Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

[Brantly B.]

I would have appreciated if World of Light just ran a fucking credits sequence before the transition, instead of going "ha ha YOU'RE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO DONE, STUPID". WoD feels balanced like postgame content even though it's technically the back like 2/3 of the game; just every goddam thing you do in it is a chore.

Non-spoiler summary: Don't be in a rush to try and clear this mode, or you'll end up getting pissed off.

[Grath]

In my opinion, one thing would've redeemed most of World of Light's flaws: If there wasn't a fucking terrible, long-ass loading screen before the rematch every time you failed a fight. It felt like I spent more time in loading screens than I did actually fighting.

[Mongrel]

So, I started a clan on Tanks a couple months ago. I never do clan stuff (in part because my playtime does't match up with the server's event times), but they changed it so that clans didn't cost real money to make anymore, so I figured why not get a free emblem on all my tanks?

I pirate-theme a lot of my tanks, so made a cool pirate flag and then explicitly put in the clan info that the clan does not do events and only exists "so I could put a cool pirate flag on my tanks".



Anyway there's a setting somewhere in clan management that if you leave it on lets anyone join your clan who wants to. I could turn it off to make ti invite-only like most clans, but I don't care, so in the past couple months I keep getting notifications about the dozens of people I've never met or talked to who join up for the pirate banner, which is pretty funny.

[mharr]

Clans that exist for the sake of a banner, manageable chat population or a joke name have all the best people, and anarchic neglect is the most efficient way to manage players. I miss my years in the Avant Guard.

[Niku]

I finally got around to finishing Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep yesterday, and have spent the next two days while sick watching the rest of the stuff I never got around to. So that's Kingdom Hearts re:Coded (DO NOT SUFFER THROUGH THIS), Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (come for creepy CGI Jeff Bridges (again!), stay to actually learn the villain of the series' real plan), Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Fragmentary Passage (which fills in stuff concurrent with KH1 and directly leads into KH3), Kingdom Hearts X [Chi] Back Cover and a cinema breakdown from Kingdom Hearts X [Chi] Union Cross, as well as Square Enix's official Memory Archive Recap and Eurogamer's series timeline recap.

long story short?


just watch this you'll be fine

(On a pure gameplay level, Birth By Sleep is probably the most fun out of the games I've actually played in the series; I also really like Chain of Memories, but the 3D remake feels really bad compared to how I remember the GBA version playing, which might also be bad if I went back to it. I played partway into 358/2 on the DS, it's trash. KH1 is trash. KH2 is trash that's decently fun to play sometimes. 3D seemed to take the good things from Birth By Sleep from what I could tell from the playthrough video I watched, but I don't know for sure. every kingdom hearts feels bad to play in unique ways, so you're definitely losing out if you just mainline summaries and cinema-movies!!)

anyway, kingdom hearts is one of the reasons i bought a ps2 in the first place (i really bought it for rez, but because i knew kh was coming out too). i am legitimately thrilled that tomorrow i will get to dive back in to this stupid goddamn mess, especially now that i've patched up all the holes since i stopped actively playing the series back when 358/2 broke me with boredom. i can't wait to take selfies with my boy goofy.

[Friday]

No Sephiroth Fight, no sale.

[Friday]

Not kidding.

[Niku]

i just finished getting a copy of every spirit in smash ultimate to level 99. enhanced and non-enhanced versions both for those applicable. and i didn't even get a milestone?????

i used the comic book guy wasted life too soon on kingdom hearts.

[beatbandito]

Sekiro: Shadows Die When They Are Killed is a fun game that is not dark souls but has what is basically 100% the bonfire death / save system.

It is a very fun and challenging stealth action game with RPG elements (that means you get skill points) and since getting it I beat two bosses and then logged twice as much time into a replay of Morrowind.

That is my book report thank you very much for listening.

[beatbandito]

Outward is weird. It's an open world survival RPG which is like, I know. But it really plays more like a Breath of the Wild knock-off than what you're probably assuming.

The basic structure is that of an action/adventure dungeon crawler. There's a big map that reminds me a bit of Dragon's Dogma as far as most of it being areas that you may see for some sidequests, but are mainly there only for your own will to adventure and loot. Also similar to BotW in that way, but not nearly the same scale.

BotW influence come from equipment and survival mechanics. Survival is pretty secondary considering its part of the genre Outward claims to be, but you need to eat and drink about once a game day. Basic sustenance is easy to find, you only really work for buff meals. Some areas are hot and some are cold, and require different gear. Your equipment also wears down quickly, but unlike BotW, you can repair it automatically at camp without any extra items or skills. More like BotW though, it feels like there will be very few items, weapons or otherwise that will be truly unique and worth worrying about holding onto. For the most part you'll find a lot of the same (or very similar) types of weapons for each class(of weapon), basic clothes for climates, and padded armors, which plays into the one mechanic that feels... original?

When you 'die' you just pass out and will always come back. It might be a prisoner in a bandit camp, it might be with all your stuff still intact and a new healing potion nearer to your objective, or mostly just waking up in the closest major town with some stuff missing. I don't know exactly what you lose in the last one, I haven't experienced it enough to notice. So at the end of the day, you may be losing some sweet loot on your run back from a dungeon, but I don't think it's likely you'll ever find yourself in a position where you consider restarting after a death. Except for the beginning quest, but that I'll get to below.

Finally, it has a really Kingdoms of Amalur / Two Worlds vibe that should probably terrify you but I kind of like because clearly they're trying something. The magic system is... weird, and I'm not versed enough to really get into it, combat is combination dark souls stamina management and sekiro posture, so I guess this is the true FROM game. Plus the combos are pretty fun, if lacking for some weapon types (but this is all starter content, I've yet to be trained in any combat skills) and even though there's no jumping, which I always hate to see in adventure games, movement in general feels pretty good. It's janky, but fun janky, Plus there's a really forced drop-in co-op system that, well it works perfectly for having two people playing the game mechanically, and beyond that for progress and more specifics I haven't seen.


That's pretty much all I can cover from personal experience so far, it's fun, you should play it and we can play together. Yaaaaaay.

Protips for starting out: explore and pick up EVERYTHING in the very first area you spawn in before you talk to anyone. Even if you're slowed to a crawl from encumbrance it wont be an issue. In the next area explore the entire town and talk to everyone, pick up everything before you leave. That should take about a game day. Also there is a very easy way to solve your problem before you go through the main gate if you check everywhere.

[Mongrel]

That sounds fun. Also that death mechanic - word for word - is a staple of various popular Skyrim mods, so the designer may or may not have gotten the idea from there.

[Mongrel]

Starr and I have been playing Path of Exile the last two, three months or so and I just gotta say that the (probably unintentional) level of cartoonish racism in the game's fundamental setup is both sad and hilarious.

Also man is the endgame content in this game ever boring and shamelessly recycled. Except for Delve but hey let's gate that behind a purely artificial resource. And even Delve gets boring and repetitive too.

[François]

Wait, what? Whatever brightness looks best to me? No "you must not be able to see this logo" bullshit? Just... whatever looks best?

DQXI hasn't even really started and it's already making a strong play for GOTY.

[Friday]

I hate to inform you of this but you currently have the best and most powerful character on your team and it's all downhill from here

no i'm not talking about the main character or his hometown girlfriend

[François]

i didn't realize the occasional free medical herb was so game-breaking

[nosimpleway]

I hate to inform you of this but you currently have the best and most powerful character on your team and it's all downhill from here

no i'm not talking about the main character or his hometown girlfriend

Wait Alena is in this

[Friday]

Look the power level goes like this

Slimes > Red Slimes > General Population > Most DQ Characters > Taloon/Female Soldier from DQ3/Female Wizard from DQ3 > Yangus/Alena/Sylvando > The Demon Lords > Most Optional Post-game Superbosses > God from DQ7 > Sandy

[MarsDragon]

Slimes are the most powerful creatures in Dragon Quest, this checks out.

[Friday]

god damn it I haven't fucked that up since high school

[beatbandito]

Everyone who was even a little curious should be playing on the City of Heroes: Homecoming fan server. I've seen a lot of mostly nameless and one named Maou people talking about how the private sever is making them think about the old days but not actually touching it from some fear of the community or something.

The community is fine, as far as I can tell I'm not mining bitcoins for anyone and otherwise I'm playing City of Heroes with all the content it ever had plus some, with all the paid extra content baked right in, with a community of thousands, for free. Literally the only frustration since the test servers switched to Homecoming has been realizing that I should have actually titled this thread "Hey [$Target] Whatcha Playin'?". Check out the thread on it, most of the info isn't current, but downloading it and making an account still is. Come to Everlasting for a smattering of old jerks and sometimes Sharkey, or any of the other shards to avoid just that.



That said, after like a month of dedicating all my free time to it I finally got a little burnt and picked up Mordhau. Mordhau is Chivalry / For Honor / Mount & Blade combat, but blocking isn't directional, only attacks and deflects. Game modes are objective-based team deathmatch that basically plays out like most Chivalry maps, a horde mode similar to Vermintide's gear and leveling between waves, and a (ugh) battle royale mode. I've only had a few hours with it so far (which was supposed to be about an hour when I downloaded it at 9pm and ended up going until almost while legitimately not noticing the time pass) and have only played the first mode, but it's a lot of fun. There's traps, firebombs, defensive and siege tools and buildings, and a character customization system that lets you cover everything.

There are pre-made classes that have distinct play styles that can be modified, or you can start from scratch on both looks and equipment (though for the life of me I was never able to really use the 'face tug' system they have for looks, just kept hitting random face until I got something I could tweak slightly). There's traits (full heal on kill, half fire damage, dodge skill, etc.), armor and gear that have point costs, and every character has 16 points to work with. A lot of your equipment is cosmetic and only needs game money to unlock, no point cost, but generally a piece of light armor in any slot is 1, MA 2 and HA 3. There's a lot of numbers and graphs for full details on defensive properties. All gear (weapons, shields, repair tools, health kits, etc.) and the traits have equipment point costs.

Ultimately you know what you're getting into if you have M&B and Chivalry experience. Even as a beautiful baby boy I had a few good rounds just standing by an entry point and poking my stick towards anyone that tried to use it without getting careless, and by the end of the night I was doing elbow-bombs (RPed) off of defensive walls with my no weapon, all traits hand-to-hand experiment. These kinds of games tend to pop in and out of popularity pretty quickly, so if it's your thing, I suggest just biting the bullet and getting in.