I just stayed up until 1:30 AM finishing Life is Strange. I think that was literally the best $5 I've ever spent.

Yeah it had a few blemishes - some of the dialogue felt a little off, and the lip movement/voice synchronization was a joke - but I haven't been that emotionally invested in a video game in a long, long time. Mass Effect was the last one, I think?

I was literally yelling at my screen in the last act - like, it just puts you through the emotional wringer. From rage, to "what the actual fuck" to "no, what the actual fuck" to sheer amazement of the kind of, how to even say it, subversion of video game elements in service of creativity and storytelling, to the end which was, well.

Finishing it made me want to immediately go back and do things differently, to see what would have been possible.

For a game where you can reverse time to make different choices, it does a pretty fantastic job of still making you make some tough and weighty and grey-area-no-real-right-answer choices.

As someone who tends to agonize over choice of all kinds in video games, this one really tested my "no going on the internet to read about the game until you've finished it once" rule.

You know that part in the first Mass Effect where you have to choose to either save or kill the rachni queen? And then in ME3 when you have to tell Grunt to hold the line while you save the queen again, knowing he'll die? Remember how you felt before you'd played the game a few times and knew that saving the queen both times kinda works out fine in the end?

Imagine an entire game that's basically built around forcing you to make those kinds of choices and then live with the results, while also giving you a limited time-travel mechanic that lets you see the short-term results and then change them, sorta.

Those last two hours were a fucking trip. That's pretty much all I want out of a video game, to be wrapped up in it enough, and then for the game to do something unexpected enough that I say "what the fuck" out loud. And I did, a few times.

Okay now I'm going to bed.

 

This is just your yearly reminder that Valkyria Chronicles is the best srpg ever made.

Carry on.

(pre-emptively putting this out because the demo for the new game almost made me weep. Not in a good way.)

 

<3 Valkyria Chronicles. Although, the second one was okay, it just wasn't quite there, and I never got to play the third, which I heard was actually pretty decent.

Hmm, inspired me to look up video for the new one, since I had not heard of it yet. For what it's worth, the latest version (almost an hour long video) looks better than the first demo, but well. It's still melee focused, albeit with more diverse ranged options. The art style is similar but also just... off. Also, the biggest elephant in the room, is that it's still an action game.

 

I've been playing Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai and Warhammer TW for 6-7 hours a day in the last handful of days. Send halp, but not too fast, it's so good.

 

Enderal, a total conversion for Skyrim, have a pretty interesting storyline. I haven't finished it yet but the main quest surprise me more often than the Skyrim one. It also have less forgiving game mechanics where you actually have to choose your playstyle instead of mastering everything.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Just completed it and loved it. At the moment I'm getting really pissed off at Susie for screwing me over repeatedly during the Edy missions. If you're a pacifist get off the fucking battlefield.

There are a few issues I have-

• The tactical map isn't very good, so it is difficult to see where you can actually move
• Rosie and Largo having stars means I always have to include them on the team even if I'd rather have other people just to get the two extra CP. There were several missions I included them but never touched them.
• Shocktroopers don't have enough more armour for it to be worth having them over Scouts
• Snipers are just a bit shit in general, especially with the soldiers you most want to snipe dodging all the time
• The Shamrock ends up with a better main cannon than the Edelweiss (the fuck?).
• By the end, the tanks haven't improved enough, so you don't end up using them (I think I used the Shamrock twice ever, except for the mission you have to use it to bait the train)

I can definitely see the similarities in style, story and gameplay to Skies of Arcadia which is by the same developers and is also an amazing RPG.

 

Lol, you saw Vyse and Aika, right?

And shocktroopers are your boss killers. If you A rank Selvaria dlc missions, you get the Ruhm (her machine gun she's sniping you with in the Girlandeo mission). That gun is a tank murderer.

Snipers (specifically Marina) are incredible - there's even a rifle that's anti armor, and tanks don't dodge. The issue is with the game's incentivising on speed, which makes scout rushing - and thus Alicia - broken.

They tweaked a lot of these things in 2 and 3. They're on psp though, the latter only in Japanese.

 

Double attack Shocktroopers like Vyse, can be huge for taking out Selvaria on the final go at her, since if she doesn't dodge(even from attacks from behind!), they can actually do some damage to her.

I'll also second the notion that Snipers can be very useful in specific scenarios, and also as Hugplx said, useful anti-tank at ranges Lancers might not be(if you happen to have such an angle/range combination), without needing to use Anti-Armor on a Scout, or multiple turns with a Shocktrooper, into the powerblock.

If anything, due to all of the different ways to make other classes that have greater general utility, and movement range(!), also be capable of dealing with Tanks, it's the Lancers that get the short end of the stick. Vegetables, circumstantially, and, well, Audrey, because she's an amazing Mooch.

Also, in regards to Scout again:

Spoiler

Alicia + Awaken + Anti-Armor = 1-turn, or 2-turn several missions that really shouldn't be able to.

Thanks to a combination of 1-turn killing most tanks, avoiding interception fire damage, getting huge offensive and defensive boosts when low(even better killing of things!) because *spoiler*, healing to full health after killing something, and fully restoring an already prodigious Scout movement bar when it runs out...

2 or 3-action winning Skirmish #11 or 12(?) in a couple of minutes, with using only Alicia running straight through the enemy lines, is practically an exploit for reward yields. You can easily 1-turn win the huge desert map using Alica or Aika(is there a third Scout with full movement restore, I forget?), too. Scouts are just a little too good, sometimes, but they are not always the best option.

 

There's a scout rifle you can get from the DLC too that lets you 1-turn kill non boss tanks (as long as you're not debuffed). Without orders. It's ridiculous, lol.

Troopers have a little too small an AP value combined with enemies being too spread out and scouts being too powerful to reasonably do anything else.

Especially since A-ranking pretty much only requires you to finish as quickly as possible.

I can't remember what they did rip address these issues in 2. I remember Tanks only have 1cp reqs there (which might have been fixed again in 3 back to 2) and then there was this class called the Fencer, which carried around a huge sword, were unkillable and effectively one shot everything. The strat turned from scout rushing to capping forward bases to get your Fencers as close to objective as possible (they had horrid AP from memory).

Good times.

 

Heh, yeah. A bit miffed Fina got turned into triplets and is unplayable instead of being an Engineer, but of course I played Vyse and Aika every chance I could. Which is partly why the stars got irritating- I pretty much had to play Rosie and Largo even if I'd rather play someone else.

Actually yeah, that's right. There were a couple of missions I got an A on the first time round because I could use the anti-tank sniper rifle.


Unfortunately I don't have a PSP or I'd think about getting VC 2.

 

So, PS4 owners, I've got a question. I've been spinning my wheels a bit after my breakup, and I need something to fill the time. I don't care if it's a single player game, or a shooter, etc. Just something I can sink hours into. I've been leaning towards the destiny collection or overwatch. Any recommendations?

 

Overwatch is always good. There were times when I spent over 4 hours into it and after, I've wondered where the time's gone.

Bloodborne, if you're a fan of difficult games with steep learning curves. It's setting is around Victorian Era London, (i think) and the gameplay is just deep enough that you can spend over 50+ hours building your perfect character. It also helps that the bosses are challenging enough that you should learn their movesets. No button mashing here. If you like HP-lovecraft, with its theme of Old Ones, I can't recommend it enough. Dark Souls 3 is in the same genre, although the story is a bit different.

I'd also recommend Fallout 4 for something else other than 3rd person action rpg. Semi-shooter with an open world gameplay.

Lastly, Witcher 3. I've spent entire days just playing the game. The questlines aren't boring, except for a select few, the world is massive, and the lore is interesting. If you find yourself interested in the world, there's a series of books where the game is based on(forgot the author). A very good game.

 

Don't play fallout on console

 

Played bloodborne, witcher, both were great. Fallout has never really been my jam. I'll look into Final Fantasy. It's been years since I've played one of those.

 

Battlefield 1, World of Tank, on pc I play a lot of Stelaris or Diablo3 these days.

 

Diablo is great on ps4

 

Obsidian announces Pillars of Eternity 2

 

Bah, I just want more Tyranny.

 

Pillars of Eternity was pretty good, I'll probably get the sequel.