Mento

@arbitrarywater: The review does read like a heroin addict trying to explain why heroin is actually pretty OK.

But yeah, these Disgaea comparisons are on point. No elaborate "geo panel" nonsense to learn or endless party composition micromanagement, but very similar in a lot of other respects (the animated cutaways for special moves, for example).

Mass Effect 1: "You have to choose whether to save Kaiden or Ashley in a tough decision that will harden you as a commander, and make you the savior the galaxy needs."

Mass Effect 2: "Someone died for no reason because we phrased something weird. Now pretend that everything about the Suicide Mission is sacrosanct and serious as cancer while you fight this big goofy Terminator who screams like a fax machine and feeds on human smoothies."

I love Mass Effect and its narrative, but there are times when there are big difficult The Walking Dead decisions that matter and when it's just the game fucking with you. Everyone I know reloaded that last save if they lost someone to the game's oblique and arbitrary failure states because it didn't feel earned - as evinced by the way you get no closure besides a quick shot of the ragdoll corpse later followed by five seconds of the end of "The Wrath of Khan" before credits roll - and all this was before Mass Effect 3 came along and we discovered that Tali's arc is one of the few bright spots in a game relatively bereft of good character moments, let alone worthwhile playable squad members.

On a personal note, Alex already lost his fish. I think he's mourned enough fallen allies.

@bowl-of-lentils: Ah, you're right. I was going by the 1985 Famicom release of Portopia (which puts it close to the release of the first MacVenture, Deja Vu, which also had a NES port), but of course it's even older. Fascinating that the two markets diverged that early on.

You're also right that command-based Japanese adventure games deserved their own category. I was wondering where to place 2064: Read Only Memories from my IGotW list (or the Ace Attorneys for that matter, one of which I completed last month) and I knew "visual novel" wasn't it. Those games are definitely distinct from games in these other categories.

@arbitrarywater: Yeah, no kidding. I have a txt file full of notes on where items may or may not be. I'm glad there's an in-game hint list for the Jiggies too (which I'm fine with perusing liberally, since you got hints for Super Mario 64 and most other collectathon games too).

I'm not too warm on the FPS sections with their confusing map layouts, but most of the mini-games aren't difficult enough to be annoying and I actually like the game's slightly more intense approach that really makes you work for these collectibles (barring the amount of going back and forth from the wigwam and skull). I can't imagine ever going through all this again though.

@arbitrarywater: @sethmode: Gothic is for sure one of the clunkiest games for combat I've played so far this month. All the same, I started appreciating how it was more about timing than hitting the swing button over and over; figuring out when to hit enemies just as they move into melee range was enough of a hook to keep me invested until the end. However, it's definitely not something worth revisiting the game for in 2019.

@soulcake: I'll have to try Elex one of these days (and Gothic II, for sure). Elex is on my wishlist, but there's only so much I'd be willing to put down on it given its problems. That's not even considering the immense RPG backlog I have already (I'm very glad most of these early '00s CRPGs have been relatively brief).

@theht: Lemme tell ya, there was a moment where I was carefully skulking around the next corner worried I'd get jumped by some high-level mob or another frickin' boulder trap and thought "Hey, this is a lot like Dark Souls" followed by "Oh wait, I'm going to write about this later and the last thing I want to do is compare something to Dark Souls..." I think I almost, almost got away with not making an explicit comparison.

@pete0r: You can, yeah. There's a lot of things you can pick up and swing at people, though random trash like dismembered limbs and skulls and furniture are better used for throwing at switches, or at enemies to distract them (in games and in life, I've found that the severed heads of friends usually make for potent distractions). The only things you can actually keep are four weapons, four shields (quivers count as shields for some reason), a finite amount of the stronger healing potions, and whatever key items you need. It's not one of those RPGs that's really big on inventories.

@merxworx01: I've not had the stun-lock problem yet, but I have been trapped in a corner a few times and the camera freaks out when that happens which doesn't really help the situation. I'm at the point where enemies do so much damage - though I thankfully have way more HP to tank it now - that most of the healing items, especially food, is borderline useless. I needed those 30 HP from a block of cheese when I had around 200 HP total, but not when I have something like 2000 to recover.

@arbitrarywater: Die By the Sword was definitely where my brain was going to early on until I started getting a little better with the combat controls and realized you wouldn't last long in Severance if you ran screaming through every level swinging your weapon like mad (which did for me just fine in DBtS). That said, something embodied by both games is how they rarely distract you with anything resembling a narrative and just let you get on with crawling through a dungeon wantonly chopping orc limbs off.

@relkin: Weird, every time I see Enclave on the GOG store I confuse it with Exhumed (which I guess is called PowerSlave over there? Quite a title). Maybe Enclave is something I should look into for a future one of these.

@fisk0: I'm too used to the keyboard controls now to want to bother fussing around with Joy2Key. There are times where I wish the arrow + attack combos were a little more responsive (let alone the special attack combos, which are about as temperamental as trying to jump across a gap while on a slope). Lighting hasn't been an issue either; though the game can get tenebrous as heck (see above screenshot) I've always been able to make out enemies and such. Something about the way they contrast against the murk, I think.

@arbitrarywater: I am for sure playing with the restored content mods. First thing I do with Obsidian/Troika games is see if there's any universally recommended patches I need. I don't actually mind Peragus so much as slow as it's been, which makes me hopeful I'm going to enjoy the rest of the game even more.

@rapid: @the_hiro_abides: @soulcake: Thanks for the suggestions re: the Warframe wikia. I'm still early enough in that I'm not concerned about gathering resources yet (though I imagine it doesn't hurt to get started early) and I'm just poking my nose into the mechanics to see what's out there. Hopefully all this "testing the waters" business doesn't come off as Babytown Frolics for veterans like yourselves.

I'm still not sure what my investment level will be but I do want to get to the point where I'm exploring other planets with other warframes at least. It sounds like making new warframes will take some work so I'll keep all this in mind. Maybe I'll make a beeline for the more interesting playable characters, especially if any involve firing actual lines of bees.

@arbitrarywater: 13 episodes sounds right in retrospect. Ep 11's preview clip certainly didn't sound like this season was close to a conclusion. I can deal with that; there's plenty more TV to watch this month and next.

I can certainly feel the grindiness aspect of Nioh already at the point where I'm at, some halfway through the story. The trophies made it seem like I'll need to go out of my way for a lot of them, especially those time-sensitive Twilight Missions. I am liking what the game's doing with side-missions in general though: the way some are chopped and screwed versions of main mission levels, others are in unique smaller levels, and occasionally it's just a single boss fight. I hope they keep that variation up, because they make for great little palette-cleansers between the game's more meaty main courses.

@relkin: Honestly, I think any goodwill I had for the bosses of NMH2 evaporated when I got to the last guy. Deeply unpleasant fight, even on Babytown Frolics difficulty.

@savage: That explains a lot. NMH2 wasn't anywhere near as weird as the first, and felt like it was going through the motions to some extent.

@liquiddragon: I did like the original, yeah, though I did play that one new to its benefit. That said, I've never really loved a Suda51 game; I just eventually find my way over to them because I appreciate how bizarre they are. Even Let It Die had its moments, which I didn't anticipate from a F2P online game.

@arbitrarywater: Definitely a looser blogging schedule this year. That way if inspiration strikes on a great new idea for a blog, it won't happen in the middle of a busy schedule of ongoing features and I eventually end up forgetting about it.