Off-topic video games thread

General Off-Topic Discussion
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Ah, nice. I haven’t found any of the Champion’s leathers, I don’t think! I do have the soldier armor, which definitely can protect more than the Hylian set, but I stopped upgrading it. In truth, I am one of those “fashion souls” people who does not always wear the best armor. In fact, I often will wear inferior armor if I prefer the appearance. I like the black Hylian suit because it seems fitting given the situation of the gloom.

Still: I love collecting armor! I try to upgrade everything x2 if it has a set bonus. Just last night, I found and completed all of the skydiving challenges to earn the glide suit. I think it will make exploring the sky easier, but I haven’t spent a ton of time with it yet. The set bonus for the Zora armor is incredible, too.

I think armor is one of the things keeping me in the game. There’s just so much to do that seems worthwhile.

I definitely want that! Thanks for the tip.

Ah, yeah, this is good stuff. The growing realization that the depths have, er, depth is one of my great experiences of the game. As I began to catch on, I began to spend more and more time down there. & there’s a lot to do! It gives you both means and motivation to upgrade your batteries, for instance.

Completing a sky labyrinth only to dive from its roof to a basement in the depths is peak videogames. What a payoff.

You offer great insights into what’s going on with verticality in Tears of the Kingdom and why it’s more than a gimmick. Thanks for gathering them here.

Up until Final Fantasy XIII, I played every game when it was released in the United States. So my frame of reference for FFI was Dragon Warrior (now Quest in the US). I think it’s hard to appreciate what some of these games were up to without considering their conditions of production/release.

Didn’t Play:

  • MMOs
  • The FFXIII sequels

I have beaten every mainline game except for XV. My ranking (worst to best):

Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XV
Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VIII (release/remaster)
Final Fantasy X (release/remaster)
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy XII (Zodiac Age release/remaster)
Final Fantasy X-2 (remaster/rerelease)
The GBA FFT games (stuck on GBA, unfortunately)
Final Fantasy VII (rerelease/remaster)
Final Fantasy IX (rerelease/remaster)
Final Fantasy IV (originally II in the US): SNES emulator
Final Fantasy Tactics: no definitive version, since the PS1 version has the best translation.
Final Fantasy VI (originally III in the US): SNES emulator for the many bugs, exploits, and Game Genie codes.

VI is one of the greatest games ever made, regardless of genre or platform. People say the Dream Oath Opera is overrated, but I can tell you that I had never seen anything like it in 1994. The whole game was ridiculously ambitious in terms of scope and character roster. THE WORLD BLOWS UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME. Who else was up to that back then?

With all its bugs and unique character skills, it also has more interesting min/max opportunities than later games (yes, I know junctioning in VIII is broken, but it isn’t as interesting to me).

I didn’t rate the VII remake. It isn’t bad, but I don’t know where it fits. The story is worse than Kingdom Hearts, imo. How did that happen?

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Not sure how to reply to people individually in one post, but FFVI wasn’t even on my radar, I’ll have to play it!

And of course, how could I forget my one true love FFTA…I guess I was just thinking of the numbered FFs but I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into that game. I should probably say that’s my favorite. Sorry, vivi!

Pinkunz, I too have a soft spot for ff8. It was my first final fantasy, and I played through it with a friend. We got all the way to the end and then realized we were supposed to be upgrading our weapons and probably have more than 4 gfs. But maybe also we didn’t beat it because we didn’t want it to end. I’m going to go with that excuse.

Edit: also, I wanted to say that I played about ten minutes into the original FFT and quit when I realized the guy who died in the first fight was permadead. I get very attached.

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Good to know, thanks!

If you do want to find it and haven’t gotten the quest already, check out your old Hateno house from Breath of the Wild, owned by Zelda now. Her diary should get you on the right track. It’s probably my favorite armor piece in the game. Just has a cooler, more detailed design in my opinion compared to Breath of the Wild’s Champion’s Tunic which, by the way, is also in this game! If you haven’t grabbed it yet, look for the Bargainer Statue at the Great Plateau.

Honestly, treasure hunting in this game is so fun! I love exploring the caves and Depths to find all the cool clothes.

I think designing the Depths like this saved both the developers and players a lot of pain and time, and it does provide that sense of enrichment and satisfaction you’re mentioning here for sure! Good call from Nintendo.

Probably gonna start working on completing all the shrines soon too. The nice thing about this game’s shrines is that they’re just better. I look forward to doing them much more than I did with Breath of the Wild. The challenges are just much more interesting and open-ended due to how versatile the new abilities are. Knowing that I’m going to get a neat task each time and perhaps even learn something new about how I can use the Zonai devices motivates me much more to look for them.

It probably also helps that I know there won’t be a Major Test of Strength on the other side of that portal!

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Yeah, the shrines in this game are so good. The Proving Grounds shrines are a lot of fun and a great replacement for the tests of strength. I winced the first time I found one, because I hadn’t enjoyed Eventide at all, but they ended up being some of my favorite shrines. The Rauru’s blessing fakeout shrine was also a highlight.

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I found this interesting. Poll is not closed, though. 5.5 days left.

Which FF would make the best inspiration for a D&D campaign? Top three are all pretty close (IX, I, and VI). VI is leading at the moment.

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I just spent more time than I care to admit playing The Password Game. It’s maddening.

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I’m currently in this historical game binge: I’ve been playing through Dynasty Warriors 7 and Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere of Influence: Ascension. A friend is gonna gift me the Nioh games too.

For reference, I’m playing these games in Japanese. It’s kinda funny that I’m going through several Koei games too.

Dynasty Warriors 7

I think many people rightly see the Musou series as a cash cow franchise ala Call of Duty, but each entry is at least trying to innovate and say something different about the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms story.

In this entry, the game goes ahead and adapts most of the major plot beats for this historical epic. Before every battle, you get a summary of the events that happened so far. The usual back-and-forth between the three kingdoms is neatly told in maps. But what I find interesting in these preludes is how it gets to the pathos of the epic without wasting too much time. You get enough context to appreciate the relationship dynamics and struggles of the leaders. It’s extremely efficient storytelling.

And because this game focuses all its attention on the story, the characters and factions have so much depth into them. Badass moments and character deaths become so much meaningful. I’ve gone through the Wei chapter and half of the Shu Han’s and they’re all great in different ways.

The Wei chapter features Cao Cao, a Machiavellian leader who will do anything in order to achieve peace. His brash demeanor upsets people, even his closest allies, but people believe he’d be the one to achieve peace. But when his friends start dying around him because of his strategic actions, he needs to put on a rational, cold face. Even if he is actually dying in the inside and is grieving about his friends’ deaths, he has to pretend everything is fine and he is the cold monster people think he is. This humanity is the sacrifice he’s willing to take and I enjoy Dynasty Warriors 7’s take on it. There are some scenes that honestly make me sniffle.

I’m currently midway through Shu Han, which is the protagonist faction for the Romance. Many of the plot beats are familiar to me since I’ve watched so many adaptations of the story as a kid. But what I really liked about this take is how tragic the story becomes: a sworn brotherhood to protect the people falls prey to emotions and violence. The gloom and doom in this scenario is great.

I am personally looking forward to the Wu and Jin chapters, the former since my lineage may be traced to that kingdom and the latter since they are the unifying faction. I can’t wait for the backstabbing drama!

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere of Influence: Ascension

This is a grand strategy game that is akin to the Crusader Kings series but far more accessible. Set in the Sengoku civil wars era, the game lets you choose who to roleplay. I picked a cute girl named Kaihime and I started out as a lowly retainer maintaining the town. You listen to what townspeople want and then build and develop according to their needs. Do a good job and your lords may promote you to a lord who can own the castle.

My last session had me become a commander of sorts for the Houjou clan. However, the current daimyo/leader didn’t really like me and I noticed the army was weak anyway. My advisors said that I should go independent right when they are waging a war with another group, so I did.

This was an exhilarating turn for me. I need to collect my forts because they’re in different spots on the map. But I’m sure I can connect them rather easily with my large army.

If you like the Total War series and wish it had a bit more grand strategy, the original Sphere of Influence is a great game to get. It’s a satisfying middle ground between the Total War series and Paradox’s titles.

Anyway, if anyone has any recommendation for games set in history or have low fantasy settings (IF is great too), feel free to recommend me some. I’m so in the mood for these works, hence my interest in Nioh and possibly Koei’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. It’s fun to play games that explore history!

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I let Paul starve. :frowning:

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I have always meant to try a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game. I played the first one on NES long, long ago. I believe that I enjoyed it.

So, I accidentally fast tracked to the final boss in TotK while trying to map the depths. Woops! Should have seen that coming.

Edit: I should probably try one of those Nobunaga’s Ambition games

Edit 2: Wow! Those games really retain their value! Sphere of Influence is still 59.99.

Edit 3: Hm, Vampire: The Masquerade Coteries of New York is free with PS plus premium nowadays.

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Although I haven’t played anything from the series yet, my rather basic research suggests that XI is considered the best strategy game while X is the best “RPG”.

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I consider myself an RPG player first. Wow, there’s a lot of search interference for NA! I suppose because there are so many games. Is Sphere of Influence X?

I see that the newest game, Awakening has its NA release next month. Japan was last year.

I also see that one of the older (relatively, this series has been around a long time!) can stream with PS+. I don’t usually like that option, but since this isn’t an action game, I think I’ll give it a try.

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Oh, Sphere of Influence is from Nobunaga’s Ambition while Romance of the Three Kingdoms X is, well, that. The latter is probably what you might be interested in.

And Koei has two concurrent historical series with very different settings… There’s a lot of information out there. I had to search both in English and Japanese to get a basic understanding lol.

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Ah! OK, I get it now. It looks like RTK XIII is available for PS+ Deluxe. So I’ll download that.

Some of the DLC for this series is wild. Atelier Ryza?

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Honestly, I kinda want to check XIII because of this. What an incredible crossover…

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Heh. Yeah, it’s intriguing for sure.

I liked the Ryza games, especially the second one.

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I don’t think I will make a July thread, since the engagement just isn’t there. July is a quiet month with some interesting smaller titles like Oxenfree 2 and Episode One of The Expanse, Telltale Games’ first new game since the fall of the first incarnation of TTG.

There’s Pimkin 3.

I unironically think Hello Kitty Island Adventure sounds nice, but it is exclusive to Apple Arcade for now.

Me, I am not quite finished with TotK yet. I want to complete my map of the depths first. I don’t have much left!

Thanks for stopping by to talk about video games :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the rabbithole. Didn’t realize TTG had been revived. Also, very interested (and apprehensive) about how this material might be adapted.

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Haven’t had the opportunity to try them yet, but I used the Steam sale to purchase Telling Lies and Immortality. I was prompted to finally do this because I saw some effusive comments about the latter game, and I already had Her Story, and it would bother me to only have Sam Barlow & co.'s first and third games in this format.

I need to get back to Zelda, but work and other personal projects have been keeping me away. I’ve finished two temples, and per the recommendation above I thought I’d get all the shrines before I continue. I’m nearing the halfway point on that endeavor.

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I, too, have been trying Mask of the Rose. I have about thirty hours in and three separate playthroughs, and I feel that I’ve just about scratched the surface.

I know that the reviews have been somewhat mixed, but I’m finding the game the most engaging choice-based game since 80 Days. Mask has compelling, characters, themes, settings, puzzles – it’s almost entirely great! (OK. I’ll admit that the automated saving system is not ideal, leading to some needless delays and frustrations in replaying. The reviewers have noted this issue, but it seems relatively unimportant to me. Maybe it’ll be fixed!)

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I just played the recently released Lost in Play with my niece, and it’s simply charming. If you like P&C puzzle games, this is for you. It’s totally appropriate for children although some of the puzzles are pretty hard, so it’s a great game to play with a kid.

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