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[Tanner]

idk if they're as bad as them because they at least put a bunch of the features in free simultaneous updates

[MeshGearFox]

CK2 isn't about winning. CK2 is about failing creatively and taking out the rest of Europe with you.

Anyway Romancing Saga 1 got a US translation patch and I was playing that because I'm a lunatic and saga's my favorite square series but like... I'm not digging RSG1 at all. It's slow and grindy and hard to explore at all because your walk speed is so slow and the areas are so goddamn massive and it's like... idk, I fucking loved the PS2 remake of RS1, so it's like, why not just play THAT..?

[Battlefrog]

If Dragon Age: Inquisition has taught me anything, it is that no matter how much I claim I don't really like collect-a-thons I will still obsessively run around vacuuming up every (probably worthless) item in sight.

This is the same thing with me and WoW, I always get items that you can only sell so I can go to a vendor and earn some money (Like 4 Silver or something like that).

[JWK5]

If Dragon Age: Inquisition has taught me anything, it is that no matter how much I claim I don't really like collect-a-thons I will still obsessively run around vacuuming up every (probably worthless) item in sight.

This is the same thing with me and WoW, I always get items that you can only sell so I can go to a vendor and earn some money (Like 4 Silver or something like that).

What is really terrible is that I go through this horrible bout of indecision when I run out of inventory space as I try to pick up an item. No matter how many times I go through it, I wind up examining each item in my inventory trying to decide which item I will dispose of to make room for the new item. It might make sense if I were packing a trove of valuable items, but most of the time I am just carrying straight garbage items and I am sitting there indecisively trying to sort out which pieces of garbage I want to keep the most (even though I will inevitably see all of them and get far less money than is worth the effort).

There is something fundamentally broken in me that RPG developers masterfully exploit. I hate it but somehow I love it. Soon I am I am going to have to start attending RPG Anonymous meetings or something.

[s0]

im picking up my banjo tooie playthrough again. i found out that the gamecube AV cable is compatible with the N64 so i actually have two working audio channels now (wow woah).

anyway, new theory: rare's collectathon platformers contain a hidden environmentalist message. for one thing, the factory/industrial levels are always the hardest and most obnoxious, instilling in the player a hatred for the machines that are wrecking our planet. rusty bucket bay makes you feel the effects of pollution first hand via the oily water that makes u lose oxygen even if youre not diving. also grunty industries literally doesn't produce anything other than pants, junk, rubbish (with crates labeled as such) and toxic sludge. biting satire of the wastefulness of industrialized society right there. the games also literally consist of picking trash.

tl;dr: rare is actually a rural hippie commune

[Netsu]

tl;dr: rare is actually a rural hippie commune

Proof:

[Nillo]

I've played Merchants and Marauders a number of times with different groups, and I've noticed it's the most entertaining when people get into the role of playing a captain in the game. Mechanically, it's quite random and often unfair. If I were to compare it to another game, I'd say it's a lot like Arkham Horror. You've gotta roll with the punches and take a defeat in good humor to really enjoy it.

We had some games where a player was hit by a stroke of terrible luck and capsized through no fault of their own, which can be discouraging. That said, I think it's definitely the best nautical board game on the market and it gives you an authentic feeling pf exploring the Caribbean Sea that is hard to find elsewhere. The modular expansion box is a must-buy because it introduces enjoyable nuance in the game by making it easier for merchants to commit seedy acts (smuggling contraband) and by making it more practical for pirates to pursue trading as a side objective.

[s0]

tl;dr: rare is actually a rural hippie commune

Proof:

psst thats the joke

[gimymblert]

re: banjo

you describe all 90s (and maybe beyond) mascot platformer and jrpg

only counter proof is the 90s shmup, generally going from cold hard steel to organic space foetus

[s0]

conclusion: game devs are tree hugging hippies who need to cut their hair and get a real job at exxon mobil

[gimymblert]

I just cut my hair

[JWK5]

Which I've then collected and used to create a Sonic the Hedgehog effigy.



Also, Dragon Age: Inquisition has lot of damn filler quests. I should say I am not surprised but it is kind of a bummer to see so much padding when the parts the game does well it does really well.

[s0]

Playing more CK2.

I started a new game with the same setup as last time (Saxony on the Charlemagne start date). I was able to keep Poland from becoming a huge juggernaut this time around by using the new tribute mechanic. The good thing about making people your tributaries isn't so much the money but the fact that tributaries are automatically allied with you and almost never refuse to be called into a war.

Fighting the 3 Catholic kingdoms (West Francia, Middle Francia, Bavaria) along my southern borders was not a big problem up until now despite them being allied with each other. I foiled every single one of Charlemagne's conquest plans and even managed to take some provinces. But now I have a new problem: Charlemagne's little known brother Karlomann, King of Middle Francia, somehow managed to inherit West Francia from his deceased bro, who, and I quote, "died of depression". So now I have a gigantic Catholic Frankish empire at my doorstep.

It's like I'm in a bizarre alternate reality where Pete Best not only stayed in the Beatles but also took over the band and became the main songwriter. pls halp

[gimymblert]

pls continue

don't forget to turn it up into a series of books

[Manuel Magalhães]

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a very, very good game.

[s0]

yeh

one of the most underrated 3ds games

[Tanner]

agreed! i feel for the lefties though

i've been playing a lot of txk on my vita recently. what a fucking great game. the best arcade game released in years. it's $2 right now if you've got a vita and live in the US. (tho i guess it's really $5 because of the dum wallet thing but w/e, still worth it)

and gravity rush is still fantastic

[SirNiko]

LISA for the PC is pretty great, and I'd definitely recommend it.

The story is that you're a drug addict in a post apocalyptic wasteland future who tries to redeem himself by rescuing his adopted daughter against the advice of very nearly everyone. A recurring theme is that you're a bad person going through the motions of a hero.

Along the way, you're given lots of terrible choices to make, where both options are valid and awful. Early on you're given a choice - give up all of your items or one of your party members. Later, you're given decisions such as paying off bandits or letting them destroy a town or taking a permanent downgrade to your stats in exchange for all of your current party. The permanent loss of party members is frequently used as a punishment, though the major decisions involve voluntarily suffering permanent, debilitating injuries.

The protagonist's drug addiction comes into play as well. As you're wandering you might start to suffer withdrawl, which inflicts a pretty serious stat penalty. Using Joy replaces the penalty with a buff, but using any Joy during the game locks you out of a special ending. Unfortunately, despite your addiction getting worse as the game progresses, you get new skills halfway through the game that make it easy to ignore withdrawl and still fight effectively.

While the game maintains its theme of loss and depression throughout, the second half of the game seems to shift more to the weird and bizarre and less to the distressing. The final two hubs feature fewer sacrificial decisions, and instead focus more on exploring bizarre buildings, meeting strange mutants and engaging in goofy conversations. It takes you away from the darker themes for a while before you go on to the finale, which is appropriately tragic to suit the first half of the game.

The weird exploration is a major high point. Every map has something strange for you to find, whether it is strange NPCs to fight, a climb to a mysterious abandoned fast food restaurant, or sudden hallucinations of your protagonist's childhood. I played through much of the second half of the game going from one strange place to the next, and feeling satisfied with each new discovery. Combat isn't particularly difficult once you learn to abuse status effects and powerful combat items.

The game uses random encounters very sparingly, and the majority of the regions will have no random fights at all. A few areas have generic monsters you can evade while moving around, but most of the fights are one-off battles with unique characters you never see again. You have a huge roster of recruitable party members, and each one has a selection of unique abilities only they can use. A big part of the game is swapping out teammates to find your favorites and mix them up to get a good balance of abilities. Everyone's good for something, so you can choose somebody for looks alone and still put together a balanced squad.

The game only has a few negatives to the mechanics, such as instant death cliffs (which you are guaranteed to fall off at least once). I experienced a few bugs while playing, but they were easy to fix just by removing and reequipping the bicycle.

I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys exploration, or likes playing games with unusual themes. It reminds me more than a little of Space Funeral, except with more difficult combat and a more serious story.

[s0]

been waiting for this. thanks for posting it space funeral comparison has me very intrigued.

i have one question tho: how much "disturbing" sexual content does the game have? because that would be a major issue for me personally and none of the people on steam say anything concrete.

[SirNiko]

been waiting for this. thanks for posting it space funeral comparison has me very intrigued.

i have one question tho: how much "disturbing" sexual content does the game have? because that would be a major issue for me personally and none of the people on steam say anything concrete.

Sexual content is very little.

Maybe some spoilers?

There's a brothel where you can choose to service clients, but it's just run in the combat engine where your attacks are "Back rub", "Whisper", and "Kitty Scratch". The opponents can inflict "Feeling Weird", but the battles are over quickly. There's only two such "battles" in the scenario and then it's over. The brothel is played seriously, as the staff states plainly that they exist to try to help people cope with sexual frustration in a world without women.

Probably the worst bit is an overweight guy you rescue who indicates he was a victim of rape, but without saying it directly. You find him tied up alone in a room after you kill his kidnappers outside, and he joins your party. The scenario is never mentioned again.

Several characters through the game make it clear that they want the daughter for sex, but there's no sexual content involving her. At one point there's a conversation with the daughter that suggests sex, but she immediately clarifies that somebody just explained it to her.

The daughter can suffer a mutilated nipple as the result of one of the choices. You can avoid this by sacrificing a party member.

You collect generic dirty magazines for currency (just called "mags" for short), and some buildings have very low-detail pinup girl pictures on the walls, but they're easy to forget and ignore.

The whole thing comes across as just sexual enough to color the setting without being graphic.