What games are you currently playing?

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I will be enjoying Destiny. Too bad, I heard PC players got shafted hard.

Yep, no PC version in the works at all.

Bungie said they haven't ruled it out, but they are no plans for one at this time. My guess is it does come out like a year or so later. The seething rage from the "PC Masterrace" Nazis is just pure bliss. That's what happens for being assholes

[Melody]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Yep, no PC version in the works at all.

Bungie said they haven't ruled it out, but they are no plans for one at this time. My guess is it does come out like a year or so later. The seething rage from the "PC Masterrace" Nazis is just pure bliss. That's what happens for being assholes

I've stopped caring about PC players altogether. They all have a hivemind mentality about PC gaming, so no point in wasting my time or effort into trying to dissuade them that it doesn't matter what system a game is played on. If they want to stick to their bells and whistles, let them. It's more money coming out of their pocket when new parts and series come out. Not mine. If people can invest in a PC and afford everything it has to offer, then good for them. But oddly enough when I do Titan EX with PC players, they all go, "I lagged." when they get ripped apart by Weights. Then I go, "PC or Console?" They respond, "PC." Then I go, "I'm on PS3." they then go silent in shame. Yes PC master race, but it doesn't matter if you have shit for internet. Which is what most PC players have.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Picked up Transistor at 25% off. Started playing yesterday. So good.

This was me during the intro, though.

[Nandito]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Ha, my thoughts exactly. I'm familiar with stories starting at the mid-way point, but it felt like it really threw you in there.

I'm currently playing through Broken Age, where once again I just want to walk up to Tim Schafer and give him a big ol' hug. Dude hasn't lost his touch on adventure games.

[Melody]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Tried out the new Strider game. I was heart broken.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So Lightning Returns is nearly as bad as the media made it out to be.

Is it great? Not really, but it's not horrible either. Definitely not what most would expect of the franchise, and I'm glad this is the end of this series but I'm not hating it.

It's kinda like playing Majora's mask but with a lot more time.

[Melody]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So Lightning Returns is nearly as bad as the media made it out to be.

Is it great? Not really, but it's not horrible either. Definitely not what most would expect of the franchise, and I'm glad this is the end of this series but I'm not hating it.

It's kinda like playing Majora's mask but with a lot more time.

Don't insult Majora's Mask please.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

So Lightning Returns is nearly as bad as the media made it out to be.

Is it great? Not really, but it's not horrible either. Definitely not what most would expect of the franchise, and I'm glad this is the end of this series but I'm not hating it.

It's kinda like playing Majora's mask but with a lot more time.

People don't use cult classics as drink coasters, though.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

People don't use cult classics as drink coasters, though.

Well, it depends on whether they're in the "cult" in question.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I've been saying what Mal said about XIII-3 for a while, and most of the people that actually played XIII-3 have agreed with me. It does what it does well, and isn't a bad game. If you like the Tales of Series or Shin Megami Tensei, you will like XIII-3's combat system and plot respectively. It's also extremely non-linear for a JRPG.

Shame that saying the latest FF game isn't the worst FF game since XIV ARR/XIII-2/XIV/XIII/XII/X-2/XI/X/IX/VIII/VII makes me a dishonest SE shill or something.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

The best FF right now is Bravely Default. It happens to be loved for being the traditional FF everyone wanted but FFXIII as a whole wasn't. SE just decided one day, based on nothing, that we didn't want games like that anymore. It took Nintendo taking on publishing, localization and marketing duties for SE to even see people wanted this - and keep in mind Nintendo themselves needed to be shown the demand for Xenoblade, TLS and other games before they budged on them.

Nintendo actually gave BD more marketing than Fire Emblem or Xenoblade, too.

Market and release what people want ant they'll show up to buy your game. Copiously market something people already hate/are tired of and you eventually get the opposite effect.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I've been saying what Mal said about XIII-3 for a while, and most of the people that actually played XIII-3 have agreed with me. It does what it does well, and isn't a bad game. If you like the Tales of Series or Shin Megami Tensei, you will like XIII-3's combat system and plot respectively. It's also extremely non-linear for a JRPG.

Shame that saying the latest FF game isn't the worst FF game since XIV ARR/XIII-2/XIV/XIII/XII/X-2/XI/X/IX/VIII/VII makes me a dishonest SE shill or something.

Yeah that's the weird thing, after how linear the previous 2 games were XIII-3 ends up being the most non-linear entry in the series not including XI and XIV. I'm honestly enjoying it, and Lightning doesn't come off as bitchy as she did in the 1st game either. The fights do get rather annoying though at times. I mean, I'm playing on Easy Mode purely because I'm trophy hunting and just looking to finish the plot of this series, but even on Easy it's like "Wtf why are some mobs this hard?!".

I dunno, staggering just seemed a hell of a lot easier in the other 2 games. And it's not like I've been slacking either, my abilities and garments/gear are up to date it's just simply that some mobs take forever to kill, especially mechanical ones. Also whoever set up the timings for the perfect hits needs to be fired - I *still* can't get the timing down and it's not because of HD lag. I can combo just fine in games like GoW, DMC etc. the timing window is just plain bad. I've tried hitting the button just as the animation hits the target (which I think is supposed to be right) or just as the numbers flash, or just prior to hitting etc. etc. it's just dumb. Perfect Blocks I can do OK, but physical and magical attacks seem to just happen at random.

It shouldn't be this difficult to get the rhythm down. And it's infuriating because perfect strikes do a LOT more damage/stagger.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Hit boxes do seem a bit off in the game in general to be honest. Then again "Tales of" always had shocking hitboxes and the battle system was torn straight from there so ...Yeah...

It seems that focused more on the plot really and letting you get out there an explore the world, everything had a very SMT esque feel to it and at times it felt more like a SMT-lite game than SMT IV did (one of the major things that bugs me about SMT IV).

Since I'm on the subject of pointing out poor game design choices from the Novus thread, I'll point out two massive flaws in SMT IV that reviewers constantly overlook: The battle system and the system to recruit demons, two massive things in an SMT game (yes I did finally import a US version of it not long before the EU version was announced ).

Okay first the combat: it's extremely dumbed down compared to games like Nocturne or DDS There is no defensive stat whatsoever so there is basically no choice in build type. You pump Magic because it's SMT, Magic is always going to be stupidly OP, and Agility to abuse the Press Turn System. There might as well be no other stat in the game. Plus there is no defensive stat, something that is a big deal in this sort of game. Why? Because HP scales in a linear fashion. Anyone that has played D&D before will tell you there is a point where pretty much everything is "Save or Die" because damage outfit far outstrips HP for just about everything. It is the same in SMT IV, except this happens as soon as you're out of Naraku (the first dungeon of the game). There is no challenge in a game where you can kill a boss before it acts, something that happens VERY often in this game. There's as no sense of being challenged where the only way to die in the game is to be unlucky and have the demon party move first. Nine times out of ten you will have wiped before you can act. It means there's little point in bothering with status buffs, a requirement in any other SMT game because any turn wasted not doing damage is one turn closer to giving the enemy party a turn and dying horribly. No wonder Charon lets you open up a tab.

Okay the Demon Recruitment. I love the dialogue. The dialogue and conversations are excellent, and I love demons trying to bribe ME not to kill them or seeing them sacrifice allies to get away from me. That part of the game is fantastic and would love to see more of in SMT games. The issue is again, RNG. Everything about it is random. In other SMT games with a conversation system, demons all had their own personality types and you had to pick what you said carefully. Here? Not so much. It doesn't matter what you pick, the reaction will always be completely random. You can have a conversation going perfectly well and the demon will suddenly attack or run off. You will pick the same options next time, except the first option will have the demon randomly kick off and attack you. Bluffing is completely random as well to . The game tries to tell you that certain demons can't be bluffed, yet the I must have been rolling 20's when reruiting a demon on the train to ork that was supposed to be one of the smart "unbluffable types". And yes, I did try it a few more times and got pretty much random results.

Don't get me wrong, I love the rest of SMT IV and it is a very good game. The soundtrack is beautiful, the voice acting and dialogue is great, the themes of the game are sure to get you thinking, and you will giggle every time you appraise a relic and discover an "Adult Toy" and "Battery" and bring them back to Mikado. Every time. Trust me. Just remember you are buying a Rocket Tag Simulator that feels more SMT Lite than anything else.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Oh yeah the other irritating thing I just looked up is apparently I can't upgrade any of my gear until I'm on NG+, and ONLY if I beat the final boss on the previous run.

Gee, thanks Kitase. Good thing I'm playing this game for free lol. It's not terrible, but nowhere near the price of a AAA title.


Speaking of game balance ideas, Diablo 3's got another major patch in the works that's looking to be a lot of fun (they're adding ladder essentially + some other big balance changes). Destiny beta is in 2 weeks as well and I'm hoping they actually put in some help text or w/e telling you how to actually develop your characters this time. I didn't appreciate all my skills unlocking seemingly at random, and would have preferred just a traditional skill tree ala borderlands 2 - because it IS a skill tree, you just have to do god only knows what (because the game doesn't fucking tell you) to unlock each category on top of leveling up for the points to spend.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Okay first the combat: it's extremely dumbed down compared to games like Nocturne or DDS There is no defensive stat whatsoever so there is basically no choice in build type. You pump Magic because it's SMT, Magic is always going to be stupidly OP, and Agility to abuse the Press Turn System. There might as well be no other stat in the game. Plus there is no defensive stat, something that is a big deal in this sort of game. Why? Because HP scales in a linear fashion. Anyone that has played D&D before will tell you there is a point where pretty much everything is "Save or Die" because damage outfit far outstrips HP for just about everything. It is the same in SMT IV, except this happens as soon as you're out of Naraku (the first dungeon of the game). There is no challenge in a game where you can kill a boss before it acts, something that happens VERY often in this game. There's as no sense of being challenged where the only way to die in the game is to be unlucky and have the demon party move first. Nine times out of ten you will have wiped before you can act. It means there's little point in bothering with status buffs, a requirement in any other SMT game because any turn wasted not doing damage is one turn closer to giving the enemy party a turn and dying horribly. No wonder Charon lets you open up a tab.

Okay the Demon Recruitment. I love the dialogue. The dialogue and conversations are excellent, and I love demons trying to bribe ME not to kill them or seeing them sacrifice allies to get away from me. That part of the game is fantastic and would love to see more of in SMT games. The issue is again, RNG. Everything about it is random. In other SMT games with a conversation system, demons all had their own personality types and you had to pick what you said carefully. Here? Not so much. It doesn't matter what you pick, the reaction will always be completely random. You can have a conversation going perfectly well and the demon will suddenly attack or run off. You will pick the same options next time, except the first option will have the demon randomly kick off and attack you. Bluffing is completely random as well to . The game tries to tell you that certain demons can't be bluffed, yet the I must have been rolling 20's when reruiting a demon on the train to ork that was supposed to be one of the smart "unbluffable types". And yes, I did try it a few more times and got pretty much random results.

Don't get me wrong, I love the rest of SMT IV and it is a very good game. The soundtrack is beautiful, the voice acting and dialogue is great, the themes of the game are sure to get you thinking, and you will giggle every time you appraise a relic and discover an "Adult Toy" and "Battery" and bring them back to Mikado. Every time. Trust me. Just remember you are buying a Rocket Tag Simulator that feels more SMT Lite than anything else.

There's lots of choices on build types, but mainline SMT, even DDS and Devil Survivor you're going to want to cover Physical/Almighty builds on the protagonist because you're the most consistent in being able to get those abilities and what demons get is hit or miss on those categories. AGI still matters, but about as much as it did in Strange Journey. This is because in Nocturne and DDS you could abuse the hell out of the AGI stat and Sukukaja to dance around most things enemies threw at you. Strange Journey said nuts to that and created Silent Prayer (Dekaja + Dekunda to both sides) to punish anyone that tried to stack buffs like that four times, it triggers on some bosses in SJ and SMT IV the second you fire off Acid Breath or War Cry twice or -kaja's four times.

Buffs still matter a great deal, its just you have to be more moderate in their use with SJ or SMT IV. Not using them at all in endgame boss fights is practically suicidal. Also, keep in mind they shifted to handhelds for these games of late - meaning bosses with tens of thousands of HP is just kind of a jerk thing to be. The Arcangels, Masthema and a lot of other fights will still pound you good.

Also, demon conversations are a random, mixed bag in everything but the older SMT games, the PSX Personas, Strange Journey and the Devil Summoner series. SJ was very alignment focused in its negotiation tactics. If you knew what being Light-Chaos or Dark-Neutral meant, you could get the demon of that alignment to warm up to you most of the time - though some would jump to "ME LIKE YOU, HAVE THIS!" before you could ever get deeper into negotiation, so still just a touch of randomness.

SMT IV, Nocturne and everything else you might have some conversations exclusive to demon families, but they're still not playing by alignments and they're still really random. Alignments only mattered to the player in Nocturne, not demons in the slightest. Some of those demons just had a few particular tastes and gauging them was really hard.

SMT IV is a little easier than SJ, which feels a bit tougher than Nocturne and DDS because you can't abuse press turn system and need a party with compatible alignments to exploit Demon Co-Op instead. Even so, getting there takes tons of work and is about as common as getting a full-party smirk going in SMT IV.

If there was any part of SMT IV that made things too easy, it was being able to pass on most of the traits you wanted in demon fusion to the resulting demon, with few exceptions.

That said, look forward to Persona 5 adding Silent Prayer and Luster Candy to its repertoire. And likely the updated skill inheritance system.