Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

@nessisonett @RogerRoger I regret that I never played BM: AO. I think I skipped it mostly due to the lackluster reception back on PS3. It really does seem to be a game whose reputation has elevated with age. A PS4 remaster would have been a welcome opportunity to try it late. At this point, I think it’s probably too late for that and doubtful to get a PS5 remaster. If I ever turn on my PS3 it will need to be one I’ll target.

@Th3solution I don't think I ever did either. Of course, I also never actually finished Arkham Knight and think that one is the overrated one (I know it's blasphemy), but maybe that will change if I ever give it a second chance. I loved the first two.

We don't even get any kind of upgrade for Arkham Knight, the biggest game in the series, even though people have been asking for it since the mid-gen upgrades last gen. That would make you right about never getting any kind of remaster or anything for Origins.

As for what I'm playing now, that would be Dragon Age 2 on the Series X. I know it's widely considered to be the much inferior Dragon Age game, but I'm highly enjoying it so far. It's also amazing to be playing a 10 year old game in 60 FPS thanks to the recent FPS Boost it got.

@Jimmer-jammer @Th3solution A major character has just been abducted at the end of the last quest I completed in Fable II, I was completely overwhelmed by the enemies in that level due to my admittedly poor gear, and after working at a wood-cutting job for a little while I have now upgraded to an Iron Longsword that does +30 damage instead of my previous paltry +19, what do you reckon of that? Think it'll be a better tool to take out various baddies? Yes, I think so rubs hands together in a sinister fashion How are your games going?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Sounds like a fun time! I always love it when I put in the time and effort and get a great weapon that really changes the game for me. It’s so satisfying.

As for my current gaming escapades I’ve been working through Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart pretty quickly. My game save file says I’m at 70%, so I guess I’m getting toward the end already. I’ve been playing it pretty non-stop and really enjoying it.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME USA PS2

@KilloWertz I have the exact same situation. Never finished Arkham Knight, even after Asylum and City being amongst my favorite PS3 games. It’s easy to blame the Batmobile for turning me off to the game, but I’m not sure if that’s the whole reason. Something about Arkham Knight just didn’t excite me while I was playing it. I also think the timing wasn’t right in my life so I got easily distracted. Like you, I’ve always said I would go back and finish it but the game never makes it to the top of the backlog heap.

Good to hear you like Dragon Age 2. I never tried it. I fell off DA 1 quickly and then also fell off DA Inquisition at about the two-thirds point. Always meant to go back to that one as well. I really liked Inquisition but it was just so long.

@TheBrandedSwordsman that’s a big jump! I wonder how much damage the axe could do? Or maybe after the upgrade you can now cut the wood with your long sword? I’m glad to hear it sounds like you’re enjoying the experience.

I just wrapped up Little Nightmares II. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit, though maybe not quite as much as the first one. There was a stretch in the middle that was visually and thematically incredible but gameplay-wise I found it immensely frustrating and just not very much fun. With that said, it came back around to finish on a strong note. Not quite sure what to start next. Maybe Hades or Last Stop.

@Th3solution Yeah, I can't really pin what it is about Arkham Knight that just didn't work for me as well as the first two. Sure, the Batmobile is awful, but I couldn't tell you why otherwise and it's obviously more than just that. I do remember finding it at least somewhat difficult to figure out what to do or where to go next (either or), but whatever I guess. I could probably tell you if I tried it again now, but that was back early this year I believe.

As for the Dragon Age series, maybe these big open world RPGs aren't for you? I love the big western RPGs and that might be my favorite genre. I do need a pallet cleansing after I play a really lengthy one, but I'm just fine with ones that are really long. That makes it a real possibility I will go back to Xbox as my main platform in the near future given their studio acquisitions, but that's another story for another time.

@RogerRoger I'm still only in Act 1, so I'm likely not even close to being halfway done yet. I think it's shorter than the other two, probably at least partially because of the forced short development period, but I'm still relatively early as far as I can tell.

I can understand why it would have been considered disappointing for some people at the time, and obviously EA rushing them was really stupid, but I still find it pretty entertaining. BioWare still managed to still nail some of the most important things like you mentioned (story and characters). Isabela has been a lot of fun so far ever since I ran into her at the bar, especially with some of her dialogue.

@KilloWertz I had a similar feeling of disorientation too with Arkham Knight — that confusion about where to go next. Also I was really rusty with the combat since a few years had transpired between playing my last Arkham game and they just threw you back into it, as I recall, with very little tutorial or refresher. Anyways, like you say, it’s whatever and maybe we’ll go back one day, maybe not.

As for the long and big western RPGs, I think I used to like them more than I do now. I adored Skyrim back when I played it. Then loved Dragon’s Dogma (not really Western as I think it’s Japanese / Capcom (?), but it’s a Western style RPG) and then followed it with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. All those were really long, huge rpgs. I think I had oversaturated my life with those. Attempts at Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, Dishonored, DA Inquisition, and later on Witcher 3… all ended in an early exit from me, never seeing the end of any of those. Around that time I experimented with other genres and found a little more diversity in my gaming and it kickstarted a rebirth of my interests.

I still enjoy Western RPGs, but I haven’t really found one that just took over my life like they used to. I played plenty of large open world western RPGs over the last year or so — AC Origins, RDR2, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn… and thoroughly enjoyed them all. I did try The Outer Worlds several months ago and wasn’t really taken by it. Similar to Arkham Knight, I can’t say it was any one thing, just sort of didn’t stick and I intend to go back, but I’m doubtful I ever will.

idk how arkham knight would be called overrated when people gave that game the business with all their criticisms about the game overusing the batmobile and having terrible-to-no bossfights , people bombed it .

for what its worth though , id still play it over asylum & even though i just fan-boy'd about arkham origins combat , arkham knight does have the best gameplay in the entire series . they really perfected the engine & mechanics of the game and the graphics still are phenomenal .

it aint better than arkham city , or origins though unfortunately

@RogerRoger yeah , the soundtrack in origins is badass . im glad someone else really appreciates the music aspect of games as much as i do . they really add significance to games .

Shantae and the Seven Sirens recently received a free DLC update that apparently re-balances the game (harder boss fights, less food, less health gained from food, etc.), improves the in-game map, adds extra dialogue to bosses, etc., so I'm playing through it to see if it addresses my issues sufficiently.

@Ralizah Out of curiosity, was the game too easy before?

@LtSarge Yeah. Bosses were too easy anyway, but the real issue with the game was the insanely unbalanced food item drops that you could stack in your inventory. You could basically run through the game without fear of death and tank damage because you always had, like, 10x cheeseburgers, 10x sushi, etc. in your inventory at all times. It was an egregious enough issue that basically everyone called them out on it.

So far, I'm not noticing the bosses being substantially more difficult, and you can still easily trivialize the game so far by using the dance parlor to quickly farm money and upgrade Shantae's hair whipping ability/buy auto-potions/max out her spells, but so far it definitely seems like they've done a good job rebalancing those food drops. I almost never have giant stacks of food in my inventory now.

They added a bunch of other modes, including a new easy mode based off this new version of the game (like it needed one!), but I'm mostly just interested in improvements to the core experience.

If it ends up being substantially transformative, I'll probably update my review score. So far, based on what I've seen, it probably deserves at least a half-point bump.

@Ralizah Ah interesting. It does sound like an improvement compared to the original version nonetheless. I'm glad that I didn't play it at launch then because I had no idea it was this unbalanced.

@LtSarge It's a good game regardless (so happy they found a way to maintain animal transformations while also keeping the dynamic quality of the pirate gear in Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and the dungeons are pretty good, even if Shantae GBC is still my favorite in that respect), but it's definitely better now. I just had a rough time with a boss since I neglected to stock up on items before challenging this dungeon, and they're definitely a little more challenging now. The attack patterns seem to be the same, but I compared the fight to footage of the same boss in the original version, and she's definitely a lot more aggressive with her attacks.

I'm also dying more in the dungeons. Probably because, again, I'm not swimming in food.

Too bad for the people who bought the game from LRG, I guess, since this update obviously won't be on their carts.

I forgot how well-optimized this was for Switch in handheld mode. I play so much 30fps/subnative res stuff on this console that I forget how good a game can look when it's running at 60fps and at or near native resolution. WayForward's HD character portraits also look fantastic.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC. Apparently it's important to future Trails games, and I don't really want to watch it on youtube or read a synopsis, so I've just decided to rip the bandaid off and play it.

Still not really liking this series. Can't find a quest log. No maps for most areas. The battles are painfully slow. Everyone just talks, and talks, and talks. It looks like a PS1 game, and the scrolling backgrounds kinda hurt my eyes if I focus on them. The game is filled with ultra-low-res textures that just look awful compared to the HD ones. The isometric viewpoint is so unhelpful and hides crucial environmental details, so you're spinning the camera position constantly. It's also weirdly difficult at the beginning, which I don't appreciate, given how tedious the battles are. This grid-based movement system accomplishes little of value, from what I can tell.

I'll stick with it for a while longer and see if it improves. I'm still near the beginning, so...

@Ralizah See, I dunno if there’s a difference but I played a patched version of SC Evolution on Vita and the quest log was mapped to a button along with the cooking menu, bestiary etc. Surely the PC version has the massive journal and quest log?

@nessisonett There's a journal, but it's hard to read because it's ultra low-res (like the character models themselves, which look fuzzy against the sharp HD backdrops). It's also just, like, random information about magic or something.

No quest log yet. Maybe I'll get one soon. I'm pretty early in chapter one still.

EDIT: nvm, there's a quest log, it just wasn't immediately clear to me how to find it. Thank goodness!

@nessisonett update:

I've pumped 20 hours into this game over three days, so I guess I can't hate it too much.

Something about this game is working for me in a way that FC just didn't, even though I still don't think the writing is particularly great. I'm really enjoying the deeply stupid Ouroboros baddies. They're like something out of a 90s shounen anime.