CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

I'm ready go tonight. There's a party, alright. We don't need the raisin for joy, oh yeah. Tick down to midnight.
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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:30 pm

Bier_Engel wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:31 pm
Tales of Vesperia is coming out Friday
or as Steam puts it,

Image

that classic banger, Tales of Uninitialized

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:34 pm

Heh. There's no way a game like that would run on my laptop, so I've got the PS4 version coming tomorrow. Sucks, because I work all day, and then Mike wanted to go to a local show- but then today when I reminded him, he already said he was too tired even though it's tomorrow, heh. So that's up in the air. I guess if he doesn't want to go, I'll get to play, as well as save money.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:40 pm

chillin' here in MS2 just farming some herbs and mining some ore and someone somewhere on this map starts playing MIDI piano versions of the Final Fantasy X soundtrack, they're like three or four tracks deep now and still going

that's dedication.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:49 pm

Ooh, which songs? That was a good soundtrack...

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:55 pm

I think they performed in order of appearance, so I probably heard from the opening theme to the first battle theme at Zanarkand before I bailed

definitely one of the better soundtracks in the series.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:50 pm

I've also been watching Mari at Geek Remix play through Deadly Premonition. Seeing new fresh reactions to that thing is always a joy.

I wonder what mystical rites she used to get the PC version running smoothly without crashing constantly.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:53 pm

Grr. Since I pre-ordered ToV while still at my old address, my Amazon tracking said they attempted delivery there. I guess it's being forwarded, but I won't get it today. I never even though about checking that, since I assumed they'd just ship my pre-orders to the current address I have on file :/

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:55 pm

At least this edition seems to be getting great reviews, so it won't be full of bugs or anything when you do get your copy.

https://kotaku.com/one-of-my-favorite-t ... 1831674917

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:12 pm

Most notably Troy Baker, who originally voiced purple-haired protagonist Yuri, has been replaced with voice actor Grant George. While Baker’s original voice acted lines remain in game, all new dialogue is performed by George.
At first I thought, "great, now I'm going to hear *Jin* (and Shinji) in between the Kanji-sounding lines," but then I watched the video they included, and yeah, can't really tell the difference.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Sat Jan 12, 2019 10:36 pm

Lol I'm a dumbass. So I've been playing the Persona dance games since P4D came out. Never got a King Crazy (highest rating possible). Today I realized that the timing of the scratches count for that. So, so many times, I was like, "why does my final score say I got 5 "good" ratings for notes when I don't recall seeing "good" on the screen ever? I got all perfects and greats! What the hell!?" Fucking scratches. The games tell you they don't count. BUT THEY DO!

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:38 pm

Tracking my ToV package and it is now *further* away from me than it was when it first shipped out to the wrong address. What the hell, USPS? No chance of getting it today...

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:18 pm

ToV arrived unexpectedly today (the text I got when I woke up made it sound like it was further again) but it somehow arrived from far away without going near me or "out for delivery" and I'm okay with that.

Played it basically all night since I got home from work since I'll barely have time to play it in a dedicated chunk again until *next* Tuesday night :/ And yeah, I can't really tell when Yuri's voice actor switches. I tried paying attention in the beginning but it was so subtle that I forgot to listen out for it, and now I can't even tell at all.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:20 pm

I love how "hey can you just talk like Troy Baker" is now a common bit of voice acting direction.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:34 pm

My guess is that Troy is super expensive now so they went with Grant George as a reserve option or something? Troy even admitted on Twitter that he never even knew about the definitive edition in English until after it was already done/announced (ouch) and that he would have loved to do it if asked to. So, it certainly wasn't a busy schedule or lack of interest on his part... they never even asked him, and that's sad to not even ask the original voice actor to come back for a *definitive edition!*

BUT, as I said, it's so hard to tell. The casting people knew what they were doing, and probably saved a lot of money :/

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:14 pm

Platinumed P5D last week (or the week before?) and platinumed P3D today. Main raisin for the delay was my boyfriend: can't concentrate when he's home. Any noise he makes distracts me, especially if he's coming up the stairs to talk, so I only play when he's not home. I.e. Saturday nights when he's at band practice, mostly.

Was super happy to finally figure out how to King Crazy some songs. I need to do that with P4D now. That might be the only trophy I'm missing on my Vita version, but for some raisin, despite my account being linked, the PS4 version started all over with the trophies (it's also slow and doesn't show my platinums with the other games either... it's synced on some screens but not others?) Ugh.

But yeah, quick review of the Persona dance games: I think P4D is the best. It's the original and has a real story mode and purpose behind it. The only raisin for the others was "oh hey, if P4D sells well, I guess we'll make a P3 version!" and then of course P5D happened too. Not knocking it. I enjoy the games, but you can tell they wouldn't exist otherwise. I also noticed that P4D is harder- the notes don't move in a linear pattern, even on the easier modes. In the newer games, all of the notes on easy/normal move in a clockwise fashion. It's like less thought was put into it.

Also, let's talk about the price. Ridiculous. Should have been one game on one disc for the price of like $50, and not that for each. A blu-ray should easily support both. I don't normally play rhythm games, but others have complained that a typical rhythm game for the price would contain more songs. I felt like too many versions of the same songs existed on both titles. However, songs from the P3 movies and stage plays were completely absent, Strega's theme was absent, etc. In P5, the anime openings, which were the best parts of the anime, were also absent. I love "Rivers in the Desert," but I don't need 5 different versions; give me other songs. I saw the sales numbers of all the Persona games in a Kotaku(?) article today and the *combined* sales of P3/5D were the weakest and I am not surprised. Also, I suck at these games, and I already platinumed both... I never platinum games, so this shows how little effort it takes.

I also felt that too many "music video" types of songs exist. I like the ones with characters dancing better. Overall, they're fun games if you like Persona and these types of games, but I can see why sales are low/why people would wait for a price drop or something.

Still playing Vesperia also and now I'm way better at detecting the voice difference of George and Baker. It doesn't ruin the experience or anything, but... I definitely notice now.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:45 pm

Bier_Engel wrote:
Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:14 pm
Also, let's talk about the price. Ridiculous. Should have been one game on one disc for the price of like $50, and not that for each.
Yup, I ain't touchin' those dancing games without a pretty steep discount. I feel like the fighting games were actually priced way more reasonably but maybe that's my memory playin' tricks.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:55 pm

And I'd rather play a dance game than a fighting game, but these were (are) still outrageous. What were they thinking!? I hope they don't take these sales as a lack of interest in the series overall, and decide not to release PQ2 in the west because of it.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Wed Jan 23, 2019 3:50 pm

Yo Falcon, is Ironman not available by default in XCOM 2? Or maybe this is something War of the Chosen changed. For whatever raisin I don't have the option on startup.

It's definitely something I wanna have in the event of XCOM streams, so if it's an unlockable thing, maybe I just need to run a quick campaign first and intentionally sabotage it.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Falcon Critical » Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:04 pm

Shouldn't be hidden or locked behind anything, I don't know that I've played a whole lot since WotC so I can't say for sure. You could always be disciplined and just not reload, unless the appeal of Ironman is that it saves at the end of every turn so if the game crashes you don't have to restart a mission.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Bier_Engel » Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:17 pm

I can definitely tell the difference between Baker and George's voices in Vesperia now, thanks to Baker's voice still being in all the battle attacks and most skits. It's not like, jarring, but definitely noticeable after a certain point for those raisins.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Falcon Critical » Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:57 pm

I started playing Dead in Vinland, and while I enjoyed what I played, but it is the kind of stressful that I don't really feel like playing again. Basically I was hit by a week of rain and storms, which drove everyone's mood and energy down so low I couldn't recover.

It's the kind of thing I'll enjoy via LPs I think, where the stress isn't on me.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:13 pm

Yeah, I have a feeling I'd probably have the same reaction, which is why Vinland still sits so far down my wishlist. And maybe that's also why games like This War of Mine didn't stick, or why Vinland is joined by others like Frostpunk and the years-old Papers, Please as something I'm in no particular rush to pull the trigger on. There's enough anxiety and attrition in real life without grabbing for more in virtual spaces.

'course, I say that as someone who has been exploring Sunless Skies all week. Like Sunless Sea before it (with or without the Zubmariner expansion I never picked up), Skies is probably best described as a literary roguelite. But like Sunless Sea, and unlike most rogues, -like or -lite, it's so gradual in its pacing that its sense of attrition comes less from constant deaths and restarts and more from the smaller, more routine mundanities of its loop: whether or not you're making money faster than you're spending; do you have enough supplies to make it to the next port without starving; which trade good is going where again? That sort of thing.

That said, it's easier than Sea, even on its default settings (there are three ways to scale difficulty, and all downwards from default, which is nice.) Terror is less of a concern, at least where I am now. Making money is much easier and far less of a grind than it was in Sea, all thanks to better trading and new supplemental options. Combat is greatly improved by the addition of new mechanics and less reliance on firing arcs. Fuel and supplies drain a little slower. The world is less empty, which means more possible pitstops, which then means more potential restocks from events. So while some of Sea's slow-churn is still there, it's on a faster curve, it's better about onboarding, there's more to do along the way, and therefore it's more fun.

The literary part of course comes from its generous use of prose, and quite colourful at that, often times making me wish the game had a right-click > definition function for some of its more flowery choices. If you've played Fallen London (again, gotta shoutout Fallen London for the first time in a while, yo it's a free browser game any of y'all could be playing right now) and Sunless Sea and, apparently, a tabletop game that exists from the same folks called Skyfarer, or even the recent Cultist Simulator and parts of Stellaris' DLC penned by one of the same writers, then you know what to expect from Skies.

Wrap that fiction around this gameplay and I suppose the result is a slower, calmer, more evocative, less plain-jane Escape Velocity - with space locomotives instead of starships. It may also compare favourably to last year's Star Traders Frontiers, just with far less systems management. I should really mention that it's far prettier than both those examples, of course; EV's final iteration being from the late-shareware period and Star Traders being somewhat "programmer art" by small team necessity. Sunless Skies also has pretty great sound design and music which, hey, nice gets if you've got both cosmic horror themes and sanity gauges.

It's good stuff. Not for everyone, like Sea, but those who like it like it a lot and I'm probably going to be one of those people. And it flows well from Return of the Obra Dinn, a much different game which nonetheless stirred up quite a similar mood.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Falcon Critical » Wed Feb 06, 2019 7:48 pm

Having watched a bit of someone else playing Dead in Vinland (and looking up build orders) I realised I was underestimating the power of some of the buildings. Primarily the rest area (which gives better than sleep rest somehow using only half a day), and the tavern which can reduce two characters unhappiness at the same time.

While that does somewhat buoy me into considering going back, there are so many other games I still have to play and I'm kind of happy with my head-narrative of this family up to and through the father's death that I'm thinking I probably shouldn't.

OWN: SHOULD PLAY
Star Traders Frontiers (probably a single run like Vinland unless it's super my jam)
Timespinner (prob entirely)

SHOULD BUY/PLAY
Heaven Will Be Mine (VN)
Gris (arty platformer)
Far - Lone Sails (steamtrain rollin)
Pillars of Eternity 2 (now that there's turn-based mode)

There's a bunch of other VNs and stuff that I want to jump into, I'm kind of helped by a lot of the games that I want this year having no release dates so plenty of time to dip into that back catalog. You are also selling Sunless Skies to me, but I'm pulling myself in many directions haha.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Delthazar » Wed Feb 06, 2019 8:18 pm

Heh, each time I've tried to deep-dive into Star Traders Frontiers since it hit 1.0 I've ended up spending a couple hours customizing my captain, her officers, and each and every lower decks crewperson, in fairly excruciating detail, before wandering off and doing something else. :pac

I doubt I've ever gotten any deeper than the first few missions in the first chain. I've maybe spent as much time reading wikis about its systems and good strategies and best practices as I have actually playing it. Someday!

Heaven Will Be Mine and Gris are also both pretty high up my list. Helps that those are both probably session games and not forever games. Got enough forever games and barely any energy to put into 'em.

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Re: CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

Post by Falcon Critical » Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:15 pm

If you're in the mood for a short (20 min) game, I played There's This Girl on itch.io (in browser) the other day and really liked it. In fact I liked it so much I started looking into all the other games by this dev.

https://zephyo.itch.io/theres-this-girl