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[crowe]

Saga Frontier 2 is really the black sheep of the Saga games, even more so than Unlimited Saga, I think. Whereas Unlimited Saga was too weird for most people, SF2 was too... I don't know, it's certainly not normal, but it's also not strange like the usual Saga game would be. It's linear, except that the chronology makes no sense; you don't pick your protagonist, except there's two of them; there's an entire Suikoden style strategy game aspect but there's only two or three battles that use it in the entirety of the game.


It seems like they wanted to make a more structured game, but they also wanted to make a SaGa game... so they tried to do both. It sort of works, I suppose?



Also, it has gorgeous watercolor backgrounds and such. Very fancy 2d.

[SirNiko]

Do you tend to complete these games, or are you dabbling in them for a bit and then moving on? I thought I played a ton of games but you're trying new games way more often than me.

I picked up Ghost Trick for the DS thanks to the Ghost Trick thread and it's quite a treat. The premise really tickles my fancy, with a doomed hero racing to stop the diabolical plot that claimed his life. Missile the Dog is absolutely adorable.

[crowe]

I try to play through the games I own, at least enough to be able to judge them properly. For example I'm most of the way through SF2... because I was on a train all day, and the PS1 is easy to emulate so I decided to finally play through it.

[SirNiko]

Guess I gotta pick up the pace. then. I still have two and a half scenarios left on Saga Frontier 1 and I was gonna start Dragon Warrior 7 sometime in the next few weeks!

[Medevenx]

replaying Iji right now. never really finished it

[Mono]

I'm not playing anything now but I'm thinking of jumping back into Okami to finish the 3rd act. I have heard that the final third of the game isn't that great, what did you think (without spoiling anything)?

[SirNiko]

Since the game isn't really divided into acts, whereabouts are you?

There's a couple of events towards the end that tend to drag more than they should, but it does pick up with an excellent final battle so it manages to end on a very high note.

[Mono]

Since the game isn't really divided into acts, whereabouts are you?

There's a couple of events towards the end that tend to drag more than they should, but it does pick up with an excellent final battle so it manages to end on a very high note.

I'm in the northern area. I hope it reaches those highs that I experienced in Ryoshima Coast.

[crowe]

The last three avernum games popped up on Steam, so...

This one's Avernum V, which I never actually beat before, but I hear is pretty cool.

[JWK5]

The one thing I don't like about the Avernum games is that graphically they all look very patchwork. I am sure they are fun to play, though.

[C.A. Sinner]

this is probably gonna sound super pretentious and artfaggy right now (even tho its actually rooted in nostalgia) but the goofy graphics are part of the charm with this type of crpg imo.

[crowe]

I should point out that for the new release on Steam he replaced the old goofy character arts with the newer ones from the remake. That's why those guys in that picture look pretty detailed and alright, while the faces on the Race sprites look goofy and wrong.

So far, 5 has been pretty interesting -- instead of an Avernite, you play an Empire soldier sent out into Avernum on assignment, so there's a lot of hostility and people are suspicious of you; this fits a lot more with the atmosphere of the older games than IV's thing of everybody being pretty generally happy and OK with you. Not sure why I never really tried it before.

[Trevor Dunbar]

I'm playing Binding of Issac because I trucking hate myself. /wrists. 

[SirNiko]

Oh wow, I finished Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and really loved it! There were a few parts that had me head slapping thinking I'd figured out a blatantly obvious clue to the surprise, but I wound up wrong every time until I got to the very end and the final clues fell into place.

The ending really was a total surprise that came together perfectly. It brought me to tears. I love heroic sacrifice and determination in the face of impossible odds.

The concept of the puzzles was great, and the time travel mechanic is leveraged beautifully to include some hilarious "Failure" scenes. There are a couple of really exciting scenes that have you performing last second life-saving maneuvers that really got my blood pumping, even though mechanically they weren't really all that stressful. There were a couple of really clever puzzles that took me several attempts to solve, which left me feeling good when I finally puzzled out the situation.

The only complaints I could make is that I never wanted it to end, and that a second playthrough is likely to offer only meager easter eggs to find, if any. There are a lot of things to look at in the scenes, but most of the puzzles have a single solution that poses no problem once you know how it works.

This was an excellent buy and I don't regret a penny of it.

[Faust06]

Max Payne 3 is a disappointment, just not a horrible one. It feels like a cheap Rockstar game, right down to the characters and presentation. Constant, long cutscene interruption with embarrassing visual effects, uninspired dialogue and banter which should have been greatly reduced. We get it, Max likes to drink. Gameplay segments hold up, though perhaps a bit more boring compared to past efforts (not sure how to exemplify this), and choosing the soft-lock or hard-lock options will cheapen the experience (that being said, with all the distance-shots your character has to take compared to prior titles, the soft-lock is an asset).

Haven't tried multiplayer. Don't pay full price.