Games You're Playing Right Now Thread VI - Even in this thread, F O E

[Garlyle]

Well, I actually just re-finished VLR; and in review I actually took the same 19 hours of time to finish VLR as I did to finish ZTD, now that I've checked.

But yeah.  The lack of descriptive dialogue/monologuing is a drastic difference.

[Mr. Sacchi]

I've also felt that ZTD's puzzles are shorter than VLR's or 999's, which is good since I kind of felt like they dragged sometimes.

Right now, I'm not quite done with ZTD yet, I'm nearing the end but... I need to take a break because I'm literally having bodily reactions (pounding head, shaking and constant chills down my spine) after a certain event in the game, which I won't mention to avoid any and all spoilers.

Still though, the fact that the game is legit giving me such large reactions speaks volumes of its quality.

[triangles]

aaaaaaa MAIL COME FASTER 

[notverycreative]

I'm done with Global FF Record Keeper. 150 mythril and I went 1/33. Not only that, the 1 was a clone of an SB I have for another realm on a character who's better. So fuck that. I'm still playing on JP because you can't blank 11x pulls anymore. You still have a chance to get garbage, but my luck's been pretty awesome so far (SQUALL OSB) and at this point I'm just saving for the anniversary in September (well, they SHOULD have a thing for the 2-year anniversary like they did last year). So now I only have one mobile game that's making me waste my time, meaning I'll have more time for regular gaming. I'm so pissed-off right now, though, that I've lost my ability to eat and my eardrums are pulsing like they're going to pop at any moment. I'll probably feel better tomorrow but I'm not reinstalling this game.

Got my Vita back from my friend on Monday. Going to work on those games. Can't really play Dragon Age: Inquisition much because the wireless signal's really, really bad in my bedroom so I can't even log into PSN most of the time. I only managed to download the huge update patch by hooking it up to the TV that's next to the cable box. I should be getting a wifi booster this month, though. I've had days where I'd have to stand in the hallway just for my phone to register that it's on the internet.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Ugh, I'm so lost in ZTD. I have a ton of things I don't know what the conditions for unlock are; a few areas that have passwords I don't know what they are; and two sections that I presumably have enough information to figure out, but I just don't know what that information is.

It's bad enough that I had to consult outside information for one particularly obtuse puzzle; I don't want to spoil myself with figuring out anything else.

EDIT: Okay, made some additional progress. Might still be blocked later, though?

[Reddyne]

I think I might stop playing Dark Souls 3. It's a great game and it's worth multiple playthroughs and all, but it's just hard to know when to stop and why. When I got right down to it, the characters I had planned out had already won, even if I hadn't started these characters at all. My sword-and-board guy, my dedicated pyromancer, my paladin, my tank, my bleed build, even my joke character. I already know this game so much that it's been broken down into enemy and item locations, drop rates, and success chances to an optimized degree. If I am to experience anything new, it'll come through co-op and PVP. It's still great fun, but I just have other things I might miss out on if I continue this.         

Still playing Bravely Second and liking it a lot. I'd probably get more done in these if it weren't for life being busy in general. Same goes for this year's run of 4JF.

I have started The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky after watching reviews of it for a year plus. Highlights include Estelle's pissed-off face and her praising the JRPG gods for sewers and their tutorial-level-ness. The learning curve has already been surmounted and the whole thing feels like it'll be a fun romp.

On tap are XCOM 2 and Doom 2016. The first is because it's a great game while combining strategy and tactics. The second is just for 8 hours of catharsis.

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

Just finished up a replay of Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut, my third completed run of the game. I always feel suddenly, like, put off, when a game I'm into hits the end and there's nothing more. Mankind Divided comes out soon, but I'd like to wait until it's completely completed and turned into whatever special edition, because I don't want to have to replay it to get to Season Pass add-ons or whatever. Those make sense in modular games with level selects and open-world titles, but linear(-ish) stories, not so much.

I'm also scrambling to find something to fill the void that finishing all story content (besides Daidouji and Rin's individual story modes, because they are the absolute hardest final boss battles in the game) in Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus has left me with. I'm itching for more, but Shinovi Versus is the only one on PC and it just came out, so it's not like the other ones are close behind to follow up. The gameplay's solid, but easy to cheese once you're used to it. I'm having trouble convincing friends to pick it up and get into the multiplayer against me, since it's just seen as "that ninja boob game" or what have ye, but I loved the single-player for having genuinely incredible story and characters. I haven't been actually invested in a game's cast like this in a long while. I'll likely start it up again and do some Hard Mode runs this time around, but until then, I'm listening to the soundtrack.

PAYDAY 2 is always a good standby, as well, and has been padding out my time in between other games, especially where LEGO Marvel's Avengers has rather underwhelmed me.

[Cirnouli K.]

All the games I wanna play require long update times, so TF2 (which is apparently running crappily on my computer now for no explained reason) and Warframe aren't an option. In addition, I'm playing through Skyrim again with an Unarmed Khajiit, Heavy-Armor build and although it's fun, it's a shame I can't really do much without abusing the enchantment system to some degree.

On the other hand, Nuclear Throne is looking awful tempting all of a sudden, and I recently got a charger for my 2DS again, so I can play SSB3DS and more Pokemon, OR I can try and complete my backlog of VC and Indie games. Shantae, MSF2, or play Shovel Knight again, or try and complete SMB3, LoZ Ages and Seasons.

[Bias Bus]

A loooot of Doom lately. Playing through the campaigns of Doom 1-2, Plutonia and TNT w/ the Brutal Doom mod attached.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

A loooot of Doom lately. Playing through the campaigns of Doom 1-2, Plutonia and TNT w/ the Brutal Doom mod attached.

Good god, I haven't seen you around in literal ages. Yo.


Anyway, I'm playing a mix of Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Monster Hunter Generations, and I've been increasingly feeling the urge to pick up Pokemon Red again for my every-few-yearly nostalgia trip.

[Garlyle]

7th Dragon III.

It started a bit slow and feeling kind of like an only semi-functional clone of Etrian Odyssey games, but it's definitely improved over time.  There's a few things I really like about it:

-You get three total parties by the midgame, with three people each, that can swap freely outside of battle and all get EXP/SP - so you can actually use every single class in a given playthrough without extra grind.
-Class design is actually fairly whacked out.  There's a class that is literally a children's card game anime protag - summoning monsters, playing traps, and literally managing a hand of cards while playing.  Some aren't as exciting as others but still, they're all actually fun to play and have a good chunk of personality.
-Portraits aren't bound to classes at all so that's cool.
-Your team members can hook up with each other.  Regardless of gender.
-Your team members can hook up with almost every major NPC in the game, it seems.  Regardless of gender.  'Cause every major NPC is apparently bi (A couple very forwardly so); and I've run into at least one minor NPC in a quest who became infatuated with another because of a resemblance to his ex boyfriend.  I probably shouldn't get so worked up over this detail but it's really refreshing.
-Cat cafe.
-I swear I fight more Dragons (FOEs/minibosses) than I do random encounters in many areas and that's nice.

It's generally fairly easy except for the major bosses who are pretty legit if you haven't done any grinding.  But it's overall pretty enjoyable and has come into its own.

[Silent Harmony]

The other day I finally got around to playing Undertale. Got the true pacifist ending.

Ok I'm not one for overhype but this game was worth the hype.

Spoiler:

I seriously was tearing up multiple times.

[Appren]

I've been playing a couple of games, the original Devil May Cry, Xenosaga Ep. 2, and Furi.  Two great action games and one meh rpg. I actually had Xenosaga Ep.2 when I was like 6 and never got past disc 1. Furi is pretty much a blend of bullet hell, Tron, and afro samurai. Pretty great game.

Meanwhile Devil May Cry is well....Devil May Cry. It's great.

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Playing Wings of Vi still. Currently playing on a different computer though since the one I'm currently stuck with is completely unreliable.

I've finished Mortal Mode for the 3rd time.

First clear:  3119 deaths, 28:17:19
Second clear: 439 deaths, 04:15:44
Third clear:  403 deaths, 03:46:03


Started up my 4th playthrough, this time on Demon Difficulty. Took the Purified Modifier so that I'd start with all weapons since I figured it'd be helpful here. None of my Mortal runs used modifiers, though I might want to do one with Turbo sometime, or maybe even Demon Turbo if I get good. Doomed modifier is probably never happening for me though, I have no idea how you'd avoid damage in some of the sections, so dying in 1 hit doesn't sound very fun.

I'm currently nearing 200 deaths, and I'm only up the the 3rd boss on Demon. It's a lot harder due to the higher distance between saves as well as the buffed bosses and enemies, plus the higher damage you take. I don't think it would have been very fun if I had tried Demon Mode on the first run, but since I have some experience with the Mortal runs, it has been enjoyable so far. Can't wait to see what sort of buffs all the bosses get on this mode, I'm sure some of them will be quite a pain.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

Picked up Code:Realize because I'm in a mood for VNs (and apparently otome VNs at that?), Dungeon Travelers 2 (because this should have totally been an H-game), and Fairy Fencer F: ADF because I got the LE in.

Kind of surprised how the MeiQ LE has a boobie mousepad. (I really shouldn't be.) Really making me consider not buying the LE, guys.

[Third Eye Lem]

Been playing Disgaea 5 a lot lately. I'm in Chapter 5, but I haven't been able to make too much progress due to two things:

1- Paranoia over Icic-Hell's netherworld effect (-50% to ice resistance, ow)
2- Getting distracted by the EVERYTHING ELSE the game has to offer (seriously, item Worlds are actually fun to play through)

Here's hoping I can actually finish the campaign in a timely manner!

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Wings of Vi Demon Purified cleared.

3,214 deaths,  29:04:59 time


I expected a lot of deaths but nowhere near that.

Spoiler:

Myougi 2

was ridiculous, a boss I consistently beat on Mortal took me over 400 deaths and was closer to 500.

Spoiler:

Azurel

also took a lot of time and deaths, but that fight is an absolute buggy mess at times, and it's also hard enough without that. The final boss also took me way more deaths than I was expecting since the main hard things outside of the extra damage were just that it enrages sooner and the orbs are a bit more annoying to dodge. Not to mention the many deaths trying to learn the Demon mode additions(and I'm still not any good at some of them) I did figure out how to manipulate the final boss's AI to minimize the amount of orb attacks(nothing you can do if he chooses to appear in the middle though), but still took a bit of attempts after that.


I will definitely try to improve on this someday, possibly even without the Purified modifier.


I think I'll try beating Angel Hellspawn Turbo next. Angel may be the easiest difficulty, but Hellspawn is a permadeath modifier, but it gives you 400% health to help balance it as well as turning checkpoints into healing hearts(20 health for angel checkpoints, 40 for Mortal, 60 for the ones that are in all 3), also instant death stuff(on Mortal/Demon) will act as if they were Angel Mode by taking health and repositioning you. Turbo increases game speed by 25%, and none of the Hellspawn clears on the leaderboard have added Turbo.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

When I tell you guys "Aim for me!", I don't mean it literally, jeez. Yet another bout of fifteen missiles on my butt, apparently because I'm almost never hit. In comparison, guys in supposedly much better craft than I am get shot down all the bloody time. Had literally zero traction on these last few sorties because my team dies way too quickly and everyone focuses on me.

Doesn't help that we had some connectivity issues, and the ones I had before that were actually really good to decent all ended up with the host disconnecting.

Anyway, Furi. I keep trying to parry the wide area attacks instead of dodging for some obscure reason. EDIT: Also I really loved fighting The Edge, despite the rage inducing bits. It stresses the importance of divining at an instant the opponent's move, as he loves to feint and thwack you as soon as parry's on cooldown. Also there's this one bit in phase 2 that can let you instantly wipe his entire bar all at once.

[Raikaria]

I managed to beat my first 'Dokkan Boss' in Dokkan Battle. In layman terms; it's a Superboss.

This specific boss was the 'Full Power Freiza' raid boss. After beating his first two forms on Stage 1; you can enter the Superboss stage and fight 3rd; 4th and then 100% power Freiza.

All three phases hit very hard, and can attack up to 3 times per round. The first phase is 3rd form Freiza and he's a TEQ type. 2nd phase is 4th form Freiza and he's an AGI type; and he gains the ability to prevent you from moving your characters around in turn order; making it harder to block his attacks effectively. Also; AGI beats STR; which is the type strong against his final form.

The final phase; which has 4 health bars; is the 100% Freiza. On top of the character lock ability he has; he also has a countdown mechanic; where instead of attacking he might countdown. After hitting 1; he can launch an instakill super attack. So you have to 'seal' his Super Attack consistently or he'll instantly kill you. PHY types are weak against STR types... but there are not many STR types who can seal super attacks at all. And I didn't have one of those.

After playing around with various teams a bit, I managed to find a good configuration and beat him 3 times in a row without resurrecting with Dragon Stones [Game currency which I've basically run out of farmable free ones of so rely on login bonuses since I refuse to pay for a game I generally play on the side while watching a stream/youtube]

Beating the Freiza boss three times allowed me to Awaken my own Freiza unit; who is farmed from the 1st stage. This awakened Freiza immediately proved after some testing to be a massive upgrade over the unit I was using of the same element. On a super attack; my old unit was hitting ~55k. The Freiza I got from this event hits 60k+ on super attacks without his passive proc. His passive gives him +70% attack on a high probability, letting him hit 100k+; even higher if he shows up with the right allied characters I have who provide buffs.

So yeah. Beat my first superboss and upgraded my team. Still haven't spent a penny. Yay.

[Chill Observer]

I've been playing a lot of 100% Orange Juice on multiplayer lately. It's surprisingly fun despite the game almost entirely relying on RNG dice rolls and not getting killed by lowly mobs.

I don't main anyone, I always play a random character every time I play.  :V

[Your Everyday NEET]

So, I started playing Batman: Arkham City lately, and holy shit! Being the GODDAMN Batman is so freaking awesome! It's awesome beating around 20 bad guys without breaking a sweat, it's awesome taking down armed men with nothing but stealth and intimidation, it's awesome taking down most of Batman's rogue gallery in just one night. That game is so goddamn AWESOME!

The combat is simple but has depth in it. You have to be quick on your mind and hands, you have to prioritize which enemy to beat up first, and you may need to use gadgets to gain the upper hand because you'll fight more than 10+ enemies per battle and they will take a shot at you whenever they can. But it's awesome watching 10+ unconscious bad guy after the fight. I don't really like the Predator mode though, because all the enemies are armed with firearms and you need to use stealth to take them out, one slip up and you're dead. You got the whole Arkham City as your sandbox. It's small enough so that I can get from one end to another in just 2+ minutes at full speed (in fact, Zsasz sidequest forces you to do this), but it's also filled with many secrets, sidequests, and collectibles (namely Riddler's trophies). Most of the sidequests are interesting to tackle with the exception of Riddler, and AR challenges. It's amazing how an excellent game makes you want to keep playing instead of having to will myself just to play a 'certain game'.

You know what's funny? You won't believe what I said, almost every game over you make in this game is due to your mistake and slip up instead of the game suddenly decides to kill you with bullshit one hit kills just because they can and there's nothing you can do about it. I know I know, it's surreal.


I AM LOOKING AT YOU, YOU FUCKING DEER OF SHIT!


And you as well! Seriously, who ever thought giving a boss 200 damage multi target attack and to be able to use it twice when my HP's all around 200-300?! I watched in horror and shock as I go from full HP to death in the span of 5 seconds. Truly, this game is just a pinnacle of fairness. Funny enough, all my bullshit deaths are due to thunder based attacks.

Okay, back to Arkham City, I recorded 3 deaths due to unfairness. One death is because in Predator mode, a bad guy decided to take a hostage, so I jumped down and attempt to stealth takedown him because I don't want him to shoot her, but Batman won't do that. Hey Batman, that guy has a gun trained on her head, and he will blow it if he sees you. So, the hostage lose her head and I have to start the segment all over again, but this time, I just straight up punch that douche's face and stomp on his dick, and it worked. The other two deaths are simply because The Riddler fucking cheats like a fucking fuckers! Even a good game still fall under the curse of unfairness.

To be fair, my other deaths are because of my mistake. I lost one of the last combat in the game because the enemies has armors, shields, and stun baton. So after I restarted, I began to play smarter and instant KO the armored enemies and Disarm and Destroy those annoying objects and I beat that segment with no trouble after that.

I would like to play Batman: Arkham Origin, but for some reason that I don't understand, I can't open that game anymore after I played Batman: Arkham City. And I can't play Batman: Arkham Knight because my laptop are weak (seriously, I can't play Rabi-Ribi without the game committing pseudo bullet-time during any spellcards), that game is porting disaster, It's so goddamn expensive, and I don't have PS4.

But strangely, despite me having a blast at that game, I feel... dull. Sure I love that game and I can't stop playing it, but part of me don't have interest playing it. Sure I'm not distrubing my roommate with all my screaming due to a 'certain games', sure that it's not as bullshit as that 'certain game'. Does that mean... I actually like that 'certain game'?

[Hanzo K.]

You're just still riding the waves of having just finished it for the most part(postgame content excluded), so that's probably it.
I mean, it's been a constant(anger-inducing) companion for some time, and now that the journey's finally over, nothing is the same.

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

Have you played Arkham Asylum before it? It has questionable (read: terrible and cliche) boss battle design, but otherwise is amazingly atmospheric and is one of my top favorite games, period. Arkham City onwards very much actionized the series and toned down the atmospheric horror and puzzle-solving of it. I'd say if Arkham Origins isn't gelling with you, give it a while, and by that I mean back away from the Arkham games for a while and come back to it later. Jumping in with the expectations City gives will guarantee disappointment. Treating it as entirely its own game using the engine and assets of the Arkham games, however, will fare it much better. (Personally, I wasn't impressed on my first playthrough and totally loved it on my New Game Plus run. Same with Arkham Knight, which was completely an action game and like nothing else besides obligatory Riddles. You gotta know what to expect, none of the games are quite alike.)

(Don't bother with Arkham Origins: Blackgate, though. Think crappy low-budget Metroidvania aaaaaand that's about it.)

I also found it a good deal more entertaining to play with the First Appearance Batman skin enabled. It's low-budget and silly and thus makes a lot more sense for his early years than having badass armor he later discards for underwear that he later replaces with extremely similar badass armor.

Speaking of replays, finishing up Assassin's Creed III again. I wondered why I stopped playing after this one, and going through The Tyranny of King Washington reminds me exactly why; for once, they stopped being so agonizingly self-serious with the conspiracy theory patchwork plot and just went completely off the rails. Alternate history, there's superpowers, the Assassin/Templar conflict isn't even mentioned (those two names aren't even ever said), and ridiculously badass stuff that, for whatever reason, they didn't feel was worth ever doing again. Fine by me. It's a perfect finale, very unique among the series (and games overall), and really hard to top.

Plus everything they wanted to do with the story from that point on, they just, uh... didn't. So it ends up subjecting the AC series to the LOST effect (or the ME3 effect) of souring pretty much the whole thing from knowing the culmination of it all is "yeah we have no idea either, actually". At least I still get to transform into an eagle and punch Ben Franklin in midair. Video games!

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

So after a frustrating time in Dungeon Travelers 2 (goddamn Wyvern Riders behind a one-way door in an Anti-Magic Zone), I've picked up Dustforce.

Oh dear god now I remember why I hated Dustforce back when I first got it. The fact that sloped corners have like five different behaviors depending on how you land on them and multiple different modifications they do to your momentum, jump ability, and other things...

Somehow I still have a couple of Red Keys.

[theshirn]

help I am playing eou2 with five sovereigns

just beat flame demon

heeeeelllllp ;_;

[commandercool]

I have a buddy who's a huge fan of Psychonauts and insisted that I had to play it and that it's one of the best games ever, so I bought it a few days ago and have been messing around with it. It's... Pretty good I guess? The level of attention to detail is incredible, although the pacing and most of the mechanics don't do much for me.

Just now I got to The Milkman Conspiracy, which is one of the two things everyone talks about in Psychonauts. And yeah, it is really funny and interesting so far, but again the mechanics are kind of irritating and all of the crazy camera angles actually made me physically ill after half an hour or so and I had to stop playing. I hope I'm almost done with this segment because I'm not looking forward to much more of that. And given that this game is paced horribly I assume there's like an hour of rolling around with the screen spinning left to go...

[Reddyne]

Bravely Second done! Not as good as the first but that's mostly in terms of music. A handful of little problems were easily dismissed by how much I was enjoying the new classes and characters. Now I'm out to finish Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia before DQ7 for the 3DS comes stateside.

Trails in the Sky is going to have to wait patiently as XCOM 2 proved so addicting that I pretty much rage quit my imperfect run for a new one. Alien Hunters DLC should be treated like endgame material.

I ain't afraid of no necropost, but I'm pulling double duty and posting my 4JF post-mortem here.

I am eating a whole lot of humble pie over red mages. They really and truly suck. Their magic damage falls to miserable levels before you even get out of world 1 and only gets worse from there. They (obviously) don't get any of the good knight-only weapons, and their hp is in the toilet big time. I thought dualcast was going to make a difference, but 2 times 0 is still 0. To wit, dualcasting Fira with the magus rod - a rod that boosts elemental magic - only dealt a sum of about 1k damage to a single target. About the only thing they proved good for was a low level heal bot and a magic ability to dump on my berserker to boost their stats for the rune axe.

Meanwhile, samurai is just a great class. The damage output with normal attacks isn't actually outstanding due to the limited number of weapons they get, but was really mitigated with crits. With good HP, heavy armor, and shields, they are solid tanks. !Zeninage was great for insane amounts of damage whenever needed. Also, !Iainuki was just plain broken. I stopped using physical attacks as soon as I got it, although admittedly that wasn't until immediately after world 2 Exdeath.

My other teammates were berserker and chemist, which I've covered before. Berserker is a dull but solid tank/damage class and the death sickle made a huge difference this time around. Chemist is great for mixing and having !Mix on two different characters made every win an inevitability. Shinryu was killed on a whim, and NED was taken out with one restart because he was clairvoyant with White Hole or whatever that crap is. Whoops.

Good to see that the donation total went so above and beyond what it was last year. Hopefully next year I'll have a good bit more free time to doodle around with the game.

PS: An unlimited source of 9999 damage to all targets on a hasted character is totally not broken.

help I am playing eou2 with five sovereigns

Man, I gotta get back around to the first. Right after OoE, then DQ7, then SMT4, then I need to restart because I am foolish and reclassed.  :fail:

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

I love how I can just use the brrrrt brrrt brrrrrt against ships and if my opponents don't realize I'm doing it (either because of ally distraction or they're all Attackers), I deal so much that I can practically melt nearly any one ship to slag in a single pass. Five machine guns with M level MGP and L level guns wrecks stuff like no one's business. I cannot imagine how crazy it would get if L MGP was a thing, or if I could get LL guns along with MGP.

[Raikaria]

I pulled off two really stylish kills in Evolve by complete accident.

- I am Golaith. The enemy EMET is at low HP and flying away. I throw a rock into the air hoping to hit him out of the sky but miss since he runs out of fuel and starts to drop. I proceed to charge into him as he is falling and the charge carries him into the falling rock.

- I am Renagade Abe. We're wrecking the enemy monster, a Meteor Golaith, who's only Stage 1. I jetpack boost to close the gap and dodge his leap, and fire my shotgun at the same time. The monster lost a ton of health and died; so I can only imagine that I managed to time it such that a lot of the pellets were headshots. As both of us were flying through the air past each other at high speed.

Why do I do awesome things by complete accident?

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

I'm getting way too tense in close matches in Overwatch. After two matches, I'm already tired. Probably doesn't help that it almost always ends up very close.

My store didn't get Project Diva X on PS4 today, so I'm going to have to go back tomorrow (today for some of you) and return the "reserve" Vita copy they accidentally gave me for the one I paid for.

Also, Dustforce. No clue how you're supposed to clear one of the Lab levels, at all.