What games are you currently playing?

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Why exactly does everyone hate episode 2 so much?

Am I the only one who liked it despite all it's flaws? If nothing else the art style was spectacular and I wish they'd stuck with it. Though 3 actually did a decent job of mixing the two (I still don't like how they went back to giving Shion that baby face... @.@ she was beautiful in Ep 2)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

The art style was horribly inconsistent in contrast to what they started with. It was nothing more than an attempt to pander to the western market to gain more sales rather than actually improve what worked.

The gameplay is not even worthy of being called that. There is no class identity at all between the characters.

For a game that was aping FFX so hard out the gate, they forgot that giving different characters different skills starting out is a way to define characters. Wakka was my enfeebler and attacked aerial mobs, Auron fought armored mobs, Rikku dismantles machines. These characters have an identity and a purpose. No one in Xenosaga II has that out the gate.

Yet in the previous game, Shion and Momo were defined support charaters. KOS-MOS and Ziggy were your heavy-hitters. Junior was the ranged attack while chaos was an all-arounder. Xenosaga II dropped that for no good reason.

Even if you're not going to determine a characters in terms of strength, there are ways to define them as things other tahn an all-arounder. In Digital Devil Saga, Serph has a strong affinity to ice and is weak to fire. I can build him any direction I want from his starting ice magic, but why not take him further along that path first and eventually consider learning fire skills that lead to voiding his weakness to fire through that?

I mean, if the enemy lands fire on him, they get an extra turn to attack him or someone else, so its in my best interest to prevent that, right? That's a goal to have for that character and part of what will make him grow differently, though I could also just ram him down a melee skill path if I wanted to as well.

[Tickmeoff]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Why exactly does everyone hate episode 2 so much?

Trash battle system.

Every character made the same as far as combat is concerned.

DISGUSTING load times. Why the hell did it take 10-15 seconds for a battle to load, another 5 seconds for each enemy and character to load one at a time and then another 10 seconds before the music starts and you can actually fight?


What the hell is there to like? They did everything so wrong it seems like they were trying to ruin the entire series in a single stroke.

[Mhurron]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

As said, the battle system blew. Battles, EVERY BATTLE, were slow, tedious and uninteresting. The art style was bad on its own and down right horrible on it's own taken between the other two. The skill system, where you needed one type of point to spend on abilities and another to bump you up an orbit was retarded, there were not enough sources of the second type.

They castrated KOS-MOS.

It made no sense that suddenly I'm so damn weak because Episode II starts 1 second after Episiode II ends. It's past the year 2000, we live in the future now. We can have a game scale it's mobs and read the save games of previous games to create a consistent universe.

Oh, and about that story there. No Gnosis. No instead of this menace to the universe that we have going on here we're going to focus on something relatively trivial to the overall story and watch Jr. fall in love for the first time.

I only played Episode II so I would know what was going on. If I hadn't heard really good things about Ep3 from people who though Ep2 was just as shitty as I did, I wouldn't have played it as long as I did. Though as I said, it doesn't matter really what happens in Ep2 because so little of it is relevant to the Xenosaga universe.

The one redeeming feature of Ep2 was the opening movie. You sit there, watch that and thing, 'awesome, I'm in for another great story,' and then it's all down hill really fast from there.

It could have been so good ...

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I never quite understood how bad sportsmanship became such a norm for these sorts of online games. Didn't Microsoft/Bungie even say how they felt trash talking your opponent was part of the Halo experience?

Regardless, it's why I can't bring myself to play online FPS.

It's why I rarely use my mic on XBox Live. It's like Gamespot but with sound.

Then you play an FPS and it turns into 4chan with sound...

[Mhurron]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

It's why I rarely use my mic on XBox Live.

No one would be able to understand you anyway.

[Firewind]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

No one would be able to understand you anyway.

[Durahansolo]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

It's why I rarely use my mic on XBox Live. It's like Gamespot but with sound.

Then you play an FPS and it turns into 4chan with sound...

lol.

I started playing Phantasy Star 0 online yesterday with a friend of mine, and I really like it. The only thing I didn't like was that a few of the mobs move a little too fast to get out of the way on the small screen of the DS lol. I don't know how many times I lost sight of the dragon I was fighting, and missed swings because of the hit detection not locking on. Other than those two problems, IMO it played very similar to PSO. By the time I quit playing last night, I was level 7 and my mag was like level 12ish. My mag learned its power so I was happy about that. There are also a decent number of drops from each case that appears when you clear an area.

I was playing as a HUmar, and my friend was playing as a Cast. Before I logged off last night, he said he was going to raise a FOnewm as well to play with.

One thing I was glad about was that even though I died 3 times along the way, I didn't drop my weapon or meseta like on PSO. It was also incredibly funny trying to write chat notes with the Stylis. "TRAP!" and "LOL" were two of the most used while we were playing yesterday lol. One of the funniest moments of last night was when we got to a place where we were previously killed, I said "This is where we died last time." My friend replied "Here?", I said "Next room". While I was looking through my inventory to change weapons, I look up on the screen and see "LEROY JENKINS!" and him running into the next area.

[Ufgt]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Afro Samurai
Red Faction: Guerilla
Heroes of Newerth

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I'm not even going to try to defend 2's battle system it was garbage (though they did improve on the Mech combat and tone down the Gnosis who IMO were way the hell too strong in the original for most of the game) but I still enjoyed the art style & plot.

I actually found 3's battle system almost to be worse though quite frankly. At least in two your characters were effective in a fight. In 3 it was as if it didn't matter what kind of specialization or upgrades I had, the enemies were always just too strong. I beat it just fine, but the entire time I was wondering why my counter-attacks (some attacks did extra dmg to diff targets) barely did any extra damage, even with a high STR character like Kos-Mos or Jin.

At least the story was fairly epic in all 3 games. Just wish they hadn't censored the NA release of 3. Honestly wtf was that about?

[Durahansolo]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Speaking of Xenosaga, I remember back in the day when there was a topic on gamefaqs listing all 100+ of MOMO's panty shots during cutscenes.

[Malacite]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Am I the only one who really didn't like MOMO at all? I swear the whole time I was just thinking to myself how ridiculously out of place she was (in terms of being another anime stereotype thrown in). Oh dear God it just hit me... she's a loli version of R2D2 (kinda)

[Khalus]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Trine ~ Its actually quite fun and a great waste of time!

[DakAttack]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

I recently finished Dragon Age: Origins, and it was a blast. I didn't think I'd like it, and I'd heard some terrible things about it, but it was awesome.

The dwarf noble's origin story completely blew my mind. I felt genuinely betrayed, and all I could think about was revenge. I've started a few new characters since then so I haven't gotten around to that revenge yet, but it's still on my list. I actually felt torn between two choices during the magi origin story. I wanted to stick to my principles,but I could rationalize both choices. In the end it doesn't really matter, you're conscripted into the Grey Wardens, but it really sets the mood for the entire game and asks a lot of questions. You'll revisit characters and elements from your origin story, and, whether you know it or not, every other origin story as well. It's a well written story that I haven't experienced outside of some of my favorite books.

I was very pleased to see that I could effect the approval ratings of my allies. It was difficult to balance what I wanted to do and how that would make everybody feel. Sten and Morrigan never agreed with any of my decisions, and it seemed like Alistair was only ever disapproving. He never approved of the good things I did, but always disapproved of the bad. I wanted to tell Sten that if he wanted to kill demons so bad, maybe he should ask to be traded to From Software so he can appear in the next Demon's Souls. Morrigan disagreed with what I did so much that I wondered why she was even in this game, but she came around eventually. I really enjoyed giving people gifts and getting into the romance. Morrigan was a tough nut to crack, but in the end she was easily bedded. All the while, she's joking around with Sten about bedding down with him. From what I overheard, Qunari love-making is basically going crazy and raping somebody. After it was all said and done, I was really disappointed that Morrigan left at the end. It made sense, but it didn't feel good. Rarely, can a game do that to me. I'm sure I'll catch up with her in the sequel.

I really didn't enjoy the class system, though it wasn't as limiting as I first thought. I'm a big treasure hunter, but my first choice was a warrior, and I was really disappointed that I had absolutely no way of picking locks until I recruiting a rogue. When I decided to create a rogue, for that very reason, I was disappointed that they were basically stripped down warriors. But, at least they didn't automatically assign my first talent point in something I didn't want. At first I went with daggers, but when I realized they were rather weak and very rarely had slots for enchanting, I pumped points into strength and began wielding other weapons and wearing heavier armor. I was a warrior that could pick locks and totally wail on a guy from behind, or if he were stunned. When I started a mage, all their spells were rather uninteresting. I decided to go with fire and soon found out that many things are immune to fire. I kept Morrigan in my party hoping we could "mix" spells, or whatever, but it never happened. That was rather disappointing. The skills were also disappointing, because they never really amounted to much, except for coercion, the battle one, and tactic slots. Making poitions and poisons wasn't any fun, and, though I used a lot of potions, poisons never crossed my mind.

The fighting was so flawed, that I said to hell with it, and set the difficulty to casual. I don't understand how the challenge is fair if I'm not given adequate tools. In the beginning, there are far too few tactics slots. I have to micromanage every little thing everybody does, but they wont do it themselves. I need a slot or two for using recovery items, one or two for activating modes, and another four or five for using different skills or spells depending on the situation. That's about nine, when in the beginning you're only given four or five. It forces you to skip on a few things which puts you at a huge disadvantage. It's almost insulting to think they thought we wouldn't mind developing this character to our personal tastes and then watching him or her ignore almost all of our work. It really clashed with the immersion these characters brought outside of battle. Beyond that, there were still dozens of bugs. Stunned enemies not being stunned. Allies standing around after being given orders. Not being able to attack somebody despite standing right next to them. Overall, it was sluggish, which didn't work well with the amount of micromanaging required. I liked the finishing moves, but I usually couldn't tell what they were doing. It wouldn't be terrible if they really zoomed in and highlighted it in a cinematic way. The whole thing could have been a little bit more cinematic. I really hope to see characters that can take care of themselves, next time. I want to personalize them, and see them excel on the battlefield. I don't want to see them doddle around.

The quests, besides the main storyline, were never completely explained. Oh, somebody is missing, find them. Will you? Is that something you can do right now, or will it just happen sometime in the future? Yes and no? I was asked to give correspondences to five men, four or which I could find after accepting the task. The fifth, I found after furthering the plot. In another task I was ask to rid bandits from the back-alleys, and after clearing out the two available to the task was still incomplete. I never did find any other bandits in that city. Sometimes I would accept quests without any input on my part, and they would be entered into my codex as if I didn't have a choice. I really hated seeing them there, which was the only reason why I completed them. Although, those were usually the ones that could be completed in the same area they were found in, but it included extra legwork.

I liked the way characters could tell you they were taking you somewhere, or that you should go there immediately, and you were automatically transported there without any legwork. There was a lot of running around to do. Unfortunately, that same mechanic could be used against you. Because enemies took a long time to realize they had died and update quests, drop loot, etc, and after killing a boss an NPC might appear that whisks you away before you can claim the prize. You'd have to walk all the way back to where you kill the boss just to retrieve it. Sometimes, you'd stand around a body for a few minutes before being able to loot them. That's way too long.

Besides all of that, I couldn't put the game down. The story-telling really pulled me in. I know that if I hadn't set the difficulty to casual I would have lost my mind, and I would have never seen the entire game. I usually play everything on the hardest difficulty, but I'm glad I didn't.

[Rostum]

Re: What games are you currently playing?

Trine ~ Its actually quite fun and a great waste of time!

That game is so beautiful, and it's a lot of fun.