ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Decided not to send my Epos headset in for a second time (microphone quit working), and just bought a $10 microphone off of Amazon.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Cant remember if I mentioned it before, I got an Antlion ModMic Uni 3 or 4 years ago. People tell me it has really good sound quality and clips on and off with a magnet clip to the headphones when needed. I had a €10 one before that and it was pretty bad, maybe youll get luckier, but just in case.
I just bought this one as it was right up my alley and a good deal: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/back-with-vengeance-best-boomer-shooters
Absolutely. I feel like with JRPGs, the amount I've played could be counted on one hand and generally, I find that after I'm done with one in a particular theme or genre, I tend not to ever touch another like it. As of those number I can't count on one hand, they've all been different, such as Etrian Odyssey 4, Persona 3, Dragon Quest 8. Aside from these different styles, they do tend to be pretty samey it seems like and I definitely haven't found one where the combat stays interesting and fun over so many hours.
It's definitely a thing people will just engage with because it's within the property. I find myself in a weird place as a very casual liker, where I enjoy the theme and some of the stuff about it, but I'm just not passionate about it and everything about Star Wars feels like a cynical corporate cash grab and many don't seem to see it.
The tropes on repeat are what get me about most JRPGs. I just don't understand the appeal of them, but maybe I'm blind to the tropes in my own media? Though I don't really consume a lot of popular media myself, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I feel like the stories also tend to be grandiose without really ever saying much of anything or really trying to engage the player.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
That looks pretty good. I'll wait and see what people think of the sound quality of this one before I buy anything else.
Great guns... want to see why professional journalists beat the hell out of the social media rumor mill? Look up what people are saying about Dragon's Dogma 2 right now. Somebody somewhere looked at the game, saw the DLC, and freaked out.
The game has DLC for changing your character's look, for changing your pawn's attitude, for getting fast travel faster... on and on. Now social media is screaming about how they charge you to get any of that stuff. You can't fast travel unless you pay. You can't change your character's look unless you pay. And so on.
It's BS. You can get all that stuff in game, and you can get it easily. This isn't a free to play scam where the items you can earn in game require 500 hours or a luck serum from Red Dwarf, it's stuff you get early on and plenty of it.
But, the lie has taken root, and the people are in an uproar. I expect people will be asking in DD2's forums if "this is the game that makes you pay for fast travel" for months to come.
The game has DLC for changing your character's look, for changing your pawn's attitude, for getting fast travel faster... on and on. Now social media is screaming about how they charge you to get any of that stuff. You can't fast travel unless you pay. You can't change your character's look unless you pay. And so on.
It's BS. You can get all that stuff in game, and you can get it easily. This isn't a free to play scam where the items you can earn in game require 500 hours or a luck serum from Red Dwarf, it's stuff you get early on and plenty of it.
But, the lie has taken root, and the people are in an uproar. I expect people will be asking in DD2's forums if "this is the game that makes you pay for fast travel" for months to come.
Nope, though they do look funny!
In Steam? Can't you just unsubscribe from the thread?
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
They find me somehow. Someone left a message on a screenshot I took in another game. I guess they just go to my public profile, but I don't want to make it private.
Anime troupes. probably. The stories seem to revolve around the same ideas.
You might want to try fire emblem series i guess. but thats a turn based strategy rather then JRPG. but why do i play them? For some reason it seems right to play them on handhelds (on pcs and consoles i could be playing something more substantial). I'm a relatively patient gamer and i do like RPGs in many forms and have a soft spot for the blob dungeon crawlers even if they can be annoying sometimes.
Alternatively you may want to play final fantasy tactics or the devil survivor series. A mix of tactical and turn based RPG. For the latter, you're limited to the demons you have so you're constantly trying to perform fusions to get decent enough demons to beat bosses. i still did some grinding to level up charcters, demons and generally get more cash etc.
My first thought was that if the gameplay was fun enough it wouldn't matter that the quest send you back to an area you already spent a lot of time in. But then, if the gameplay is that fun, there's a good chance you already stayed in that area until such a time it wasn't fun to stay there any more. At which point it sucks to get a quest that sends you back there.
Fetch quests should point the player to something new and interesting, or they should encourage the player to explore more in general. Skyrim had dynamically generated fetch quests that would send the player to a dungeon they hadn't been to yet, which I think is a great mechanic. It also had quests like finding nirnroot, which encouraged and rewarded players for exploring the world in general.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly what causes situations like backtracking to sometimes bother me and other times not. Maybe there's a little part of my subconscious that sometimes yells, "We aren't making progress!" So in this case, it might be partially due to the flow of the game/story.
Fast travel options definitely help, but then I remembered that I quit the last point & click game that I played because I got annoyed that I kept having to go back to this one spot and talk to a guy sitting on a bench. I was irritated about it even though I just had to walk to the door and then, on the next screen, walk over to the bench. Seems silly now. Maybe the walking was really slow or something. Not sure.
But in bigger games, I seem to remember sometimes feeling irritated even if there was a fast travel option, so I'm not exactly sure what's going on in my own brain. Maybe it's just what you said. I don't mind it if I'm having fun, but once the game starts to wear thin, it starts bothering me.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
This happens in one way or another a lot these days. Misinformation just gets spread so quickly. Take for instance Forza Motorsport. Before release, the developers said that on most cars, the materials had been built from the ground up, as had the new physics model. This was almost immediately changed to the entire game being built from the ground up. So when people on reddit discovered an old car model, it ignited this whole thing about the developer lying. At one point, at least half the negative reviews that I read on Steam pointed out that the developer lied about building the game from the ground up--even though the developer never actually said they did. This was the whole basis for the original negative reviews, and the game still sits at Mostly Negative 5 months later.
And I think people complain more about other stuff once they've been fed these lies. For instance, I've never had a bug in Motorsport, and I get almost exactly the same FPS that I got in Horizon, but there are tons of negative reviews saying that the game is a buggy, unoptimized mess. I've got close to 100 hours in it, and I've never had a single bug, not a single crash to desktop. No texture pop-in. No stuttering or frame drops. Nothing. I consider it a fantastic game that was done the right way, and it only has 38 percent positive reviews.
But you know what? The industry has done this to themselves. They created this disaster. Capcom and Turn10 are actually the good guys. They just got caught up in EA and Ubisoft's and others explosions.
Saw this deal as well. i've got prodeus deadlink and quake 2 so the deal isn't quite as killer as i had hoped. the other 3 are on my wish list though. So thats less then £5 per game which is good i guess.
Unless someone is inclined to give me the 3 games i want i'm going to need to think about the deal before sinking money into it.
SRPGs are completely my jam and I've played quite a few of them, though I don't really consider them part of the JRPG genre. I do actually need to try a newer Fire Emblem, as I played quite a lot of the first North American release on GBA and really didn't care for it, especially in comparison to Advance Wars. But I have completed the first Disgaea game and am 30-hours or so into 2, as well as many other tactics games. Haven't actually tried any SMT games besides Persona, but I ought to give them a try at some point, as I do recall there being some on DS, which is where I'm enjoying playing right now.
I think it's all about having good traversal. Having a good traversal mechanic in a game makes everything just so much more fun to backtrack. Take Snowrunner for instance; I spent like 100-hours in the same area, generally going back and forth over the same areas and roads for that amount of time. But what makes it interesting is that it's slightly different each time, say your initial run through you have a little Scout, which is great for maneuvering through trees and the like, but is going to get stuck fairly easily in mud. Later, you're taking big trucks with large loads through, which don't get stuck easily, but might have a high center of gravity, so you're at risk of tipping. Of course, this is oversimplified here, but it's an idea of how traversal makes backtracking fun.
Fast travel is often feels like a solution for not having good traversal, but it doesn't solve any fundamental problems, so it ends-up being pretty boring because the game doesn't have much going on in the first place.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Did you know that if you select all the files in a folder and then rename the first one that Windows will rename all the rest sequentially? For instance, you name the first one Picture and Windows adds a "(1)" after it and does this for the rest of the files? This is going to save me vast quantities of time. I assume you can use control and select only the files you want in a particular set, but I haven't tried that yet.
if it helps, they released remastered versions on devil survivor on 3ds. So its got FMV sequences, voice acting and in DS2 case a whole new second episode/epilogue chapter.
Much as i wanted to like the advance war series the game didn't sit well with me. namely battles either became stalemates or a quick and utter reversal of fortunes with super powers. Final fantasy tactics 2 yeah only DS sadly.
i have the 3ds fire emblems and have yet to play those ones. Will hopefully find time. one day. Got to get through shin megami tensei first and then jump onto the vita and try and complete a game there. perhaps i should go back to Valkyria chronicles 2 - the mechanics rub me the wrong bloody way - Especially those close quarter melee guys. Absolute walking tanks that need quite literally explosives (or a tank shell) to take them out.
Weirdly, I actually prefer my DS to my N3DS most of the time. The battery life is much, much better, plus the DS library is one of my favorites and the nice thing is I have a DSi and a DSi XL, so I can just switch the SD card between them depending on my preference. But if it has more features, I may not be able to resist, so I'll probably try it out on both.
Advance Wars is tricky like that. I find many battles, especially in the later game set you off on the back foot and so you end up having to really scrap to hold your ground and then develop a push to turn the tide. I find it actually has helped me a lot with a negative attitude I get when playing strategy games (even tabletop wargames), where I feel like I'm never going to win, so I may as well give up.
I started Valkyria Chronicles 2 on my Vita and made solid progress, but didn't go back to it for some reason. Recently started the first one on my Deck as well, but similarly petered out; not sure what it is, but it just doesn't click for me in the same way. I want to say it's the lack of grid based movement, but that can't be the case, because almost any tabletop game I play is like that, so I dunno. Actually one of my favorite things to play on Vita is Heroes of Might and Magic 2. It's one of the reasons I'm reticent to buy a Chinese Handheld to replace my Vita, even if they can emulate way more; losing HoMM would be a huge blow.
I killed a second Chosen in XCOM 2. The way to the final room went pretty well, mostly because my Reaper cleared a lot of enemies all by herself. It didn't hurt that at one point an enemy managed to spray another enemy with acid and they just walked around taking damage for a few turns..
The final room itself was more challenging than last time, but not because of the Chosen themselves, because they were a total pushover. The enemies that kept spawning in however took a lot to kill each round.
I also had to defend my ship from an enemy attack for the first time. Luckily it seems that enemies only occasionally target their own mechs after I hack them, so I just walked the mech to the beacon I needed to destroy and shot it twice. Saved me a lot of effort.
I will admit I am reloading the game fairly often, but almost exclusively when something happens that the game didn't warn me about. Like when I thought I could activate a mission target after dashing but it turned out to cost an action. Or when using Deadeye, which reduces hit chance for greater damage, caused my sharpshooter to miss a shot against a stationary object that normally is a guaranteed hit, which wasn't communicated in any way. I don't reload just because I miss a 92% chance to hit... even if it is extremely frustrating.
I'm still chronically low on supplies. I just unlocked the next tier of armour, but I also have a bunch of upgrades I haven't bought yet, including two rooms which are quite expensive. I sold a bunch of stuff on the black market, but that's not nearly enough for everything.
The final room itself was more challenging than last time, but not because of the Chosen themselves, because they were a total pushover. The enemies that kept spawning in however took a lot to kill each round.
I also had to defend my ship from an enemy attack for the first time. Luckily it seems that enemies only occasionally target their own mechs after I hack them, so I just walked the mech to the beacon I needed to destroy and shot it twice. Saved me a lot of effort.
I will admit I am reloading the game fairly often, but almost exclusively when something happens that the game didn't warn me about. Like when I thought I could activate a mission target after dashing but it turned out to cost an action. Or when using Deadeye, which reduces hit chance for greater damage, caused my sharpshooter to miss a shot against a stationary object that normally is a guaranteed hit, which wasn't communicated in any way. I don't reload just because I miss a 92% chance to hit... even if it is extremely frustrating.
I'm still chronically low on supplies. I just unlocked the next tier of armour, but I also have a bunch of upgrades I haven't bought yet, including two rooms which are quite expensive. I sold a bunch of stuff on the black market, but that's not nearly enough for everything.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
I have had a disagreement with Valve. It involves my stupid decision to join that family sharing group. I left it, but I can't make a real family sharing group for a year. They refused to lift this requirement, so I told them I wasn't purchasing from them until it was over, one year from now, and that my next $2000 of game purchases would be on Epic. In reality I probably just won't buy games because I have way too many as it is, and every game I wanted this year has already come out. 
I can now put all this extra money towards my new system, which is kind of exciting, actually.
I can now put all this extra money towards my new system, which is kind of exciting, actually.
I have had a disagreement with Valve. It involves my stupid decision to join that family sharing group. I left it, but I can't make a real family sharing group for a year. They refused to lift this requirement, so I told them I wasn't purchasing from them until it was over, one year from now, and that my next $2000 of game purchases would be on Epic. In reality I probably just won't buy games because I have way too many as it is, and every game I wanted this year has already come out.
Just rejoin and kick everyone else out, then add the people you want to have in it.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Unfortunately that would mean that the other people couldn't join another family for a year. It was my mistake joining it. I'm not going to punish them for it.
I also just noticed that you can only have 5 other people in a Steam Family and you have to wait a year after someone leaves to replace them.
the game is too bloody repetitive for my liking. get use to the training grounds and early maps like the darcsen villiage. you'll be seeing those map(s) a lot. the game will slowly add more and more maps but, it will recycle those maps constantly. Also due to psp limitations you can only deploy like 4 or 5 characters per map. As Someone who's been grinding its seriously put me off. i need to go back and play and finish it. To be fair, there is a lot of story content between missions you get to talk to all your class mates and there are a lot of stories and time doesn't move until you move on to your next main mission.
i would love to see a remaster/remake of VC2 but it would need a complete total over haul practically from scratch and it might as well be a all new game.
I do have VC3 as well (modded with english subtitles) not touched that at all. perhaps i should just watch the anime and be done with it.
Kind of a rant here
Dragons Dogma 2. GOTY material right here. Its a fun RPG with a good combat system. Exciting, big monsters to kill and good gear/items to collect. Its kinda like the ARPG Baldurs Gate 3. You have companions, but instead of the stop-and-go combat, its extremely fluid and, albeit some bad moves/dialogue, the AI of the companions is good enough.
I believe its getting wrongfully dragged through the mud for things that most (dare i say all) games have nowadays. Mtx's and rough launches, whether its the un-optimization or poor servers, Dragons Dogma is no different, but its getting so much hate for its MTXs that absolutely do not interfere with your game play and can all be found in the game. This along with extremely simple mods that make the mtxs irrelevant, but nonetheless.
The game also has a weird save system where there is only 1 save slot and apparently, a lot of people have messed up their games and the in-game saving mechanics, causing games to be deleted or overwritten entirely.
Personally, have had no issue with this save system, nor the fast travel system, which is another "pain point" but the travel system was developed that way for a reason this way and thats being the directors vision. It was supposed to be that way. You cant just fast travel everywhere, you need "ferrystones" but capcom has added the ability to buy them. Even though you get them in chests, at end of missions and just off dead bodies, it still seems to make a bunch of people mad, like this kind of practice isnt done in tons of other games that dont get the same treatment.
The game runs alright for me but i am using a 4080s with a 12900k so i dont have a bad system to run it on, but yes the city tanks my fps down to between 50-70 max settings in 3440x1440 in cities and over 100 in the wild. I tried it on a 3070ti and notice it goes down to between 40-60 on mid-lower settings. but fairs about 70-75 in the wild at mid-high settings.
So, yes it can do with some optimizations, but it is nowhere near 'unplayable'.
Im not trying to white-knight for Capcom, they couldve done better with this release, but its nowhere near as bad as the dialogue around the game is. Completely overblown and im saying you should play the game and make your own judgement. The 2 hour window, imo is enough time to see if you are gonna play or not. Just dont spend it in the character creator! Which, id add, was released as a stand-alone thing to mess with for a while before the game released.
Dragons Dogma 2. GOTY material right here. Its a fun RPG with a good combat system. Exciting, big monsters to kill and good gear/items to collect. Its kinda like the ARPG Baldurs Gate 3. You have companions, but instead of the stop-and-go combat, its extremely fluid and, albeit some bad moves/dialogue, the AI of the companions is good enough.
I believe its getting wrongfully dragged through the mud for things that most (dare i say all) games have nowadays. Mtx's and rough launches, whether its the un-optimization or poor servers, Dragons Dogma is no different, but its getting so much hate for its MTXs that absolutely do not interfere with your game play and can all be found in the game. This along with extremely simple mods that make the mtxs irrelevant, but nonetheless.
The game also has a weird save system where there is only 1 save slot and apparently, a lot of people have messed up their games and the in-game saving mechanics, causing games to be deleted or overwritten entirely.
Personally, have had no issue with this save system, nor the fast travel system, which is another "pain point" but the travel system was developed that way for a reason this way and thats being the directors vision. It was supposed to be that way. You cant just fast travel everywhere, you need "ferrystones" but capcom has added the ability to buy them. Even though you get them in chests, at end of missions and just off dead bodies, it still seems to make a bunch of people mad, like this kind of practice isnt done in tons of other games that dont get the same treatment.
The game runs alright for me but i am using a 4080s with a 12900k so i dont have a bad system to run it on, but yes the city tanks my fps down to between 50-70 max settings in 3440x1440 in cities and over 100 in the wild. I tried it on a 3070ti and notice it goes down to between 40-60 on mid-lower settings. but fairs about 70-75 in the wild at mid-high settings.
So, yes it can do with some optimizations, but it is nowhere near 'unplayable'.
Im not trying to white-knight for Capcom, they couldve done better with this release, but its nowhere near as bad as the dialogue around the game is. Completely overblown and im saying you should play the game and make your own judgement. The 2 hour window, imo is enough time to see if you are gonna play or not. Just dont spend it in the character creator! Which, id add, was released as a stand-alone thing to mess with for a while before the game released.
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Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I've got a lot waiting to play at the moment I'm excited for, so this is a wait and see for me. I assume in a few months theyll have dealt with some of the CPU limitations and other bugs. The MTX stuff does seem unnecessary, but also the response is overblown for sure.
Did you play the first game at all? I already have it and was wondering if its similar enough that it would serve as a bit of an extended demo.
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