss battle against Krystalinda, the wicked ice witch.

It doesn't help that the devs have shrewdly distributed spells so that only one person in the entire group has the spell to cure poisons or wake up sleeping party members and sometimes that character is not a traditional healer type.

Thanks to that shit, I am more mindful to use buffs to speed up my party so that my slow as molasses healers will take their turn before the monsters.   Nothing is worse than having your healer put to sleep right after you've chosen the person with the anti-sleep spell to attack the enemies.

Edited by J.T.
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That's what I did during my vacation last year since I didn't go anywhere due to covid-19. I just hit some bike trails in the area, ordered takeout and caught up on my game backlog (200+ hours of Witcher 3, replayed Zone of the Enders 2, etc). Which ended up with me buying more games in the fall and creating a new backlog. The 15 year old version of myself would be looking at me crazy with the unplayed games.

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1 hour ago, Shadow said:

I see that Fire Pro is on sale on PSN and I am interested. Just wanted to ask here first is it a good game?

It is, with some caveats.  First is that if you haven't played other Fire Pro games before it's slower than most US wrestling games and has some quirks (timing-based grapples, strikes have to be lined up just right, stamina) that take some getting used to.  Also you don't really get the full potential of the game unless you get into downloading or making edits, and you don't really get the full potential of that unless you get the (free) move craft and (not free) parts craft DLC.

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I am as caught up as I will get as far as these fucking Tockle quests go and I nearly got my ass handed to me in 2D.

On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2021 at 3:39 PM, RIPPA said:

Yeah - I am still trying to get an XBOX Series X

Guess I am buying a couch instead

Hey!  I scored on a Series X before Christmas and yesterday my ex domestic partner was able to re-finance, so now I will soon be in the market for a couch... amongst other furniture items... as I save up some cash to either get an apartment or maybe buy a small house close to work.

We have opposite tides of fortune!

Edited by J.T.
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10 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

Anybody else occasionally wish they could take a vacation to primarily focus on gaming? Surely it's not the ONLY thing I'd do but man, catching up a bit would theoretically be glorious ?

I do that but I'm working from home, so I don't really feel like I'm going anywhere. When I do go on vacation, I try to do something else like get out of the house or clean up.

Plus, if you've seen my collection, catching up is impossible. It's just a goal.

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13 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

Anybody else occasionally wish they could take a vacation to primarily focus on gaming? Surely it's not the ONLY thing I'd do but man, catching up a bit would theoretically be glorious ?

I usually take two vacations a year - one to do something travel-wise, and one to catch up on video games. I figured all gamers did that ?

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