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RPG Hangout

Still playing away at FF VIII and started the Card Quest on Disc 3. I mainly want that so I can challenge any of the CC group in Disc 4 on keep up with not really fighting anyone except bosses. The Encounter-None is such an awesome ability to have. Always welcomed in RPGs in my book
 

drganon

Member
Finally beat tales of berseria. It was a good but bitter sweet ending. Now it's on to outer worlds. Just gotta wait for the 10gb patch to download. Gotta love modern gaming 😓
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Playing Baldur’s Gate on Nintendo Switch. The controls took awhile to get my head around, but once I did, they worked surprisingly well. Beamdog did a really good job with the console controls.

I played BG1 in the last couple of years already, but I decided to replay it so I can import my characters to BGII.
 
Outward released on GoG now. After reading that it hardly had any story and it's all about exploration I immediately bought it. After a bit of modding to make the game less brutal, I'm really loving it. It's one of the few non-SaGa games that actually have this mysterious feeling of exploration that I usually only get from SaGa games.
 
Playing Baldur’s Gate on Nintendo Switch. The controls took awhile to get my head around, but once I did, they worked surprisingly well. Beamdog did a really good job with the console controls.

I played BG1 in the last couple of years already, but I decided to replay it so I can import my characters to BGII.

I saw that this was available for PS4 as well. I was interested in picking it up, as I only played the first Baulder's Gate a LONG time ago, and then didn't really know what I was doing.
 

Katsura

Member
Currently playing Witcher 3. Usually, i avoid AAA games but the sale was too tempting so i gave in. It's ok. I mean, i'm really torn with this game. I've finished the part with the bloody baron and his wife in the bog. The world is stunning, i like the dark themes and the story is fine so far even though there are certain things i don't get. Likely because i didn't play the previous games

On the other hand, the combat is bad. Why does his dodge roll take him out of melee attack range in most cases? The few times i've played that girl i whose name i can't remember i've enjoyed combat far more. Not because of her op health regen but because of her dodge. I wish Geralt had that. Also, would it have hurt them to make just a couple of combos to spice things up? Anyway, combat got better once i respecced into a sign build. Still not very engaging though. I'm hoping i've either missed something or it picks up with the right build later on

Geralt is very well modelled but i find NPC models to be very hit and miss. The bloody baron was well done but that sorceress, Keira i think?, had lots of uncanny valleyish moments. Also, it might just be me but it feels like the horse animation and speed does not match when holding A to ride

Finally, the whole Gwent thing. It feels so tacked on. It's a decent enough TCG but is there an actual point to playing all the innkeepers etc?

At any rate, i'm enjoying it so far
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Currently playing Witcher 3. Usually, i avoid AAA games but the sale was too tempting so i gave in. It's ok. I mean, i'm really torn with this game. I've finished the part with the bloody baron and his wife in the bog. The world is stunning, i like the dark themes and the story is fine so far even though there are certain things i don't get. Likely because i didn't play the previous games

On the other hand, the combat is bad. Why does his dodge roll take him out of melee attack range in most cases? The few times i've played that girl i whose name i can't remember i've enjoyed combat far more. Not because of her op health regen but because of her dodge. I wish Geralt had that. Also, would it have hurt them to make just a couple of combos to spice things up? Anyway, combat got better once i respecced into a sign build. Still not very engaging though. I'm hoping i've either missed something or it picks up with the right build later on

Geralt is very well modelled but i find NPC models to be very hit and miss. The bloody baron was well done but that sorceress, Keira i think?, had lots of uncanny valleyish moments. Also, it might just be me but it feels like the horse animation and speed does not match when holding A to ride

Finally, the whole Gwent thing. It feels so tacked on. It's a decent enough TCG but is there an actual point to playing all the innkeepers etc?

At any rate, i'm enjoying it so far

I love The Witcher but yeah I think now I've played Kingdom Come Deliverance the combat would probably not be so appealing - KCD got that spot on. It's a lovely world to inhabit though, and yeah that bloody baron bit is amazing. I too avoided Gwent because I can't stand these shitty card games. The DLC expansions are well worth it btw.
 

Katsura

Member
I love The Witcher but yeah I think now I've played Kingdom Come Deliverance the combat would probably not be so appealing - KCD got that spot on. It's a lovely world to inhabit though, and yeah that bloody baron bit is amazing. I too avoided Gwent because I can't stand these shitty card games. The DLC expansions are well worth it btw.
I'm happy to hear it since i grabbed a bundle with both expansions
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
I'm happy to hear it since i grabbed a bundle with both expansions

Without too many spoilers, Hearts Of Stone is brilliant - features a very interesting chap who will definitely get under your skin. Blood And Wine is set in a new area that looks a bit like the south of France and it's absolutely gorgeous to look at but I preferred the characters in Hearts Of Stone. That said, it wraps up the Witcher story nicely, so it's a very worthwhile addition.
 

Dom1niqu3

Neo Member
Without too many spoilers, Hearts Of Stone is brilliant - features a very interesting chap who will definitely get under your skin. Blood And Wine is set in a new area that looks a bit like the south of France and it's absolutely gorgeous to look at but I preferred the characters in Hearts Of Stone. That said, it wraps up the Witcher story nicely, so it's a very worthwhile addition.
Hos has one of the best story line I have ever experienced in a video game, the characters and stories are incredibly well written. It also contains a long quest that many, including me would consider the single best quest in the whole game.
 

Labadal

Member
Both expansions of the Witcher 3 are better than the base game, imo. W3 suffers from bad combat and the Ubisoft formula of filling the map with minor stuff.
 
I'm a month into Diablo 3 on Switch. I have a Paragon 500 Witch Doctor and a paragon 600 Demon Hunter, and I'm wondering what class I want to try next. I really enjoy glass cannon-y builds that require you to juggle multiple cooldowns and procs in order to stay alive while dealing high damage. I love pushing rifts at difficulties that kill me in 1 or 2 hits. Any suggestions other than the Wizard?
 

AbZeroNow

Neo Member
Currently playing I Am Setsuna on the Nintendo Switch. I just love the simple piano-based soundtrack. The mechanics of this game I'm still getting used to: no random encounters on the overworld; no inns; sell material dropped from defeated enemies to get cash. I also like that you're not forced to use Endir once you have more than 3 party members.

I'm at the Royburg portion of the game (in case anyone wanted to know how far I'm into this game).
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
So, I reluctantly started playing Baldur’s Gate again as I now have it on Switch. I say reluctantly, not because I don’t like it, but because I only played it through for the first time in the last 1-2 years.

I really wanted to get stuck into Baldur’s Gate II, but since my original BG playthrough was on PC and not Switch, I couldn’t carry over my characters.

So yeah, I begrudgingly started playing BG again about 9-10 days ago and maaaaaaaaan, I forgot how good this game is. I know it’s good when I realise I’ve been sitting in the same chair in the backyard for 4 hours and haven’t moved. I just get totally lost in it.

Yeah, I know BGII is supposed to be every bit as good as BG, but x10. Can’t wait. Hopefully I don’t fatigue on it, playing them back to back.

What a video game.
 
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Alright, just finished FF VIII last night, PS1 version. The final battle was a nail bitter and also made me realize how much I hate that I cannot get Lion Heart every time with my desperation attack. I was really surprised at how the battle ended up though, and I wonder if it was kinda coded in a way to make it like that. I kept getting flashbacks to FF VII final battle, when you use Omnislash to defeat Sephiroth, and it is only Cloud on the field, etc. I basically had the same ending, but it was not scripted, or at least it didn't seem scripted to me. I felt like at any moment I could have been killed, but I did get a lot of those Judgement attacks from Ultimecia that bring your HP to 1, but not kill you.
Anyway, the game is still great. Very epic, but as always the story is not very cohesive. I don't understand why there are 3 "big bads" in the game. The focus of the plot keeps shifting until you are told about a character that you have never met and have no understanding of. Who is Ultimecia? Why does she want to Krompress time? I felt that it should have been either Edea stay the bad guy the whole time, or Adel be the person who is manipulating people from afar, which would make more sense. You find out about the Sorceress wars and Adel being the instigator, she is overthrown, etc. Adel has way more reason to want to destroy the world.
Still, with all that gripe on the story (didn't really bring up the love story part of it) I really enjoyed the game. I liked playing through it without really drawing any magic from enemies, I just used card mod and when I finally got encounter none I was really flying through the latter half of the game. If you haven't played FF VIII yet then you shoudl at least check out the first disc playthrough.
 

bigedole

Member
65 hours into Trails of Cold Steel 3, probably still have 20+ hours left, really love the game. The QOL features added to the original Japanese release make all the difference, the only complaint I've ever had about these games is how long some meaningless scenes play out, making ample use of the High-Speed mode :)

Love the battle mechanics, nightmare difficulty is very challenging but there's many different ways to become a powerhouse so you don't feel pigeonholed into a single strategy. It's really great.
 

Bakkus

Member
Anyone played Live A Live? Just got a repro cart with the English translation.
 
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AbZeroNow

Neo Member
Gotten further into I Am Setsuna. Man, the Fridging Heights portion is just a punch to the player, but really works for the story. I am enjoying watching through the twists in the game, and I like that I really haven't had to read a guide to know what to do in this game. Gotta say that the Switch probably already has a good amount of really good JRPGs (the WRPGS on the Switch are pretty good too) with more and more coming as the console matures.
 

Katsura

Member
So i finished Witcher 3 and both DLCs

Main game

Velen was still the highpoint for me. I loved almost everything about it. Novograd was great too but it had a bit too much detective work for my taste. Still, lots of interesting quests and characters. Hated Skellige. Grey and drab and i never really cared much about the quests, except the giant part. That was pretty cool. Ended up with Yennefer though to be honest i'm not super fond of her or Triss. Why can't i end up with Keira?

HoS

Great story and characters dragged down by some weak parts. Loved it for the most part but i absolutely hated the wedding quest. Not just because i found it uninteresting but also because i'd already ended the main game with Yennefer yet a huge part of the wedding quest is this whole will they/won't they thing that made no sense at all

BW

Fuck me that's a beautiful area. While the story was not as interesting as HoS, i still loved it. The house renovation, mutagen system, the setting - it's fantastic

Also, i think i kinda ruined the combat by going with a full sign build since it either made fights completely trivial or crazy hard and frustrating. Most fights were too easy given i could either use igni and just stand back, that telekinetic blast thing where you can insta kill enemies when they're down. It became even more overpowered after unlocking the new mutagen system. Then there were fights like The Caretaker who was largely immune to the signs and made the fight very frustrating and drawn out. I'm actually thinking about restarting and going with another build to see if the combat becomes properly engaging
 

drganon

Member
Just bought tales of zestiria. Also have to play through the first ni no kuni game I bought on sale. My backlog is getting worse by the month.
 

Katsura

Member
I did restart Witcher 3 to make a completely different build but took a break since the combat is very much the same for the first 10-15 levels. I stumbled upon Elex for 12$ and thought i might as well go full on eurojank

I'm not very far and it's definitely eurojank but it's also showing hints of what made Gothic great
 

Pejo

Member
Is there anything out there to give me that Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain feeling? For some reason I've been thinking about that game a lot lately.
 

Labadal

Member
Is there anything out there to give me that Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain feeling? For some reason I've been thinking about that game a lot lately.
Not really. I replayed it last year and there is nothing that really gives off the same feeling.
 

Katsura

Member
Finished Elex

It's eurojank, it's got bugs and weird dialogue that doesn't match the previous dialogue on several occasions, the first 5-10 hours it plays more like a fleeing simulator as everything except critters will destroy you and yet i could barely stop playing for the 40 hours it took me to complete it

A big open world with very little handholding. No NPCs with an exclamation mark above their heads to indicate they have a quest for you, dialogue choices can and will have an impact not just on future potential side quests but also on the main story. Often these choices aren't even labelled with a warning so you have to consider the choices you make. Right off the bat you're given quests that you can't possibly complete at that point but that's the beauty of it - nothing is kept from you because of artificial limits. You talk to people, grab quests and decide what you want to do. Many of those quests involves you picking a side whether it's between 2 individuals or 2 factions. Slowly you grow in power until you are capable of taking entire groups of enemies down with ease though you can still get destroyed if you're not playing smart

3 very different factions gives it lots of replay value. Factions are effectively classes and there is no switching mid game or even resetting ability and skill points

If you can ignore the obvious flaws and general jank and you don't mind having to struggle at least until level 10, there is a great game hiding behind all that
 
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drganon

Member
Playing ni no kuni 1 remastered. I love the graphics , story and character/world design but find myself tolerating the combat. I wish it was either turn based or real time as opposed to the weird mish mash of both they're going for. Still like the game enough to deal with it for now though.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
I finished Baldur’s Gate on the Switch last night. Still an amazing game. The console controls took a bit of getting used to, but once they became second nature and I didn’t have to think about them, they were really great.

As I’ve mentioned previous, the game has a serious bug which has not been patched out as of today. Sometimes the game crashes with an error msg. It happened about 10 times during my playthrough. It mainly seems to happen when you are saving, but it did occur a couple of times during general gameplay. When it happens during a save, your save file gets deleted, so KEEP MULTIPLE SAVE FILES so you don’t lose too much time investment.

I think I narrowed down the bug to this scenario (for anyone interested): If you are transferring many items from player inventories to a chest for storage back and forth and very fast and you exit out of the inventory screen too quickly, the crash has a high chance of occuring. If you save immediately, you are screwed. I assume that the game is still populating the inventory lists in the background and hasn’t completed the task yet, so by doing it quickly and exiting, the game freaks out and errors. There is no info on this on the net that I can find and no way to report it (for Switch) to Beamdog. So, I’ll just post it here in hope it will help someone. DO LARGE INVENTORY JUGGLING BETWEEN PLAYER AND CHEST SLOWLY.

Anyway, I still enjoyed the game and am onto Baldur’s Gate II now. After 122 hours in BG1 alone, that’s the rest of the year sorted for gaming, lol.
 
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Katsura

Member
Playing ni no kuni 1 remastered. I love the graphics , story and character/world design but find myself tolerating the combat. I wish it was either turn based or real time as opposed to the weird mish mash of both they're going for. Still like the game enough to deal with it for now though.
Oh i've been wondering about the series but it sounds like i would hate that style of combat

After finishing an Elex play through, i didn't really know what to play next. I discovered that i already own Assassin's Creed Origins from some humble bundle thing and decided to give it a go since apparently it's an RPG series now. I still hate it lol. Sure they've introduced proper rpg elements and revamped the combat but there is no sense of discovery and the stealth system is still absolutely moronic

Trying Tokyo Xanadu EX+ now. I love all the weird mechanics they've mashed together but so far i find the flow of the game is interrupted by too many cutscenes. I'm only on chapter 3 though so i'm hoping it will change for the better
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Good people of RPG land: Owlcat is currently teasing their next game on Twitter.



It's definitely another Pathfinder game, but what adventure path? (if any)
 
I'm playing Romancing SaGa 3. It's the game in the series that I feel is most structured like a "regular" jrpg.
Romancing SaGa 3 still has the open world exploration though. That's quite atypical.

SaGa Frontier 1 is closer to a regular JRPG as it really follows through a story and the exploration is just optional.

And SaGa Frontier 2 has a linear storyline, so that's even closer to a regular JRPG. however it's also hardest to access mechanics-wise.
 

Helios

Member
Good people of RPG land: Owlcat is currently teasing their next game on Twitter.



It's definitely another Pathfinder game, but what adventure path? (if any)



I'll have to give Kingmaker another try. I really disliked the real-time combat. I heard there's a mod that fixes that.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member


I'll have to give Kingmaker another try. I really disliked the real-time combat. I heard there's a mod that fixes that.


The mod is very very good. Like better than it has any right to be for functionality that wasn't done by the original developers.

Personally I deal with RTWP combat by sculpting my party into a martial murderball layered with buffs. You click attack and just...watch.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
I’m about 20-30 hours into Baldur’s Gate 2 on Switch and I’m loving it, but I’ve got to say that the game has a different pace than the first game and I’m not so sure that I like that aspect of it.

What I mean is, there are a lot more optional companion characters in the sequel compared to the first game and I feel like I am being constantly bombarded with them, which sometimes leaves me bewildered.

Baldur’s Gate had a softer pace that just let me explore the world at my leisure and take missions when I felt like taking them. It aided the sense of adventure. Baldur’s Gate 2 seems to have a never ending roster of NPC companions that accost you and force you to make an agonising decision on the spot about whether to take them into your party and to drop a current companion to make room for them.

I feel like the game is not even giving me a chance to get to know my companions before it is lobbing new ones at me.

I’m not sure how many of them are new characters (added in the enhanced editions) and how much that messes with the pacing of the original game.

Anyway, I’m still thoroughly enjoying it, but the pacing is much tighter and seems to funnel you from event to event and in the process loses some of the feeling of exploration and adventure.

Just some thoughts as I play BG2 for the first time.
 
I’m about 20-30 hours into Baldur’s Gate 2 on Switch and I’m loving it, but I’ve got to say that the game has a different pace than the first game and I’m not so sure that I like that aspect of it.

What I mean is, there are a lot more optional companion characters in the sequel compared to the first game and I feel like I am being constantly bombarded with them, which sometimes leaves me bewildered.

Baldur’s Gate had a softer pace that just let me explore the world at my leisure and take missions when I felt like taking them. It aided the sense of adventure. Baldur’s Gate 2 seems to have a never ending roster of NPC companions that accost you and force you to make an agonising decision on the spot about whether to take them into your party and to drop a current companion to make room for them.

I feel like the game is not even giving me a chance to get to know my companions before it is lobbing new ones at me.

I’m not sure how many of them are new characters (added in the enhanced editions) and how much that messes with the pacing of the original game.

Anyway, I’m still thoroughly enjoying it, but the pacing is much tighter and seems to funnel you from event to event and in the process loses some of the feeling of exploration and adventure.

Just some thoughts as I play BG2 for the first time.

I have Baulder's gate 1 and 2 on my wishlist to pick up. I played it a LONG time ago, way back in the day, and remember very little. Are the controls for gamepad handled well with the conversion from PC?
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
I have Baulder's gate 1 and 2 on my wishlist to pick up. I played it a LONG time ago, way back in the day, and remember very little. Are the controls for gamepad handled well with the conversion from PC?
They are a bit awkward at first, but it’s all about just memorising them. After a few hours, when you don’t have to think about what button to press anymore, they work really well. Beamdog did a fantastic job converting the controls to console in my opinion.

You can directly control your party with the joystick, but still have the option to access the “mouse pointer” for more intricate control. Just make sure you bump the scrolling speed up to max.

What can be an issue is a serious crash bug in the games that hasn’t been fixed yet. If you haven’t seen it, read my post #65 in this thread:


It’s frustrating and possibly devastating, but with frequent saving (which you should be doing anyway), it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. There are 5 save slots. Use them all regularly.
 

Pallas

Member
I’m still playing Witcher 3... on the B&W DLC and I’ve probably put in an ungodly amount of hours. This dlc or to call it properly the expansion was really well done and the world of Toussaint is so bright and vibrant with colors compared to Velen.

After I finish it, I’m either going to use Gamepass for a FF marathon or get on the PS4 and play HZD complete edition.
 
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Katsura

Member
Finished Tokyo Xanadu Ex+

What a strange game. So close to being a great game but sadly, in the end, i found it to be just mediocre. The combat is decent enough but rather than having all these weird extra systems, it would have benefited from having a better basic combat. Some combos, maybe a parry and counter option. There is a rock-paper-scissor type thing with elements but some characters are just so much better than it was easier to just go with them. Sadly, that did not include the main character

While you have some freedom to build a character in various ways, i would have preferred more distinct builds. Since you're forced to use all characters at certain points, it would have given the game more replay value. As it stands, i'm struggling to think of a good reason to do a new game plus

The high school social part could also have been much better with a little more freedom and perhaps from branching paths with side quests and friendships. It's very linear and really nothing more than a vessel to move the story forward, disguised as a seemingly more complex system

The story is typical shounen but even for that genre, there are some glaring plot holes and extremely unlikely coincidences. In fact, it dragged on so much that after 40 hours i just wanted it to end

So all in all a decent enough experience if you're into these kind of games but just some minor tweaks could have made it a great game. I think it sold well enough that they're making a sequel so hopefully they will fix the issues in that
 
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I just started up Lost Odyssey, which is one of the Sakaguchi Xbox RPGs from Mist Walker. I saw that Uematsu did the music in the credits but other than that it did not list anyone else of FF fame of not in the opening credits. I'm going to check if Sakaguchi really worked on it or just his company.

The actual game seems alright, but kinda rough around the edges so far. I'll keep playing it as I just found out about the Ring System, etc. which seems kinda cool.
 
I just started up Lost Odyssey, which is one of the Sakaguchi Xbox RPGs from Mist Walker. I saw that Uematsu did the music in the credits but other than that it did not list anyone else of FF fame of not in the opening credits. I'm going to check if Sakaguchi really worked on it or just his company.

The actual game seems alright, but kinda rough around the edges so far. I'll keep playing it as I just found out about the Ring System, etc. which seems kinda cool.

Lost Odyssey is one of my most favourite games ever. It is a little rough around the edges, true, but I hope you enjoy it!
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I just started up Lost Odyssey, which is one of the Sakaguchi Xbox RPGs from Mist Walker. I saw that Uematsu did the music in the credits but other than that it did not list anyone else of FF fame of not in the opening credits. I'm going to check if Sakaguchi really worked on it or just his company.

The actual game seems alright, but kinda rough around the edges so far. I'll keep playing it as I just found out about the Ring System, etc. which seems kinda cool.
Sakaguchi was the designer and cowriter on Lost Odyssey.
 

dottme

Member
I just started up Lost Odyssey, which is one of the Sakaguchi Xbox RPGs from Mist Walker. I saw that Uematsu did the music in the credits but other than that it did not list anyone else of FF fame of not in the opening credits. I'm going to check if Sakaguchi really worked on it or just his company.

The actual game seems alright, but kinda rough around the edges so far. I'll keep playing it as I just found out about the Ring System, etc. which seems kinda cool.
The story is a little slow to start but it’s a good one.
 
Sakaguchi was the designer and cowriter on Lost Odyssey.

Yeah, I looked it up after my post, director and producer are NOT Sakaguchi. Not saying that is a deal breaker but I always looked at these xbox games (Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon) as the Xbox answer to Final Fantasy exclusives on PS. Of course, FF XIII came out on Xbox anyway.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
So GAF,

SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions or Star Ocean First Departure R?
 

drganon

Member
Making some good progress in ni no kuni. I'm over 30 hours in and the combat system is starting to grow on me a little.
 
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