CF-WRUP V: Good play. Nice talk.

[Bier_Engel]

My boss plays Witcher and talks about it all the time, so I was thinking of giving it a shot, so good to know. She just says "Witcher" but she's *probably* referring to 3. Assuming that 3 is on PC, because she doesn't do console gaming.

[DHerder222]

Yeah, it's on Steam as well.

I watched Notabohr go through most of W3. It's definitely a beautiful game, with plenty to do and apparently fun gameplay. I think the main raisin it became so universally loved is that both its writing and voice-acting are very good. Maybe not the best ever (I still give the edge to Mass Effect for best overall acting in a franchise), but people wouldn't have cared nearly as much about Geralt and Friends if they weren't well-performed.

[Falcon Critical]

If you're jumping in probably Witcher 3 is the best place. Witcher 2 is also pretty good, but if you've watched the TV series you don't meet Yennifer and Ciri till the third game.

Don't play the first one, it's clunky as heck. Not outright bad, just bears a lot of the marks of old eastern european game design, where things are obtuse because they can be and also kinda fiddly.

[Bier_Engel]

Just beat Sacred Stones and I'm annoyed because my main save file is from after a point of no return, and I didn't know that. I had plans to go back and do the optional dungeon but now I'd have to start all over to do so. Unfortunately, my end game save file just restarts the credits and what not. I was hoping it'd let me go back to the map to do the optional stuff. Well, that's a bummer.

Edit: Nevermind! Glad I decided to look into it. Apparently, I can access the map with my epilogue file by going to "extras," rather than loading it normally. Tonight is saved and I have stuff to do until Thursday when the 3H DLC drops.

[Falcon Critical]

So I finished Coffee Talk, generally liked it though I did notice on Lua's profile that her birthday was Oct 2nd so when she came in that day I was a little sad that no-one mentioned it.

It was fun to read Freya's daily articles on the phone, like Aqua said they were a bit of a mixed bag. The final three part story especially was perhaps too long, but I really liked how it ended.

Spoiler :

I couldn't figure out the Fury-calming beverage, mostly because I got thrown when I gave him tea+ginger+lemon or something he was like "this isn't even what I asked for" which made me re-question which type of tea I was supposed to use. Ended up with 0 werewolf friendship points

The other patron I didn't get to max friends with was the Orc developer, because of that Teh Tarik and prob another of her more obscure requests I couldn't quite get right. Not sure if that goes from close friends to hook-up city with Aqua because their relationship seemed on that trajectory.

I am slightly curious about how the story changes if you just fuck up every order.

[DHerder222]

I'm about 40% through it and really enjoying so far. There are very few guides for it so far, so I wonder if it's actually possible to hit full friendship points with every character in a single playthrough.

[Falcon Critical]

I figure for most characters you just need to make coffee they like, though i'm sure there's some quirks in there.

[Delthazar]

I'm pretty sure some of the individual character endings may vary even if you max out, due in part to some quirks, yes

Spoiler for endings :

For Freya, I got the "finished her book, but it didn't sell well" ending slide, and there's a missing picture in my gallery right next to that one, I guess implying either a worse ending or a better one

I figure I should've followed Baileys' advice on that one night and given Freya something she needed (a sedative?) rather than the espresso she wanted, maybe then her writing would've turned out better 'cause she wouldn't have pushed herself too hard.

I think the post-credits scene is meant to gesture towards bits you messed up so you can do better on another run and that night came up along with... two others? Unfortunately other than the Freya one I've kinda forgotten the other two already

But yeah, I enjoyed my time with it, but I dunno if I'll ever get around to a second run to max the friend levels or complete the gallery and drink list and generally get the best endings.

[Delthazar]

I also started up Kentucky Route Zero. Got through Act 1 in about an hour and a half, so I wonder if this quick pace will hold for the full five acts and the intermissions. I have a feeling they get longer from here, and while there was certainly some mind-bendyness in Act 1, it's so far pretty light - though I do know a lot of folks have said that aspect of KRZ gets way more wild later on.

Technical quirk: unless my Steam FPS counter is borked this thing is running at like 1000+ FPS and my fans were at full blast for pretty much the whole hour and a half, so... I should probably look into capping that somehow. It didn't affect gameplay at all but that high a number and that much fan noise will always make me paranoid.

[Delthazar]

I've also been playing a lot of the Sega Ages version of the original Phantasy Star on the Switch and I'm really pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to powerlevel, and how early you can do it.

Just fight a few things between Camineet and Scion for a bit 'til you can afford slightly better gear (or fill your empty gear slots), then fight pairs of Owl Bears in the little forest within Camineet's walls 'til you get your levels up enough to survive the Fishmen along the coast north of Camineet. Then grind those as long as you want 'cause their XP/Meseta drops are suspiciously good for such an earlygame monster. In my case, I've kept grinding long enough to learn all the spells, afford all the best gear in Camineet/Scion/Paseo, plus key items like the Magic Lamp, and I'll probably keep going until I run out of podcasts.

I already have Alis and Myau around Lv. 22 in under four hours. The level cap is 30. You probably don't even need to be at the cap to survive the last few bosses. And since XP in Phantasy Star games is split among party members, I probably could've got Alis to the cap if I hadn't gone and recruited Myau. At this rate Odin's gonna be waiting a while for his medicine.

[DHerder222]

I haven't used GOG in several years and last used it on a different computer. So I signed up for a new account and new e-mail address to pick up a game that was on crazy sale, marked down from $10 to $1.50. Nice deal, was worth it.

But then I learned GOG gives new users a 48-hour flash sale on a bunch of stuff. I bought three more games for $5.47 that would have normally been $37, an 85% markdown. That was...pretty awesome.

[Delthazar]

I finished Kentucky Route Zero a couple weeks ago and I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about it. KRZ is so much its own thing, I don't quite feel like I can adequately put it into words right now. I'll try again later.

Back on the VN beat, taking a shot at Eliza, which made a lot of GOTY lists last year. It's very strong and hits pretty close to home in a couple important ways.

[Bier_Engel]

Started DanganRonpa 3 about a week or so ago and didn't mention it. I think TheirStar is the only person here who has played the series, based on prior posts (but correct me if I'm wrong) so I didn't mention it because I figured it wouldn't be of much interest in general, and well, this one didn't grab me at first like the first 2 games in the series did anyway. But, now I'm on chapter 5 and shit is heating up and I'm finally invested. Sucks that it took so long, and I don't want to start the current trial so late when I work early tomorrow. But working early tomorrow means I'll be home 2 hours earlier than my closing shift, so I'm going to fuck that trial up then!

[cybersix]

I played DanganRonpa and didn't really like it. Kind of sucks, because I heard it described as Phoenix Wright x Battle Royale, which isn't necessarily wrong.

999 and Virtue's Last Reward, though. Fuck yeah.

[Bier_Engel]

That's pretty much the perfect description. Never played any of the Phoenix Wright games though.

I loved 999 when it was new. The second game... eh. Tons of plot holes. I have the third on Steam but haven't started it yet. Hoping to beat DR3 tonight or Friday which means I have about 2 weeks to knock that out before Animal Crossing comes out.

[Delthazar]

I couldn't resist picking up The Longing. It's not every day something this weird and unique just sorta appears from nowhere in the games space, and coming right off Kentucky Route Zero, I'm 100% in the mood for more weird and unique.



Day 1.

If you want, you can simply sit and stare.

[Falcon Critical]

Speaking of chill slow paced games, I just read this article about The Long Drive.

https://www.pcgamer.com/au/the-long-dri ... ss-desert/

Basically you drive a car across an infinitely generated desert map, occasionally coming across stuff to stop and loot/upgrade. Then it's back on the road.

I feel like we're a hair's breadth away from a full on space trucking simulator. Take out all the combat, ramp up the travel times, nail the soundtrack and this formula could be really compelling. Maybe have some FTL aspects in there where you have to try and repair on the fly, or similar to The Longing's books, have some simple arcade games or something on a side screen you can play.

[Delthazar]

Day 3.

I found a place where time stops. The engraving in the cave before the entrance says "ONLY A FOOL TRIES TO REACH THE END OF THE HALLS OF ETERNITY." So I wonder if this place really is endless and you'll just keep moving right forever. Maybe that's why this place pauses the timer.

There's a lot of a items to pick up in here though. Found a nice new carpet for my cave house and some art paper so far. Further exploration feels worth it, just in case I find more... but will I eventually be tempted to be a fool and try to reach the end?

[Falcon Critical]

A room pausing the timer is an interesting thought for a game that is based around 400 real time days.

[Delthazar]

Some activities also speed up the timer very slightly, though probably not enough to drastically impact the 400-day counter. We'll definitely see people hitting the end at different times depending on how they play, which is pretty cool.

I've definitely found a few places with time-based events. A stalagmite which my Shade figures will fall in "about a week," opening up a new path. Some moss that should finish growing in "about a month," etc. Thankfully there's a bookmark mechanic for locations, and your little cave home, so you can remember where all this stuff is and auto-walk back to them later.

[Delthazar]

Day... 6, ish.

Time exploring the Hall (with its pause) plus a lot of time reading (which increases the timer speed by 2x) has already had disruptive effects on my counter. And since I tend to log off for the day still sitting in the chair, I think the counter remains at 2x through that whole idle time. Hence 393 days and 12 hours remain.

...whether you read Nietzsche normally or in The Longing either way he's fuckin' ponderous

[Delthazar]

I finished Eliza tonight and I loved it. This is easily the best writing and voice performances I've seen in the VN genre, more than competitive for any genre really, and beyond simply its story and acting I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who has worked in tech or followed the industry or simply has a certain anxiety towards where it's at and where it's headed. It's remarkable how well it captures these things.

Eliza also centers around mental health in particular, so keep that in mind, too. As a content warning, a point of interest, or both.



Seems recently I keep playing games that are likely to stick with me for a long time and this is another one of those. Maybe I should go a little lighter next, or at least go for something that's only heavy mechanically rather than thematically. Pathfinder Kingmaker. I guess it's time. Reroll my Slayer from that tabletop campaign years ago and see how it goes.

[Thunderhead]

Okay, I gotta ask. What is up with Wedge's tiny baby hands? It's creepy.

[Delthazar]

Big dude, small hands. And you know what that means.

[True Perception]

Damn, I should have popped everything on Friday! Data disk? 40 gigs? Dammit.