What Games are You Playing 2018?

[SnowFire]

Since Sopko was linking Simpsons memes in IRC chat lately, someone made an Ace Attorney one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QtsAf9xyU

Needed more irrelevant evidence in the inventory to tempt you to present it, though.  Oh well.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Aria of Sorrow - Currently dicking around at the Clock Tower, farming Lightning Dolls for their soul. It's annoying that they kept the worst part of CotM's DSS system in AoS (the random drops for your skillset), but at least the drop rate is far, faaaaaaaaaaaaaar better. I also like how some of the better design sensibilities that made Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia very fun actually had their origins here, including the formula revamp. Playing as Soma is pretty fun and he has a ton of options with his souls. I do kinda question his stat growth, though: it constantly feels like he's kinda overstatted compared to the enemies, and the changed damage formula mechanics emphasize this a bit further (I notice damage boosts even at -individual- level-ups, which certainly wasn't remotely a thing in, say, SotN. Feels pretty clear they swapped the basic subtraction formula with low-ass growths with a typical mixed formula, which actually works well with the numeric scale they use... sometimes even too well at times). It's not like the game's been a total laugher, at least - like, Death gave me a couple resets before I actually bothered to learn his visual cues and attack patterns, but sometimes, Soma feels obscenely tanky, almost like Samus in Super Metroid. Oh well.

[Shale]

AA6: Done! Except for DLC, but I want to give the main game a few weeks to breathe before I consider that.

Anyway. Holy crap, even by Ace Attorney finale standards, 6-5 is BANANAS. It's not the first time they've pulled out the stops to give the final case stakes beyond "Sympathetic Defendant/Main Cast Member X will be convicted if you lose!" but that was all the stops, and by and large it worked, if only because things were escalating too fast for me to think about it in detail. Hell, just the queen going full supervillain even compared to Dahlia, Gant, von Karma, etc. was enough to crack me up with WTF-glee. I called some of the plot twists, but then they doubled way the hell down on that, and in particular the sudden, certain realization of what happened to Dhurke and why he knew he was a goner hit me hard.

Backtracking a bit, the first day pretty much deserves consideration as a separate case, and it's not nearly as mind-boggling but still quite solid -- not everything I wanted from Apollo vs. Phoenix but I'm still glad they went for it. Apropos of which, I also agree that Sarge rules, and in particular I kept flashing back to the character of Rufus Whedon from Locke & Key, which is excellent company to be in. Still kinda miffed that there's only one brief Phoenix segment in the whole case but it's justified, if not ideal from a player perspective.

Overall case ranking: 5>3>1>2>4. Nothing particularly wrong with 2, just that the Khur'ain plotline is quite strong compared to the series' other attempts at putting together an overarching narrative, plus divination seances are both new and fun. Easily the best entry since PW3, with the caveat that I still haven't played Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.

[Magetastica]

Aside from some multiplayer games I play to unwind, I've mostly picked up two games recently.

DOOM: Got it as a Christmas gift, and decided to try it out on the "Hard" difficulty, and while I was making progress, every battle was a pyrrhic victory. Restarted at the regular difficulty and it has been very fun shooting demons. Very cathartic.

Nioh: Picked this up, and started with the dual-wield and the wind spirit.

Tutorial area felt really weird and disconnected from the rest of the game, especially since they re-tutorial right after? Uncertain what that was about, but it went from feeling like a Souls game to a better Souls game, so now I'm excited. I haven't really been sticking to any particular weapons or stances, but I'm liking the Sword, Spear, and Axe quite a bit. Spear I was not enamored with until I learned I can trip people with it~ I'm now somewhat walled at the first Real Boss, because I do not know how to fight something that 2-3HKOs me and takes up about 1/4 of the room I'm trapped in, 1/2 when it attacks. Also sometimes I just don't get up when I get knocked down, even when I have Ki? Don't know. Might be easier if I were to find a way to use a controller, as well? Don't know.

[NotMiki]

I haven't tried keyboard but I think Nioh will probably turn out to be significantly easier on controller.  There's a lot of buttons to be managing in real time for keyboard, especially when you want to do things like change stances, fire ranged weapons, or switch item tabs during combat.  As for the boss, I found the move that killed me most often to be its twirl - it makes circling around the dude pretty unsafe and it comes out quickly.  Also don't forget to use living weapon.

As for what I've been playing:



Turns out he ended up writing for Future Tone instead of Guitar Hero, but you get the idea (2:45 in the video).


EDIT: Also, yay AA6!  Great game!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Case 4 in last? Crazy talk.

Since Sopko was linking Simpsons memes in IRC chat lately, someone made an Ace Attorney one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QtsAf9xyU

Needed more irrelevant evidence in the inventory to tempt you to present it, though.  Oh well.

Nice. Though yeah, do agree that I would have liked more interface/inventory-related jokes. I kept expecting psyche-locks to appear over Skinner.


Cosmic Star Heroine - 11 hours in. This game is Chrono Trigger with some Phantasy Star 4 mixed in with a Zeboyd battle system (quite different from Cthulhu Saves the World, but still recognisably has their mark). Pretty fun! Finn is a terrible PC.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Time to wax some more about Mega Man (Anniversary collection)

Mega Man 4:

  Pop in password, farm energy tanks in Skull Mans stage, and take off for the citadel.  Of course, when I try for it, Fliptop refuses to cough one up for over 30 tries.  While I'm familiar with the game, it's been years since I last played so energy tank farming also doubled as a session to get back into the rythym of the game and play around with special weapons.  I end up using only 2-3 E-tanks throughout the end stages, heh.

  At Cossack 1, Flash Stopper makes the trip across the slippery rooftops go by much faster.  Climb up, beat boss with weakness, uneventful.  Little to report on Cossack 2; beat boss without E-tank usage.  I missed a few shots but still felt I did well avoiding its' shots.  Had a stupid death on Cossack 3 due to missed jump.  Boss went as planned with charge shots.  It's the third fortress boss to use the single aimed shot as an attack, was Capcom running out of creativity by this point?  Cossack 4 went by smoothly and charge shots brought the boss down faster than it could damage me.  While I could just hang out on the right side of the screen and win a damage race, opted to put some effort into dodging the 3-way shots this run.
  Wily stages; Died once trying to hop an underwater spike pit.  OK, next go I play it safe with Rush Marine.  Not going to use it the rest of the game anyways.  The disappearing blocks aren't that hard to do but I was lazy and used Wire adaptor to skip the second.  Came close to death at the boss and it was a bit tense as I risked finishing it off without an E-tank.  Died once at Wily 2 boss.  I tried the trick approach of climbing onto it's perch instead of using the moving platforms but kept inching too close to it's hitbox or getting knocked off.  Next attempt went better and cleared with no E-tank usage.
  Refights: I'm out of practice with Skull Man and Ring Man and took a number of lumps.  Still got it for Dive Man: buster only, no damage.  Toad Man is Toad Man.  Bright Man is more manageable as I know his gimmick.  Took advantage of the autofire button at Pharoah Man to spare my finger from mashing.  Wily Machine 1 is still the chump it has always been.  Flubbed it at Wily machine 2 and ended up using TWO E-tanks.  Part of it was because I mucked about using the Wire adaptor on him; it turns out he can angle fireballs nearly straight down.  Farmed weapon energy for Pharaoh Shot for last boss.  I already know Wily stays in the same location for a few seconds after flickering in so straightforward fight other than whiffing a few shots.

[Shale]

Case 4 in last? Crazy talk.

It's a great concept but the execution falls flat because so many of the good gags or moments rest on Athena either being incompetent compared to her other cases, or committing the cardinal sin for an AA lawyer and wanting to give up on her client. Kept throwing me out of the narrative.

[NotMiki]

AA6 cases: 5b>5a>3>4>2>1

5b is very good and does a great job of sewing up the overall plot of the game.  5a also very strong both on its own merits and as a leadup to the finale.  1 is fairly dull, in the tradition of first cases.  It's not bad; just there.  3 does a great job of exploring the game's main mechanic, the divination seance, but it overstays its welcome and is marred by the extreme finickyness of getting the right answer during the seance sessions.  I think it's as bad as PW has ever been in terms of my knowing the right answer but not being able to tell that to the game in the way it wants.  Also: Datz is awesssssssom.  A++++++++ Witness of the year.  4 is fine.  I liked it better than 2 because of a stronger slate of witnesses.  2 was the best case in terms of the mechanics of how the murder was carried out, but that's all it had going for it.

[Shale]

Datz rules, easily the best the series has ever done at introducing somebody who looks like a one-off nobody and integrating them into the game's main cast.

[SnowFire]

Well, I thought case 4 was the best in SOJ.  I get what you're saying about Athena, but that's a general problem with most Ace Attorney protagonists, as the narrative absolutely insists that Our Heroes are taking wild leaps into the unknown that no Proper Competent attorney could even contemplate, then escaping by the skin of their teeth, even when this makes no damn sense and the prosecution's case is already in shambles.  Phoenix suffered from a bit of backsliding in SOJ too (after building him up as the ultimate badass in AJ, and mostly sorta keeping to it in Dual Destinies).  Anyway, I think it largely depends on the plot of the case it's in.  I mostly bought the plot of case 6-4 on all sides, so it more came off as "excuses for Simon to do awesome shit" because you have to let him do his cool things too, but also letting Athena do her cool stuff.

Case 5-3 is actually the worse offender for me on that, to the point that it actively detracted from my enjoyment of it...  it's fine that Athena is the rookie and to the extent this means she's trapped or makes silly mistakes more easily, fine, BUT that case could not resist calling out Athena on total bullshit and then acting like it was her fault.  "Haha the prosecution hid evidence or dramatic details that should have been told in advance from you, you're bad and should feel bad."  This would be fine if somebody told them to jump in a lake in response, but they act like this criticism is merited and Athena actually made some sort of error.  It's a general problem with case 5-3 not actually making tons of sense in general.  (Definitely qualifies as the villainous plan most likely to go down in flames before ever reaching a trial in DD...)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Super Mario Odyssey - Guess who bought a Switch for his birthday. Anyhow, just started the Desert, not a lot of time spent on the game. But MAAAAAAAN, this is a gorgeous game and the hat mechanics are really FUN. I'm not sure I like requiring the detached joycons for the full extent of the moveset, I wasn't very fond of the Wiimote, but the joycons themselves, when attached to the large grip, are far more functional than the Wiimote could ever be as a controller. I still may shell out for the pro controller, but they work fine as of now. The 2D Mario segments so far are WORKS OF ART.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, I'm with Snowfire on this one. While I did feel like SoJ was selling Athena short at points, on the whole it made sense: she's still a relative newbie at this, it was a tough mystery to crack, and of course she didn't get any investigation/prep time. And while it sells her short in some aspects, it does pump her up in others: I love the scene where she starts interrupting to Nahyuta's "let it go" blather with "NEVER!" Absolutely cathartic.

Phoenix is the character I enjoyed playing as least by far in SoJ (after feeling like DD had done a pretty good job with taking him to a reasonable post-AJ place) because it often felt like he was missing giant holes in the prosecution's case + his internal monologue generally being OH MAN I HAVE TO BLUFF even when the solution was obvious (as most solutions are in the tutorial case). He also is terrible at standing up to Nahyuta for some reason which is frustrating because Nahyuta does so little that's impressive as an opponent (special shout-out to case 3 day 1 being one of the worst prosecution jobs in the series; granted, when you live in a police state you don't need to try very hard...).

I thought the bit where Athena considered giving up on Bucky was both believable and powerful.

[Grefter]

Pretty sure there is button presses on the pro controller for everything Snow?  Not sure about with stuff docked.  Maybe you just flail the whole console?  I watched my little brother beat most of it main lined quickly without much exploration, it is a good game

WoW - I can stop any time I want so I resubbed.

FFD2 - I don't have much more to add, its nice though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Pretty sure there is button presses on the pro controller for everything Snow?  Not sure about with stuff docked.  Maybe you just flail the whole console?  I watched my little brother beat most of it main lined quickly without much exploration, it is a good game

From what I saw, some minute things (like fine control of the hat mid-toss) require you to detach the joycon. Not sure if the pro controller allows for finer maneuvering than that, since I don't have it.

[Grefter]

FFD2 - This is not a big update, damn this really has some F2P Phone Game stuff pretty deep sometimes.


Mind Flayer.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Regarding FFD2: I recently found out that the likely reason that FFD2's plot has been of surprisingly not-bad quality lately is because it's built off the ideas that were originally pitched for Chrono Break. The time travel plotline stuff makes a lot more sense now.

[Hunter Sopko]

Beat Ys1. That was a thing. Nice little thing full of olden charm, but nothing amazing.

New year, so Soppy's randomized backlog playthrough comes first. This year, Front Mission 4!

[Fenrir]

Dragon’s dogma Dark Arisen:
Finished everything.

They figured out that the best thing in Dragon’s Dogma is jumping on roofs in a city (Assassin’s creed, take notes) and put them in the DLC. Much appreciated.
More than 10FPS made the game extremely pleasant. I tried every class and there are so many cool ones, but chose Magick Archer as my final class because Ricoshet Shot is fucking absurd in BBI.

Did Cid play this recently or is his level infinite Sophitia cosplay pawn a relic from the PS3 days? Regardless, I never did use her or she’d have ripped the challenge in half. Sorry.
I tried to have the most stylish UOM as my pawn and one rando player liked him so much he added me as a friend on PSN and sent me a message praising him. (?)

Hard difficulty was immense bullshit and I’d not recommend it to anyone. I still enjoyed it more than I would have normal though.

[Grefter]

Regarding FFD2: I recently found out that the likely reason that FFD2's plot has been of surprisingly not-bad quality lately is because it's built off the ideas that were originally pitched for Chrono Break. The time travel plotline stuff makes a lot more sense now.

Yeeeeeep.   That makes a ton of stuff I thought of as cute nods into pretty straight rewritten plot points.  At Chapter 3-2 and got Fifth party member.   The first thing you do with each recruit is go to the Time Rift.

[DragonKnight Zero]

I've been immersed in the Flames of Eternity hack, so immersed that I haven't made the time to write stuff about it.  I enjoy it even though the balance can be rather wonky and the difficulty has its spiky moments.  While it's possible to level grind nearly all the challenge away, I've gotten more enjoyment out of working out strategies to win fights without grinding my way out of them.

This is a mod that uses Crimson Echoes as a foundation and is not endorsed by the original team.

Will have more to say about this one at a later time when I sort my thoughts out more.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Mario Odyssey - Unlocked the third world. There are WAY too many moons, mang.

Aria of Sorrow - Currently at the Underground Reservoire, which is kind of annoying. Running around with a subpar Soul just to walk underwater ain't great. ON THE OTHER HAND, I picked up Lightning Doll, Medusa Head, Devil and Beam Skeleton souls.

[NotMiki]

Darkest Dungeon and La-Mulana: started these up so that when one frustrates me I can switch to the other.  I forsee no problems with this plan.

So far, have been to like 5 areas in La-Mulana and have accomplished fuckall in each.  Darkest Dungeon, have a healthy number of rank 3 adventurers, and have unlocked the first stage coach upgrade.  Currently grinding deeds and portraits like a motherfucker.  Upgrades take too damn many resources all things considered.  Game has been surprisingly gentle so far - only lost like 7 or so adventurers.  Boss fights thusfar have been pretty cool.  As expected, the narration continues to own.

[Grefter]

Darkest Dungeon doesn’t want to kill your Adventurers.  It wants to break them.  Dead Adventurers don’t cause problems (unless you play on hard mode).   Do you have the Crinson Court DLC?

[Niu]

GBF - To my own surprised. Instead of using the Surprise Ticket to trade for something that'll further boost the water team I main, I use it to trade for Glare.
Glare turns out to be a very good substitute for Strum dono. And when short term outburst of damage is concerned, Glare is actually better!
A team of Berserker, Rackam or Metera, Glare, Anilla can dish out 700K~800K per hit on the first turn using Shiva after the proper buffs. The damage goes up to 1.1M~1.4M if they crit! The second and third turn damage is also consistent 400K~600K damage per hit.
The Xeno Axe ougi buff + Anilla unique buff also ensures 60% TA rate for the first three turn. This just feels too good.

And I am now deeply regretting that I didn't upgrade the Suzaku Katana during the Four Beast event.
The damage would have been even more amazing if I did...