Raxivace is Losing at Street Fi-TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER UPPERCUT

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Jun 05, 2018 9:01 pm

I play a handful of games, Rax. Why is it you play hundreds but not the handful I play?!

I loved RDR. I mostly remember lingering in the quiet hypnotic nighttime, when I'd often wander around on my horse and try to save people... or something less heroic. It was true to the Western genre, a fun re-creation, and I'm very much looking forward to Red Dead Redemption II.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:11 am

Well like I've said before, most of the games that interest me are being made in Japan.

Red Dead Redemption was one that I thought about playing though because it was new around the time I was watching like Leone and Eastwood and Ford's bigger westerns for the first time, but I didn't end up buying it because I wasn't sure I'd like it and my video game funds were much smaller at that time than they are now.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:55 pm

BTW according to a leak the final season of Walking Dead starts on August 14th.

So we can play and talk about that as it comes out. It was fun doing that for season 3! :)

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:34 pm

Oh definitely! Looking forward to it! Hope it's as good as the second season...

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jun 06, 2018 3:08 pm

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pzjg14 ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:43 pm

That looks promising...

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jun 09, 2018 11:05 pm

I'm really surprised AJ is even there because I thought season 4 was going to be about saving AJ.

If AJ is there early on though, I think I like that better and its a nice capstone to where the story started with Lee and Clem, but now Clem is the parent.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:47 pm

GODDAMIT, why does this clip make me want to play the Witcher instead of Cyberpunk?!

BTW, I'm not excited about how the character you play with is totally customizable in Cyberpunk.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:49 pm

Not sure how I feel about this one but at least it doesn't look like every other game out there.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 12:33 am

The Cyberpunk trailer in general looked bad to me tbh. Why on earth would you name your game "cyberpunk" and then have bright blue skies, a generally cheery tone, a main character talking what great opportunity awaits him etc.? Its bizarrely optimistic, despite how many dead bodies or armed guards they throw in there, and I don't like the tone they're setting at all. Like the Ciri version legitimately seems more competently done.

I love Hideo Kojima so I've been excited for whatever he was going to make ever since he left Konami. Death Stranding looks like maybe the most bizarre thing he's ever done, and I cannot wait for it.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:03 am

I can't believe I'm going to agree with you about something game-related, but I was also underwhelmed by the actual Cyberpunk trailer. It looked like a futuristic GTA instead of something more cerebral and compelling. After playing Witcher 3, my expectations from CD Projekt have sky-rocketed. I'm hoping there's actually something resembling a mood/tone and rich thematic depth in the actual game. Like I said, I'm not happy that it's a FPS and that the character is customizable. Those stories always feel very impersonal to me. I could draw so much meaning from the Witcher because of Geralt and his history.

Also, I like the Ciri trailer a lot... because it has Ciri.

I love how cinematic Death Stranding looks. It really stands out. The premise, the music, Lea Bourdeax. Versus say the new Tomb Raider trailer which looks more or less like every other Tomb Raider I've played in the last five years. When will TR go back to its roots? TR was about bizarrely difficult tomb exploration... now there are tips and hints and a pedestrian, unremarkable story.

Last of Us 2 looks damn good.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:15 am

"Impersonal" is a great word for that Cyberpunk trailer. The FPS element is something else to consider- even just on a technical level I'm not sure CDPR can make satisfying combat, regardless of whether or not they should be doing it (I'd rather they didn't, personally). One thing I didn't talk about much when I was playing Witcher 3 was that I read that apparently the game was made under a pretty tortured development cycle and a lot of people weren't happy with the working conditions at the studio, and I can't help but wonder if that's bleeding over into Cyberpunk in a harder and worse way.

It kind of looks like they've turned Tomb Raider into Uncharted or something, not that I've played much Tomb Raider or more than one Uncharted game. In general its just not something I'm especially interested in.

In comparison, Death Stranding has Guillermo del Toro in it running around with a weird looking fetus.

No seriously, that's del Toro's likeness. I don't think he's voicing the character himself but he's buddies with Kojima and gave him permission to use his likeness. That's weird and awesome.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 1:24 am

Damn! I'm actually looking forward to playing this game now. WTF is going on. Also, I love the score in all of these DS trailers.

Yeah, Tomb Raider is having an identity crisis. I'll be surprised if this new installment does well in sales. I also didn't find the last Uncharted to be as much fun as it usually is either.

Btw, apparently many people looking forward to Cyberpunk are complaining about the FPS thing. I guess we're all Witcher fans who wanted a futuristic Witcher, but CD Projekt clearly had other plans. That may not be a bad thing...

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 12:43 pm

Kojima always gets good music in his trailers. Metal Gear Solid V had like three or four good trailers that made me immediately buy the songs in them off of iTunes lol.

We'll see what happens with Cyberpunk. I'm probably not going to end up buying it at this rate though.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:04 pm

I agree that MGSV had a great soundtrack. That's also - unfortunately - the only MGS I ever played, and I loved it, even if I didn't understand half of the plot and its connections with the other gazillion games at the time.

I'm hoping that the trailer is just something the marketing team spun to attract the lowest common denominator (sorry for sounding like such an elitist). Babes, guns, explosions, gangs, car races! In other words, I trust CDPR not to make a lame futuristic GTA. So I will be very disappointed if that is that's what they do.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:21 pm

Yeah MGSV is basically capping off a story that started all the way back in 1987. They tried to make it a little accessible to firsttimers but its just not feasible past a certain point. Still one of my favorites in the series.

The short answer is that its about Big Boss being a dickhead, revenge being hollow and meaningless, and also how the war economy sucks.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jul 01, 2018 6:28 am

I started Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I really, really do not like that motion controls are in this game.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:39 am

Raxivace wrote:I started Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I really, really do not like that motion controls are in this game.

They're optional. Not even usable if you're on the Wii U with the pro controller. I liked them though; they aren't used for a lot of things.

Greatest video game I have ever played.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:08 am

I'm playing the Switch version with the standard nunchuck...things attached to the controller mold, and its certainly making me have motion controls on at all times. It really threw me off the with "ball in the maze" Shrine puzzle in Hateno Village in particular- the solution to it easy enough to figure out, but actually executing it felt rough because of the motion controls.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:18 am

Oh, those. You can turn off motion controls for aiming, but not for those Shrines. There are only a couple shrines like that total, but you aren't alone, a lot of people dislike those particular shrines.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:20 am

https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/9/148721 ... ls-shrines" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 2:51 pm

Gendo wrote:https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/9/148721 ... ls-shrines" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah that's precisely the one that was driving me up the wall. It took me like half an hour to get right.

Its weird to me that such a bad puzzle not only got past playtesting, but that they tucked it in a relatively early part of the game.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 3:05 pm

Also its weird that I'm playing this game this particular year, since Breath of the Wild really does feel like Nintendo said "Hey lets combine Shadow of the Colossus with Witcher 3, and maybe sprinkle some Dark Souls on it".

Breath of the Wild still feels pretty distinct from those games (All three of which owe a pretty huge debt to the Zelda series to begin with, particularly Ocarina of Time), but its given a weird kind of summation quality to the game I didn't quite expect.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:15 am

Huh apparently there was an option in the menu to turn motion controls off. Link still seems to randomly kind of lose control of his aim from time to time though so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Anyways the weirdest part of this game to me is how little emphasis there is on actually increasing the amount of Hearts you have. I've been focusing entirely on raising Stamina so far and am only relying on clearing Divine Beasts for Hearts and its been pretty smooth sailing. That you can cook food to temporarily raise the amount of Hearts you have helps a lot with this, and its an interesting riff on such a classic element of the series.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:25 am

I'm at the Yiga Hideout. It's not the worst "forced" stealth section I've ever seen in a video game, its merely trying its hardest to be the worst.

Post by **Gendo** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:41 pm

What I like about it compared to most others is that getting caught is doesn't just instantly kick you out. Instead you fight a battle; and although it's very difficult, you can win that battle. So it's not actually forced stealth. Stealth just makes it easier.

And it's followed by a super fun boss fight.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:50 pm

Its technically possible, but the enemies have boss-level HP, the big guys OHKO you even when I have 11 hearts, and also you arbitrarily cannot use fairies or Mipha's Grace to revive yourself in this one area. You might as well just instafail if you're caught- I don't actually have a chance against these dudes in a fight and just have to stand around waiting to die anyways, and then spend five minutes fighting the two easy dudes, and then hope the RNG Gods let Link's stealth kill attack actually work in main area with five guys instead of just whiffing for no reason and using a basic attack instead, which if it does alerts all of the other guards and then the ride never ends as I'm back where I started.

I know its not technically forced stealth, because I know technically I can just go fight Ganon whenever, but they herd you into using stealth so hard with these limitations that BotW just doesn't quite support. The stealth mechanics are just not mechanically very strong, but most of the time it doesn't matter because fighting dudes if you fail to sneak up on them is viable and fun enough anyways. Doesn't really work here though.

It's a lesser part of the game. Hopefully this boss is worth it because damn the rest is pissing me off.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Jul 13, 2018 4:24 am

I finished Breath of the Wild. Gonna collect some thoughts and post them tomorrow.

General thought right now is that its good but not great.

Post by **Gendo** » Fri Jul 13, 2018 3:01 pm

You're wrong, but that's ok. It is in fact the greatest video game ever made.

And when you say you finished the game, you probably just mean you beat Ganon. When I say I finished the game, this is what I mean:

Shrines: 100%
Koroks / Hestu's Gift: 100%
Map Percentage / Locations: 100%
All Mini Bosses / Kilton Medals: 100%
Compendium / Secret Envelope: 100%
Armor upgrades: 100% of all non-amiibo armor that can be obtained is 100% upgraded. Includes DLC armor.
Horse Gear: 100% of all non-amiibo horse gear
Side Quests: 100%
Shrine Quests: 100%
Main Quests: 100% (Though obviously our save file shows "Defeat Ganon" incomplete)
Trial of the Sword: 100%

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jul 15, 2018 5:29 am

Well yeah, beating Ganon was the goal of the game. Hunting down all the Shrines/upgrades/especially Korok seeds just didn't seem worth the effort or time investment. Max stamina, eight hearts, the powers from the Divine Beasts, the Master Sword and a few decent healing items were honestly more than enough to actually beat Ganon while he could simultaneously still pose a threat to me. I probably would have hated the fight if I had max hearts and could just wail on the dude without ever having to actually dodge an attack.

I think my biggest takeaway from BotW is that Nintendo and Monolith Soft came up with a really fun way to explore the world with the climbing and gliding focus, but everything else was...just okay at best. Like the 46 or whatever Shrines I took the time to find were not particularly fun puzzles, but other than the ones with motion controls they weren't terrible either. The story was...there. The combat was not the best but fine (It was at least better than Witcher 3's). The Divine Beasts weren't really that interesting compared to the dungeons of previous 3D Zelda games, even if the core idea of constantly manipulating their structures was solid.

I also didn't really like some of the systems that were actually in place. Was the temperature system really a worthwhile addition? Was it ever fun to not be able to climb something because of rain? Is anything really added to the game by having swimming take up stamina?

I liked the game, it just seems more a great mechanic with the climbing/gliding but not really a great game built around it. Kind of reminds me of Spider-Man 2: The Movie: The Game and its webswinging in that aspect.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:24 pm

While I can understand all of those complaints, it just didn't match the experience my wife and I had when playing through. Could partially be due to the fact that we're not big gamers in general; we don't have a bunch of other combat systems to compare it to. But basically every minute of our 250 hour playthrough was just overwhelmingly great for us.

I will say that I don't know if it has much of a re-playability factor. Some older Zeldas I enjoy playing again over and over. With this one, other than getting new stuff when the new DLC came out; we haven't had much desire to play it again after finishing. Most of what was so great about it was the newness of exploration; not knowing what we would find each time. Now that we've found everything, I don't want to find it again.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Aug 12, 2018 7:23 pm

Just finished my Four Job Fiesta run of Final Fantasy V. Its a really cool little game overall, and I had a lot of fun with it.

This means the only mainline FF games I have left are FF4, FF11 and FF14. Still not entirely sure when I'll ever have time to clear the latter two since they're MMO's but I'll probably get to them whenever I've got most of the rest of my backlog finished.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:36 am

I'm playing that Shenmue game since its finally available on platforms that are not the Sega Dreamcast and, when accounting for the fact that it's from 1999, its pretty neat. It's like somebody turned a Raymond Chandler novel into an RPG but gave it a pretty dopey English dub.

Post by **Gendo** » Fri Aug 24, 2018 3:32 pm

I had that for my Dreamcast back in the day. Never really got into it.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:07 am

Finished The Lost Legacy, and Detroit Become Human. Have you played the latter? It isn't perfect but it's quite a lot of fun and it does do some things really well. On that note, had you played Heavy Rain? I have a feeling we might have discussed this earlier...

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:48 am

Haven't played Detroit. I own a copy of Heavy Rain but haven't played it since I've mostly heard bad things about it in terms of its construction as a solvable mystery. Still kind of morbidly curious about trying it at some point though.

Xenoblade 2 got a major DLC expansion within the last few weeks and I've mostly been finishing that up over the last few days.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 11:57 am

@kuribo_4 Have you noticed how when cutscenes from XB2's flashback sequences are revisited in Torna they're subtly different?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 3t06Y7w0Ik[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... mDRx2IwAak[/youtube]

It's interesting how a different color palette, additional characters being present in the background, and like Addam having a different character model really changes the mood of some of them, even when the dialogue itself seems to be unchanged. It's just the context we receive it in being different.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 12:24 pm

Raxivace wrote:Haven't played Detroit. I own a copy of Heavy Rain but haven't played it since I've mostly heard bad things about it in terms of its construction as a solvable mystery. Still kind of morbidly curious about trying it at some point though.

Definitely think you should check it out. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. I love the dark, brooding score. Same for Detroit. It's actually a fun sci-fi movie/game with an interesting mythos (almost like a kind of Black Mirror episode), but even so, I'd maybe give the edge to Heavy Rain and its "solvable" mystery.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 1:20 pm

I've enjoyed watching CarlSagan42 play through Detroit on YouTube.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 1:37 pm

Gendo wrote:I've enjoyed watching CarlSagan42 play through Detroit on YouTube.

Glad you liked it. It's probably one of those games that can be enjoyed even if you aren't the one playing or calling the shots.

Raxi btw, I wanted to play Persona 5 next (after the never-ending Skyrim) but apparently it requires 100+ hours to complete? Wtf? And you were giving the Witcher 3 a hard time for taking that long to beat?

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:20 am

I'm not sure where you're getting that 100+ hour runtime for Persona 5. My playthrough was only about 87 hours, and that was with a decent amount of intentional lollygagging that wasn't necessary to do. Booting up my Witcher 3 file tells me that I spent 131 hours on that game, which is still quite a bit more.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 9:16 am

I was relying on the estimates on howlongtobeat.com. 87 hours... guess that's somewhat better.

I intend to play God of War first though since it's shorter. What's your take on that?

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:14 am

Haven't played any of the God of Wars. I know people liked this most recent one where Kratos is a dad or something though.

Also I do want to make a point saying is that I do think Persona 5 is still a pretty long game itself (It's still longer than most JRPG's I play) and probably wouldn't be hurt too bad if it was cut down a bit.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:27 am

Since you're an expert in the JRPG genre, you think it's the right call to start with Persona 5? The only other JRPG that I've played and really liked (credit to Studio Ghibli's animation) is Ni Nu Kuni.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:41 pm

maz89 wrote:Since you're an expert in the JRPG genre, you think it's the right call to start with Persona 5? The only other JRPG that I've played and really liked (credit to Studio Ghibli's animation) is Ni Nu Kuni.

I wouldn't really call myself an expert on anything, but you should be fine with Persona 5.

There is some stuff in there that I don't think is super intuitive (Demon Negotiation being the big thing here), but as long as you get simple concepts like "Exploit enemy weaknesses" and "Don't waste free days on your calendar doing literally nothing for no reason" you shouldn't have much of an issue.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:52 am

7 hours into God of War, and holy crap, the game is amazing. Interesting story, intuitive and rewarding combat system, stunning environment.

The character movements reminded me a bit of RE5 but that's where the comparison ends. GoW is shaping to be in another league altogether.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Oct 04, 2018 11:29 am

It can only be truly like RE5 if there's a secret cutscene at the very beginning of the game where the main character berates capitalism.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:03 am

I'm playing Silent Hill 3.

It's good.

Kuribo4 · Post by **Kuribo4** » Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:36 pm

Raxivace wrote:@kuribo_4 Have you noticed how when cutscenes from XB2's flashback sequences are revisited in Torna they're subtly different?

Yes, and I really like it, except for one case, where I think the scene didn't work that well in the context of Torna. I'll just tell you per PM. It's spoilery stuff.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:39 pm

Just tell me here, no one else here is going to play XB2 lol. :(