Bioshock (PC) Switch 5/30
Faxanadu (NES) 6/19
Beyond Oasis (GEN)
Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
Fable (oXBOX) 6/10
Final Fantasy Legend 2 (GB)
Faxanadu (NES)
I loved this game... other than the jumping. This game did a great job telling your where to go and was not as cryptic as other games from this era. I also did use a guide to help navigate a couple of times but the best advise I had from it was to spend all of your money before saving and then die to get money back. This was real helpful and came in handy, except for the times I was close to leveling up since your XP gets reset to the minimum for that level as well when you die.
Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
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Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Rome: Total War
The Accius Historicus
The world is constantly changing. This is a good thing, for me at least, as I am the agent of change. And Empire.
I finished taking the Scipii's island holdings and pushed them completely out of Sicily, meaning at this point that the only Mediterranean island I don't control is Cyprus. Without their oceanic empire, the Scipii scum tried to rebuild in North Africa and made my force in Carthage their main desire. They threw their legions at me, but my navy destroyed the reinforcements they tried to send via ship, my assassins handled their generals, and my diplomats bribed their lesser armies to turn and throw themselves at their former masters in a grind of manpower and metal.
It took time, but it also gave me time to put together a strike force from other sections of Africa, and when I crushed their armies, I then laid siege. The first was a small group, meant more to soften their forces and potentially kill one of their faction leaders; I did not get a big prize, but I ground their infantry to dirt. The second invasion proved infinitely more successful, and the Scipii are now dead and gone, their name a half-forgotten whisper on the survivors I put in chains.
Defeating them also opened up the southern borders of Rome itself, too high a prize to let go. I had been assassinating their generals already, but with my war in Africa completed, I could turn my full attention to it. Reinforcements from Southern Italy made the march, and I killed their commander in the field and marched on the city. As powerful as Rome is...I sacked her. Slavery was not good enough; I put the people to the sword. The Senate had to be made an example of, and now they are dead, and Rome is mine.
Dissolving the Senate by murder and mayhem has not stopped the Julii. With the Scipii and Rome now done and under my control, I turned my attention to the last rebellious force of the former empire. While driven out of the Aegean, the Julii still hold ports in the Adriatic and northern Mediterranean; I launched ships to hold all of their ports. Their navy put up a decent fight to stop me, but the bigger problem now comes from large pirate fleets. Still, their ports are held, limiting them only to what they hold on the western coast of France.
Not to be stopped, they launched attacks against my holdings in Spain; I fought them off and then bribed their armies to invade their own cities, both here and in Northern Italy, cementing my control around Rome. The Macedonians also attacked, but I hired mercenaries and pincered their last two cities, leaving the Julii's eastern flank exposed. They now are fighting a three front war, and I am sending troop ships to cut the thin line in Monaco to snap their empire in two.
But other wars are not done. The Pontics tried a desperate gamble, sending all of their leadership to face me in Turkey; I met them on the field and crushed them, wiping them out. I then grabbed one of their two former territories, the other going to Egypt. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians haven't left their last city; now that the Scipii are done, I will look into bringing them as a protectorate and integrate them or simply crush them. That will give me West Africa.
The Spanish are also attempting to seize the moment by coming after settlements I have taken from the Julii. I now have troops ready to launch against one of their towns and will then look at taking their remaining lands to hold all of Spain and Portugal.
I believe the ultimate goal now is to hold 50 settlements. I'm in the mid-40s; I suspect the game will be ending soon.
Ack's List:
The Accius Historicus
The world is constantly changing. This is a good thing, for me at least, as I am the agent of change. And Empire.
I finished taking the Scipii's island holdings and pushed them completely out of Sicily, meaning at this point that the only Mediterranean island I don't control is Cyprus. Without their oceanic empire, the Scipii scum tried to rebuild in North Africa and made my force in Carthage their main desire. They threw their legions at me, but my navy destroyed the reinforcements they tried to send via ship, my assassins handled their generals, and my diplomats bribed their lesser armies to turn and throw themselves at their former masters in a grind of manpower and metal.
It took time, but it also gave me time to put together a strike force from other sections of Africa, and when I crushed their armies, I then laid siege. The first was a small group, meant more to soften their forces and potentially kill one of their faction leaders; I did not get a big prize, but I ground their infantry to dirt. The second invasion proved infinitely more successful, and the Scipii are now dead and gone, their name a half-forgotten whisper on the survivors I put in chains.
Defeating them also opened up the southern borders of Rome itself, too high a prize to let go. I had been assassinating their generals already, but with my war in Africa completed, I could turn my full attention to it. Reinforcements from Southern Italy made the march, and I killed their commander in the field and marched on the city. As powerful as Rome is...I sacked her. Slavery was not good enough; I put the people to the sword. The Senate had to be made an example of, and now they are dead, and Rome is mine.
Dissolving the Senate by murder and mayhem has not stopped the Julii. With the Scipii and Rome now done and under my control, I turned my attention to the last rebellious force of the former empire. While driven out of the Aegean, the Julii still hold ports in the Adriatic and northern Mediterranean; I launched ships to hold all of their ports. Their navy put up a decent fight to stop me, but the bigger problem now comes from large pirate fleets. Still, their ports are held, limiting them only to what they hold on the western coast of France.
Not to be stopped, they launched attacks against my holdings in Spain; I fought them off and then bribed their armies to invade their own cities, both here and in Northern Italy, cementing my control around Rome. The Macedonians also attacked, but I hired mercenaries and pincered their last two cities, leaving the Julii's eastern flank exposed. They now are fighting a three front war, and I am sending troop ships to cut the thin line in Monaco to snap their empire in two.
But other wars are not done. The Pontics tried a desperate gamble, sending all of their leadership to face me in Turkey; I met them on the field and crushed them, wiping them out. I then grabbed one of their two former territories, the other going to Egypt. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians haven't left their last city; now that the Scipii are done, I will look into bringing them as a protectorate and integrate them or simply crush them. That will give me West Africa.
The Spanish are also attempting to seize the moment by coming after settlements I have taken from the Julii. I now have troops ready to launch against one of their towns and will then look at taking their remaining lands to hold all of Spain and Portugal.
I believe the ultimate goal now is to hold 50 settlements. I'm in the mid-40s; I suspect the game will be ending soon.
Ack's List:
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Rome: Total War
The Accius Historicus
With the Scipii dead and my forces able to refocus entirely on the Julii, I had begun a campaign to harass their Mediterranean holdings and whittle away at their edges. My diplomats continued to bribe their armies, while my assassins took out their generals. While nominally a three-front war against them, I decided to hold back on the outer edges and instead focus more directly on Italy; the main goal here was to provide a buffer to keep control of Rome, which was now in play since I had slaughtered the Senate and taken over.
Of course, this didn't prevent the Julii from assaulting settlements I had taken from them, so I continued to use hired armies, mercenaries, and my own troops defensively to hold and let them burn their forces. The Spanish also joined in to try and take territory from me, but I held against them too. The line of settlements must hold.
But the real thrust of my strategy was concealed: a piercing invasion on a single strip of territory controlled by the Julii in modern day Monaco, the lynchpin that connected their waning empire. My first invasion was a small strike force to prove defenses and do damage; soften them up, but not make the main push. The main push involves a general and full army heading up from Sicily.
I don't know if they expected me to try again after the "crushing" defeat they inflicted on my teaser army. They didn't reinforce at all, so I'm guessing not. This time I came in like a sledgehammer and smashed the spine that connected the two wings of their territory. Their Western European holdings in France were now cut off from their capitol city, which was further isolated by my strikes in Northern Italy from their Eastern European pieces. To add insult to injury, the Scythians immediately declared war on the Julii, more a symbolic gesture as the two shared no connecting territory, but still a sign of Julii weakness.
But I did not need to finish off the Julii. The goal of Rome: Total War is to become emperor, not completely take over the whole world. 50 territories is all that is necessary to win, and I was sitting at 49. My attention turned towards the Spanish; their peoples had been cut in two across their lands ages ago, with two along the Atlantic and one in the Mediterranean. With their Mediterranean holding considerably weaker, and with my anger at their attempt to attack me, I picked their land for my final thrust, as an act of humiliation but also to further cement my control over the Mediterranean. I landed soldiers and crushed them.
With most of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and most of the Black Sea under my control, along with nearly half of North Africa, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, most of Turkey, and nearly all islands in these seas hailing to me, the people spoke: I am Emperor of Rome! The greatest empire in the known world is mine.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
With Rome: Total War beaten, I decided to hop back into another FPS. I have played nearly all of the 2000s Call of Duty series on PC (there are a smattering of console-only titles that I won't bother with), but Modern Warfare 2 was the limit where I stopped. The series headed into Michael Bay territory around this time, focusing more on set pieces, explosions, and over the top action across nearly annual installments that make as much sense as Bay's Transformers film series. If you ask me what the plot of these games are at this point, all I can say is "shooting". But hey, they had Lance Henriksen and Keith David doing voices, so as ridiculous as the dialogue could be, it was still great hearing them talk.
The focus in CoD:MW2 is more on multiplayer, so I ended up blazing through the main campaign in about five hours. I'm now going back through on the highest difficulty setting to get the most out of it, and there is a set of side missions called Special Ops that I can do, though many are forced co-op, so there is a limit to what I can try. I want to get a little more life out of this game. The big set pieces are action-packed, certainly, but I'm not really that impressed by them. As a game, this feels like cotton candy, pure sugar that dissolves in your mouth to pretty much nothing once you eat it.
But that's yet another Summer Challenge title down. Not sure where I'm heading next.
Ack's List:
The Accius Historicus
With the Scipii dead and my forces able to refocus entirely on the Julii, I had begun a campaign to harass their Mediterranean holdings and whittle away at their edges. My diplomats continued to bribe their armies, while my assassins took out their generals. While nominally a three-front war against them, I decided to hold back on the outer edges and instead focus more directly on Italy; the main goal here was to provide a buffer to keep control of Rome, which was now in play since I had slaughtered the Senate and taken over.
Of course, this didn't prevent the Julii from assaulting settlements I had taken from them, so I continued to use hired armies, mercenaries, and my own troops defensively to hold and let them burn their forces. The Spanish also joined in to try and take territory from me, but I held against them too. The line of settlements must hold.
But the real thrust of my strategy was concealed: a piercing invasion on a single strip of territory controlled by the Julii in modern day Monaco, the lynchpin that connected their waning empire. My first invasion was a small strike force to prove defenses and do damage; soften them up, but not make the main push. The main push involves a general and full army heading up from Sicily.
I don't know if they expected me to try again after the "crushing" defeat they inflicted on my teaser army. They didn't reinforce at all, so I'm guessing not. This time I came in like a sledgehammer and smashed the spine that connected the two wings of their territory. Their Western European holdings in France were now cut off from their capitol city, which was further isolated by my strikes in Northern Italy from their Eastern European pieces. To add insult to injury, the Scythians immediately declared war on the Julii, more a symbolic gesture as the two shared no connecting territory, but still a sign of Julii weakness.
But I did not need to finish off the Julii. The goal of Rome: Total War is to become emperor, not completely take over the whole world. 50 territories is all that is necessary to win, and I was sitting at 49. My attention turned towards the Spanish; their peoples had been cut in two across their lands ages ago, with two along the Atlantic and one in the Mediterranean. With their Mediterranean holding considerably weaker, and with my anger at their attempt to attack me, I picked their land for my final thrust, as an act of humiliation but also to further cement my control over the Mediterranean. I landed soldiers and crushed them.
With most of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and most of the Black Sea under my control, along with nearly half of North Africa, Italy, Greece, the Balkans, most of Turkey, and nearly all islands in these seas hailing to me, the people spoke: I am Emperor of Rome! The greatest empire in the known world is mine.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
With Rome: Total War beaten, I decided to hop back into another FPS. I have played nearly all of the 2000s Call of Duty series on PC (there are a smattering of console-only titles that I won't bother with), but Modern Warfare 2 was the limit where I stopped. The series headed into Michael Bay territory around this time, focusing more on set pieces, explosions, and over the top action across nearly annual installments that make as much sense as Bay's Transformers film series. If you ask me what the plot of these games are at this point, all I can say is "shooting". But hey, they had Lance Henriksen and Keith David doing voices, so as ridiculous as the dialogue could be, it was still great hearing them talk.
The focus in CoD:MW2 is more on multiplayer, so I ended up blazing through the main campaign in about five hours. I'm now going back through on the highest difficulty setting to get the most out of it, and there is a set of side missions called Special Ops that I can do, though many are forced co-op, so there is a limit to what I can try. I want to get a little more life out of this game. The big set pieces are action-packed, certainly, but I'm not really that impressed by them. As a game, this feels like cotton candy, pure sugar that dissolves in your mouth to pretty much nothing once you eat it.
But that's yet another Summer Challenge title down. Not sure where I'm heading next.
Ack's List:
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
I opted to pick Persona back up. I got an original Japanese Playstation about a year ago in order to play a game that's bugged when playing on a PS2 (also my old JP PS2 slim's laser crapped out on me a number of years ago), and started playing Persona shortly after. Only played a few hours into it, but had basically finished the first chapter, of sorts. Even though it was only a few hours, I've opted to just continue that save.
I remember my initial thoughts about it last year were: It has a lot of MegaTen DNA, but it's modified in a way that feels really weird. I feel that now, too, but like ten-fold. I pretty much hate all of the Persona-ness of this game, and there are a variety of other things that just test the player's patience beyond what I feel is reasonable.
Basically, the biggest thing is that for some god forsaken reason they removed teleportation between major save points. So getting around from place has to be done the 'old fashioned' way of mindlessly drudging back and forth from place to place. That on its own wouldn't be so bad. I've played a lot of old JRPGs that don't have teleportation of any kind. The issue is that the battle system has been slowed down to a snail's pace by the new battle mechanics and 'upgrades' to the monster negotiation system. Plus nothing is conveniently located, and getting around can take close to an hour (like when I tried to backtrack out of a dungeon to go monster mixing). Also, even the original MegaTen on the Famicom had teleportation between major areas.
For the most part, the differences from previous MegaTen games are:
- Addition of a number of attack elements.
- No ability to add monsters to the party. (Instead you negotiate with monsters for Spell Cards that get fused together to make personas.)
- Using magic involves a persona, and each persona has individual stats and abilities like summoned monsters from previous games, but they functionally are just attachments for the player characters.
- Elemental weaknesses are emphasized to an absurd degree, to the point where using Persona spells is required to do any semblance of reasonable damage most of the time, guns can be reflected, and some enemies can be almost impervious to every type of damage outside of a specific element.
- A rudimentary and obnoxious position system was added that requires creating formations, and blocks off anyone positioned slightly off the center line from attacking enemies on the other side of the center line with most physical attacks that aren't long range.
- Guns are mostly useless. Supposedly bird categories of enemies are weak to them, but not more than persona spells, it seems.
- Every character is now able to negotiate with monsters (used to be only the main character), with their own set of negotiation tactics, and monsters respond along four emotions (anger, fear, joy and interest).
- Mappa spell is no longer needed, and the dungeon map is always on screen. This is a QoL addition I didn't really need, and especially don't want at the cost of losing teleportation between Agarest Trees, but I imagine some people would enjoy it.
So, all together, persona spells are highly emphasized because enemies are regularly brick walls against basic melee, but the animations take for-fucking-ever. The formations make it so you can't use a lot of attacks because of the enemy formation, and unless the patterns are shown in the manual somewhere, there's no indication of where attack ranges are for weapons and skills (just requires trial and error, and there's still a physical skill on Nanjo's default persona that I don't know the range of--it's most likely short range, and requires his spongy ass to be in the front row). Aside from the sluggishness around load times in and out of battle and attack (mainly persona) animations, all the new elements and negotiation options bog down the combat with unreasonable numbers of permutations. (Not to mention formations preventing certain attacks/skills in certain situations.) I don't necessarily mind that complexity if it's not at the cost of a smooth gameplay experience, and meaningful decisions. They didn't get this right the way Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter does, for instance, though. On a somewhat related note, I find it kind of funny that there's an auto battle system in this game, since it's almost certainly a slower option than manual battle because of all the elemental strengths and weaknesses.
I remember when I was playing SMT: if... I was seeing some mention of it being kind of like a prototype for Persona, and I can see how that is. Aside from the emphasis on a high school setting and characters (with some hidden character report mechanics), there's this kind of hidden system where dying in certain ways buffs a guardian monster that directly adds stats to the main character. I hated that system, and I really felt SMT: if... was the absolute worst of the MegaTen games I had played to that point. I think I dislike Persona even more, though; I honestly don't know what the persona system actually adds to the MegaTen formula over summoned monsters. My feeling is that it actually detracts more than anything.
Part of me just feels like switching over to Devil Summoner on the Saturn, but for some reason I still feel somewhat compelled to continue Persona. I think it might just be that it's been so long since I've played anything MegaTen, and I'm sort of jonesing. Normally with MegaTen, I like to spend early parts of the game farming monsters, and experimenting with mixes, but I'm not interested in that for Persona. I'm just going to look up some optimal personas, 'cause they're a pain in the ass to level to open up access to all their skills.
On a less negative note, the jingle in the drug store is silly, and dumb, and I kind of love it. The lyrics just list off times you should use certain products (restorative items), but it really does remind me of all sorts of jingles in Japanese convenience stores and drug stores (or a Don Quixote), despite being so tongue-in-cheek. Like, just the idea of a drug store jingle telling people to use some revival incense on someone who's dying to bring them back to life gets me every time.
I remember my initial thoughts about it last year were: It has a lot of MegaTen DNA, but it's modified in a way that feels really weird. I feel that now, too, but like ten-fold. I pretty much hate all of the Persona-ness of this game, and there are a variety of other things that just test the player's patience beyond what I feel is reasonable.
Basically, the biggest thing is that for some god forsaken reason they removed teleportation between major save points. So getting around from place has to be done the 'old fashioned' way of mindlessly drudging back and forth from place to place. That on its own wouldn't be so bad. I've played a lot of old JRPGs that don't have teleportation of any kind. The issue is that the battle system has been slowed down to a snail's pace by the new battle mechanics and 'upgrades' to the monster negotiation system. Plus nothing is conveniently located, and getting around can take close to an hour (like when I tried to backtrack out of a dungeon to go monster mixing). Also, even the original MegaTen on the Famicom had teleportation between major areas.
For the most part, the differences from previous MegaTen games are:
- Addition of a number of attack elements.
- No ability to add monsters to the party. (Instead you negotiate with monsters for Spell Cards that get fused together to make personas.)
- Using magic involves a persona, and each persona has individual stats and abilities like summoned monsters from previous games, but they functionally are just attachments for the player characters.
- Elemental weaknesses are emphasized to an absurd degree, to the point where using Persona spells is required to do any semblance of reasonable damage most of the time, guns can be reflected, and some enemies can be almost impervious to every type of damage outside of a specific element.
- A rudimentary and obnoxious position system was added that requires creating formations, and blocks off anyone positioned slightly off the center line from attacking enemies on the other side of the center line with most physical attacks that aren't long range.
- Guns are mostly useless. Supposedly bird categories of enemies are weak to them, but not more than persona spells, it seems.
- Every character is now able to negotiate with monsters (used to be only the main character), with their own set of negotiation tactics, and monsters respond along four emotions (anger, fear, joy and interest).
- Mappa spell is no longer needed, and the dungeon map is always on screen. This is a QoL addition I didn't really need, and especially don't want at the cost of losing teleportation between Agarest Trees, but I imagine some people would enjoy it.
So, all together, persona spells are highly emphasized because enemies are regularly brick walls against basic melee, but the animations take for-fucking-ever. The formations make it so you can't use a lot of attacks because of the enemy formation, and unless the patterns are shown in the manual somewhere, there's no indication of where attack ranges are for weapons and skills (just requires trial and error, and there's still a physical skill on Nanjo's default persona that I don't know the range of--it's most likely short range, and requires his spongy ass to be in the front row). Aside from the sluggishness around load times in and out of battle and attack (mainly persona) animations, all the new elements and negotiation options bog down the combat with unreasonable numbers of permutations. (Not to mention formations preventing certain attacks/skills in certain situations.) I don't necessarily mind that complexity if it's not at the cost of a smooth gameplay experience, and meaningful decisions. They didn't get this right the way Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter does, for instance, though. On a somewhat related note, I find it kind of funny that there's an auto battle system in this game, since it's almost certainly a slower option than manual battle because of all the elemental strengths and weaknesses.
I remember when I was playing SMT: if... I was seeing some mention of it being kind of like a prototype for Persona, and I can see how that is. Aside from the emphasis on a high school setting and characters (with some hidden character report mechanics), there's this kind of hidden system where dying in certain ways buffs a guardian monster that directly adds stats to the main character. I hated that system, and I really felt SMT: if... was the absolute worst of the MegaTen games I had played to that point. I think I dislike Persona even more, though; I honestly don't know what the persona system actually adds to the MegaTen formula over summoned monsters. My feeling is that it actually detracts more than anything.
Part of me just feels like switching over to Devil Summoner on the Saturn, but for some reason I still feel somewhat compelled to continue Persona. I think it might just be that it's been so long since I've played anything MegaTen, and I'm sort of jonesing. Normally with MegaTen, I like to spend early parts of the game farming monsters, and experimenting with mixes, but I'm not interested in that for Persona. I'm just going to look up some optimal personas, 'cause they're a pain in the ass to level to open up access to all their skills.
On a less negative note, the jingle in the drug store is silly, and dumb, and I kind of love it. The lyrics just list off times you should use certain products (restorative items), but it really does remind me of all sorts of jingles in Japanese convenience stores and drug stores (or a Don Quixote), despite being so tongue-in-cheek. Like, just the idea of a drug store jingle telling people to use some revival incense on someone who's dying to bring them back to life gets me every time.
_____________________________________
Steam (and other) keys for trade/free: viewtopic.php?p=1189267#p1189267
B/S/T Thread: viewtopic.php?p=1188724#p1188724
Steam (and other) keys for trade/free: viewtopic.php?p=1189267#p1189267
B/S/T Thread: viewtopic.php?p=1188724#p1188724
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Myself I tend to spend a lot of time (too much?) thinking in which order to approach series, and release order is often my preferred choice. However, I do deviate from it, especially in the case of JRPG series with a lot of (Japan only) releases before the most well-known ones. So SMT I decided to start from 3 based on the RPGamer Where to start? guide.pierrot wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:38 pmHardwired wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2024 1:52 am After this I've started Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, and it has really sucked me in. The setting didn't seem like a 100 % match with my tastes, and that's how it got an opportunity to surprise me. I love how the game has a very serious, dark apocalyptic setting combined with absolutely crazy demon designs and humour. Overall with the demon collecting and training it feels a bit like Pokémon for adults at times. And the whole dungeon action of navigating in mazes and finding out what's behind the corner while drawing a map of the area is super addictive to me.
Totally immersed in this at the moment, let's see for how long the fun lasts.
Cool! I usually try to play through series in release chronology, and haven't gotten to SMT3 yet, but I have played through Megami Tensei 1 and 2, SMT 1, 2 and if..., and a few hours of Devil Summoner and Persona 1. I know SMT3 added some more mechanical complexity to the combat system, and it's obviously in 3D, but if you like it I would definitely say check out SMT1 some time, at the very least (if you're all right with a more traditional JRPG). My favorite is still the SNES remake of the original Megami Tensei, though. It's a game adaptation of a straight to video animation that was itself an adaptation of a book.
I'll definitely keep your recommendation in mind. I'm in a bit of honeymoon stage with JRPGs now, so "a more traditional JRPG" doesn't sound too bad at all.
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Just wanted to give a quick update on my progress in Wild Arms. I'm about ten hours into the game and just finished the Sand River dungeon and made my way to the Ship Graveyard town. I'm really enjoying the game so far. I've found it to be on the easier side, but I don't have a problem with that. Also, the soundtrack is great, IMO.
One of my only criticisms so far is the control scheme for when you're exploring a town. I don't understand why the developers mapped the run and search actions to the same button. It's a little awkward going up to a barrel or chest and pressing that button and your character runs instead of searches. Especially with all four shoulder buttons not mapped to anything, I think it would've made sense to have run as R1.
One of my only criticisms so far is the control scheme for when you're exploring a town. I don't understand why the developers mapped the run and search actions to the same button. It's a little awkward going up to a barrel or chest and pressing that button and your character runs instead of searches. Especially with all four shoulder buttons not mapped to anything, I think it would've made sense to have run as R1.
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Well, since I beat Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 pretty quickly, I spent a little time replaying through a good chunk of the campaign on Veteran difficulty. But I didn't want to get too distracted from my Summer Challenge, so I opted to go back over my list and pick out my next game, which is:
Thief II
I liked Thief well enough when I played it, but there were some limitations, like a heavy focus on supernatural enemies over time and level layouts that, while interesting, never felt wholly out together, especially late game. Thankfully, Thief II seems to have fixed that. Levels have so far been very limited on the supernatural enemies while providing a good mix of thievery and action. I'm now on the 6th level, and it's a proper bank heist! Finally! And my beloved water arrows are now even more important.
I also now have Outlast and Ultima IV installed. Haven't picked up Tactics Ogre in a bit, but I'm hankering to get back to it too.
Ack's List:
Thief II
I liked Thief well enough when I played it, but there were some limitations, like a heavy focus on supernatural enemies over time and level layouts that, while interesting, never felt wholly out together, especially late game. Thankfully, Thief II seems to have fixed that. Levels have so far been very limited on the supernatural enemies while providing a good mix of thievery and action. I'm now on the 6th level, and it's a proper bank heist! Finally! And my beloved water arrows are now even more important.
I also now have Outlast and Ultima IV installed. Haven't picked up Tactics Ogre in a bit, but I'm hankering to get back to it too.
Ack's List:
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Hardwired wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2024 12:28 am Myself I tend to spend a lot of time (too much?) thinking in which order to approach series, and release order is often my preferred choice. However, I do deviate from it, especially in the case of JRPG series with a lot of (Japan only) releases before the most well-known ones. So SMT I decided to start from 3 based on the RPGamer Where to start? guide.
I'll definitely keep your recommendation in mind. I'm in a bit of honeymoon stage with JRPGs now, so "a more traditional JRPG" doesn't sound too bad at all.
Oh, right. I guess I can see why it would recommend starting with SMT3. I forget that everything before 3 has a bit of a barrier to entry from a Western perspective.
----
Persona:
I've still been playing Persona a bit, but progress is pretty slow. I spent a bunch of time looking up information on persona melding, and it is cryptic. There are a lot of things hinted at in the manual, but it doesn't give much in terms of specifics. All told, these systems make a lot of the old bespoke theories of crafting mechanics in FFXI look tame. Essentially, mixing certain compatible enemy categories gives stat buffs to the resulting persona (+1 to all stats, and +5 to highest base stat) while some combinations also allow for having the persona inherit a spell from one of the recipe mobs (plus an additional stat boost in some cases). You can do the usual thing of adding gems into the mix in order to bump the result up or down a rank in the persona type. However, you can also add shit like bullets (yes an equip item for using the main characters' gun weapons) to boost magic stats, or spell stones to have the persona inherit that spell.
The biggest thing is that when using particular categories of enemies as the second ingredient in the meld during particular moon phases, the resulting persona will gain a hidden skill. However, this skill only activates when the persona is attached to a character it has perfect compatibility with. (Each group of persona--which follow tarot card naming conventions--has a separate compatibility list with the main characters in the game.) They can have one of four different skills, but only one skill really matters: Revive. The revive skill activates 25% of the time a character it's attached to dies, if they have perfect compatibility. The revive is just sort of a bonus; The main thing this does is resets the persona's rank back to 1 when it revives the character, but keeps its own growth stats the same. This allows one to just keep boosting its rank (and stats) as long as someone feels like repeating this process. So, persona that can be made with this revive skill are just immediately better than other ones, when taking advantage of this practically infinite stat growth 'side effect.'
There are also these persona groups (Fool), that I believe have perfect compatibility with all characters, but can only be made under the rare instance of a monster meld having an irregularity, and a few other factors. An irregularity generally just does something like give you a worthless persona (similar to how earlier SMT games where a botched monster meld would result in a monster you can't normally get, like zombie types), but under certain conditions it results in a Fool persona. It seems like these are sort of like the Majin monster types of early SMT games, but I'm not totally sure.
Anyway, in terms of progress, I got to the end of a dungeon I had been struggling with before looking up some good personas to make, but it kicked me out into a parallel instance of the kids' high school, where I basically can't get out into the town now even if I wanted to spend the 2+ hour round trip to the malls. There are some velvet rooms around for me to mix for personas, but it's a real pain because I need to get to New Moon phases in order to get the revival skill on them. The moon phases change in dungeons (which is technically what the school is) at something like a rate of 20 times the number of steps it takes in the malls, with the added nuisance of enemy encounters. So, it's really inconvenient.
I'll still probably continue on, but it's a struggle, and while I didn't really have any interest in later persona games anyway, I thought I might at some point play Persona 2. At this point, I don't think I have any interest in doing that, either.
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Dragon Quest IX
Despite what I had indicated, I've actually been playing a fair amount of Dragon Quest IX still, also. I finished up all but three of the base 62 quests (they require some treasure map stuff), and I've done all of the class quests aside from the last Sage one and the Superstar ones ('cause they also require treasure map stuff). I had done the weapons' skill quests for the weapon types I care about (sword, spear, claw, axe, and fan) before finishing the main game. I've done a number of the wi-fi quests, but many of them also require treasure map stuff.
Essentially, everything in the post-game is about treasure maps, and I get the potential draw, but in practice, it's not really for me. Basically, bosses in them have a rare chance (2%) of dropping a base piece of armor that can be upgraded in the alchemy pot two times for the "best" armor in the game. Blue treasure chests of Rank 10 (out of 10 ranks) in these treasure map dungeons have a very rare chance of giving a weapon that can be upgraded in the alchemy pot twice for the "best" weapons of each type. High rank treasure chests only show up in treasure map dungeons of about Lv 80 or higher, though. These recipes tend to require Orichalcum (from high rank treasure chests), Orbs (dropped at low rates--about 4 to 8%) from legacy bosses, and Evolution Stones that require an item that can only be acquired by purchasing it for 50,000G each. To make everything in the game that uses Evolution Stones costs something like 8 million gold just in Time Crystal items. The other thing about the third level of the weapons is that their recipes have a random success rate that's affected by the main character's stats. If it fails, the game apparently saves immediately, so you have to use another recipe requiring Recycle Stones to get it back to an earlier stage and try the process over.
I've spent a bit of time on unlocking treasure maps, but there are a variety of random factors that affect the level of the map you get after beating a boss, and the highest map level I have is just 47. Even in the lv 40+ maps, I still get tons of Rank 1 and 2 treasure chests, which are basically worthless. Rank 5 chests are still pretty uncommon, and that's basically the baseline of chest ranks that have anything remotely interesting in them (cosmetic equipment and Saint's Ashes). I probably haven't even gotten one that's actually higher than Rank 5 yet.
I've also beaten the Baramos legacy map a couple times, and Sidoh once. Neither is very hard to deal with, but there's this system where after beating them you can refuse the EXP from the boss and give it back to level up the boss. Each time it seems to level the boss up one level. Leveling them increases the rate they drop orbs, but it also changes out their main drop item at certain breakpoints (they can level all the way up to 99). At level 16, Baramos starts to drop a map for another legacy boss, and there are a few chains like this, but man; I kind of really don't want to bother.
I generally enjoy the main game, and the treasure map thing is kind of interesting in a vacuum, but whoever designed this post-game loop is a massive, sadistic ass-hat. It is truly the grind to end all grinds. I'm probably at least equally damaged, because I'm liable to keep poking away at this shit even though I don't want to.
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Myst:
Oh yeah! This post is already pretty long, but I remembered that I also poked around in Myst for a bit, a while ago. I remember that I used to play it for a handful of minutes at a time in, like, libraries and computer labs when I was little. Never knew the first thing about what I was doing, though. I just always remember a handful of the initial screens like the captain's chair, that always made me think of a dentist's chair or a torture device, in the planetarium.
I like to think I'm a bit more clever now, but while I've definitely seen more of the 'age' (not even sure if I'm using this correctly), I don't know what I'm doing. I've tended to do some things that feel like they should be solutions, but nothing happens. I was sure I figured out the three buttons to press that match the constellations in the planetarium (I even tried hitting them in chronological order), but nothing appeared to happen. Spent a fair amount of time trying to work out the generator, but it seems like no matter what, as soon as I hit the buttons that raise it 19 or 22, the power to the ship cuts out. I thought the lever on the power line outside was what reset it, but after a while it seemed to stop working--. The one that feels the most galling to me is the note that says to put in the number of switches on the island into something in the room by the boat dock. I went down there, but all I see is just a button on a weird basin of water, and nowhere to actually input anything. I spent a bunch of time early on just reading through the books on the shelves, but it feels like it's pretty much all just lore. Very little in them seems to actually be any kind of hint.
Anyway, after getting a little dejected and closing down the game, I took a look through the manual. Seems there's a hint system built into the game. Next time I'll likely start relying on it a bit because the game is kind of confounding to me. Sort of nostalgic atmosphere for me, though, so I don't really dislike it.
_____________________________________
Steam (and other) keys for trade/free: viewtopic.php?p=1189267#p1189267
B/S/T Thread: viewtopic.php?p=1188724#p1188724
Steam (and other) keys for trade/free: viewtopic.php?p=1189267#p1189267
B/S/T Thread: viewtopic.php?p=1188724#p1188724
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alienjesus
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Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
1. Faxanadu (NES)
2. Phantasy Star Online (GC)
3. Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
4. Mario Golf (GBC)
5. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
6. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Switch)
7. Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
8. LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
9. Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
10. Star Control 2 (3DO)
I started up Dragon Quest V on DS tonight. First impressions are pretty great - the game looks and sounds amazing for the console. I was expecting simple 2D graphics but actually the environments are all done with textured polygons (with 2d character sprites moving around them) - and whilst I can imagine this would not be the preference of some, the textures keep enough of a sprite aesthetic that it looks good. What surprised me most is that you can rotate the camera in this 2D RPG to get a better vantage point - it feels like HD-2D before HD-2D was a thing, just on much weaker hardware. The battles look great too, with really nicely animated enemy sprites.
Your hero is like 6 years old at the start of the game, and one thing I found cool is how the game shows your father looking out for you. Let's be clear - at this stage you aren't the hero, he is. You are a member of his party. When you're with him you follow him around like other party members do to the hero in other dragon quest games. You literally can't control where you go. Random encounters happen and he beat's them up whilst you flail away for 1 damage a hit. You're level 1 and he is level 27. He chooses to heal you with a heal spell after every battle too. It's what it must be feel like to be the secondary party members in other games
I've made it to the first major dungeon of the game, a spooky castle full of ghosts. To save a cat from some local bullies, me and my buddy Bianca need to prove we're cool enough to beat up the ghosts in the castle. I snuck away from my father who was staying at the inn after a visiting a friend who had a cold, and snuck into the castle. It gave me a quick reminder that this is an old-school RPG though, after I got my butt kicked. Rather cutely, the girl who is in my party at the time dragged me back to the inn. The game then explained that my dad now had caught the cold too, so we needed to stay at the inn another night, so I could repeat my adventure the next evening too. I thought it was cool that they bothered to have a backup for if you failed.
I spent the rest of my session grinding to level up my party a bit and equip them with the best weapons currently available. Now we've upgraded our crummy stick and dagger for a boomerang and whip combo that target multiple enemies, I think we should be good to finish the castle this time.
2. Phantasy Star Online (GC)
3. Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
4. Mario Golf (GBC)
5. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
6. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Switch)
7. Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
8. LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
9. Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
10. Star Control 2 (3DO)
I started up Dragon Quest V on DS tonight. First impressions are pretty great - the game looks and sounds amazing for the console. I was expecting simple 2D graphics but actually the environments are all done with textured polygons (with 2d character sprites moving around them) - and whilst I can imagine this would not be the preference of some, the textures keep enough of a sprite aesthetic that it looks good. What surprised me most is that you can rotate the camera in this 2D RPG to get a better vantage point - it feels like HD-2D before HD-2D was a thing, just on much weaker hardware. The battles look great too, with really nicely animated enemy sprites.
Your hero is like 6 years old at the start of the game, and one thing I found cool is how the game shows your father looking out for you. Let's be clear - at this stage you aren't the hero, he is. You are a member of his party. When you're with him you follow him around like other party members do to the hero in other dragon quest games. You literally can't control where you go. Random encounters happen and he beat's them up whilst you flail away for 1 damage a hit. You're level 1 and he is level 27. He chooses to heal you with a heal spell after every battle too. It's what it must be feel like to be the secondary party members in other games
I've made it to the first major dungeon of the game, a spooky castle full of ghosts. To save a cat from some local bullies, me and my buddy Bianca need to prove we're cool enough to beat up the ghosts in the castle. I snuck away from my father who was staying at the inn after a visiting a friend who had a cold, and snuck into the castle. It gave me a quick reminder that this is an old-school RPG though, after I got my butt kicked. Rather cutely, the girl who is in my party at the time dragged me back to the inn. The game then explained that my dad now had caught the cold too, so we needed to stay at the inn another night, so I could repeat my adventure the next evening too. I thought it was cool that they bothered to have a backup for if you failed.
I spent the rest of my session grinding to level up my party a bit and equip them with the best weapons currently available. Now we've upgraded our crummy stick and dagger for a boomerang and whip combo that target multiple enemies, I think we should be good to finish the castle this time.
Re: Racketboy Summer Games Challenge 2024
Looking forward to see the results of a choice you will be making later in the game.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.