I am playing solo now tbf. I will miss Pellegina saying 'Gallarde! Well-e Donn-e!' whenever we walk into the fort lol...

Eder and Aloth are great characters, but I think I just prefer the combat too much solo over missing character moments.

Btw, of the games I mentioned, are any of them that are sensible in scale and not involving gods and the like?

I don't think I'll play Wizard again in Pillars 2. Coming from Divinity 2 as my last CRPG, Wizard in PoE feels way more restricted. I loved the sandboxy nature of the spell interactions in Divinity.

 

Ah, Pillars 1 Pallegina, how I miss you.

Nnnot really. Tyranny is probably the most... subdued in scale. Then Torment. Pillars 2 is the biggest offender if you hate gods (or metaphysical existences on that level).

Edit: is it really a rpg if you don't kill a god?

 

Honestly? I can't think of an RPG that was improved when gods are introduced into the story, it's actually the opposite for me. I just roll my eyes.

Just finished.

Spoiler

Eh, given what I said previously, I wasn't a fan of the story - even if the story is technically that the Gods were created and there are no actual Gods etc.

The whole plot of having 'my' past weigh on me didn't land though. Throughout the entire game I was like... 'I don't care about any of that. This cunt is stealing the souls of babies and he's gonna die for that.'

The rest? I could take of leave, didn't land with me.

Fun time waster though, I guess. My favourite parts I think were when I was deciding which faction to curry favour with in Defiance Keep and the whole political intrigue therein. Went downhill from there for me.

 

Did you get it on PC? I've heard mixed things about it on PC. Some people love it, some hate it. A typical port.

 

Made the mistake of reinstalling Fallout: New Vegas and the whole "I'll just use a couple of mods" thought train has spiraled out of control.

 

Reinstalled Skyrim this morning....

 

I've been playing it on PC.

The performance isn't as buttery smooth as Death Stranding. But so far, most of the issues have occurred mostly during cutscenes and dialogue moments.

Its a genuine shame that Death Stranding's outstanding performance on PC was not due to an inherent advantage with the Decima engine but simply because Kojima and his team are just good at porting.

All in all though. I have still loved and enjoyed every second I have played this game.

Taking down my first ThunderJaw was the most memorable gaming experience I have had in 3 years.

 

I don't think I've been as engrossed by a story as I was by Horizon's in quite some time.

Well, part of it.

You'll understand, lol...

 

Re: Those damned swordsmen

Kunai and sticky bombs are my solution to most problems in Ghost, but I found the flaming arrows to be surprisingly effective against the ronin. Doubly so if you equip the Charm of Enduring Affliction.

Light them up and then cut them down while they are flailing around.

Now that I'm done with Ghost of Tsushima, I'm looking forward to Mortal Shell dropping next week.

Something's got to fill the whole Elden Ring has left in my life, and I can only replay Bloodborne and the Dark Souls trilogy so many times before I can clear those games on muscle memory alone. My Arcane run in BB and my Pyro run in Dark Souls classic have been pretty fun, though. I'm normally a caveman kind of player, finding the biggest slab of steel or stone or wood I can get my hands on and bludgeoning things to death. But it's nice to play a more mage-warrior style from time to time.

 

My experience was that anything you build around is op.

Gosaku with multiple stagger charms was op. Kensei with ghost weapon charms was op. Tadayori with bow charms was op. Samurai clan with resolve gain and health gain charms was kinda op.

Ghost tools really are the easy answer to everything, though. Kunais wreck, and are really good against anything that isn't a brute. Smoke bombs let you chain assassinate like nobody's business. Upgraded sticky bombs are just free kills. Explosive arrows are just op on their own. And ammo and tools are very plentiful if you explore.

You still need to learn how to duel, but stance abilities are op for honorable 1v1.

 

My only real complaint about GOT is that I wish it’d been more of an rpg with branching storyline

 

Words cannot convey how excited I am for Mortal Shell on Tuesday

I should be finishing up the last few side missions in GoT just before the release. The final boss of the Six Blades of Kojiro quest feels like the game's resident superboss. Nothing comes close to that level of difficulty. Then again, I'm probably saying that because I suck at honorable 1v1. Throwing on Gosaku's with a bunch of stagger charms actually became my go-to strategy for those fights. I treat my sword like a hammer and batter down the other guy's defense.

I guess I could learn to git gud at the swordplay, but I'd rather embrace the cheese now that I'm tying up loose ends.

 

The games I'm hyped to play right now before PS5 aren't many:

• Baldur's Gate 3
• Genshin Impact
• Cyberpunk (which i'll prob get on ps5 so doesn't count)

 

I had a crack at the Avengers beta over the weekend, and I can't say I was especially impressed - it's not bad, just nothing particularly noteworthy about it other than the licence. It played pretty smoothly, although I found the 'swinging' that Kamala Khan can do a bit fiddly, as was the counter system, and it looks decent enough (I suppose depending on your view of the likenesses of the various Avengers themselves, but that aside). I did have an issue getting into multiplayer missions later in the beta, but to be fair, I started playing a different game afterwards and it couldn't register that I was online, so that might have been an issue on my end. Other than that, the only thing I can particularly point out as being bad was Thor's voicework in the brief bit he's around for, but it just didn't stoke much enthusiasm at all.

 

Just finished Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. Absolutely excellent game, and no knowledge of bugs is required.

It's been called a "Paper Mario clone", which is fair. The core gameplay loop is platforming, with the battles you fight being RPG with a lot of smaller QTEs and equipping "medals" which give you extra abilities. The platforming could be better but it's very good nonetheless, but combat is where this game really shines. It offers a free Hard Mode medal which makes enemies do more damage but also gives out more rewards - in fact, if you beat a boss on Hard, you get an extra reward medal. If you beat them on Normal instead, you can face the boss again later on and just buy the relevant medal a chapter later. The only thing you miss out on is an achievement, which in theory can be gotten later due to the rematching system.

The story is not much special. You've got three explorers in total - Kabbu, the beetle with a checkered past; Vi, the bee who ran from home; Leif, the moth with ice magic found under mysterious circumstances. Kabbu is probably my favourite but they're all cool characters. If I have one complaint about the story, it's that the final villain has fairly little personal involvement with the main trio. On the whole the story is good and well-written.

In the end, the most amazing thing is that they've packed so much game in just 300 MB. Seven fully-fledged chapters, a shitload of extra sidequests, bosses, unique characters, and levels. It's mind-boggling. Almost every character has at least one unique sprite, many having multiple, and that's not even getting into the four minigames like Spy Cards or a quick Flappy Bird clone in the in-game Arcade.

Would absolutely recommend to everyone, definitely one of the best indie games in 2020 so far as I know.

 

Do you guys recommend Persona 5? If so is the R version actually worth the money?
Playing in a school setting with sim like features seem interesting but I haven't played any JRPG before.
I prefer to go completely blind into the game that's why I haven't simply watched some YT videos.

 

Persona 5 Royal is good, I can definitely recommend it. It's not too hard either for a first JRPG. There are a couple of things that if you don't do then you'll miss out on stuff. Including the extra dungeon/true ending stuff however.

 

Anything in particular to have in mind before diving in?

 

Get Counselor Confidant to 9 as fast as you can as doing this before... September or October, I can't remember which, is required to get the True Ending. Get Justice to 8 before you finish the Casino Palace and then later when given a prompt, remind him of your duel. Lastly get Faith to 5. Beyond that Temperance to 10 is a pretty nice quality of life feature to have and you have to finish that before the Casino Palace too IIRC but it's far less important than the above three. Also the Sun Confidant also has a cut off around then too but I found it less useful. Beyond that just try to beat the palaces as soon as you can and in as few days as you can. Oh and uh... stat buffs/debuffs they're kind of important in Atlus' JRPGs as is exploiting weaknesses although the game tells you about the latter.

Edit: added some detail about the Justice Confidant's requirements.

 

Wait... you've never played a JRPG before? Dunno if Persona is the best jumping in point, lol...