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Who has played ______ and can give me a recommendation?

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
I'm about 5-6 hours into Fallen Order and having fun so far! Everyone talks about the lightsabers but did you know you also get a droid friend who's basically a puppy?

(Even aside from that, I'd say it's definitely worth the $30.)
 
Genshin Impact is gaining quite a lot of traction for being a FTP JRPG. Anyone played it at all yet and what are your impressions?
 
Genshin Impact is gaining quite a lot of traction for being a FTP JRPG. Anyone played it at all yet and what are your impressions?
At first everything is pretty breezy, although bits of the tutorial can be annoying. Once you've got your full party and permission from the game to actually explore it becomes pretty fun. You control one character at a time and switch out from a selection of 4 to use their abilities and whatnot. Combat is a lot less about just smackin' things and more about lining up elemental interactions from character abilities to cause fancy effects. The exploration is a lot like Breath of the Wild but without the physics or mechanics like rain making you slip while you climb. At Adventure Rank 20 you get access to a place called the Abyss which is kind of like Bloody Palace from DMC but you don't lose progress so much, every 3 floors unlocks a new challenge tier. If you can get through 3 tiers of that you unlock a free character for your party. If you reach Adventure Rank 20 before November 11th you automatically get another. After November 11th there'll be a few quality of life improvements, two of which are going to be very good for just explorin' and doing stuff. There's also a series of story quests, quite a few sidequests, and daily quests to do. Story quests are gated by your Adventure Rank every so often.

Characters, Weapons, and accessories (called Artifacts), all level up by pumping resources into them which is where the time gating comes in. You can hold a maximum of 120 of the game's stamina (called Resin), which recharges at a rate of 1 per 8 minutes, which is around 7-8 per hour. You use it for farming experience items, gold, dungeon drops, and big bosses which drop the most important resources. It usually costs 20 to loot anything like that, while most bosses take 40, and the biggest bosses take 60.

To get anything outside of that initial party, you have to interact with the gacha system. Before November 11th if you get to Adventure Ranks 5, 7, and 10, the game gives you a lot of the currency to do pulls. That comes from launch bonuses that go away after the 11th afaik. It's for sure enough to get one guaranteed character from a beginner banner that they give out to complete your initial party exploration utilities, and at least one more (since you can only do 20 pulls maximum on it and every 10 pulls guarantees a 4 star, on the beginner banner that means a character but on others it can be a weapon, ALWAYS check the banner details to see what it can and can't give). After that, the gacha rates are absolutely abysmal on everything else so getting characters you want becomes a waiting game of saving up all the currency you can until an event banner comes out with a specific character you'd really like. The real money values are atrocious, and unless you plan to log into the game every day there's absolutely nothing worth spending money on. If you like it enough to log in every day, there's a $5 Welkin Moon thing that will give you currency every day for 30 days, but only if you log in. You miss it, you lose that day's worth. It's to the point that even though it takes longer than usual to reroll, people make several new accounts to reroll the beginner banner until it gives them a 5-star character or one they specifically want.

There's a battle pass that you can just passively progress through playing the game each day, but for F2P people it's pretty abysmal. Like the gacha currency real money values, it's not worth spending money on.

If you completely ignore the paid elements and are okay not really getting new characters for long stretches of time, it's a fun game. Easily the most fun gameplay I've ever seen from a gacha game. It's all the gambling mechanics around it that are the problem.
 
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Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
I'm still riding the high of Ghost of Tsushima, and from now till Nov 3rd NIOH is 10 bucks on PSN. I don't know how comparable the two experiences are (or to Sekiro, for that matter) but how is it on its own merit?
 
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Nioh is very much a Souls-like game, much moreso than even Sekiro. Its world design is most similar to Demon's Souls with each area being self-contained but from a level-select screen instead of a hub. Like the Souls games, it cannot truly be paused. Unlike Souls games it has a set of skill trees for every weapon type which is where all the hype gameplay stuff is from. It's also a fair bit harder and faster than most Souls stuff. Groups of enemies are much more dangerous, and stamina management matters more than ever, and also has a mechanic to instantly restore large chunks of it by hitting a button with correct timing. There are also stances! High, Low, and Medium all with their own moveset for each weapon, which also comes into play in the skill trees as some abilities can only be used in certain stances. It's a lot to take in at first, but it's easier than it might sound like to get used to it.

It has Diablo style loot which can either be a good or bad thing depending on how much you wanna deal with managing your equipment. It has equipment crafting which due to the Diablo loot stats can be incredibly in-depth but is RNG based and most useful in the post-game.

Speaking of, there's technically no NG+ the way Souls games have, but after you beat the game you unlock a bunch of new missions on your current difficulty as well as a whole new increased difficulty with a refreshed world map to replay the game. The difficulty changes aren't just higher health and whatnot, enemy layout and boss fights drastically change and stuff like that. I forget exactly how many times the difficulty can go up like that, but it's at least 3 times, beating the game on each one to unlock the next. There's also an Abyss in this game which is like a hundred? floors of gradually increased difficulty, but it definitely expects you to beat the game a few times for the sake of gear progression to get very deep in.
 
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Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
I tend to rankle at defined protagonists in games of this type, but I have decided that William is very cute, so I endorse Nioh. It's got like the best implementation of nurikabe in a video game, too.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I should probably buy Nioh at some point - I find it somewhat funny that I actually own Nioh 2 already but not that one. (Couldn't pass it up for $8.50, and in my defense, I have access to my brother's copy of the first game.)
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Anyone tried Pirates Outlaws? The buzz is its Slay the Spire but... pirates.
 

Mommi

Miss or be made.
(She/Her)
Dealbreaker for Nioh is that there's no femme character option. The sequel fixes that, so I'll definitely play it someday.
 
Dealbreaker for Nioh is that there's no femme character option. The sequel fixes that, so I'll definitely play it someday.
I don't think it's enough to not make it a dealbreaker, but later in the game it's possible to unlock skins of other important characters with a secondary currency, including femme ones with their voices (though it's just combat grunts/reaction stuff). Problem is they intentionally make those ones more expensive.
 
I'm still riding the high of Ghost of Tsushima, and from now till Nov 3rd NIOH is 10 bucks on PSN. I don't know how comparable the two experiences are (or to Sekiro, for that matter) but how is it on its own merit?

Eh, it's alright, I guess...

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More seriously, I haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet to compare, but Nioh was my easy GotY for 2018, and I'm waiting with bated breath for the sequel to get its PC release date. The elevator pitch is Souls's tense exploration meets Ninja Gaiden's agile and technical combat meets Diablo's build variety and random loot, and damned if it didn't deliver on all three counts.

As Oathbreaker mentioned, there are a variety of weapon types, which each have their own movesets split across three stances that you can switch among on the fly. It's a joy to gradually master their initially overwhelming nuances, and to laugh at encounters that initially seemed impossible. You've also got fun secondary systems of guardian spirits and magic to round out your combat options, and you can respec to try out different builds fairly easily after a certain point. You can do up to a total of five cycles through the campaign, and each one mixes things up in ways beyond just higher enemy stats. You can also pick and choose which missions to do on subsequent runs rather than being forced to follow the exact same critical path.

Everything feels very fluid, kinetic, satisfying, and fun. I would happily replay missions just for the fun of fighting through them, but the loot layers on top as a bit of extra spice.

If the concept appeals to you, you can go in with confidence that it's executed very well, and you should have a good time. Only caveats that I can think of are that the story is merely fine rather than particularly compelling, and that I can't speak to the PS4 version's performance since I played it on PC -- this is definitely a game where stutter or slowdown would be very annoying.
 

Mr Bean

Chief Detective
Has anyone tried the new Vanillaware game 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? I was watching some gameplay vids and this one intercuts the traditional Vanillaware style painterly 2D character rpg-ish segments with a turn based strategy game of Mechwarrior? I’m really having a hard time getting a feel for the primary loop just from the vids. Anybody give this a try yet?
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Has anyone tried the new Vanillaware game 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? I was watching some gameplay vids and this one intercuts the traditional Vanillaware style painterly 2D character rpg-ish segments with a turn based strategy game of Mechwarrior? I’m really having a hard time getting a feel for the primary loop just from the vids. Anybody give this a try yet?

I made a whole thread for it, in fact! Please post in it!

Anyway the basic loop is playing through the 13 protagonists' stories in a hyper non-linear fashion; eventually you'll reach a point where the game locks you out of continuing a character's story for one reason or another, so then you do something else. The lock conditions typically range from reaching a certain stage in the RTS battles to watching certain scenes from another character's story, but there's other conditions too.
 

Mr Bean

Chief Detective
I made a whole thread for it, in fact! Please post in it!

Anyway the basic loop is playing through the 13 protagonists' stories in a hyper non-linear fashion; eventually you'll reach a point where the game locks you out of continuing a character's story for one reason or another, so then you do something else. The lock conditions typically range from reaching a certain stage in the RTS battles to watching certain scenes from another character's story, but there's other conditions too.

Great! Thanks! I’ll go check out the thread.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Anyone tried Pirates Outlaws? The buzz is its Slay the Spire but... pirates.
Yes, I played enough to unlock the first couple of characters. I have not played Slay The Spire yet, but it felt a lot like Dominion if it was a roguelike & you only add or remove a card every couple of games or so. The most interesting part was the ammo requirement for some card attacks. Ammo is also on cards, so you need them to come up in order to reload. It led to some interesting building choices & kept fights interesting. My only complaint is that progress is super slow & grindy, as you might expect from a free game with purchases. I’d still recommend it if you like deckbuilder style games.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
Gonna ask a stupid question: In the Switch version of Smash Brothers, can you play the "campaign mode" with more than one player? I'm looking for a new family couch-co-op multiplayer game (previously: Kirby Star Allies, Secret of Mana, Hyrule Warriors), and I want to know if that's in the running. If I have to play solo to unlock characters that we can only play in standard multiplayer matches, I don't think it'll be a good choice.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
You can play Spirit Board multiplayer, but I don't think you can do World of Light multiplayer.

You don't have to play World of Light to unlock new characters; as in previous games, you can unlock new characters while playing multiplayer Smash.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Classic mode is co-op too, and it's a lot of fun. Also, you can unlock everyone by just playing this mode.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Did they ever fix up the Grandia HD Collection?

It's on sale, and while I'd heard that they addressed the terrible vaseline filter they wrecked a very nice looking game with, I can't verify that.
 
Remnant: From The Ashes Complete Edition is on sale on the PS Store and looks like it might be something I like. So what are opinions on it?
 
It's a fairly good, slightly janky Gun-souls with Diablo style randomized maps per playthrough, and it also has a Diablo style campaign mode, and adventure mode. No randomized loot stats, but the equipment itself and some events you can find each run are randomized. It's meant to be played through several times. I can't say much about the DLC, I know Swamps of Corsus is more of an expansion to one specific area in the non-story mode, and the other one is a full new area and they both add a fair amount of new equipment. There's also a Survival mode which is like a boss gauntlet that gives alternate ways to get certain rewards as well as rewards specific to that mode that you can carry into Campaign/Adventure runs, and it's only available from one of the DLCs. It's also got up to 3 player multiplayer in any game mode iirc.

It's on the short side, I'd say a normal campaign run tops out at around ten hours depending on how thoroughly you explore.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
How is the Switch port of Othercide? And, more importantly, is there a toggle for font size? Because the screenshots in the eShop all have text that is completely unreadable on a big screen tv
 

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
In the spirit of great timeliness, I just bought a PS3. Please tell me what you think of Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra. (Also any other recs for good PS Classic gems)
 

madhair60

Video games
In the spirit of great timeliness, I just bought a PS3. Please tell me what you think of Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra. (Also any other recs for good PS Classic gems)

They're both ace. Far too hard, but ace.

Buy Maximo and Gradius V. While you still can!
 
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