March 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Pifanjr]

Every now and then I try to force myself to get into a genre or series I’m not already into, mainly because I can see the things people like about it and it seems interesting to me too. The biggest case of this with me is trying to get into turn based and cRPG games. These aren’t the kinds of games I normally play, but I know how much people love games like Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate, and the likes. I want to experience their greatness but I can never get passed the style of gameplay.

One of the biggest wastes of money in this regard is when I bought Pillars of Eternity when it was brand new for maybe $40-60, can’t remember. Steam says I played for 10 hours, actually game time was probably less than that. I enjoyed the character creation process, the lore, the story, but couldn’t get into it fully. It just wasn’t my type of game, and especially back then I wasn’t as determined to try harder.

Well now I’ve been seeing about the update it recently got and how there are some planned future updates. I know how much people love this game and think it’s fantastic. Maybe now is the time for me to try to get into it. I have been thinking a lot lately about giving it another go and I think I’ll take that dive this weekend.

I love tactics games, but I struggle really hard with cRPGs and I'm not sure why. What is the difference between controlling a party of adventurers in Path of Exile or Baldur's Gate 3 and controlling a squad of soldiers in XCOM? cRPGs have more story elements of course, but that's not the part that bothers me.

I suspect part of the problem is that combat in cRPGs is more complex, with each character having vastly more options per turn, which slows the combat way down. Especially since you're also doing a bunch of resource management during and in between combat which slows the game down too.

 

[BeardyHat]

I love tactics games, but I struggle really hard with cRPGs and I'm not sure why. What is the difference between controlling a party of adventurers in Path of Exile or Baldur's Gate 3 and controlling a squad of soldiers in XCOM? cRPGs have more story elements of course, but that's not the part that bothers me.

I suspect part of the problem is that combat in cRPGs is more complex, with each character having vastly more options per turn, which slows the combat way down. Especially since you're also doing a bunch of resource management during and in between combat which slows the game down too.

I feel like story is often the main thing, coupled with inventory management.

Story because it doesn't necessarily give easy break points. You can finish a fight and then it'll launch into dialogue and a bunch of story or you're on a quest to find a bandit cave and it's just tons of fights against said bandits, it can be difficult to find a spot to stop.

Versus something like XCOM where you can say, "ok, after this mission I'm going to stop and then come back later and do another mission."

You don't really need to keep a narrative in mind, but can instead just have bit sized chunks of the game. It's like watching a TV show; sometimes you only have time for one episode, but you can choose to keep going if you want. A movie, on the other hand, can be a big commitment that we don't always have time for and once you're doing it, you're in it.

Then there's inventory management. In something like XCOM, upgrades are straight forward, items do one thing and there's a limited selection of all of it. Then look at something like Divinity Original Sin 2 (because that's the last CRPG I played, really.) and you have a massive inventory full of stuff. Is that an upgrade? I don't know, I'm going to have to research. How about that item? Yeah, it's good, but I only have two and I should save them in case I come up on a tough creature. Etc, etc, etc.

I think there's just more of an ask when it comes to an RPG that isn't there with a strategy game. I'm not sure how familiar people are with the series', but this is why I prefer Advance Wars to Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem has all this extra baggage, whereas Advance Wars is just the battles. Finish one battle, move on to the next, no heavy story to try and pay attention to, no inventory to think about, just gameplay.

 

[Pifanjr]

I feel like story is often the main thing, coupled with inventory management.

Story because it doesn't necessarily give easy break points. You can finish a fight and then it'll launch into dialogue and a bunch of story or you're on a quest to find a bandit cave and it's just tons of fights against said bandits, it can be difficult to find a spot to stop.

Versus something like XCOM where you can say, "ok, after this mission I'm going to stop and then come back later and do another mission."

You don't really need to keep a narrative in mind, but can instead just have bit sized chunks of the game. It's like watching a TV show; sometimes you only have time for one episode, but you can choose to keep going if you want. A movie, on the other hand, can be a big commitment that we don't always have time for and once you're doing it, you're in it.

Then there's inventory management. In something like XCOM, upgrades are straight forward, items do one thing and there's a limited selection of all of it. Then look at something like Divinity Original Sin 2 (because that's the last CRPG I played, really.) and you have a massive inventory full of stuff. Is that an upgrade? I don't know, I'm going to have to research. How about that item? Yeah, it's good, but I only have two and I should save them in case I come up on a tough creature. Etc, etc, etc.

I think there's just more of an ask when it comes to an RPG that isn't there with a strategy game. I'm not sure how familiar people are with the series', but this is why I prefer Advance Wars to Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem has all this extra baggage, whereas Advance Wars is just the battles. Finish one battle, move on to the next, no heavy story to try and pay attention to, no inventory to think about, just gameplay.

I think you're right. I wasn't able to get very far into Fire Emblem, while I have played through Advance Wars 2 twice and did a lot of skirmish maps.

To add to my earlier statement, it's not just the player characters in RPGs that are more complex, enemies are also more complex and varied. I remember one particular mission in Fire Emblem where you start surrounded by a bunch of different (undead) enemies. I'd never seen these enemies before, so I didn't know what they could do. In a tactics game you'd check each different type of enemy and check their movement range, fire range, damage and maybe a special ability. In Fire Emblem, I had to check each individual monster because even monsters of the exact same type could have slightly different stats or an extra weapon or ability to account for.

In Advance Wars and XCOM new enemy types are introduced very gradually and there is no difference between units of the same type, so you're spending a lot less time just gathering information to plan your turn.

 

[ZedClampet]

You've turned your back on the laptop gang and unfortunately, it's not that easy to get out.

Normally we'd beat you out, but we'll settle for you turning in your equipment at your cost. You can send it directly to me.

Edit: also, did you figure out a solution for using it in your recliner?

I'm still going to be using at least one of my laptops quite a bit.

As for the recliner, my first attempt will be the easiest solution. I already have a nice lapdesk, and I got a portable monitor that has a connected stand that is flat on the bottom. I'm just going to put some velcro strips on the lapdesk and the monitor and stick them together. These strips are extremely difficult to separate or remove, so it should be very sturdy.

If that isn't sufficient, I'll do the solution that involves putting one of those rotating stands on a desk next to my chair.

@Colif if, by slight chance, there isn't enough space for another SSD, then I'll just use my many external drives. I searched and searched for one with a bigger drive, and there just weren't any on Amazon. Well, there was one, but it was out of stock.

 

[Colif]

@Colif if, by slight chance, there isn't enough space for another SSD, then I'll just use my many external drives. I searched and searched for one with a bigger drive, and there just weren't any on Amazon. Well, there was one, but it was out of stock.

if they use a B760m board, it will have 2 nvme slots
if its a full sized B760 it should have 3.
its possible that is wrong as some boards may vary. But you should have at least 2.

More than enough. the other ones are likely under GPU, if they anything like the amd layout.

Case I chose for next PC has more storage options than I am using. Still tossing up putting 4tb ssd in it or not. Its not like I lack for mounting options. I could put up to 6 ssd into my case or 4 hdd, but I am aiming at only 2 nvme so all those options won't be needed. None will be visible from front of case. Only limiting factor is number of connections on motherboard then.

It comes with an nvme so you will have 2 spare ssd enclosures to use. If you run out of space, buy bigger drives or go external.

Storage easy enough to get that I wouldn't limit selections down to size of drive. That can be fixed.

 

[ZedClampet]

I need everyone's professional opinions. I have two art styles, and I need to know which you prefer. Not liking either of them is an option. That was my wife's choice.

Style A​

Style B​

Thanks.

These were made by training Flux on my own art.

 

[Zloth]

Honestly, 2TB should be plenty. I keep my screenshots and videos on my old spinning HDD, but my games only take up one terabyte, and that also includes the save files and Windows.

Style A on a hard surface, style B on soft. (Style B would look way better as a pillowcase than A, A would look way better engraved on something.) Not sure if that helps, but there it is.

I feel like story is often the main thing, coupled with inventory management.

Story because it doesn't necessarily give easy break points. You can finish a fight and then it'll launch into dialogue and a bunch of story or you're on a quest to find a bandit cave and it's just tons of fights against said bandits, it can be difficult to find a spot to stop.

Oh dear - can you cope with 4X games? No stories, but there are always multiple things going on. A colony ship is about to arrive somewhere, a fleet is preparing to go after something, an explorer will soon need to switch gears and explore a different area... I think that's the main source of the "One More Turn!" feeling.

Versus something like XCOM where you can say, "ok, after this mission I'm going to stop and then come back later and do another mission."

Or mid-mission. Those aren't all so complex that you need to finish in one sitting!

Did you ever play Blackguard? That's just fight after fight after fight. There's a little bit of story between each one, but it's very much all about the battles.

 

[BeardyHat]

Did you ever play Blackguard? That's just fight after fight after fight. There's a little bit of story between each one, but it's very much all about the battles.

I bought it and played it for exactly 6 minutes, 10-years ago (Jan 3th, 2015). Not sure why I didn't play anymore of it at the time, but yeah.

Actually Battle Brothers is sort of similar. It's something like Mount & Blade, with some story, but mostly focused on building up your mercenaries and doing battles. Actually, been thinking I need to give that one a go again here. Think I've played about 20-hours, but never made it hugely far.

I am absolutely jonesing for a laptop right now. At this point, I've been using my Surface Go as my laptop for almost two weeks now and it....doesn't fill the void. Same goes for the Steam Deck right now; I am playing stuff here and there on it, specifically Battletech, but it runs so bad with all the mods, it can be kind of annoying to play.

My new, new one won't be here until Monday most likely, so I just need to make it through the weekend here, but damn it's hard.

Almost forgot: @ZedClampet - Style A.

 

[ZedClampet]

Honestly, 2TB should be plenty. I keep my screenshots and videos on my old spinning HDD, but my games only take up one terabyte, and that also includes the save files and Windows.

Not nearly enough. I have 3 TB of games installed.

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm like a goldfish when it comes to disk space. My installed games grow to fit the size of my storage.

Also, breathing a sigh of relief. Got a message yesterday from my buyer for a computer I sold and shipped on Monday. They pointed out that USPS still hadn't updated anything, with tracking saying it was hanging out at the Post Office since Monday.

I went over there yesterday morning after dropping the kids off at school and they assured me it was moving through the network, it just probably had missed a scan. Well, it was supposed to be delivered today, but that didn't happen. But my buyer just noticed that it finally had a scan and has suddenly cropped up in New Jersey, so it's definitely been moving. But I'm happy about that, as I was looking at my options this morning for refunding my buyer and hopefully not losing the computer as well.

Props to my buyer though, we've actually been having a good conversation through eBay messages. Turns out, when two normal people communicate on eBay, it's not to dissimilar from how we talk here on the forum.

A marked difference from my last bit of communication with the random company I had to talk to about sending me the wrong computer.

 

[Johnway]

I think you're right. I wasn't able to get very far into Fire Emblem, while I have played through Advance Wars 2 twice and did a lot of skirmish maps.

To add to my earlier statement, it's not just the player characters in RPGs that are more complex, enemies are also more complex and varied. I remember one particular mission in Fire Emblem where you start surrounded by a bunch of different (undead) enemies. I'd never seen these enemies before, so I didn't know what they could do. In a tactics game you'd check each different type of enemy and check their movement range, fire range, damage and maybe a special ability. In Fire Emblem, I had to check each individual monster because even monsters of the exact same type could have slightly different stats or an extra weapon or ability to account for.

In Advance Wars and XCOM new enemy types are introduced very gradually and there is no difference between units of the same type, so you're spending a lot less time just gathering information to plan your turn.

I'm completely opposite, i'm not a huge AW fan but i am very fond of Fire emblem and played the hell out of the GBA ones. The DS ones were decidedly meh but i did like Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow which takes place 1 year after the DS game and you get to customize your hero for the fight. I suppose its the characters and stories i like most as they have some depth and personality.

Admittedly, i do play it on casual (although i make a point not to get anyone killed) and playing it on hard did leave a bad taste in my mouth at times.

My problem with AW? it sometimes bogs down into grindfest and at times you're just locked in a stalemate but more annoying are the Super powers just simply sweeping all your hardwork and its rinse and repeat. Its probably because i'm not that good and the game reminds me with the stats.

 

[Pifanjr]

I need everyone's professional opinions. I have two art styles, and I need to know which you prefer. Not liking either of them is an option. That was my wife's choice.

B is better than A, but both are too busy for my taste.

Oh dear - can you cope with 4X games? No stories, but there are always multiple things going on. A colony ship is about to arrive somewhere, a fleet is preparing to go after something, an explorer will soon need to switch gears and explore a different area... I think that's the main source of the "One More Turn!" feeling.

Or mid-mission. Those aren't all so complex that you need to finish in one sitting!

4X games are like one very long tactics mission. Which is why I often abandon them if I don't finish them in one sitting.

I'm completely opposite, i'm not a huge AW fan but i am very fond of Fire emblem and played the hell out of the GBA ones. The DS ones were decidedly meh but i did like Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow which takes place 1 year after the DS game and you get to customize your hero for the fight. I suppose its the characters and stories i like most as they have some depth and personality.

Admittedly, i do play it on casual (although i make a point not to get anyone killed) and playing it on hard did leave a bad taste in my mouth at times.

My problem with AW? it sometimes bogs down into grindfest and at times you're just locked in a stalemate but more annoying are the Super powers just simply sweeping all your hardwork and its rinse and repeat. Its probably because i'm not that good and the game reminds me with the stats.

I will admit I played Advance Wars on an emulator and liberally used saved states, especially on maps with fog of war.

Fire Emblem wasn't fun for long even with save states.

 

[ZedClampet]

B is better than A, but both are too busy for my taste.

This actually wasn't meant to create art like that. This was meant to be invisible and just be a tool that adds detail to a normal picture. And they do that extremely well. For instance, if you ask for a picture of a house, Flux might give you something very plain with a sparse yard and an empty driveway, but with this training, it adds a little detail to the house and maybe lines the driveway with some plants. That sort of thing. It does this by creating shapes that the AI tries to interpret as something that goes with the picture. I felt like a genius when I figured this out

But that means it has to have stuff everywhere that might be interpreted by the AI, and when you create art with it, it makes it very busy. At this point, I'm using the training at the base strength of "1", as I usually do, but maybe I need to tone it down and try ".8". However, there are some interesting things that it does with other types of pictures than just a dragon. I probably should have posted a portrait or the fairytale forest I made. But there's no reason you can't adjust the strength on a per picture basis. If I decide to post the training, I'll be sure to recommend that.

 

[Colif]

2 tb drive is too much just for windows but not really enough for games.
Its a sort of inbetween amount. 4tb would be enough for both but having everything on one drive isn't something I would be comfortable doing.

One thing I can't do is only have one drive in a PC, as if it dies, you lose everything (unless you use cloud services or have backups). So I am putting two 2tb drives in next PC, one for windows + applications and maybe one game or two, and the other drive gets everything I can't afford to lose if windows dies. Probably need the 4tb ssd as well.

nvm, looked at current usage, only using 281gb on C and 600gb on Games drive.

Now sure, the 2nd drive could die but in the last 24 years I have used two drives, the storage drive has never died... mainly as in comparison to C: it is hardly used.

Its only now that nvme can cheat and turn off when not being used, as opposed to HDD that can't, that my HDD appears to 255 days older than my nvme when in fact they both installed same weekend. My 970 Evo plus still has 99% life left on it and its 5 years old now.

I haven't had a drive die in 13 years so I am becoming more open to idea of not having 2 drives... but 4tb drives aren't cheap so might as well have 2. I wanted 2 nvme in this PC but weakened and got a hdd. Not repeating that again.

 

[ZedClampet]

2 tb drive is too much just for windows but not really enough for games.
Its a sort of inbetween amount. 4tb would be enough for both but having everything on one drive isn't something I would be comfortable doing.

One thing I can't do is only have one drive in a PC, as if it dies, you lose everything (unless you use cloud services or have backups). So I am putting two 2tb drives in next PC, one for windows + applications and maybe one game or two, and the other drive gets everything I can't afford to lose if windows dies. Probably need the 4tb ssd as well.

nvm, looked at current usage, only using 281gb on C and 600gb on Games drive.

Now sure, the 2nd drive could die but in the last 24 years I have used two drives, the storage drive has never died... mainly as in comparison to C: it is hardly used.

Its only now that nvme can cheat and turn off when not being used, as opposed to HDD that can't, that my HDD appears to 255 days older than my nvme when in fact they both installed same weekend. My 970 Evo plus still has 99% life left on it and its 5 years old now.

I haven't had a drive die in 13 years so I am becoming more open to idea of not having 2 drives... but 4tb drives aren't cheap so might as well have 2. I wanted 2 nvme in this PC but weakened and got a hdd. Not repeating that again.

Actually, that's one reason I always got laptops with 2 drives, and another reason I want to add a new drive to my new PC. External drives are horribly unreliable to the point where I will keep multiple backups.

 

[Colif]

I know I have had a few external hdd but none still work. Its one reason I stopped buying them.
Another is USB drives are big enough now. Never had enough games to ever run out of space internally to think about using external - never had a laptop so there is that.

And Cloud services like Onedrive and Google Drive can be used to put things you want to keep copies of, without need for a local drive at all. Any files I make are auto saved to Onedrive now.

For 15 years or so I lived in fear that the hdd my music was on would die and I would spend weeks ripping all my cd's again. Now its all on Onedrive and I stopped worrying - that and I use Tidal now and don't use my own music at all.

 

[ZedClampet]

I know I have had a few external hdd but none still work. Its one reason I stopped buying them.
Another is USB drives are big enough now. Never had enough games to ever run out of space internally to think about using external - never had a laptop so there is that.

And Cloud services like Onedrive and Google Drive can be used to put things you want to keep copies of, without need for a local drive at all. Any files I make are auto saved to Onedrive now.

For 15 years or so I lived in fear that the hdd my music was on would die and I would spend weeks ripping all my cd's again. Now its all on Onedrive and I stopped worrying - that and I use Tidal now and don't use my own music at all.

I have Tidal too. Pretty solid.

 

[Colif]

This is a clever puzzle game

For some reason I thought it reminded me of this but now I wonder why

 

[DXCHASE]

The Rise of the Ronin is a game thats growing on me and its been a minute since i had two games at once do this. I have dug more into Avowed, yes, but im focusing on The Rise of the Ronin here. Honestly, if you are not looking to pay for Shadows, and youre looking for a samurai adventure, i would check it out.

I guess to best sum it up its a cross between Ghosts of Tsushima and Assassins Creed Shadows. The combat resembles dark souls...a little bit, where you can get killed if you parry/roll around wrong, but its not always that situation like DS-like games get imo.

The game is extremely generous in handing out skill points to get you powerful quick and you have a lot to choose from between horses, gliders, guns, bows and all the types of swords of that time (using the Utchigatana and Oxtail Blades atm) and has made the combat pretty fun.

Theres a lot of small things (wont go into them) that add to this game, not just in what you can do, but the mechanics of some things, i guess im usually like "ooh thats cool" about it.


Now the game isnt without its jank, sits at "mixed" on steam, has...questionable dialogue (comical at times) and it can be frustrating juggling commands during combat. It has this notion that it runs poorly too and why the mixed steam review. They have released 2 patches since launch and, at least in my case, the game runs better than it did at launch. Mind you i do have a 4080super and playing at 1440p so it wasnt bad at launch for me really either.

But with that stuff aside, the game is still fun and somehow has sucked me in more than any other samurai-era type games that are flooding the market right now.

I am adding some photos i took. The game looks pretty good...but its unreal engine so its a matter of perspective. One thing youll notice, is cat petting. You do that to earn xp, points etc. in the game.....awesome.

Some pics of petting animals and how it doesnt look too bad... (pictures taken of the vanilla game, no shaders etc.) I might also have HDR on? some pics look brighter than when im playing.

 

[ZedClampet]

For some reason I thought it reminded me of this but now I wonder why

Arcade Archives QIX for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site

Buy Arcade Archives QIX and shop other great Nintendo products online at the official My Nintendo Store.

www.nintendo.com

The only surprise is that Nintendo isn't charging $60 for it.

 

[Colif]

The added cost of the actual Switch is another thing stopping me buying that.

I enjoyed playing the original the few times I could find it in the past.

QIX | Play game online!

QIX is an action arcade game for MS-DOS. The objective of Qix is to fence off, or claim, a supermajority of the playfield. Play QIX online!

playclassic.games

 

[BeardyHat]

I only keep important stuff on my shared drive that lives in my server, all my other computers could be thrown out the window because they pretty much just have Steam on them.

Also haven't had an issue with an external drive for backup. I used a 2tb one for many years and maybe a year or two ago upgraded to a 4tb one to mirror the shared drive and again haven't had any problems with it. They also live next to my airbrush compressor on my desk and even with all the shaking that can produce, no issues. 🤷‍♂️

Qix is a pretty great game. We had a little competition going on with it for awhile on my arcade cabinet, but my brother in law got way too competitive about it and my wife and I lost interest. But I still want to put it on my new arcade build when I get there; which interesting tidbit: my current cab has a Cocktail 2-player version, which is apparently rare and I've not been able to actually find a ROM for. Only single seat versions for 2 players. Would prefer the Cocktail, but since we're not really playing it anymore anyway, I guess it doesn't matter.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Pifanjr

See, when your prompt is more than "abstract dragon" it does much better. Still needs to be toned down a little, though. Also need to find the correct strength for photorealistic detailer.

*****

Played the Zombie usa 3d game a few runs today. I wasn't much better than yesterday, but I really wasn't trying to be. I was just trying to get money for upgrades.

Played Toy Shop Simulator for the first time in ages.

I'm still considering getting InZoi, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be a total waste of money.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'm eyeing up 4TB drives because if I cant have everything I own installed then its not enough. If I had access to fiber then I might think differently.

@BeardyHat Battle Brothers is fantastic but can be quite frustrating. Dont know if you knew but some things arent really communicated outside of some flavour text in the descriptions, like the fact that spears give +20% to hit bonus, and swords 10% so you can make low att bros more workable early on. It also helps to look up a stats ranges spreadsheet for different types of guys to hire, as some cheaper bros are more reliably decent than some expensive backgrounds, although its still RNG within that range. Honestly if you dont want to grind for info I recommend looking up some basic guides, theres quite a lot that works and you dont need to get all the best Bros in the world to do OK, as long as you make them Nimble.

---

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I finished up with Black Mesa last night. Overall its a great game Id recommend anyone to play, even without any nostalgia for it. The chapters of Zen were a bit mixed but overall positive. Theres a lot of really good ideas in there but for me it needed some editing because it stretches on a bit too long. Some of the puzzles repeated 3 times with slight variation were a little too much, and theres a long sequence on conveyor belts that could have been shorter. Feels like Crowbar Collective wanted to put their own mark on the game and so were understandably loathe to cut out their own ideas. I dont have any experience with that part of the original so maybe some of it isnt all them.

Anyway 9/10 shooter for me overall, even in 2025. I moved straight on to HL2. Blue Shift is not ready yet so I'll wait until theyve finished that mod.

 

[Frindis]

I need everyone's professional opinions. I have two art styles, and I need to know which you prefer. Not liking either of them is an option. That was my wife's choice.

I like Style A the best with stronger colors & more colorful.