General Gaming What are you playing today?

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Ended up deciding to try Devil May Cry 4. Bought it on a Steam sale a while back. Never really played this series, so why not? 

[Littleronin]

Just got do playing the first half of Shadow Hearts. It has been a series I have wanted to actually play and after playing through Koudelka at the start of our state's stay-at-home order I figured why the hell not play through the entire series. 

[Bloodporne]

Absolutely loved Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow but had to give up on the last (?) boss.

 

That last magic seal you have to draw is impossible. Couldn't even get it once in at least 20 tries practicing.

[Brian]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:24 AM, Dre801 said:

Lol.  Been playing that off and on for a few months.  Good game, but AssCreed games perhaps have gotten too big at this point.

I agree. I’m 35 hours in thinking I am hitting the last 1/3 or so and the game is like “nah bud”.

 

Spoiler

Once you find your mom, I really thought this was near the end. For her to say see your father and you father shows you 

Spoiler

Atlantis! The fuck. It feels like all the Enzio games in one. It’s way too big. 

 

 

[SaysWho?]

Been playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 for a while. FF7 Remake will be right after.

[gamer.tv]

22 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Been playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 for a while. FF7 Remake will be right after.

 

For a person that has heard good things, but has never played one, what do you actually do in the Yakuza games? Is it chapter based or more open world, mission based?

[Brian]

4 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

 

For a person that has heard good things, but has never played one, what do you actually do in the Yakuza games? Is it chapter based or more open world, mission based?

Chapter based, linear Yakuza novella story with a small area to explore. The gameplay is a straight up 3D beat up them up. I suggest to start with Zero. If you don’t like that, you won’t like any of them. 

[Keyser_Soze]

32 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

FF7 Remake will be right after.

 

If you like it half as much as Max likes it then... you'll really like it!

[gamer.tv]

1 minute ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Chapter based, linear Yakuza novella story with a small area to explore. The gameplay is a straight up 3D beat up them up. I suggest to start with Zero. If you don’t like that, you won’t like any of them. 

 

I could get on board with that, but I'll take your advice. It's strange, like (I assume) most people on here, I read a lot about video games, watch a lot (and play a fair) bit, but for some reason I always though the Yakuza series was vaguely open world (in the same way Persona 5 is). I'm not unhappy and it's not exactly expensive to pick up.

[SaysWho?]

1 minute ago, gamer.tv said:

 

For a person that has heard good things, but has never played one, what do you actually do in the Yakuza games? Is it chapter based or more open world, mission based?

 

It has chapters and is open world, but it's more a sandbox. The world isn't that big (it's a small city you're running around in), and there are plenty of side missions but tons of mini-games.

 

The core gameplay is beat-em-up, and it's more arcade-y than something like Grand Theft Auto.

 

 

 

The core story is typically gritty and super serious. Side missions are often comic relief, so if the core story gets too dour, you'll do a side mission involving getting a turkey in bowling, and then they'll give you a turkey as a prize, and you're like

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mini-games can be very involved. Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami have this pocket circuit one that's more a puzzle of figuring out the best way to get the fastest car with different parts:

 

 

 

 

Yakuza 0 has a real estate side mission,

 

 

and that chicken can actually be a manager in it:

 

 

Each one I've played has a Club Sega arcade where you can play full versions of old Sega games:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best side game I've played is the Cabaret Club, which is in Yakuza 0 (terrific game, spent 100 hours in it) and Yakuza Kiwami 2:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You manage a cabaret that consists of six tables, swapping out girls who are better matches for certain guys, learning club hand signals, and competing with local clubs. It's freakishly addictive and is joked about as "the actual game" with the battle gameplay being side stuff.  

[Brian]

15 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

 

I could get on board with that, but I'll take your advice. It's strange, like (I assume) most people on here, I read a lot about video games, watch a lot (and play a fair) bit, but for some reason I always though the Yakuza series was vaguely open world (in the same way Persona 5 is). I'm not unhappy and it's not exactly expensive to pick up.

If you consider Persona 5 open world then yes it is open world. It’s a small section in a city/town. Yakuza is one of those games where you need to invest in like a RPG. A lot of the side content is slice of life stuff that helps make the characters and area feel more alive. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

2 hours ago, gamer.tv said:

 

I could get on board with that, but I'll take your advice. It's strange, like (I assume) most people on here, I read a lot about video games, watch a lot (and play a fair) bit, but for some reason I always though the Yakuza series was vaguely open world (in the same way Persona 5 is). I'm not unhappy and it's not exactly expensive to pick up.

Try 0, it’s cheap. I thought I’d love it, but I couldn’t get interested. It felt more like a chore and for me, beat em ups are better as short, 2D games. 

[Brian]

@gamer.tv Yakuza 0 is on Game Pass. I think 0 is the second best game in the series so if you don’t like it, don’t bother with the rest. 

[dualhunter]

Started Blossom Tales.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Getting back into RDR2, after taking a break from it.  Picking up mid-way through Chapter 6.

The big positive that hit me, while picking it up is the quality of the dialog writing/banter and how natural the voice acting is.  This is something that so many video games screw up (particularly from Japanese studios which seem to want to have everything ridiculously overacted, with unnatural sounding voices.)

 

The story is a bit ham-fisted (particularly with how it is hitting me over the head all of the time with the "redemption" part of the story), but the world building and story are among the best in gaming.  Too bad the combat is so dated, the auto-aim is ridiculously overdone, and the game compensates for this by sending huge waves of fodder after you.  I am really feeling the contrast after just finishing Doom Eternal -- where, for the most part, the combat is sublime.

[Dodger]

On 4/10/2020 at 7:49 PM, dualhunter said:

I think I'm done with FFXIII, all I have left is the Treasure Hunter achievement I don't think I can maintain enough interest at this point to waste the time.

 

Apparently Gamestop runs the shops. Item that can be bought for 2 million gil sells for 10 thousand gil.

 

This post made me start the game all over again, because I really do like the combat system. One of few mainstream RPG's where you can actually die in a normal battle, and have to have at least some sort of thought or plan for a lot of random battles and the bosses as they are actually a challenge for the time you fight them. I should give 12 another try now, because I couldn't get into it the first time I played it but maybe I can now.

 

But good lord the first "half" of this game is terrible. The story is mostly terrible. It really is running down a bunch of corridors, and it does take until basicially near the end of the game for the combat to open up and truly become enjoyable. I will say that with the X enhancement, the game does look really good in 4k, especially some of the cutscenes, like the big fight scene in chapter 7.

 

 

[dualhunter]

5 hours ago, Dodger said:

 

This post made me start the game all over again, because I really do like the combat system. One of few mainstream RPG's where you can actually die in a normal battle, and have to have at least some sort of thought or plan for a lot of random battles and the bosses as they are actually a challenge for the time you fight them. I should give 12 another try now, because I couldn't get into it the first time I played it but maybe I can now.

 

But good lord the first "half" of this game is terrible. The story is mostly terrible. It really is running down a bunch of corridors, and it does take until basicially near the end of the game for the combat to open up and truly become enjoyable. I will say that with the X enhancement, the game does look really good in 4k, especially some of the cutscenes, like the big fight scene in chapter 7.

 

 

 

The remaster of XII is great, the speed boost helps reduce the tedium.

 

I didn't mind the linearity of XIII. It was nice that you can reset battles and getting wiped out basically has no consequences since some groups of enemies that you normally have no trouble with can occasionally destroy you. The hardest fights were annoying since they require specialized setups and I'd have to swap characters, set a full set of paradigms and change equipment. The PC version looked great in 4K though there were a few areas where the framerate dropped.

[dualhunter]

Couldn't find a character in Blossom Tales (found the spot where he should be but he wasn't there). Turns out he's only there between certain hours. Big Picture Mode complicates getting back to the desktop but I managed and changed the time. That worked but I'm not a fan of stuff like that tied to system time. 

[Remarkableriots]

I was crafting in FF XIV yesterday morning and my subscription ran out mid crafting! 

[gamer.tv]

I finished Death Stranding this morning. The last few chapters, whilst long, were in-keeping with the tone the game had cultivated and I thoroughly appreciated it. As a game, it might be a perfect storm for me, anticipating being a father in a few months along with the impact of Covid-19, but I thought Death Stranding was a fantastic experience. As a game, it was passable, but as a journey, it was wonderful. The aspects others found disenchanting (traversing the environment, thinking of equipment and the boss fights) all worked well for me. I did admittedly play on a low difficulty setting as I wanted to enjoy the journey and not the stop-offs and felt this was the right decision. If I was to compare it to something, it felt like being part of the Fellowship from Lord of the Rings, but rather than just seeing the set pieces, I was part of the day to day grind. For whatever reason, it really worked for me. 

 

I'm downloading Bloodborne now as I feel like I'll have the time to invest in it and we'll see how that goes. 

 

UPDATE: So I've played a little but of Bloodborne and I'm not amazing at the game, but I lit the first lantern, had a run around, practised murdering a bunch of RE4-esque villagers and then died trying to kill two werewolf things on the bridge. I just need to accept that I will die in the game, that it's fine to die in the game and that really there's no consequence to dying outside of losing some blood echoes and some progress. I'll dig back into it and actually look to make some progress next time, rather than just getting a handle on the game again (I checked and I had a save from 2016 and I remember I previously blindly ran through to Father Gascoigne so I'm not completely new to the game). 

 

UPDATE 2: Made it (and died) at the Cleric Beast, mostly so I can do some upgrading. I honestly forgot how stressful Souls games are, but again it's another thing to get used to. 

[Remarkableriots]

Started playing FF VII Remake recently.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Animal Crossing earlier, DMC4 tonight.

[EternallDarkness]

same thing I've been playing for the last couple of weeks...Animal Crossing...over 175 hours logged  which kind of lines up with the 175K nook miles I have banked....I hope when nook's cranny upgrades the options for the nook computer upgrade as well. 

[ALIEN-gunner]

I'm still into Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. It's good. It plays a lot like Freedom Wars. Same developer too.

[jaethos]

I recently started God of War. It's pretty great so far. I didn't know it had metroid influences. I love that kind of stuff.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Finished RDR2 -- God that Epilogue was terrible.

 

Thinking about starting up Jedi:Fallen Order, so I can beat up people with a glowing bat.

[Bloodporne]

I bought Nier: Automata since I've been meaning to play that since it came out.

 

Still trying to figure this game out. It's really appealing in most ways but there's some odd shit going on like the insanely bad city environments that somehow chug on a PS4 Pro. Looks like Revengeance on PS3 but with added slowdown somehow.

[dualhunter]

Sonic Mania and Darksiders Warmastered.

[Dre801]

Blazing Chrome.  A must play for old school Contra/run-and-gun fans.

[gamer.tv]

I'm going to give the Cleric Beast another go later on today. I'm not terrible at fighting the generic beasts and enemies in Bloodborne, but I'm just shocking at reading bosses in the game. 

[Bloodporne]

1 hour ago, gamer.tv said:

I'm going to give the Cleric Beast another go later on today. I'm not terrible at fighting the generic beasts and enemies in Bloodborne, but I'm just shocking at reading bosses in the game. 

As someone who's beaten it like three times total, it's also just a hard ass game. The fact they've added so much fur and other graphical flourishes to many creature bosses versus, say, Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, made them even harder to read to me.

 

Also a small tip, you can target Cleric's head separately.

[Massdriver]

Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire - I'm loving it so far. This first one felt tedious at times with how much text, and I'm usually up for a lot of detail. This one has a lot, but it doesn't seem to be walls of it (so far), and it seems like there is more voice work. The graphics seem improved.

 

I tried Wasteland 2 before this but couldn't get into it. I'll try again later.

 

I played a lot of Stellaris with the latest expansion a couple of weeks ago. Great stuff, but they still need to do more to improve late game performance.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Playing Jedi: Fallen Order (Jedi Master Difficulty), save is telling me that I am 33% complete.

 

I am enjoying it, and I would call it a "good" game, but far from a "great" one (at least so far).  I am hoping that as I move further up the skill tree that the combat will click more with me.

[gamer.tv]

6 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

As someone who's beaten it like three times total, it's also just a hard ass game. The fact they've added so much fur and other graphical flourishes to many creature bosses versus, say, Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, made them even harder to read to me.

 

Also a small tip, you can target Cleric's head separately.

 

That genuinely helped for about half the fight and then my saw cleaver became damaged and became useless 

 

I've fixed and powered up now though so I'll give it another go tomorrow! 

[Bloodporne]

44 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

 

That genuinely helped for about half the fight and then my saw cleaver became damaged and became useless 

 

I've fixed and powered up now though so I'll give it another go tomorrow! 

Also, another tip, do not blow your blood vials and bullets on every try. I always set myself a rule like get the boss down a significant amount of health before you're allowed to heal and use bullets wantonly. I think the game's design kind of assumes that in that if you start blowing vials one very attempt you'll be grinding soon and that's never fun.

 

In short, learn the boss' move set etc. before going in for the real try including spending resources like crazy.

 

Regarding weapon damage, it takes a long time for a weapon to get damaged so you don't usually have to worry about it but just occasionally fix it yeah.