Today I finished Life Is Strange (2015).

I'm sure a few weeks or months from now, after visiting Youtube critiques and forum posts about the game, I'll begin to see it in a more cynical and less fanboyish light, but for now, I am still in love... and heartbroken too. The characters are all rather cliche, but I think they're meant to be, so I don't really care. The game made me feel emotions I hadn't felt since The Witcher 3, I loved each episode and the final one was absolutely devastating, my eyes haven't dried yet.

Don't think I'll be playing it again. I can't. Like almost every other truly amazing work of art I've experienced in life (especially interactive works of art), I don't think I can go back to it. That would be like having a 2nd wedding with my wife, the magic just wouldn't be there. I loved it, adored it, it broke me and uplifted me, but I won't ever visit it again precisely because it was so good. I guess Life Is just Strange like that.

Written by Mercurial on 20.06.2019 at 14:38

Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night

Was pretty good, but fell off on the second half a bit, where the dev team obviously stopped designing new enemies and just opted for reskins. Some of the later areas just feel a bit bland compared to the earlier ones too.

Hard as nails by the end as well. The difficulty really ramps up if you go for the proper ending (which you should as like the other games it adds many more hours of gameplay). Some of the bosses, especially the optional ones, are pretty absurd. It's no Symphony of the Night but there's a fuck ton of fan service and item content going on. Also, good music as you would expect.

Doom - the original . Forgot how simple it was and fun to play. still playing with training wheels but will ramp up the difficulty once completely back to mid-90's form.

The co-op of Doom is a blast too.

I'm currently playing Persona Q2 for the 3DS, probably the last "big title" for that platform. Nice dungeon crawler, but it is kind of lame that they didn't bother getting the English voice actors for the characters.

Remnant: From the Ashes

This could actually be the first really good Souls-inspired game. Only plonked about 3 hours into it but definitely digging it. I guess it could be loosely called Soulsborne with guns. It has stamina, rolling with iframes, "estus" recovery and "bonfires," and is pretty hard, but deviates in terms of the fact it's mostly played at long range. The combat is split between one handed weapons. i.e. pistols, two handed, i.e rifles, and melee weapons, and there seems to be a reasonable variety of weapons, armour, accessories and perks. The aesthetic and technical visual side of it is pretty good, kinda post-apocalyptic + interdimensional monsters. Closer to Bloodborne than Souls, but not quite the same as Bloodborne. Combat itself is fairly simple but feels very mechanically solid, and although you can melee in this game I can't imagine anyone other than challenge players would really rely on it.

I think how good this is in the long run will depend on how the procedural generation and enemy variety holds up, but so far so good.


[UPDATE]

Yeah, it's a solid game, but the randomly generated levels don't really carry this, like all other procedurally generated games you start to recognise segments here and there and it becomes a bit artless. Also, the bosses aren't great. Because the game is ammo based, bosses need to constantly respawn enemies for you to kill to get ammo, so it seems like every boss is just an add-fest.

Lately I have been playing Victoria 2. It's a fun little game by paradox that centers on the century between 1836 and 1936. I'm currently playing through as Russia and have half of Africa colonized....

It's a fun game if you like grand strategy games and are not afraid of messy menus.

Control

Wow, I actually quite liked this one. Not perfect, but I finished it so that's kind of rare these days. Visually great, especially with ray tracing, and nice use of sort of brutalist architecture and stark, colourful lighting which make it feel really alien and otherworldy in many places, especially in some of the larger locations which have an impressive sense of scale. I also liked the world (building) design. Almost like Dark Souls or Metroidvania-esque, but not quite imo. Just very labyrinthine, with lots of verticality, hidden areas and secrets.

Main story was fine, not sure it was the best told, partly because the main character really doesn't have any personality to speak of, but the alternate dimension / being setting and premise was intriguing. Where game really shone was with the amount of background, SCP inspired lore found through memos, case files and the like, and the live action scenes featuring a weird, unsettling kids show called "Threshold Kids," and the scientist, elaborating on the primary and peripheral elements, with lots of humour. Ahti, the janitor was the best, and most mysterious character by a long shot and I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much without his inclusion. Some of the unique side quests were well done too, seems to be a lot of content in the game. Definitely a 20+ hour game if you explore.

Gameplay was pretty fun. Repetitive, but somehow didn't get too boring, mainly because of the endless destructibility of the environment was always a great spectacle and hurling stuff at people while levitating is a nice power trip. Many of the set pieces were well done, the best probably being a bit near the end of the game, where you fight your way through an ever shifting, Inception like maze and the sound is drowned out in favour of a pretty epic, cheesy 8 minute long alt-prog song (seems to be by Poets Of The Fall). Really cool.

Got back to playing Final Fantasy VI.

As per usual with this game, some things are amazing and others are not. The famous and much-lauded opera sequence has great music (Nobuo, duh), but the entirety of it is so contrived and pointless storywise that it's ridiculous. Celes just happens to look like Maria and just happens to be capable of performing operatic vocals. Setzer just happens to own the world's only airship and just happens to want to kidnap Maria at the exact moment when the party arrives and needs an airship. Also, Setzer is dumb enough to warn Maria of his plans... not to mention the rather disturbing idea that one of the game's supposed protagonists is a kidnapper LOL. The opera scene just seems like a cynical attempt at showing off technology and Nobuo's talents to me, it doesn't advance the plot, it has nothing in common thematically with Celes and Locke's potential romance and it all just comes across as too goddamn silly and over the top. It's one of those "let's put this in there because it will impress the easily impressed" moments.

On the other hand, discovering Terra's backstory is really interesting and I even enjoy the town of Zozo. Sure, the endless random battles can be annoying, but the atmosphere of the place is just so cool. As bizarre as it may sound, it's a really immersive location.

And now it's on to Vector.

Loved FF III (that's what it was for us) and loved the Opera scene. You're looking entirely from hindsight, at the time it was just a lot of fun and really different. It's a JRPG, ffs. Even now playing Yakuza 0 there are all sorts of oddities in the game that have fuck all to do with the plot, like karaoke, bowling and going into an arcade to play old video games from the 80s.

I don't doubt that FF VI was mind-blowing for its time; It's just not as perfect as many fans and critics claim it is. The praise thrown at the opera scene specifically is just one good example of how the game's quality has been exaggerated. I really like FF VI (not quite up to love) and I like the music of the opera scene, but that's about it. I don't see why a scene that has nothing to do with the main story and adds nothing to any of the characters should be seen as an all-time-classic scene.

Again, I like the game; I appreciate its pixel art design; I love the OST and the character interaction scenes are fantastically written. I'd rate it an 8/10 on a bad day and an 8.5/10 on a good day. It doesn't belong to my top 3 FF games' list however.

I've been playing a lot of Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger for SNES recently. Chrono Trigger in particular is one of my all-time favorite games independent of console or style. To this day I still can't find fault with anything other than I would have liked an option for open-world random battles because I like grinding and loot systems, but it's perfect in my eyes nevertheless.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 09.09.2019 at 01:19

I've been playing a lot of Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger for SNES recently. Chrono Trigger in particular is one of my all-time favorite games independent of console or style. To this day I still can't find fault with anything other than I would have liked an option for open-world random battles because I like grinding and loot systems, but it's perfect in my eyes nevertheless.

I hate to do this, but I'd hate myself even more if I didn't do it...

Here's an in-depth, incredibly well-detailed analysis of all of Chrono Trigger's many faults:

Written by Metren on 09.09.2019 at 02:31
Here's an in-depth, incredibly well-detailed analysis of all of Chrono Trigger's many faults:

I fundamentally disagree with the content creator's existence and refuse to acknowledge any of those talking points as anything other than slander for the purpose of generating views.

Reported for promoting terrorism.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 09.09.2019 at 02:53

Reported for promoting terrorism.

You forgot to thumbs down and unsubscribe.

Chrono Trigger is great, but Chrono Cross will always be my first love.

Haven't played FF 3/6 in many years, but I have to say the opera scene is one of the moments I remember the most. I keep meaning to replay it, but the game is a bit of a grind by today's standards.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 09.09.2019 at 01:19

I've been playing a lot of Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger for SNES recently. Chrono Trigger in particular is one of my all-time favorite games independent of console or style. To this day I still can't find fault with anything other than I would have liked an option for open-world random battles because I like grinding and loot systems, but it's perfect in my eyes nevertheless.

Great soundtracks also

For both of them

Written by Mercurial on 09.09.2019 at 11:23

Chrono Trigger is great, but Chrono Cross will always be my first love.

Haven't played FF 3/6 in many years, but I have to say the opera scene is one of the moments I remember the most. I keep meaning to replay it, but the game is a bit of a grind by today's standards.

Not really. I finished it with an under lv15 party once

The best things about Chrono Trigger are the music, character and world design and pacing. It's just a really fun game to play. The game's own specific explanation of how its time travel works makes the entire story impossible though and there are other problems with the time travel as well. This isn't nitpicky either, because time travel is the game's focus and major selling point. I also think most of the characters are very shallow from a literary standpoint. That said, CT is a good game, just not nearly as great as its reputation would suggest.

Change of topic

Did you guys hear about how Sabin is planning to suplex the FF VII remake hype train?

Few hours into Blasphemous now.

At the moment I think it's very good. Although I suspect that will change when it inevitably gets harder as it's already pretty challenging so far. Seems like a nice melding of Soulsborne with Metroidvania-esque mechanics, but the real draw is the immense Spanish religion / folklore-influenced pixel art style and setting, and the accompanying music. Lots of weird as fuck looking bosses and great landscapes, and it isn't afraid to be gory. Seems heavily invested in obscure side quests and lore too which is nice.

Also have Gears of War 4, then 5 downloading as I got a 3 month free subscription to the Xbox Game Pass for PC shenanigans for buying an AMD processor (seems like Netflix for PC games basically). That should also net me Outer Worlds when it comes out hopefully and seems to have a pretty good library.

4-5 h into Farcry 3

First time playing it and I quite like the game so far, having loads of fun with it.

Currently playing Code Vein. Anime meets Dark Souls

Written by Metren on 30.09.2019 at 20:05

4-5 h into Farcry 3

First time playing it and I quite like the game so far, having loads of fun with it.

That's the last one I played. I liked it a lot for a the first island, but when you get to the second one, for some reason enemies spot you much easier when stealthing. It annoyed me enough to stop playing as I lost my power trip lel

Octopath Traveller.

Quite likeable so far: lovely visual style and music, and enjoyable turn based battle system. I can tell this game is gonna be a long grind though. 11 hours in and only starting on my 5th hero. Have to wonder how long it'll maintain my interest as apparently the heroes' stories never join up, so feels a bit weird having a party who never interact. Guess we'll see.

Finished Gears 4. It's very ok. Kind of nothingy after a while as once you've played a few hours you've played pretty much the lot, but guess it was just about fun enough to finish. Will see how Gears 5 stands up to it, seems a bit better received.

Haven't finished Blasphemous yet, but it's kind of great to be honest. Feels hard, but in reality the bosses haven't taken more than one or two goes. Main difficulty comes from the all the death pits and spike traps about, but hasn't put me off. Will defo finish it at some point.

Written by Mercurial on 01.10.2019 at 21:19

That's the last one I played. I liked it a lot for a the first island, but when you get to the second one, for some reason enemies spot you much easier when stealthing. It annoyed me enough to stop playing as I lost my power trip lel

That's bad news for me, as I am already shit at stealth LOL. It's been so long since I played any FPS-type game that I am already having a somewhat difficult time conquering some enemy bases. And I am playing on easy mode. God, I suck.... maybe I should stick to JRPGs haha.

Written by Metren on 02.10.2019 at 00:19


That's bad news for me, as I am already shit at stealth LOL. It's been so long since I played any FPS-type game that I am already having a somewhat difficult time conquering some enemy bases. And I am playing on easy mode. God, I suck.... maybe I should stick to JRPGs haha.

Well nothing wrong with sticking it on easy mode (if it has one). I sometimes do just to get through a game.

Took a break from Farcry 3 to play some MGS V Phantom Pain. The opening is some of the craziest shit I've seen in ages and I am definitely having fun, I guess that's Kojima for You. I don't really understand much of what's going on though tbh, bc this is my first MGS game and I haven't bothered getting to know the lore/backstories.

Written by Metren on 04.10.2019 at 02:34

Took a break from Farcry 3 to play some MGS V Phantom Pain. The opening is some of the craziest shit I've seen in ages and I am definitely having fun, I guess that's Kojima for You. I don't really understand much of what's going on though tbh, bc this is my first MGS game and I haven't bothered getting to know the lore/backstories.

Don't worry, even if you played the other games it would still confound you. I'd recommend playing 3 and 1 and at least if you can, they kind of stand on their own and set up subsequent games, and they're the best. Phantom Pain isn't bad, just gets a bit open world syndrome after a while. It's brilliant mechanically though, just super well refined and plays really well. I just wish it had more guided, handcrafted bits (and a proper, finished end game lel).

Written by Mercurial on 05.10.2019 at 22:56

Don't worry, even if you played the other games it would still confound you.

Sounds like Metal Gear Solid LOL (based on its rep)

Written by Mercurial on 05.10.2019 at 22:56

I'd recommend playing 3 and 1 and at least if you can, they kind of stand on their own and set up subsequent games, and they're the best. Phantom Pain isn't bad, just gets a bit open world syndrome after a while. It's brilliant mechanically though, just super well refined and plays really well. I just wish it had more guided, handcrafted bits (and a proper, finished end game lel).

I definitely need to play MGS 1, but I need to get my hands on a PS1 for that I think, as emuparadise shut down. I mean... can one even call themselves a gamer if they haven't played that game? It's like Ocarina Of Time in that regard.

(I hope MGS 1 is better than OoT though, that game is overrated AF).

Written by Metren on 05.10.2019 at 23:03


I definitely need to play MGS 1, but I need to get my hands on a PS1 for that I think, as emuparadise shut down. I mean... can one even call themselves a gamer if they haven't played that game? It's like Ocarina Of Time in that regard.

(I hope MGS 1 is better than OoT though, that game is overrated AF).

Well part of the first game's brilliance is that it was a first of its kind. Not sure any game was as cinematic, so it might not be as novel these days. Story is still great though, but it's not so smooth to play. The gamecube remake is better to play but the rerecorded voice acting isn't as compelling.

Bought myself a new PC for my birthday barfday.

Intel Core i7 @ 4.00GHz Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
Corsair H150i Pro rgb
16,0GB Dual-Channel @ 1600MHz (16-18-18-36)
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. Z370 AORUS ULTRA GAMING 2.0-OP-CF (U3E1)
8192MB ATI Radeon RX 580 Series (Gigabyte)

aaaaaaaaand I am only using this to play Skyrim's Special Edition atm, silly me! I can't get over how easy it is to get lost in that game though, it's just so great. A true classic (apart from the main quest which doesn't really interest me much).