Try Operencia: The Stolen Sun for yourselves. This isn't a recommendation by the way; I'm actually daring you. I need others to feel the pain I feel. Are you chicken, McFly?
So what I'm hearing you say is that Operencia is an RPG of Dubious nature, Mento? (I'm currently sticking to my "no indies" rule while vetting for season 2, but I'd be willing to bend it. Also, if you have any suggestions for a Season 2, I'd love to hear them. Definitely have taken some... inspiration from some of the pain you've experienced over the years)
Given that it's on Game Pass, I'll give it a look regardless.
Fun list. I'd be curious to know why Chimera Squad ranked low on your tier. It's a game I immensely liked for a while and finished, but it didn't really leave any lasting impression other than, "Oh, that was pleasant." Could have definitely done without the wild camera swings in it too. That game's debris was not mean tor over-the-shoulder stuff.
I think the biggest thing with Chimera Squad is that it's mostly just "fine." It wears the $10 experimental side game thing on its sleeve, and in that sense it's entirely solid. I just don't think it has enough going on to last a full playthrough, and indeed I didn't finish it. It's a similar problem to Gears Tactics, honestly.
If you're going to play FEAR 2 on PC, you should know that the default mouse movement feels bad. Like, really bad, I have no idea how people thought that was OK back then. Perhaps they were all playing the 360 version? Anyway, there's a DLL file out there somewhere that fixes it.
Mechanicus has been on my radar for a while now, since MandaloreGaming reviewed it. I didn't buy it on the Steam sale, though, so I suppose that will have to come later this year.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is probably the best metroidvania out there. I mean, it's not as good as Super Metroid, but then what is? It's certainly the best Castlevania game and I'm perfectly happy with old school and Igavania style Castlevanias continuing under the Bloodstained name.
When did FEAR 2 come out? 2009? Yeah, okay, that explains it. That's the era of peak "The PC port was clearly not the focus of development" for a lot of games.
Baldur’s Gate 1 is very definitely a first of its kind sort of thing. You’re not missing out on all that much if you totally skip it. In fact, what you are missing out on is a whole lot of lawnmowering away fog of war in what looks like the same rolling plains/forest that you lawnmowered out for the last area. You’re also missing out on the first few hours of basically having nothing to do in combat except select a character, select an enemy, and hope that your rolls are better than his rolls
That's a weird way of saying that clearing out mostly empty wilderness areas is the *best* part of Baldur's Gate 1. Well, maybe not. The game gets a lot more up to speed once you get out of Cloakwood and into the city itself. Then it *really* turns into the predecessor of pretty much every Bioware game.
@slag: I have options, yeah, although maybe it would be better for my newly-acquired rare and expensive retro game habit to be snuffed out before I accidentally end up purchasing a copy of Rule of Rose with my stimulus check. (I am not going to do this oh god I have too many video games, bury me in my backlog)
Similar to Eador in the sense that it's a strategy game that incorporates a half-dozen mechanics from similar genre staples and somehow manages to keep it coherent. There's definitely a little overly-ambitious eastern bloc strategy game resting in Troubleshooter's soul.
Yooo I'd always been high on Nioh 2 but I booted it up again to try those DLC weapons and the fists boosts this game up tremendously.
Haven't played any of those missions yet but the weapons are worth the price of admission on their own.
hell yeah motherfucker, let's talk about PUNCHING.
I mean, the way every single Splitstaff attack has different properties depending on if you tap or hold the button is also very good, but I'll fully confess that I never quite managed to wrap my head around it in the same way as chaining together fist specials. At some point I'll do a quick and dirty weapon ranking setup, but tentatively I'ma say that fists are Top Tier
Yooo I'd always been high on Nioh 2 but I booted it up again to try those DLC weapons and the fists boosts this game up tremendously.
Haven't played any of those missions yet but the weapons are worth the price of admission on their own.
Huh. I had the complete opposite reaction to the fists. I think they are - by far - the worst weapon-type in the game. May I ask what is it that you like about them? I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything - one of the things I love about Nioh 2 is that I can watch a video of a play style and be completely blown away by the number of viable ways people can play the game. I just found the fists exceedingly difficult to use. Their ki consumption is off the charts compared to the other weapons and they seem incredibly dependent on stacking the damage buff (which I never found big enough to justify the time spent stacking it and usually ran out of ki before getting it up there anyway).
My impression was that the fists are basically similar to the tonfa, in that they are both close range weapons dependent on getting a lot of smaller-ish hits in. But the tonfa have a lot more options for controlling distance during the fight and seem to have better/easier ways of almost endless comboing opponents.
EDIT: I'll also say that if nothing else, Xenosaga III should get credit for bringing back KOS-MOS's original voice actress. The change to the super-magic pixie-girl anime voice in II was possibly the worst part of what was already a pretty mediocre sequel.
So I definitely think I'm more *effective* with Tonfa overall, but the way you can chain fist normals into specials into normals is kinda great, especially with the full Hayabusa armor set reducing stamina consumption. A lot of it is also an animation thing. The backstab and grapple animations where you just do the Ip Man thing is so good.
@valorianendymion: Yeah, like Efesell said, Nioh 2 has a pretty similar difficulty curve to the first game, inasmuch as it gets a lot easier as you go on and get more abilities. I will say that heavy armor and tanking through hits is definitely more viable this time around, given that's how I did most of the main quest. That said, you also have to incorporate the Yokai stuff into muscle memory, and that might be more or less overwhelming depending on how overwhelming you already found the stance switching and Ki pulse stuff.
Of course, if you're having difficulty, there's also the perfectly viable option to cheese the hell out of bosses with Sloth. It's been nerfed into the ground since the first game's launch, but it's still ridiculous.
@sparky_buzzsaw: Oh, uh. Welp. If you have any secondhand PS2 games that are rare and expensive I'd happily take them off your hands for *less money* than whatever eBay resellers are going for. Wouldn't happen to have a Suikoden V just... hanging around for less than $150, would you? (do not sell me your copy of Suikoden V.)
But, uh, yeah. Expect me to do something with those Xenosaga games in the near-ish future. I've still gotta make my way through Shadow Hearts, but I'm thinking 2021 is gonna be the Year of Random-Ass JRPGs for me. Still wanna get through at least one Trails game as well.
@danielkempster:Final Fantasy 7.77 You Can (Not) Re-Make would probably be a more honest title (I stole that joke from Pat, formerly of Super Best Friends) but given my lack of reverence for the original you'd better believe I'm 100% behind whatever stupid Nomura bullshit will happen later on. I don't know if they'll nail the landing, but I deeply appreciate that they went for it.
I can appreciate FF V getting the due it deserves and also FF XI getting the due it deserves. Why you decided to play the latter more after doing the podcast is something I don't really have any comprehension for.
Huh, I think you might be the first person I've seen who has a negative word about CrossCode beyond the difficulty of some of its puzzles and stealth sequences. It's on "The GamePass" so I was planning on checking it out at some point for the low price of "a dollar for three months because Microsoft really doesn't think you'll cancel"
Congratulations on reaching 200 of these suckers, and I look forward to, uh, that thing I sent you getting its due at some point. I fully admit it's as much for my curiosity as it was a show of my appreciation for our virtual friendship, given I've only played a few hours of it myself.
@nathhaw: I actually played some Fell Seal this year and it was the definition of "Wow this is pretty good but it mostly just makes me wish there was an easier way to play Tactics Ogre," which is probably indicative of my broken brain. On its own merits it seems totally solid, and if I'm ever in that specific tactical mood I'll likely play more of it.
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