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[Faust06]

Just started playing Majora's Mask on an N64 emulator a couple days ago. I owned this game when it came out, but I think I lost interest shortly into it and never picked it back up. Not sure what compelled me to try it again, but it's actually pretty interesting. I'm really digging the surreal, creepy vibe of the game, but other than that it's pretty much Ocarina of Time. I only played OoT probably once and it wasn't a very memorable experience for me, even though many laud it as one of the best Zelda games ever.

I think I was nuts for OOT mainly because it was the first Zelda I finished to completion, which is probably true for an entire generation of gamers. LTTP came later for me. I don't think it aged well, but it certainly turned me on to puzzles and adventure. Oh, and the damn music, yep.

Been playing Ni No Kuni.  Gorgeous game, pretty good voice acting, acceptable plot (reminds me of Totoro mixed with Dragon Quest).  The battles are pretty fun and the monster catching/raising is decent.  I'll probably stick with it until the end.

Really want to pick this up, but I don't plan on acquiring a ps3 any time soon.

Lately I've been playing Brogue. Always Brogue.

[Nillo]

Mostly Pants Path of Exile, but I also play a bit of FTL, Probability 0 and multiple board games including Mage Knight and Agricola.

[Fallsburg]

Lately I've been playing Brogue. Always Brogue.

That should actually be added to the end of everything I post here.

[SirNiko]

I was slightly disappointed that Dragon Quest 6 was almost mechanically identical to Dragon Quest 7. The classes, skills, upgrade system and equipment was nearly the same all across the board. But, it made up for it by being pretty fun to explore, with a goodly amount of variety to the dungeon themes and layouts. It had a good level of overworld exploration too, with much of the game consisting of unlocking new modes of travel that give you access to half a dozen new locations at a time.

There's also an unfortunate lack of balance in the classes, since professions like the Gladiator and Sage are tremendously powerful and useful for every fight, while the Ranger and Luminary professions give you scads of status-inflicting effects that are basically useless in the late game because everything is immune to it. At least the fact that you get to have a party of 8 heroes who all gain exp whether or not they're on the front lines helps to balance that a bit.

The Monster Master class even gives you a skill to inflict poison on enemies, but because poison doesn't deal damage in combat (that's envenom) the poison skill is completely useless by the plainly stated rules of the game.

It looks like by Dragon Quest 8 Enix figured out they had to start injecting some variety to the mechanics to keep it from getting stale.

Sly Cooper 4 is out next week. I'm looking forward to that.

[baconman]

Last week, I was away from all of my erectronics. So I played a lot of Phase 10, Skip-Bo, Munchkin, and at one friend's place, we 2P-contested the DKC trilogy. I kicked his ass, but it shows that I hadn't played them in quite awhile, especially 2. (Animal Antics took me nearly 40 min's alone! Bleah.)

Before that, I was Steam-gifted VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. Terry Cavanaugh, you're some kind of freaking flourescent genius. And Souleye, whatever you did on PPPPPP made me subscribe to your dynamic last.fm channel.

I'm also up to two-life-shotting Sonic 3 and Knuckles (w/ Sonic), save for the last laser-spitting boss with no rings/shield.

[s0]

It looks like by Dragon Quest 8 Enix figured out they had to start injecting some variety to the mechanics to keep it from getting stale.

dq8 was devloped by level 5, not enix, so that's probably why.

[Richard Kain]

Downloaded and installed Steam on my Linux box last night. (Ubuntu) I had to update my video drivers, but after that the process was quite smooth.

Only a few of the games in my Steam library were Linux-compatible. I went ahead and gave Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery a try. Loving the art style and humor so far.

[crowe]

Risen 2 has a lot of problems, but the best RPG setting I've seen for a while

[Alevice]

I have seen its basically a pirate like setting, care to elaborate?

[J-Snake]

btw, check out Gothic2. Made by those people at their best. You will hate and love the game at the same time, assuming you have the right mentality for it.

[crowe]

I have seen its basically a pirate like setting, care to elaborate?

It has a sort of pirates and voodoo setting, but combined with the fantasy setting of the first Risen. The result is that you run around dressed as a pirate, and then swash-buckle with people who are knights in full suits of armor hanging out in the middle of a sugar plantation.

Mechanically, it's much like the Gothic games or the first Risen, though since you unlock the islands one at a time it's unfortunately more linear than its predecessors. I quite like it nonetheless!

[Garmy]

I just finished Final Fantasy Dimensions for Android.

It was okay, mostly a watered down FFV. The story was so-so, but was unique in that early on the world splits into two parallel dimensions and each dimension has a party of four. As the game progresses, you switch from one party/dimension to the other. It was neat, except that when you get one party all set up how you like it, it switches parties on you.

It has a bunch of classes like in FFV, but the more interesting ones with the more interesting abilities didn't make it. There's no Chemist, Blue Mage, or Monster Trainer, for example.

There aren't any items that cause magic effects in battle. The relics are mostly just stat modifiers with the occasional protection-from-effect-x. The weapons also weren't very unique. There were a few interesting ones, but a vast majority were just stat increases.

The enemies were pretty standard. Not many that required specific magic or some trick to defeat. Also, not much in the way of good steal-able items from enemies or even bosses.

Overall, it lacked a lot of the stuff that made the classic FF games so great, and basically just delivered the bare minimum FF experience.

Also, Alba is an annoying and terribly written character. She continuously makes references to our world. One line, she even says "It's power is over... well, alot."

[Derek]

http://www.pathofexile.com/

I'm playing Path of Exile and quite enjoying it. It's a very streamlined and clever Diablolike. My only gripes with it so far are that you fight a lot of the same types of monsters (so many damn skeletons and spiders!). Otherwise, I highly recommend it to fans of ARPGs... they solved a lot of the problems that Diablo 3 tried and failed at solving.

[Landshark RAWR]

im playing a dual wielding axe marauder on hardcore right now!

[Derek]

Sweet! I'm playing a ranger/necromancer build. I don't know how effective it will be as the game gets harder, but it's certainly a lot of fun to play/plan!

[Uykered]

Is that game better co-op or single player? I remember in Diablo 2 the co-op was basically follow the leader, rushing through it without having to care about what you do.

[Alevice]

I have seen its basically a pirate like setting, care to elaborate?

It has a sort of pirates and voodoo setting, but combined with the fantasy setting of the first Risen. The result is that you run around dressed as a pirate, and then swash-buckle with people who are knights in full suits of armor hanging out in the middle of a sugar plantation.

Mechanically, it's much like the Gothic games or the first Risen, though since you unlock the islands one at a time it's unfortunately more linear than its predecessors. I quite like it nonetheless!

I havn't played Risen, but I have played Gothic. I will get to take a peek eventually. Thanks.

http://www.pathofexile.com/[/center]

I'm playing Path of Exile and quite enjoying it. It's a very streamlined and clever Diablolike. My only gripes with it so far are that you fight a lot of the same types of monsters (so many damn skeletons and spiders!). Otherwise, I highly recommend it to fans of ARPGs... they solved a lot of the problems that Diablo 3 tried and failed at solving.

I don't think it really is that streamlined, but I actually like that. The skill gem system makes both for meaningful choices and build flexibility. The whole item system has some veeery pleasant departures from the norm, by having both a small inventory space and very low amount of identify/portal scrolls, forces you to loot only what might be worth for your character and not just go and hoard a load of crap to sell to merchants. This is not including the flasks, the reroll gems and the maps. Game is fucking brilliant in plenty of ways.

My only complaints with older beta builds were the fucking cheap bosses. The Act 1 boss is tedious as hell.

Is that game better co-op or single player? I remember in Diablo 2 the co-op was basically follow the leader, rushing through it without having to care about what you do.

Difficulty scales accordingly IIRC, so either is a viable option.

This reminds me, does anyone know how to add friends and stuff?

[Derek]

Here's what I mean by streamlined:

- No gold or auction houses to worry about (bartering system).
- Crafting is done in your inventory as opposed to at a blacksmith.
- Gems are socketed/unsocketed freely in your inventory (and therefore active skills are, too).
- Flasks simply refill by killing monsters (makes so much more sense than either one-time use potions or randomly-dropped "power-up" potions).
- No fishing or any other stupid minigames.
- Very few cutscenes or "cinematic" interruptions while you're playing. Actually, a little more oomph in this department would have been nice, but I still count it as a plus because in Diablo 3 they are dreadful. Better not to overplay this hand unless you know what you're doing!

The skill gem system makes both for meaningful choices and build flexibility. The whole item system has some veeery pleasant departures from the norm, by having both a small inventory space and very low amount of identify/portal scrolls, forces you to loot only what might be worth for your character and not just go and hoard a load of crap to sell to merchants. This is not including the flasks, the reroll gems and the maps. Game is fucking brilliant in plenty of ways.

Yes, I agree with this. The focus of an ARPG should still be on combat and building your character, not hoarding/shopping like in D3. And imo Torchlight was simply a dull clone with very few interesting innovations (not to mention I don't like the cartoony WOW-style graphics). PoE manages to push D2 forward without losing the original purpose of it.

The game lacks a little in production values and interesting characters, but hopefully these can be improved by release to make it really stand out.

[s0]

i actually bought the closed beta of POE but haven't played in ages. personally i felt the game was a bit slow and didnt like the graphics but maybe i'll give it another shot.

idk if this is just "nostalgia" or whatever but personally i still think diablo 2 has the best pacing out of all gams in this genre, including frequency of levelups and gear drops. ive tried a ton of diablolikes but none of them does it for me quite like d2, at least in co-op.

[mono]

What if you made Dark Souls into a Diablo ARPG?