Games you've played today

I just bought Atelier Rorona (Plus). I hope that it's good! I've seen multiple games from that series.

Atelier is great imo

Hope you enjoy it! Rorona is my fave girl

Falcom wrote:

Atelier is great imo

Hope you enjoy it! Rorona is my fave girl

It's rather cute at the moment. There's a time limit.

Would you mind enlightening me on this (still doing tutorial)?

Crafting things cost time, that much I know. If I walk around town, does it cost time? I'm assuming that travelling to new dungeons might consume some time (similar to Valkyrie Profile 1). I also heard that "collected" things cost time.

Do I have enough time to explore and do every battle or do I need to be more tactical about it?

You need to manage your time a bit.
The game is meant to be played with multiple playthroughs iirc so just take your time

Falcom wrote:

You need to manage your time a bit.
The game is meant to be played with multiple playthroughs iirc so just take your time

Need to save before crafting anything

Black Ops 3: The terrible spawns and netcode ruin this beta for me. Apparently they're going to tweak the spawns before it ends, but I don't really care. The game is extremely frustrating in its current form. Hopefully the tweaks will help the Xbone/PC beta next week.

I might have been able to enjoy it if the playerbase didn't worry about their stats and just ran around. I can't play well with the issues this game currently has.

I actually had a blast playing Black Ops 3 all night. Sure it still suffers from problems that have plagued the franchise since Modern Warfare 2, but the mechanical changes really freshen it up.

Hey fellow nerds, if you've got a moment, check out this match of mine in Black Ops 3, it doesn't really showcase everything the game has to offer, but it does show some awesome parkour stuff and I finally warmed up my pump action shotgun skills again:



Later I'm gonna try and copy a couple videos from my PS4 directly because I think the PS4 YouTube uploader downrezzes things for no reason.
Edit: I guess not, YouTube claims it's a duplicate and won't display it. The 720p option became available in my original upload later when before it maxed out at 480p, so I guess there's a hidden additional processing for higher resolutions (but the PS4 records at 720p max, unfortunately.)

About Atelier... I'm so confused. How do I harvest stuff? Do I need to water it (if I do, I haven't found out why!)

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold. Yes I bought it, yes I liked the Story Mode now. Yes I only did a Classic run.

This game is great in several ways. Better characters, better story mode that doesn't step on the original story, more fun to play in Classic due to access to Ginnungagap and it's bosses. The fact that the bosses HP and additional stuff are balanced for Fafnir makes them even more fun in Classic thanks to several strategies due to having 13 classes to choose from. It's beautiful. Also, EIGHT COLORS TO PAINT THE MAPS! Yeah, I beated the game, except for the non-story final FINAL boss, DLC final final FINAL boss, and Muckdile/Dinogator

Currently doing a 5 Gunners challenge because I hate myself.

Txn wrote:

Currently doing a 5 Gunners challenge because I hate myself.

Proof you're playing a Japanese game. If it were a western game 5 gunners would mow down everything in their path. Because guns.

Tenshigami wrote:

Txn wrote:

Currently doing a 5 Gunners challenge because I hate myself.

Proof you're playing a Japanese game. If it were a western game 5 gunners would mow down everything in their path. Because guns.

They can, however they are fragile as hell. They die even if a monster glance at them, even more if it's against FOEs. Also, abusing grimoires (special equipments that let you use skills from other classes or even monsters)

Unrelated and I'm not sure if anyone is interested but this is my current experience with FOEs.

Ragelope
- Main threat: Baffling Step, confuse a single target
I had to give one of my gunners a Prevent Order grimoire (protects one line from status for three turns) because they ALWAYS start with Baffling Step, and even then I had to hope they target someone from the line I used it. I also had to start activating Force Boosts in a stair pattern in order to attack them twice per turn and keep it in stunlock for five turns.

Raptor
- Main threat: EVERYTHING
+120 damage to anything with <100 HP is death. The gunners had 70 HP when I fought them.
I had to lure them into two traps to cut it's HP to half, then get a preemptive strike on them giving me two turns. Once it was free from the trap I started stunlocking like I did with the Ragelope hoping to NOT miss any shot because otherwise one or two gunner would die before I kill it.

Bats
- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Echolocation (Binds head) is a free turn for me since the gun skills use the arms, doesn't have a status so I don't even use Prevent Order. On top of that, it's conditional drop requires killing it with a pierce attack, and I have FIVE PEOPLE with pierce attacks. It's perfect for money grinding. Seriously, compared to the other two these guys are weak.

I guess I'm officially "done" with Atelier Rorona(?). I liked it. I'm on overtime but I don't think I'll keep going because...

-> Cordelia is bugged. She left the party "a bit before the end of the main story" and I was somewhat in the middle of the resolution. However, I ran out of time and couldn't complete it. I'm on overtime but I can't hire Cordelia back but I still get some quests from her and some mini-events. I think that I failed to get her ending because of that bug. Cordelia was also level 49 when she left the party... which also prevented me from getting Adventurer ending I think.

-> Iron Giant is not respawning thus I can't kill him

-> I tried that new dungeon in overtime. I got owned so hard, I don't feel like playing anymore. I even spent time crafting weapons and accessory for my 2 new characters.

Despite the inferior experience from Overtime, I still enjoyed the game. I read that new game+ wasn't worth my time

Txn wrote:

Tenshigami wrote:

Txn wrote:

Currently doing a 5 Gunners challenge because I hate myself.

Proof you're playing a Japanese game. If it were a western game 5 gunners would mow down everything in their path. Because guns.

They can, however they are fragile as hell. They die even if a monster glance at them, even more if it's against FOEs. Also, abusing grimoires (special equipments that let you use skills from other classes or even monsters)

Aaaaaah, the ol' Glass Cannon then.

Yeah, it's either kill things before they kill you. The first boss is still giving me a LOT of trouble.

Being it's September 9th. I knew one thing I had to do.


(Image is a link, since I didn't want the direct image to be considered too bring for direct linking)
Yep, playing my Dreamcast. Played some Soul Calibur and while I played Soul Calibur II first, I actually prefer the first one. It may not be state of the art but it feel like it to me.

Also, I never showed it off here but I actually took one of my oldest PS3 stick and modded it to be multiplatform. It's not just a stick I can use on both PS3 & 360, but with the right cable (as seen in the pic connecting it to the Dreamcast), I can also use it on older systems. I have a USB cable (of course), one for PS2 & a PS2 to GCN converter (still plugged in my Wii no less in the pic) for playing Tatsunoko Vs Capcom with a stick through a Gamecube port. Would love to later on make custom cables for NES, SNES, and original Xbox.

It's fitting that since I have a stick I can use on it, go play something on the Dreamcast that the system was known for...fighters.

Oh yeah, I was also playing the Dreamcast version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, reminding me that in regards to the non-PS3/360 version, that the unlocking system for that game can go burn in hell. Yeah, I find the unlocking system that tedious.

so um I've been playing this thing called Xenoblade Chronicles lately.

FRIENDS

TODAY IS A LANDMARK DAY IN TAIYZLAND, FOR TODAY IS THE FIRST TIME THAT I GOT A VIDEO GAME EARLY!

I got Senran Kagura 2 when the release date is tomorrow. Technically the first opportunity for this to happen was Lightning Returns, but Canada Post fucked me by not leaving it at my door.


In terms of games that I've been playing, Project Mirai DX came out last night. They made a really good decision by putting the Diva Room stuff on the front end, it's basically like Nintendogs with Vocaloids with a robust rhythm game to boot. The game starts off a bit awkward because the format is unlike any other rhythm game: notes follow a track that curves and wraps around the screen in various patterns, and sometimes a second track appear when you need to hit the d-pad instead of buttons...But it actually works really well because the track will actually keep your eyes on the center of the video in most cases unlike Project Diva where you're normally watching the edges of the screen for notes to fly in.

Some cool things about this game are the inclusion of Gumi in 4 duets. Happy Synthesizer, Matryoshka, 1 2 Fanclub and I forget the title of the last one. She will also show up periodically to give tips or hints about some of the more hidden stuff in Nintendogs mode, and will occasionally give gifts either randomly or due to the season (she's currently giving away a little shrine thing for a fall celebration of sorts.) Vocaloids from your friends list will show up and give you items for the rhythm game also. Gumi unfortunately doesn't have any solo songs as she isn't by Crypton, and amusingly any screenshots you take of your score after one of her songs will credit Internet Co.

Also, if you notice that any characters get outfits for a song they're not in...Play the song a second time and you'll unlock an alternate version that you can play with a different character, repeat and get another. One song has duet combinations of Miku and Rin, Len and Rin, and Miku and Luka, and there's a song that has a different version for each character in the game except Gumi, there are actually quite a few of these. The chart and video don't change, but unlike Project Diva this is the only way to play with different characters and the vocals DO change!

Because the game's graphical style is heavily based on Nendoroids, there's a cool thing where you can put on a given costume, but then change the clothing with another costume set. This lets you do some cool things that I don't think you could really do in the Project Diva games (I didn't experiment much with costumes in that game to be honest, I just liked matching up the songs to the right costumes...I didn't realize that Diva f 2 had a command for this in the costume menu until very late into the game.)

Creating a profile is kind of fun because it shows off your currently selected Vocaloid partner, the outfit you chose for them to wear in the Nintendogs mode, and there are "stamps" (achievements) you can earn for doing various things which will unlock words you can use to create a custom title for yourself. You can earn backgrounds from completely certain tasks in songs, and you can create a little tune using your vocaloid's voice or synth instruments, a custom dance along to any of the game's songs (buying certain costumes unlock song-specific dance moves,) and you can leave Nico Nico Douga-style comments on top of the videos in theater mode. All these things are shared with your friendslist via Spotpass (hi Shadowfox!) or via StreetPass.

There are some other fun diversions. Interacting with items is random now, unfortunately, so you just set up stuff in your Vocaloid's room and they'll do stuff with them sometimes (the fortune box is always interacted with once per day when you first load in.) You can give money to each Vocaloid and they will occasionally use that money on actual items from the store (outfits, room items or food) or flavor text...Kaito for example won 10k Mirai Points via a lottery (you can't cause this to happen, there's not lottery mini-game) then spent 1k on baking lessons. Yeah, you're not getting any allowance for a while Kaito.

You can play Reversi with your Vocaloid, as well as use them as your playable character in Puyo Pop vs. the other Vocaloids, and you're rated on this and get a title depending on your skill at the mini-game (Miku and Kaito apparently have Puyo Pop costumes if you beat the game with them.) I like Puyo Pop but I'm not particularly great at planning in puzzle games so I only got a C after beating it. There's also a charming little alarm clock function which...Doesn't work with the lid closed so f*** that. You can make your Vocaloid go to bed though and they will have some funny animations like falling out of bed and sleeping on the floor, having nightmares or oversleeping if you leave it in that mode for 12 hours. (Unfortunately I didn't get to see how Meiko managed to scramble back on the bed after falling out.)

Project Mirai DX is an enhanced version of Project Mirai 2 with slight modifications to charts, some additional difficulties for certain tracks, and all songs have proper videos now (some songs had hand-drawn animations, they might've even been the original music videos for those songs, you can still unlock those for viewing in the options menu by completing the appropriate song in DX.) There's also a new opening which is also a new song added to the game.

I kinda hope that they learn some lessons from this game. While it starts out a little slow with some blah song choices (and songs that were already in Project Diva have much inferior videos by comparison,) the faster songs are really good but you can still enjoy the video because of the note format, and the different vocal and costume options are a lot of fun to play around with. Having the Diva Room on the front end would also be a great idea IMO, hell they could probably make an entire game based around hanging out with your Vocaloid buddies if they came up with more interactions and personality for the individual Vocaloids' habits. I also really hope that Gumi makes it into Project Diva X because she's my second favourite after Meiko, and she's one of the more impressive Vocaloids outside of Crypton's stuff.

100%'ed One Way Heroics Plus last night. Second game I've 100% on Steam after Half Minute Hero Second Coming. Well, I should 100% Ys Origin a long time ago, but it's my, what, 15th time playing it? I guess I was just burnt out by it now.

Anyway, yeah OWH is an extremely great game. I would recommend it to everyone, but OWH is more perfect with the DLC - One Way Heroics Plus, so you should probably get both. Since I devotedly managed to complete the game to the fullest, I think my review is credible enough.


Gameplay: 9/10
OWH is a turn-based roguelike, so you are going to die. A lot of times. Whether you like it or not. It can be something as dumb as being stuck inside a dungeon while clawing a wall that just don't want to break because your trustworthy wall breaking ax happen to break just a moment ago, or something infuriating like being sniped critically, twice in a row, by some treehugger faction that don't like the idea of killing cute animals for experience.

Well, unlike other, more hardcore roguelike, your death doesn't end only as a stain in the floor. When you die, you are given Heroic Points that can be used to obtain new perks, classes or upgrade Dimensional Vault - a vault that let you carry over item of your dead character over to other character. So yeah, that +10 weapon you oh so religiously upgraded can be used by your next level 1 scrub character, provided that it still has enough durability to last the next two hit or so. In OWH+, you can also repair your equipment in Dimensional Vault, albeit with extremely high cost. Who the f*** can actually pay that? It's better if you just store up Scroll of Repair/Jerryrigging for use next game.

Anyway, the core of the game is to survive, level up by killing monsters and cute animals (which the treehuggers will hate you for doing so, but the 500% experience and +1 stat is so tempting), find awesome equipment, and defeat Demon Lord. All while avoiding from falling into the demise of Darkness, an entity that keeps coming at you from behind, swallowing up town and shit. A pretty interesting mechanic that gives you the rush of urgency so you don't stick in town, farming mobs too much, or, like the cause of death mentioned above, stick in dungeon too much looting stuff. If you find yourself surrounded by walls, mountains or lake, you are pretty much fucked.

And this mechanic is why I gave it a 9, because I'm a horrible Min/Max-er with OCD tendency that want to get anything and everything, but this game won't let me explore to my heart content in fear of dying. I did came to term with it later though and the lore behind the Darkness is also rather awesome, though I'd rather not spoil.

The entire map of the game is procedurally generated, so not one adventure will be the same as the other. The placement of possible party are also randomly generated, and you can even lose potential party candidate because they happen to be spawning in the middle of boss mob. Tough luck.


Graphics: 8/10
I'm not one to egg on graphical presentation much, and I'm not a retro nostalgiafag so I don't have any attachments to sprite or 8-bit graphic. All in all, I think the low res sprite it had going for it worked well. I sure will enjoy it if the graphic gains a remastered HD sprite or even translated into 3D, but the current graphical representation is just right. There's some jarring stuff like the transition between area being not so smoothly represented, but those are things I can get behind with. I mean, it is already weird shifting climate from desert area directly into snowy area in the first place.

What I would praise the game is with the character design. I don't know, I guess I just like my female characters all modest and non-sexualized I guess? I mean look at this trailer of Mystery Chronicle: I Won't Look Back Until I Win (which is an adaptation of One Way Heroics for PS4 and PSVita btw)


At 40s, I guess that's the Demon Lord. Now compare with this, a little spoiler-ish, but who cares:


See what I mean? OWH's Demon Lord has that majestic looking woman of authority looks, and not just that, the other female (potential) party members are also dressed modestly while still have the charm of a woman. I guess that's also contributed by how their character is written, but yeah I think the character design of this game is pretty good, much to my liking.


Soundtrack: 10/10
f*** YEAH THE SOUNDTRACKS. This game made me be a fan of this Yuku/Green Dream guy instantly. His tracks are really, really catchy, making me waste my time in an area just to listen to the bgm. One of his tracks is also the most annoying thing you will ever feel when it's played. Mostly when at night, and your health is low. Fucking treehuggers.

So yeah, the game incorporates a variety of tracks from indie composers I think? There's a log on the top right of the game indicating the composer of current track. I only saw the name Yuku/Green Dream whenever a BGM I like plays. This guy can make tracks that are catchy, really catchy, heroic, really heroic, serene, and stuff. You can see more of this guy's work here. I personally thought this Mary had a Little Final Boss Lamb interesting. I can hear some classic Sakuraba vibe from some of his works.

But of course, his are not the only great tracks in the game. From the opening music, field music, and epilogue music, I can say that they really fit the game atmosphere. I think the idea of incorporating different composers' work in one game is a really great one, much like what Half Minute Hero did. Only, for this game, the indie composers.


Story: 9.9/10
There's not much I can say here without spoiling. What I can say though is, even if the protag is mute, the epilogues are really great. Yes, epilogues. With an 's'. The game has multiple endings, one for each difficulty, at least one epilogue for each party member with highest affection (even three for a certain female party member), and there's just so much to discover about the secrets of the worlds.

It's really interesting to trigger them all. However, the path to trigger it is a long and arduous path. Plagued with unfair deaths and you are constantly at the whim of the malevolent Random Number God to bestow you with a much needed item to trigger a specific epilogue.

I gave it -0.1 because my favorite female party member's epilogue is sad.



So yeah, game is good. Buy it mofos. Meanwhile, look at my vid playing this game lel, it's 47 minute long, and is one of the shortest story I've done. Imagine how many hours I sunk (and failed, f*** Tourist) to get all the epilogues.

One-Way Heroics is good. I need to buy the DLC and play it again.

Christ. Persona 4: Dancing All Night feels like the worst rhythm game I've ever played, which is bizarre because it's allegedly made by the Project Diva/Project Mirai people who are in my opinion the best rhythm game developers, period. P4DAN feels like a rhythm game version of QWOP, the controls are atrocious and most notes don't actually match the beat.

For anyone interested and has access to a japanese account. The demo for God Eater Resurrection just went live~

Not sure what's the size of the PS4 version, but the Vita one is at 2.3 GB.

Yes sir.

I have been haphazardly working through my Steam games so Zestiria and time-to-make-an-Origin-account Battlefront (or, perhaps, just for the beta) go on top of an already-small pile that I want to make smaller.  None of the giant backlog nonsense. That leaves me with Proxy Blade Zero and 3 RPGs; well, time for Mass Effect.

Taiyz wrote:

Christ. Persona 4: Dancing All Night feels like the worst rhythm game I've ever played, which is bizarre because it's allegedly made by the Project Diva/Project Mirai people who are in my opinion the best rhythm game developers, period.

So that great opening was only a preface to crap?  Ayyyyye.

Abicion wrote:

so um I've been playing this thing called Xenoblade Chronicles lately.

How has the agility system been treating you?

And finished the demo.

Why is this game released at the end of the month and not now?

Anyway, it was fun. Cleared all the missions plus the demo-exclusive ones. The one I can call the hardest? One of the survivals that starts with a fight against two Borg Camlann (asshole scorpions that can't stop spinnng, if you played MonHun those are the hipchecks of the series).



Personally, I like this remake. The predator styles are fun although they didn't let you play around with the styles and skills they give.

Here's my character, btw.


For the demo, I still used a hammer most of the time, however I grew fond of the Sniper gun instead of Assault or Blast.

Poor shotgun, I only used it in GE2, and just a few times in the Rage Burst demo.

So I'm not alone, other people have been discussing this online (apparently there was some stuff posted on NeoGAF? The Best Friends Zaibatsu discussed it in their latest podcast) and I figured out why Persona 4: Dancing All Night is a horrible rhythm game...It's, well, not actually one.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/09/21/tgs-2014-atlus-takes-over-lead-development-on-persona-4-dancing-all-night

Dingo was responsible for the majority of the Project Diva games (well, until X comes out I guess,) specifically the titles on PSP, as well as the Love Live! Vita games. It's unclear if they still make the Project Diva games and have been absorbed into Sega proper, or if an internal team at Sega is making the games these days.

Anyway, Atlus had a falling out with Dingo (the game DID have a long development time, for a Persona game it's unsurprising but for a rhythm game it's like thrice the time it should've taken) which was tied up in all the Sega/Atlus corporate shuffling that went on. Since then, the Persona devs just said "screw it, we'll make the game ourselves" and proceeded to f*** everything up because they are amateurs when it comes to this genre.

Additionally, consensus seems to be that this game is based more off of Idolmaster: Live For You! where you clapped along to the music, ostensibly adding an additional instrument to the song, so you're not actually matching the rhythm as I suspected, you're adding to it...Which was fine for a barebones music experience that was all about ogling idols, but ATROCIOUS when you advertise a game in such a way as to compare it to literally the best rhythm games in the industry right now.

So yeah, this game is pure fluff and fanservice, nothing of actual substance. What a fucking disappointment. I also really have to reconsider Siliconera's gameplay reviews because they praised it in the way that Atlus would want you to "oh yeah if you know the music you don't even need to watch where the notes are going" yeah f*** that.


BTW in my previous post I didn't even touch on how bad the sound design is. You might be thinking I'm crazy with the music previews we've gotten, but I'm actually referring to the game's sound effects and voice clips. The clap sound effect just sounds off compared to the sound effects from the various Hatsune Miku games, even if it's supposed to be an instrument of its own, the way that it's been cut, it doesn't actually sound like an audience clapping along, but more like somebody mashing sound effect buttons in Mario Paint. Additionally, Rise, Teddie and your current character CONSTANTLY react to what's going on, and it's super goddamn obnoxious. It was already unnecessary in Persona 4 Arena, and it's literally the worst idea here. You can turn the voices off thankfully, I forget if you can choose different sound effects like in the Miku games but the default is horrible. Project Mirai has a little audio clip that plays for every 100 notes you combo, but that's a nice touch because it actually provides feedback...P4DAN's clips play literally anytime you partially or completely f*** up a note, and randomly when you're doing well. It's noisy and actually makes it difficult to keep with the already-janky rhythm.

Started Atelier Escha and Logy. Battle system is fun as expected of Gust, but that time limit man.

Funny how I can manage it in games but have problems doing it in real life hahahaha