PigLick on 21/1/2020 at 06:08
Put all your combat points into the wrench, you can take out anything with it, even that big arse monster that keeps hunting you.
Yakoob on 21/1/2020 at 06:16
I am 17 hours into Final Fantasy 15 and it stopped making sense like five hours ago. Can someone please explain to me wtf is going on?
So Evil Empire invaded my homeland and then Evil Empire Dude shows up to... take me on a road trip. But then bails on me and almost gets me killed by a god. But then shows up last minute and announces he works for Evil Empire, but decides to rescue me. Except he also steals my car.
Then 5 days pass by for no reason and Mysterious Woman shows up and tells me to touch 3 thunder stones. I touch 3 thunder stones. I now go break into the Evil Empire base to get my car back, but Random Evil General shows up and almost kills me but Evil Empire Dude shows up too and decides to save me (again). He lets me take back my car he stole from me.
Now I am back to the hotel where Random Childhood Friend I went on semi-date with is crying because Random Old Man With 3 Dialogue Lines was killed. So we're going to Previously Unknown But Seemingly Important Location with the Random Childhood Friend because... reasons.
Also, puppers died in my dream.
Seriously, what the fuck is going on.
Sulphur on 21/1/2020 at 06:48
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Seriously, what the fuck is going on.
Frankly, considering the game plays like a bunch of oddly-paced battles strung together by never-ending automatic car driving, I thought you'd have given up on it by now.
The big bad isn't actually part of the evil empire. You'll find out what he is in the end. Mysterious Woman also reveals who she is in the end. It all actually makes sense, even if it is massively confusing the way the game presents it. Part of the problem is you're expected to have seen the movie and the anime before playing the game, because essential story bits are strewn throughout, and they all happen before the game begins. Yes, the game expects you to know what's going on. And yes, this is very dumb. I liked the game because it's got a lot of heart going for it anyway - kinda hearkens back to old FFs being about friends on a journey, physically and emotionally, which works on a broadly thematic level even if it was a clusterfuck as a, y'know, game.
As for Love Interest Girl, she's probably the most thinly-written character in the game even with all the cross-media backstory. Not that that would have made the fragmented story easier to digest.froghawk on 21/1/2020 at 18:01
Quote Posted by Thirith
Just finished the final "Patient Zero" mission, thanks to the help Malf provided. I decided not to let the mission play out as is, because I think I wouldn't have enjoyed its break from how the series functions otherwise, even if in theory I love the idea.
It's too bad the bonus missions for season 2 didn't get the same amount of effort put into them as s1's bonus missions and patient zero. Sure, the experiment in the PZ mission isn't the best, but at least they still bothered to come up with a new conceit and change the time of day, unlike the Atlantide missions.
Yakoob on 22/1/2020 at 03:57
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Frankly, considering the game plays like a bunch of oddly-paced battles strung together by never-ending automatic car driving, I thought you'd have given up on it by now.
I actually quite enjoyed the first 10hrs. The game does an excellent job of setting the "roadtrip with a few buds" mood and has been making me really pine to go out and travel. It's only around the time the "real story" kicks in and you realize how vapid all the side-quests actually are that the magic dwindles a bit.
I actually checked the old FF15 thread and see most of my greivences have been already noted. But I saw you (IIRC) revised your thoughts after beating it, so I am sticking to it for the time being. Hopefully the charm alone can keep me going.
But oh yea the writing is also fucking dreadful:
-----------
Pronto: What are you doing?
Noct: Just chillin'
Pronto: Hmm. Cool.
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Gladius: *pointing at root beer* This looks good.
Noct: You should have it later.
Gladius: Yeah.
------------
Random Woman 1: "Wow I like this drink!"
Random Woman 2: "Whatever makes you happy. I will have..."
--------------
Noct: It's getting hot...
Gladius: Then lose the jacket.
(this dialogue repeated every half hour)
--------------
Guy 1: "Wanna grab a bite?"
Guy 2: "I don't know, gets pretty rowdy at this time, with all the women ending their shift."
Spoken at 1pm
Yakoob on 22/1/2020 at 04:01
Also, I am so over the combat. It feels like they took a decently thought out and almost-fun action combat system and stuck it into a clusterfuck of animations and too-many-enemies. Things are so hectic there's little you can do except spamming "attack" and "dodge" when the prompt tells you to.
Case in point: parrying by pressing X just as the enemy strikes. Would be a really cool feature, except a) you don't which of the fucking 10 enemies is actually attacking you so you don't know who to watch out for, and b) all the attack animations are so random / nonexistent that you have no idea when to actually press it.
Sulphur on 22/1/2020 at 05:33
You're better off spamming everyone's special moves when you get the option, and dodging out to hang from a high ledge and choosing your attacks if available. There's very little strategy that I could discern from the combat. It's pretty great when you get to do a summon, because that at least ends things (most of the time) once the animation's done.
The random NPC dialogue is really poor, innit? The banter doesn't fare much better, and yeah, at the point you're at, you would have heard everything they have to say during a car ride and then some. Thankfully, there's fast-travel for the places you've been to.
edit: oh yeah, if you're up for spending time with the boys, you should do the 'tour' quests they each come up with at camp. Those span the gamut from 'unnecessary' to 'unnecessary, but kinda fun'.
Tomi on 22/1/2020 at 19:00
So I'm done with Blasphemous at last. After having a lot of trouble with Crisanta (who wasn't really that difficult in the end - I guess I just sucked after all), the end boss was a piece of cake after that. It's quite an interesting game that started off well, but ended up being not that special after all. I'm not really a fan of this sort of game design where the "normal" enemies are only there to slow down your progress between boss fights, rather than being an actual challenge. There's so much backtracking in this game, especially if you like to explore and collect stuff, so having to kill the same enemies over and over again (or trying to run past them, more like) becomes a bit of a chore at some point. The enemies that were sort of scary and cool in the beginning just become annoying. That's not how it should be. Of course this applies to a lot of games, not just Blasphemous.
The weird and creepy theme was the main thing that carried the game for a long time and really held my interest, but after the first few (admittedly quite memorable) wtf moments there wasn't much that would shock me anymore. I think the story got a bit too weird to my liking too. And the ending... meh. :/ I got the same bad ending as icemann, and I don't think I can be bothered to try to get the "good" ending.
Anyway, I'm being overly negative now - Blasphemous is still a pretty good game and I actually enjoyed the ride while it lasted, but I have no intention to go back to it anymore. I don't think there's much replay value there anyway, I found all the collectibles that I could be bothered to find, and getting the alternative ending isn't worth the trouble. Apart from a fairly unique theme, the game doesn't really stand out from other metroidvanias that I've played. The controls and movement is more fluid in Hollow Knight, Steamworld Dig is more fun, Ori looks better and feels more magical (I gotta go back and finish that game one day), Dust: An Elysian Trail delivers a more entertaining (and naive) story, combat is better in Guacamelee, etc... Blasphemous is just kind of average in every way, and you know, that isn't really such a bad thing.
However, I'm still in the mood for some platforming action, so I've decided that I'm going to play Sundered next!
wycha on 23/1/2020 at 09:40
Done with Styx: Master of Shadows.
In general it is good stealth game, it lacks some gameplay mechanics but I had good time going through it. The story is okay-ish. I like the main theme and motivation of main characters, but I don't like how situations are written and lead one to another. Feels cheap.
The biggest isue I have are maps. Every map is used twice, leading to backtracking(every map you go through in different missions like from A-B and then B-A). I felt really annoyed by that. Also the maps feels bit empty and copy pasted with assets and how everything is placed.
Now I'm playing Styx: Shards of Darkness
I am at third level, I can only say everything is polished, the animations are less awkward, the maps are much more interesting. More mechanics, more secondary objectives, that encourages to explore the level, the AI is much better. I have a feeling the maps won't be copy pasted.
So far I don't like how the main character is too over-cool. Throwing pop-culture, or more likely other video games references, and talks about how amazing he is. I feel like I am playing a game in a world of Shrek, and drinking game made out of it would lead me drunk right after finishing the tutorial. But hey, there is also Thief reference!
froghawk on 23/1/2020 at 14:16
I just started Styx 1 yesterday. It feels like an odd pastiche of other stealth games. The reversed light gem tattoo is particularly odd... it glows more when you can't be seen? What?
