Hey [%target] Whatcha Playin'?

[Mongrel]

Haven't picked up any new games in a while and Friday's talking about DQ8 put me in an RPGish mood again. Not sure what to go for, but here's what I'm thinking:

- Any genre and I don't mind emulation, though I think I can only emulate up to PS2/pre-wii ... haven't tried Dolphin though, to see it works on this machine.
- Can be offline or online (including maybe MMOs if not too grindy/P2W)
- Lots of exploring, big world to explore and freedom to do so
- Stuff to actually find - no point of a big world to explore with nothing in it
- 3D (I dunno why I dislike 2D rpgs, but I just do) but can run on my old crate (CPU is 6-core 2.8 GHz, Graphics is an old 1 GB ATI Radeon 5750, 8 GB RAM).

- Good characters/writing would be nice
- Some genuine storyline freedom with lots of different endings/options is also nice

I mean Skyrim fit very well for the sort of thing, but I played Skyrim a while back and eventually the sameness of all the dungeons and smallness of the world (even with all the DLC) made it boring. There's only so many times you can visit Rorikstead and see the same crap in shops and not start banging your head against fenceposts. There's lots of story and content, but it's mismatched with a map that's too small and a limited amount of area themes (there's really only three dungeons... "wild", "Nordic" and "ruin/barracks"), so that in order to play out the game you go back to the same places and see the same things over and over and over. Plus, even with reduced enemy and dragon spawning I was levelling way faster than the rate at which I played story, and companions of any sort break combat anyway, so combat wasn't much challenge after a while.

I know you guys are gushing over Nier Automata, and that looks good, but it's way out of my computer's league. I'd be up for a shorter, smaller RPG too if it had a really great story, but I'd still like the freedom to actually make choices.

Was also thinking about maybe finally playing Mass Effect. I don't really know how open or large the ME world is, but it seems like your choices matter at least. But the ending seems so universally loathed (or, I guess, semi-tolerated with grumbling, after the patch), for invalidating your choices from the first two games... I guess I could just not play ME3.

I hate grinding, but I can endure it if the game meets the other requirements.

I guess I just want to fart around in an imaginary world, without necessarily chasing hero stories, and for that world to be actually interesting.

I dunno, any ideas?

[Thad]

Mass Effect's not open-world, it's traditional BioWare "choose a closed location from a hub" style. (See also: KotOR and Dragon Age, which are also good games if you haven't played them yet.) The first game has some problems with repetition on the small, optional quests (land, drive shitty vehicle around planet that is same as all the others, find enemy location that is same as all the others) but the design on the main quests is great. It deserves its reputation, and the second one is better. (Never played the third; as you say, that is an option.)

The Witcher series is great. Sounds like your hardware won't be able to play 3, but 1 and 2 are recommended.

Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 are out for PC now. 12 is...forthcoming, I think? I don't remember hearing anything about it being released.

I've never gotten around to finishing Valkyria Chronicles 2, but you might be able to run that on an emulator. And if you can get PPSSPP to run, I'd also recommend Crisis Core, though it's repetitive as fuck (definitely a mobile game, best played in small bursts). On the subject of Sega RPGs, you can get Grandia 2 from GOG, and you might be able to get Skies of Arcadia to run on an emulator.

[Thad]

Adding: the Batman: Arkham games are, if not RPGs, then at least RPG-adjacent. (Quests, experience, levels, skill trees...) Asylum and City are both highly recommended. Origins isn't bad. Knight is bad (and probably won't run on your computer anyway).

I've never played the original Deus Ex games, but I liked Human Revolution. Never got around to finishing it; people are right about the difficulty spikes at the boss battles. Course, there are only, what, three boss battles in the game?

Haven't played the new Deus Ex yet either, but I really should now that I'm trying this whole Linux gaming thing in earnest and it's a rare example of a AAA game with a Linux port. (C'moooon Nier.)

[Friday]

The new Deus Ex only has one boss and you can just sneak around hacking shit that will kill him for you, so he's fixed.

Anyway, as far as the bosses go in HR, my advice is, if you've got any Praxis Points lying around, buy Typhoon (when you buy it it automatically puts some ammo for it into your inventory) run up to the boss, and spam it. You can cheese/skip all three bosses that way. The final fourth boss requires a bit more doing but is the easiest boss, so.

[Mongrel]

Mass Effect's not open-world, it's traditional BioWare "choose a closed location from a hub" style. (See also: KotOR and Dragon Age, which are also good games if you haven't played them yet.) The first game has some problems with repetition on the small, optional quests (land, drive shitty vehicle around planet that is same as all the others, find enemy location that is same as all the others) but the design on the main quests is great. It deserves its reputation, and the second one is better. (Never played the third; as you say, that is an option.)

The Witcher series is great. Sounds like your hardware won't be able to play 3, but 1 and 2 are recommended.

Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 are out for PC now. 12 is...forthcoming, I think? I don't remember hearing anything about it being released.

I've never gotten around to finishing Valkyria Chronicles 2, but you might be able to run that on an emulator. And if you can get PPSSPP to run, I'd also recommend Crisis Core, though it's repetitive as fuck (definitely a mobile game, best played in small bursts). On the subject of Sega RPGs, you can get Grandia 2 from GOG, and you might be able to get Skies of Arcadia to run on an emulator.

I don't mind "choose a closed location from a hub" if there are lots of them and you can go back and forth as you need to/like. I enjoyed KOTOR 1&2 a lot but the fact that I was playing a Star Wars game with only six planets was really grating and probably the thing which annoyed me most. Does ME or ME2 actually have enough locations to make it feel like you're playing a game involving space travel?

You also reminded me that I wanted to try and run VK2&3 via emulator (they *should* work), I guess I could also try those if I can't find a good exploring game.

[beatbandito]

ME1 has about 6 actual planets that have some kind of characteristics, generic layout one-off planets and ships, and a planetary exploration "minigame" that is the definition of empty space.

ME2 is the same thing, but driving around bland planets is replaced with pressing buttons while looking at them in space. Slightly less boring, but substantially more grindy.

[Thad]

The locations feel a lot bigger than KotOR's, though, even if there aren't any more of them (and they trend toward the same kind of SF cliches -- galactic capital, mob planet, frontier outpost with a zombie infestation, giant volcano, all building toward finding the ancient ruins of a vanished civilization).

[Mongrel]

Yeah, Kotor's "planets" were generally like, one neighbourhood.

[Blossom]

So are Mass Effect's, just you have an interminable driving minigame to get from map to map.

Also the main plot and most of the characters are unfathomably dull and generic. In ME2, the main plot switches from dull to bafflingly stupid, but the characters are a lot better at least.

[Niku]

So hey, maybe a bit on the nose rec-wise, but you say you're open to MMOs; did you ever play World of Warcraft at all? They actually did a pretty cool job updating and streamlining the new player experience and opening areas back during Cataclysm, there's tons of shit to just wander around and do and see as you feel like it if you want to just go get lost (and don't mind avoiding above your paygrade monsters), and the game's free up to level 20 at this point. Obviously you're not going to get an "ending" even if it sinks in, but there's some individually cool little storylines sprinkled all over the place. On the flipside, well, it's WoW.

Also in the "everything's an RPG" vein, I've actually 100%ed Saint's Row IV twice at this point. Combining Crackdown with GTA was my favorite thing that series ever did, but the "RPG" feel of it is much more about collecting hidden orbs to power up your various abilities than any stat juggling.

FFXII: Zodiac Age is going to be PS4 exclusive at least at first from the sound of things, but if you can emulate PS2 games there's always the OG version. That game is incredibly hit or miss with people, but if you want an open world / MMO esque feel without any online shenanigans and have a love for simple programming for your party members, it just might be your thing.

I never played Xenoblade Chronicles, but if you can emulate Wii games, I've heard similar fondness from people who dug FFXII.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I'm one of those people for whom "it's WoW" is just going to be a big turnoff for me. Other suggestions are good though (you're the second person to recommend FFXII).

What do non-Friday people think of DQ8?

[Thad]

DQ8's great, though I remember the random encounters getting tedious in places; it's the best-looking, best-sounding game in the series, and all the series' charm is on full display. Don't suppose you've got a 3DS? Because I hear that, despite its many technical sacrifices, the 3DS remake plays better. (Random encounters are avoidable and there are new playable characters.)

I never did finish the postgame.

[nosimpleway]

though I remember the random encounters getting tedious in places;

I mean, it is Dragon Quest.

[Büge]

Don't suppose you've got a 3DS? Because I hear that, despite its many technical sacrifices, the 3DS remake plays better. (Random encounters are avoidable and there are new playable characters.)

He's not borrowing mine. :P

[Sharkey]

We've been too long in the black. Gone full Reaver.
Send more paramedics.

Itchy. Tasty.

[Mongrel]

Pretty sure that ship has tetanus.

[Newbie]

Finally got around to playing Night in the Woods. It's like a CYOA take on Animal Crosing or Stardew Valkey: wake up, check in with everybody in town and see if you can get anywhere you didn't have access to before, play through the evening's story vignette/minigame, go to sleep. Since this is a fading mining town with spoOoOoky things going on, this can be pretty bleak and/or creepy. Mostly it's cute.

The game asks you to make a lot of choices. While basically no choice matters for purposes of the outcome, the path you take to get there and the events prior to the start of the game can actually vary a great deal. I'm gonna have to play through maybe once or twice more--but thankfully I can ignore those townsfolk whose stories I've already completed, I think. Should go much quicker next time.

[Yoji]

I was going to complain about how I get motion sickness playing Eve: Valkyrie on the VR, but then I realized I'd probably get just as sick if I tried anything like that in real life. I mean, my stomach got upset​ the last time I went go-kart racing, so a double J-turn at Mach 3 probably wouldn't feel great either.

Speaking of space junk, damn Sharkey for bringing Elite: Dangerous to my attention. It sounds intriguing, but I don't think I have the time or requisite madness to actually play.

[Thad]

I'm a few years late on Tomb Raider '13 but I'm really enjoying it.

I never got into the series; I had the first game on the PS1 but I could never get past the controls. ("Choose from a list of possible control schemes, none of which put Jump on the X button.") So I never really got too far into the first game, or played any of the sequels.

But I've heard a lot of good things about the 2013 reboot, and it's currently on sale for $5 at Humble Store (or $7.50 for the GTFO Edition; sale on both versions ends in about 17 hours as of the time of this writing), and there's a Linux port, so I figured I'd check it out.

The whole thing does feel awfully linear (go through areas in the order dicated by the story; not really much of a feel of exploration; there are open areas with a few geegaws to find and occasionally a hidden puzzle-based tomb, but mostly it's just the one-big-corridor approach to progression), but I'm really enjoying the feel of the physics, some of the puzzles are pretty clever and satisfying, and the writing is great; it's a good story with good characters, genuine suspense, and a solid sense of mystery. It recasts Lara as less of an action hero (and with less of an impossible physique) and more of a young survivor. I only have a cursory familiarity with Rhianna Pratchett (I've read a few of her online postings, and yeah I know who her dad was), but this sure gets me interested in following her other work.

And Mongrel, you were looking for pulp-adventure games awhile back? This game involves a search for an ancient island ruled by a mysterious lost Japanese civilization, a shipwreck, a mysterious death cult, and ruins left by the ancients, the Nazis, and a truly shocking number of planes that have crashed there over the years. It's like Pulp Trope Bingo.

All in all I'm quite enjoying it, though I've hit the occasional bug:



(That's not me but I hit that exact bug and fought it for probably 20 minutes before giving up. Then I changed my mind, went back, and tried it again, and everything worked fine; apparently leaving and re-entering the tomb was enough to fix it.)

I also kind of love the Video Game Logic of the whole thing. As pulse-pounding as the story gets in places, it's still a game where the progression is largely built around "find generic parts that can for some reason be used interchangeably to repair a bow, a gun, or a prybar.")

If Feral ever ports Rise of the Tomb Raider to Linux, I'm all over that shit.

[Mongrel]

I own it, played it to death when it came out, and am really sad my current computer can't run the more-recent sequel.