Yeah I’ve seen a really good player play on Twitch and he agonizes over which quests to pick next. It’s important to ensure the quests you’re picking are at least plausible, because, yeah, they can really pull you down when you accidentally make one impossible for yourself in the short-term.
1 Like
I started Haven last night. Full of fear the dialog would sink it. Here a video game about a relationship and making it work.
The dialog made me start progressively yelling “Fuck You” at the TV. And then I got a dialog prompt and felt extremely uncomfortable because I am not this couple. Then it played a Zelda jingle and Kay Has Become More Confident
No.
I played for 90 minutes and despite this couple having crash landed on an uninhabited planet and escaping their draconian society they have not once fought about dinner being too spicy or that someone left a shirt on the floor.
We are a year plus into a pandemic and maybe the game was just released at the wrong time but we all now know what it is like to be stuck in the company of a loved one forever and that exploding over something stupid.
Also I am mad they live in what seems to be completely 21st century values,morals, and customs except THE MATCHMAKER decides their life mate. Which is why they ran away.
It’s already implying they are 20 something yuppies who came from
Money and no problems. But I am infuriated that while they overtly explain everything that is happening right now they are so writerly avoiding saying why they left as A Secret To Dole Out what their society was like.
More video games should be about actual relationships! I want a dozen more high profile beautiful games with great art direction and maybe characters I don’t hate with writing that makes me scream. Because you know I fucking Love Sceince!!!
12 Likes
About to play more at praying they have a stupid argument about something.
This is supposed to be a warm comfortable game where nothing is really at stake and that is what makes it ring false for me. I don’t believe this relationship. Nothing about their language and actions implies they’d abandon the world for each other. They still are trying to be cute to each other like this is a third date after sex.
5 Likes
I got to the Star of the City rank in Library of Ruina (seems like the halfway mark) and aside from Cruelty Squad, it’s probably the most I’ve been engaged in a 2021 release. It’s a direct sequel to 2018’s Lobotomy Corporation, a rather rough yet interesting SCP facility management simulator, but instead of having you contain paranormal entities in a corporate environment, it makes you lure people to the ruins of Lobotomy Corp (now turned into the titular Library) and kill them in order to turn them into powerful Books and Pages, as many times as it’s necessary for the Head Librarian to obtain one perfect Book.
At first, you’re just a backstreet rumor attracting unlucky fortune seekers, then, you’re classified as a Urban Legend and start getting investigated by mercenaries hungry for fame and power, and eventually, you become a number one threat to the fictional City you’re located in, constantly getting assaulted by the most powerful entities and fighters out there. Lobotomy Corporation’s main draw was the way it kept escalating its scenarios and mechanics within a simple management framework – Library of Ruina has the same core appeal as a more approachable turn based RPG slash deckbuilder. But it’s not another Slay the Spire-like card game; it’s a one long story-driven campaign which feels a lot more like a Sting Entertainment-developed JRPG boss rush.
The main gameplay appeal here is neverending optimization of your combat capabilities within a system that keeps opening up and evolving, and since it’s based on so many pillars – constant calculation and management of dice probabilities, a freeform subsystem of transferrable passive attributes, deck synergies with powerful Abnormality and Ego skills obtained through containing SCPs in special fights, unlockable cosmetics with miniscule stat boosts – there’s always something to optimize further, driving my lizard brain insane. Nothing has gotten too complicated a few dozens of hours in, mostly because you’re always operating within a nine cards per character limitation, but almost every fight revolves around defeating and obtaining a deck with completely new and slightly more powerful options, so you never really stop building new characters and improving the ones you already have.
Especially since there’s no downtime – it’s just a loop of preparation and life-or-death battles. Aside from a few optional battles and grinding the fights you’ve already beaten for more books (there’s a devilishly sadistic design decision that makes you bet card boosters to proceed and if you haven’t prepared well, you lose them, raising the stakes), every fight feels like something that would be a boss encounter in a normal RPG: another unique set of mini-mechanics to react to, special arenas or music themes, memorable and varies character designs suggesting long backstories. It feels like a laser focused system driven JRPG with nearly all of the genre’s cruft surgically removed, and the lack of exploration, towns et cetera doesn’t sting as much since the game constantly gestures at a larger world, trying to stir up your imagination.
The devs are from South Korea, and the storytelling reminds me of a lot of Korean popculture, both in its faults and strengths. The core issue is that the game tends to forget where to stop with that empty overstylized misanthropy which plagues a lot of SK thrillers and manhwa, think a mob boss executing like twenty of his underlings during a regular meeting for miniscule transgressions. On the other hand, I think the core is absolutely solid, evoking Nier Automata’s approach to existentialism and placing it within a context of modern dog-eat-dog world compressed into one City. The ceaselessly evolving structure where you face stronger and stronger enemies becomes an excuse to explore this urban landscape from the very bottom to the very top, letting you observe the entirety of a place where nobody regardless of status is satisfied with what they have or where they belong, making you perceive civilization as the thinnest of veneers for neverending violence and power struggles, which feels honest in ways that are very specific to a country whose transition into democratic capitalism felt particularly ruthless in many, many ways. And despite all of that and the game’s brutal concept itself, there’s also a lot of empathy and tenderness in the script which registers as paradoxical in the best way – as if the game was trying its best to convey to you that despite the world constantly proving to you that your life doesn’t matter, and in a way it doesn’t, it also absolutely does.
On a purely formal level, there’s a lot of smart foreshadowing that makes you excited to finally face off against somebody, most subplots are focused on delivering indelible images within a visual novel framework (my favorite one takes the horror of Stephen King’s “The Jaunt” and uses it as a base to build an image of corporate-managed public transportation service as cosmic hell), and as I said, the character designs rule (effortlessly cool yakuza swordsmen, body horror monstrosities contorting pretty anime bodies into grotesque shapes, Abrahamic angels, a pipesmoking hooligan wolf lady in a leather jacket, yadda yadda). Oh, and the translation flows very nicely and is well-implemented, which was absolutely not the case for Lobotomy Corp. The game is seemingly content-complete, allows you to customize basically everything about your characters (Darkest Dungeon-inspired basic animations allow for a lot of leeway, and Steam Workshop integration adds a lot of possibilities), officially releases on August 5th and was confirmed to be available on Game Pass day one. Definitely worth a shot, I think.
12 Likes
I, the dude who never finished RPGs, somehow beat Xenoblade Chronicles. AMA
13 Likes
why?
13 Likes
I like giant open scifi landscapes and playing dress up with characters a lot. And not having to deal with the MMO stuff that goes along with that in a lot of things. Also how hilariously optional like 40% of that game is. I dunno, it was just very pleasant, and the ending got hilariously Xeno-y (just backloaded the weirdest reveal out of nowhere).
So yeah, I don’t know how, but I did that. I even enjoyed it. Something is wrong with me.
6 Likes
boy do I have the game for you and
oh, nevermind
15 Likes
too many hogs in bloodborne
edit: beat nurse
11 Likes
what are you trying to get another unsuspecting victim to play? pso2? sao fatal bullet? you should be in prison
6 Likes
fine action-RPG-looter shooter thing
legitimately a better character action game than most of what comes out and King Shit of dress-up games
it’s just a shame that New Genesis launched with less content than Genshin Impact did, the game it is most directly comparable to, but the upside is that you can just go back to PSO2 and play a decade’s worth of weird anime action MMO nonsense
you ever been held hostage for half an hour because 11 other people couldn’t find their own assholes if you asked
4 Likes
only god can judge me
7 Likes
baba is a fuckin all time goat, absolutely!
5 Likes
I can manage about 2 hours of baba at a time. digging the looseness of the puzzles, finish one and try to speedrun/jank a solution. “empty is baba”? Ok!
4 Likes
i played pso2 for three weeks straight, i was obsessed with that demonic mind controllin computer device. i have seen many horrors unfold in urgent quests too…but i quit when people figured out how to give themselves custom titles like “need loli gf badly”
3 Likes
gehrman is impossible, nobody’s ever beaten him
6 Likes
I’M THE GEHRMAN NOW
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my brother and i rampaged through Myst last night - cover to cover shit. i can’t believe that i’ve been confused and intrigued by the ReBoot-looking-ass island for 28 fucken years but never made it to my first age til last night…
some of those puzzles were god damn devious! not in a “oh my god this is impossible” way, but i really enjoyed how the game at times kind of intentionally intimidates you. i know i had been intimidated at the constellation dental chair for decades!! somehow we stumbled through with only minimal hinting and no direct consultation! p chuffed
anyway i really like Myst. I need to play more adventure shit. i guess it is time to play riven now
23 Likes