Messages

26

General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: November 18, 2018, 01:35:52 PM »

Well I've just been replaying Symphony of the Night because it's on PS4 PSN and why is there no inventory management of any kind in this game arrrrgh.

Seriously though, game is still a source of amazement just for its environments. It's stupidly easy, there's a million random pieces of junk equipment that you will never realistically have a use for, but wow is it ever a joy to explore.

Alucard mode done. PS4 version has a trophy just for getting Crissaegrim, so I figured I'd try and pick one up. About ten minutes of farming schmoos for this, I think? I almost walked offscreen when the thing finally dropped, kill schmoo-->leave screen-->reenter being so ingrained by that point. It says a lot about the breadth and obscurity and relative junkiness of much SotN equipment that I didn't actually know this thing existed (outside of Harmony of Despair) before this run despite having played through Alucard mode 3-4 times before. Anyway, it's the most stupid broke weapon conceivably possible in an already easy game, you're just a walking blender. Shaft lived I think five seconds? This is common for a lot of inverted castle bosses anyway, even with normal weapons, since the difficulty in the game is so incredibly unbalanced, but still noteworthy in this case. Given that, Drac lived longer than I expected--he's got HP, I'll give him that. Still a complete clusterfuck of a fight.

Will probably run Richter & Maria modes too, since they're there, but doubt I'll have anything new to say about those.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: November 17, 2018, 11:54:59 AM »

Well I've just been replaying Symphony of the Night because it's on PS4 PSN and why is there no inventory management of any kind in this game arrrrgh.

Seriously though, game is still a source of amazement just for its environments. It's stupidly easy, there's a million random pieces of junk equipment that you will never realistically have a use for, but wow is it ever a joy to explore.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: November 13, 2018, 11:19:07 AM »

whatever-the-fuck-Dragon-Quarter is

Ciato you forgot how to spell "masterpiece."

Man, Niu, I haven't played BoF3, but Myria sounds fine as-is. People are really good at convincing themselves that they have valid, rational reasons for doing awful things that they simply want to do.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: November 11, 2018, 01:24:29 PM »

FFXIV OST: Sophia's Theme

This soundtrack still <3 <3 <3

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General Chat / Re: DL Also Stands for Dream Log

« on: November 09, 2018, 12:05:03 PM »

I wish it was possible to record dreams, because last night's can be most accurately summarized as "Laboratory of the Robo-Babes."

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: November 06, 2018, 04:02:11 AM »

If people are gonna 'play old shit' after SaGa Frontier, you really should check out Romancing SaGa 3. It is basically proto-SaGa Frontier and has a lot of the same charm with a new setting.

Just chiming in to confirm Romancing SaGa 3 is a trip, dooo eeet.

32

General Chat / Re: Comic books

« on: September 23, 2018, 08:27:02 PM »

But mainly I've been meaning to post in this thread to hype Monstress at people (since I got that for the birthday last year). Monstress is fucking incredible shit and you should read it. The setting is an Asian-mythology-slash-steampunkish fantasy world where the human half severely one-upped Gestahl in finding gruesome ways to extract power from the non-human half. There are ninja cats and they're 100% serious and that is amazing. I love it when someone commits to material this far out and plays it completely straight. The writing walks that fine line between brutality and empathy that is extremely difficult to land effectively, but pretty much guarantees my loyalty when someone can actually do it. Also the art is mindbogglingly inventive and it's about the only series I can think of that is seriously dedicated to making you sympathize with the Lovecraftian abomination. This is one of my new favorite things.

Repost because volume 3 now exists. I'd say the pacing is off compared to the first two, but it's still good. Fucking read this shit, you nerds.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: September 23, 2018, 08:23:48 PM »

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Game started. Game finished! Not a lot to say that hasn't already been said. It's a good, short platforming fix. Difficulty was probably on the right side for me, which is to say that I died a bunch in the later levels but most bosses were first-try wins. I did bring all the meatshields with me, though. Not in a hurry to try a solo Zangetsu run! (Miriam did most of the work on the last boss, with everyone else tanking hits and farming weapon energy.)

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: September 23, 2018, 05:56:52 PM »

Death's Gambit OST: Bysurge the Lightning Lurker

One of the better pieces of boss noise. Could work just as well as an MGS boss theme. Actually, that's the fight in general--schizo cyborg lightning lizard? Yeah.

I think Death's Gambit is solidly one of those OST Better Than Game experiences.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: September 22, 2018, 02:56:16 PM »

Blue Oyster Cult: The Old Gods Return

Yes, now is the time.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: September 19, 2018, 11:54:33 PM »

Was not aware of the reference there, but now I assume Wolves of the Calla.

Rick Wakeman and Ozzy Osbourne: Buried Alive

This was my groove in 1999 when all the cool kids were getting into nu metal and pop punk. Sooooo much cheese.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: September 19, 2018, 11:27:28 AM »

Nightwish: Seven Days to the Wooooolves

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General Chat / Re: Good Morning 2018: 3 More Years...

« on: September 18, 2018, 09:30:24 PM »

I wish I didn't know. I really wish I didn't know.

It isn't too late to save yourself! But if you feel irresistibly compelled to peer into this abyss, let me put it this way: apparently Stormy Daniels plays Mario Kart.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: September 16, 2018, 06:23:58 PM »

Dead Cells: Beaten. For a given value of beaten. I smashed up the current last boss a couple times and that feels complete enough for me. Repeating Crossbow (plus the You're Already Dead bow) for the winning run. That thing is sooooo satisfying to use. I generally preferred maining Tactics builds, it's just too much fun stacking all the traps at once and just watching everything onscreen chain explode from contagious status effects.

Dead Cells is highly recommended. Combat is fast, smooth, and fluid, and the game is built well for short runs (a successful run for me is an hour, maybe a little bit more?) You have plenty of pathing and equipment choices and the game is just overall a joy to play. Very worth picking up next time you need a platforming fix.

Also at some point this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSFGySnko8M

Hadokens >>> Dio Brando.

~

Death's Gambit: Hey guys did you hear about this game called DARK SOULS

It isn't always a bad thing to wear your influences on your sleeve. I liked Salt + Sanctuary in spite of its copycat nature because it had a fantastic Metroidvania map, but if S+S was too blatant a clone for you then wow stay miles away from Death's Gambit. The 2D Souls imitation is even more slavish and the design intricacy is nowhere near as deep. There's a even a giant eldritch horror boss named after a part of the brain! DG is decidedly not great. Some of the spritework is decent, and you do have a nice number of pathing choices early on, but that's about as complimentary as I can be. Combat controls often feel a bit sticky. Maybe it suffered a bit in comparison to me playing Dead Cells right before it, but why did anyone think hold L1 to climb ladder was a good idea? Game is also glitchy. Past a certain point in the game, your attack stats drop every time you die. This is not some hardcore plot synergy gameplay feature, because your stats will revert to the correct values when you quit and reload your save. Somebody just fucked up the coding of a boss gimmick and its gimmick became permanent after the fight. Also, of all the things to crib from The Ringed City, why would you take the unkillable snipers? Last boss is also among the easiest in the game. First try win, and it's a four-stage fight.

The incongruous ancient-future tech zone was genuinely creepy, and one or two boss fights were pretty cool (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Eehx0gz1c), but otherwise you're safe staying away from this.

I'll probably hit the 2D Bloodstained before Hollow Knight PS4 and another Metroidvania game I Kickstartered come out next week. 'tis the season for platformers.

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Discussion / Re: Which RPG character(s) would you like as a roommate or housemate?

« on: September 13, 2018, 11:24:47 AM »

So, Nate Nanjo?

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: August 31, 2018, 11:52:31 PM »

Waugh, Thomas Covenant. It's a rare book that convinces me I need to drop it 50 pages in. Thomas Covenant accomplished that. (I'd previously read Donaldson's sci-fi series, the Gap novels, so it's possible that I'd had sufficient exposure to the brutality he dishes out to his characters even before picking up TC.)

I have decidedly mixed feelings about Erikson. (There's a long writeup about Malazan somewhere in this thread.) He's one of those authors that can be very good at some aspects of writing that I value while also indulging in habits that I find very aggravating. I proooobably wouldn't have read all ten main series books if it hadn't been my brother's favorite thing in the world, but there's enough worthwhile material in there that I probably wouldn't mind revisiting it in a series with about 50% less characters and words.

I've mostly just been rereading old stuff, myself. Pratchett and Sagan, in large part. I haven't touched a new (to me) fantasy series in ages. Been interested in picking up Elric for a while but never got around to it.

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Discussion / Re: Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

« on: August 31, 2018, 11:43:42 PM »

It's occurred to me more than once over the past several years that being heavy-handed is sometimes the only effective way to make certain points.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: August 31, 2018, 11:21:29 PM »

Nier Automata: A Beautiful Song

YouTube queued up a symphonic metal version of this while I was trying to take a nap. Needless to say, I woke up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFQkkFLUL4I

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Discussion / Re: DLCon 2018 recap thread

« on: August 26, 2018, 11:18:28 PM »

Sunday afternoon is the short group picture, that game Sierra played that was a mix of entertaining and disgusting (ew torture porn but I liked the branching story options) and some cards.

I've since watched one of my favorite streamers play Until Dawn, and hilariously enough, that death is staged. Dude faked his own murder to fuck with everyone, and someone later outright says to him, "This torture porn of yours has gone too far!" There's plenty of opportunity for death later in the game, but the Saw approach is pretty thoroughly subverted. Short version, we were fundamentally right about our murderer guess but wayyyy off about how it would play out.

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General Chat / Re: What Music are You Listening To in 2018?

« on: August 22, 2018, 11:19:39 AM »

Yup yup yup.

Dead Cells OST: Castle theme

The music isn't the only argument for playing the game, but it is a good one.

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Discussion / Re: DLCon 2018 recap thread

« on: August 20, 2018, 12:31:10 PM »

Sopko 131

I'm sorry, Andy-sempai. I wasn't strong enough!

Super and I's train got delayed six hours by an actual trashfire in Pennsylvania. I just got home and am running on almost no sleep for the last 24 hours. If I'd known there was no rush to catch the train, I woulda stuck around and finished Until Dawn.

But transportation problems to/from DLCon =/= DLCon, so apart from a killer headache that cored the first evening, I had a lot of fun. Socialization is pretty okay when I'm actually comfortable with who I am! I couldn't keep the voice I wanted up the whole time, but practice, practice. I'd say DLCon highlight was finally meeting Rat in person, except everyone knows the real DLCon highlight was me and Andy beating Golden Axes 1 through 6.

Tired, braindead, Hobocats are SO RONERY and demand affection, I must go now my home planet needs me

EDIT: omigod that moment of epiphany when you open the bathroom cabinet and realize the whole room was a converted group shower.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: July 16, 2018, 01:40:35 AM »

Play Night in the Woods.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: July 07, 2018, 11:53:07 AM »

I had the same experience with Nier: Automata's prologue, and it put me off the game for a while. It was worth coming back to it, though!

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Discussion / Re: Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

« on: June 28, 2018, 09:06:12 PM »

What NEB said. A couple hundred dollars is a lot of money to a woman in trouble anyplace rural, and quite sufficient barrier (plus the difficulty getting time off of work, as noted--again something that often presents an obstacle for voting, why is election day not a fucking holiday?) to be an insurmountable hurdle in states that have pushed through bullshit laws to restrict abortion access to a couple clinics. This is already a problem.

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Discussion / Re: Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

« on: June 28, 2018, 11:27:53 AM »

I suspect the most immediate course is that it falls to the states to legislate abortion availability individually. Guess what the Republicans have been extremely effective at legislating away on the state level for years? (Other than voting rights.)