Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

Playing through Half-Life 1 for the first time. There's almost something magical about the game, as it seems to know exactly how long I want to play it each time. When I'm in the mood for a quick play, the next chapter ends up being nice and short. When I'm in the mood for a longer session, then the next chapter turns out to be a big one. So even though the game lets you save anywhere, I've generally been quitting the game upon reaching the end of a chapter.

I'm rather far into it now, about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way there. I was slow getting into the game, but rather enjoying it now. The visuals haven't exactly aged well, and some aspects of the gameplay and combat gets a bit iffy, but overall the game is still fun to play.

@crimsontadpoles I love Half-Life 1, I don’t think I’ve played it for 15 years. Have you played number 2? It is better, and still really holds up..

@kyleforrester87 Not yet. I picked it up in a Half-Life bundle during a Steam sale a while ago, so I'll be sure to give Half-Life 2 a try eventually.

So, I'm playing Celeste on the Switch, and in the third chapter I come across this little hidden room with a computer that has a simplified retro version of the game on something called a Pico-8. Ended up spending 45 minutes or so completing it before resuming the actual level. Very cute little secret.

@Ralizah That's the game Celeste started as, from a game jam. You can find it here: https://mattmakesgames.itch.io/celesteclassic

It's great.

@Kidfried Ah. Nice. So I assume what I found in the secret room is the full game?

I'll just play it via Celeste if I ever have the desire to boot it up again. Keyboard controls are borderline impossible for me to get the hang of, and I find joy2key to be a bit finnicky for my liking.

In addition to Persona 4, I've been playing through Super Mario Bros. 3 via the NES Classic. It's been a very long time since I've put time into it, but man, it's just as enjoyable as I remember it. I also completed SMB 2 and Mega Man 2, which I did enjoy, but I had a hard time getting my thoughts on both games together for a mini review.

On my 3DS, I'm still playing Dragon Quest VII. I probably would be closer to beating it if I spent any consistent amount of time on my 3DS. I'm close to 60 hours spent, and I have no idea how close I am to the end.

Been a while since I updated my progress in Jade Cocoon 2. Partially cus I got side tracked a bit by other games but also cus you had your family holiday @Ralizah (Hope you don't mind me tagging you) and seeing as you were interested/didn't even know there was a second game I held off til your return. But admittedly mainly side tracked

I alluded that Jade Cocoon 2 is quite different to Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu in my review of it. The combat being the big difference with the introduction of the Beast Amulet.

This might be good diagram to help me describe the battle system. Red being fire, green earth, blue water and yellow wind.

There's eight slots on the amulet and every turn you can switch which side of the amulet is in front. The ones in front will attack and the rest will recover mp.

For example if you put the fire side in front (Fire/Earth, Fire centre & Fire/Air) and have all three slots full, then all three Divine Beasts will attack the opposing side.

With Kahu in the middle of the beast amulet, if the centre Divine Beast dies (or faints) then Kahu will potentially get hit then he loses a shield. The corner ones don't matter beside you losing out on attacks/meat shields.

You can't choose where your Divine Beast attacks though, it's apparently determined by the computer with what skill you're using and where it's placed. Even skills are used automatically, your beast only attacks with the skill/s they have til they run out of mp for a regular attack.

You start with two slots on the beast amulet and two shields and can get up to seven slots and five shields during the main game by doing advancement tests which consist of three matches. The 8th slot is unlocked in the post game.

That also means that merging acts rather differently too.

Unlike the first game there's no proportions of elements, alteration of stats or even change of appearance when you merge. The divine beast simply gets either a move from one of the other elements or the skill they aiready know is overwritten.

Well... That's not entirely true. Your Divine Beasts have four set forms. Larval, Adult, Evolved & Most Evolved.

At the start your beasts can only go from Larval to Adult.

Each time you merge a beast a portion of an evolution bar is filled up depending on the element and species of the beast used in the merging. A Fire Og merged with another Og will get more then if you merge a beast with a wind Alco or earth Gara. You can't merge it with a water Silmey. (Basically any monster can't merge with the element on the opposing side of the beast amulet)

The beasts can only get to level 20 before they need to be merged as they can't level anymore before returning back to a larval at level one. Though they'll have higher stats and take longer to level up on the second cycle and so on.

All the beasts you merge come from cocoons or seed beasts that you find through the four elemental dungeons. The higher ranked the seed beast the more money it costs to merge and more it'll fill up the evolution bar?

So there's a constant re-rolling of your divine beasts, finding which beasts and combinations work and with the beast amulet you'll be constantly switching in battle. Plus the fact there's divine beasts on the corner slots that need skills for the other elements... It's much more strategic then the first game.

As for actual progress I'm on the third floor of each of the four forests. (Each forest currently having four floors) The floors really starting to get pretty long now and the difficulty ramping up a bit...

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Why on Earth would I mind you tagging me?

Anyway, that battle system sounds pretty bizarre. I'm actually reminded of my experience with Yokai Watch. Probably the fact that they go out three at a time, and are positioned around the center of a magical device.

Also:

"Unlike the first game there's no proportions of elements, alteration of stats or even change of appearance when you merge. The divine beast simply gets either a move from one of the other elements or the skill they aiready know is overwritten."

That is... disappointing, to say the least. Half of the fun of monster collecting games that feature fusion or evolution or summoning systems is seeing what sort of new and weird thing comes out the other end. This sounds much less creative by comparison!

Ha ha I'm not too sure @Ralizah why you would... too polite for my own good at times 😅

I was quite disappointed too at first regarding the merging.

Sticking with the example in the previous post... A fire beast never loses a fire move (it's always overwritten and unable to learn water moves at all) it can only learn one additional skill from either earth or air.

If it has an earth and a fire move alraedy and you give it an air skill instead then the earth one is removed entirely and you have Fire and air instead.

Though usless unless it's on the fire, air corner to take advantage of both moves.

There are abilities your Divine beasts can learn too like immunity to sleeping, +20%hp, extra mp regeneration and so on.

Four can be learned before the first is overwritten and they're learnt from the various seed beasts you get by beating the Kalma (cursed divine beasts and are unlimted in use for merging)

So there is a level of customisation and you can alter stats... But the big brutey Og is never going to be that good of a spellcaster.

It's not AS flexible as Jade Cocoon 1 is, but you can do a lot of neat things with it. I know I've made it probably sound way more complicated then it is...

There's ten species of divine beasts overall with three lines/sub species to each species meaning there's 120 monsters overall if you're counting the 4 stages of evolution.

Plus you can get some rare eggs playing through the game. Palette swaps essentially with stuff like an earth og (instead of fire) or a fire alco (instead of air) etc.

So there is a decent amount of variety...

There's a little vid to show the battles a bit better. It's the random gameplay that comes on when you leave it on the title screen too long... Shows it adequetely and no spoilers either

Been playing alot of Call.of Duty Mobile then last few days mainly due to my hectic job schedule at the moment. For a mobile game it's not bad they did a great job of capturing the look and feel of Call of Duty games primary the original Modern Warfare and Black Ops games.

The maps are all well known maps, nothing new like Crash, Nuke Town, Standoff etc so its more like a CoD greatest hits. The controls being that they are touch screen took me a bit to get use as I don't play too many mobile games.

Weapons are a nice variety of weapons from the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series and the even have specialist weapons like the purifier and death machine from Black Ops 3.

Overall it's old school Call of Duty mobilized and it does scratch the Call of Duty itch nicely and matches are quick. Definitely a must play of you enjoy older CoD games.

@KratosMD You know I'am Still Wondering Why We Didn't Get The First 3 Dragon Quest Games On The PS4 In West But The Switch That Makes No since.

@Areus @KratosMD That and probably because the first 4 have been released mainly on Nintendo systems over the years, being released on NES originally, then released on the GBC and on the Wii in Japan so perhaps its a contract thing. The Dragon Quest series didn't start on the PS till DQ VII.

Major Spoiler ahead

@Tasuki That And The Spotty Releases In The West

Oh my @DerMeister I didn't see your persona 4 impressions (Or re-impressions... whatever!) til now!

I quite liked Persona 3's shuffle time (?) (I think that was the name at least)

Persona 4's shuffle and arcana chance is ok... I mostly got negatives though in the arcana chance that kept knocking my sp to zero so I never bothered with it much after the first few times. Probably has something to do with my personas stupid low luck stat.

I usually stomped through the dungeon as quick as I could, soon as it was availible so I never really had a problem with the weather stuff... but yeah it was a bit random compared to having the moon cycle which was rather simple to follow barring additional events that occassionally cropped up

There definitely points where you seem to question why these guys are friends at time as well. Especially with Yusuke where it really varies on the scene if he's a jerk or not... Especially to poor Kanji

I think Persona 3 seemed to do the party stuff better with them being united under a same goal (Akihiko and Mitsuru in particular being distant) at first with them becoming fire forged friends and the likes as the months go on whereas Yusuke and the likes seem to instantly be your BFF. Same applies to Persona 5. I never believed it as much.

I do quite like Persona 4 but I prefer 3 overall.

Persona 5 I didn't enjoy as much as them both.

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is a bit archaic for me (Only got halfway through) but it kinda wasted the intriguing premise too on the alternate universe thing.

Not sure if you'd be interested but there's a webcomic made by an artist called HiI'mDaisy that gives Persona 4 a bit of a gentle ribbing and highlights a few things you said (Like Yusuke) and more

It's long but only goes to Shadow Teddy. I guess NSFW?

There's actually also a dub of it on youtube if you'd prefer which adds music & sound effects from the game and is even voiced too.

It's actually quite well done for some fans dubbing the comic of another fan. The one who voices Chie doesn't sound too far off from the PS2 Chie voice...

There's four parts... Should be easy enough to find the others if you end up watching it or whatever

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The dynamics of P4's just seem so weird to me. It feels more like they're friends with the hero, and without him they're just a bunch of people who happen to have something in common. The comedic scenes of the game would actually be decent at making them bond if they also didn't feature mean spirited antics as well, like the school trip (Yosuke ribbing Kanji to the point where he runs to the girl's tents, plus the bikini stuff), school festival (Yosuke entering the girls in a beauty contest without their consent, then complaining when Chie enters him, along with the other guys for whatever reason, in a cross dressing gig), and the Amagi inn (The girls mix up the times, so they throw stuff at the guys when they enter, and not apologize when they realize they goofed). They mostly only seem to truly get along when it's either the hero or Nanako at the center of things.

Something I liked about P3 was how everyone felt more like business associates rather than pals, so conflicts and development from them felt more natural. Scenes like Yukari talking to Mitsuru, Junpei dealing with his own struggles, and Shinjiro's interactions with Akihiko and Ken are something I feel P4 needed more of: Scenes of the cast interacting without the protag around. A lot of scenes in P4 I remember that the protag is somewhere in there, which makes sense, but it also gives me the impression that they're only functional with the protag, compared to SEES.

I can't believe I'm praising The Answer, but in hindsight the decision to have a scenario without the protag was pretty bold. Aigis, being her own defined character doesn't quite fill the same role as our self insert emo boy, so seeing them as a team without you is a great change of pace, even if the result writing-wise was pretty crud.

As for where I rank P4, well I need to finish replaying it first, but it's kinda in this weird middle ground. P3 has my favorite story and cast, but as a game feels old and needs to be acclimated to more than the others. P5 improved the game aspect quite a bit, but story wise it's kinda hit and miss, and after playing the other titles you can see how the cast can be pretty similar to 3's and 4's. Persona 4 doesn't outshine either game in both departments, but it does do well in what it does have. It's also like a perfect game that transitions into another console generation. It refined what was there well enough to built upon by better hardware.

And yes, I have seen the hiimdaisy stuff....a lot. It never fails to give me a chuckle.

I have to admit I actually quite liked the Answer when I played it @DerMeister

It wasn't perfect (The ending song in particular to that is completely forgettable compared to Memories Of You), the fusion mechanics being dialed down was a bit of a bummer, The difficulty spike took a bit of getting used to and like Tartarus there wasn't much to look at in the Labyrinth ... or whatever it was called

But I liked the very notable tension of the cast due to the death of best emo boy and that they were going along with this timeloop business just to get it over with.

There was some believeable characterisation with the fight over the keys too

The fight against Shadow Him was neat too. Plus the backstory scenes were a nice touch.

I liked Metis too.

There's probably a bunch I'm misremembering about it though 😅

I only replayed P4 once so... Honestly I remember the Hiimdaisy "abridged" plot more so then the actual game. I can't really say about the group but I think I remember it felt a touch forced even.

Haru and Makoto in P5 are basically just Mitsuru but split up.

Makoto getting the complete lack of social awareness and school coucil president malarky whike Haru got the rich girl dying dad and becoming the heir junk and the gratutious french.

Ok Haru got some I love horror movie stuff too and maybe she's a bit sadistic but... Makoto I thought was blander then a sheet of blank paper and I have no idea why people like her so much 😂

All in all I should really get around to replaying P3:FES and Persona 4 soon.

Maybe after I fin Dark Souls 2 & cleanse my gaming palate with something smaller for a while...

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I suppose I'm more harsh on The Answer than I should be, because it felt so draining during that first playthrough. Most of my issue honestly was gameplay- Nothing but dungeon crawling, locked into a harder difficulty, needing to level up again felt so tiring on brain.

Writing wise, just seeing some of the cast act out after the resolve they gained during P3's final month just felt wrong to me at the time. Reading your comment and thinking it over though, does justify it more. I guess I felt that, y'know, having literally stared death in the face and won, they'd be stronger, especially with Yukari, who was usually one of the more rational characters in the game. I suppose with her history during the main game, it's understandable with how she behaves in the Answer, even if the extremes she was willing to go to see the protag again weren't right.

I'm playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses again. It's my second playthrough. First I did Blue Lions, and now I'm doing Black Eagles.

@KratosMD I recently watched the opening level of F.E.A.R. being played in a Eurogamer video and yeah, it looked like a particularly janky experience, regardless of age. But I respected it for what it was attempting to do, in basically blending Call of Duty with The Ring.

I'm also playing an old shooter from the early days of the previous generation, namely Rainbow Six: Vegas, and having a similar experience in terms of quality and feel.