ArbitraryWater

From one of my favorite Final Fantasy games to one I don't think I'd want to ever be within a thousand feet of, at least after watching you struggle through it. Looking forward to that blog series (AKA: ZP and friends are reminded what MMOs were like in the early 2000s) because boy FF XI sure is a thing.

Sent a follow... request? Is that what they call it now?

@mento: Wow, you actually beat this! (sorry, didn't see this until now) I'm genuinely impressed you got past a keysanity, skultilla hell run.

Might end up trying to stream myself doing one of these. That could be a fun tangent after spending multiple hours playing RPGs dredged up from the bowels of hell.

@genessee: Top 5 dungeons go (these are literally the first 5 dungeons that came to mind as being "good" and do not reflect any sort of rigorous scientific evaluation)

1. That part in World of Xeen where the entire dungeon is one big elaborate crossword puzzle
2. The Temple of Elemental Evil once you get to the actual temple part
3. The 6th Stratum of Etrian Odyssey IV: Hall of Darkness
4. Shattered Hand in Icewind Dale 1
5. Uh, The Planar Sphere in Baldur's Gate II

@thechris:I think I remember reading that at some point (I think it was the Jason Schreier article on Anthem, right?) and that adherence always struck me as a little misguided. I feel like the very non-Bioware formula part of Dragon Age II is its most appealing aspect, even if the execution is messier and more uneven (or, at least I remember it being that way. We'll see how it treats me now) and he was still lead writer on that one.

In any case, he's out of BioWare now and whatever small-scale "Tevinter Heist" version of Dragon Age IV he was working on got scrapped because Anthem was actively on fire. As I kinda mentioned in the blog, there's nothing inherently wrong with the "gotta go to these 4 different locations to get the McGuffins needed to fight the bad guy," but definitely by the time Inquisition and Andromeda came out it turned into a massive crutch and it's kind of hard not to look back on the older stuff in that context.

I think I might get into the other half of that, the specific way that BioWare writes their characters, in the hypothetical Dragon Age II blog. Having played it for a few hours and realized I'll probably burn out if I keep going right now, that might be a "later this year" sort of thing

Yes, but only if Alex and Vinny are up for it. Andromeda is definitely worth playing for morbid curiosity's sake, but it's a big ol' bummer of a thing. Definitely has some pretty good riffing material though, especially with some of the NPC companions and how hard the writers try to make them "likeable"

But can you handle that VENGEANCE at a much higher resolution and more stable game-state than was ever originally intended?

I fully admit that putting Daggerfall on the wheel was mostly just an excuse to mess around with Daggerfall Unity.

Hey, looking forward to seeing what you plan on writing! Big fan of Might and Magic stuff. I think most of those games hold up remarkably well in the pantheon of classical old-school CRPGs. Even Might and Magic IX is alright for something that was clearly shipped in an unfinished state.

As for MM X, I think it's solid, even if the entire endeavor feels mostly held together with duct tape and good intentions. You can tell the thing was a low-budget side project, what with all the reused Heroes VI assets and limited world size. It's kind of a shame it came out slightly too early to ride the full CRPG renaissance wave, because there aren't any other big recent games like it.

They're probably one of the better ways to (legally) watch anime on the internet these days, and they have a pretty solid library and back catalog of stuff. Their web player can be a little janky, but it's at least better than VRV's (which is somehow worse despite being owned by the same company) and miles better than Funimation's.

As for bemoaning Tower of God, the secret is to watch stuff that is good instead of the "flavor of the season" hype show.

Given how few 2020 games I've played this year, I think the default answer is probably something like Monster Train or Nioh 2. Doom Eternal is like 80% amazing and 20% frustrating, while RE3 is great but doesn't quite measure up to RE2.

I'll definitely play FF VIIR at some point though. That game seems like it might end up being "my jam"

Castlevania 64 has its share of interesting ideas, but I wouldn’t want to inflict it upon anyone.