Video Games

[maglag]

So you could raise Gendo Ikari?

As a matter of fact, yes, Gendo Ikari route is a playable option.

"PILOT THE EVA, GENDO."
"Gladly. She's my wife."

More like
"GET OFF THE EVA, GENDO. "
"Nah, gotta make third impact happen."

Heh, give it a few more years.

That doesn't bother me personally too much. While I think the options should be there for other people, I'm happy for waifu games to flourish because A) more waifu and B) I mostly play games from over a hundred years ago anyway.

Don't you love the (relatively recent) Atelier series and Disgaea and keep up with the most recent romhackings to boot?

I'm cautiously optimistic as long as we don't end up with a parade of virtuous and blandly attractive teenagers with no discernible gimmicks or personality. I'm big on variety in character design so it helps that apparently women buy this shit too and there's a market for husbandos. It's like with pro wrestling; I'm straight and not against throwing cute women into the mix but Otis is a magical being and if you replace him with some rando normal person I'll be super pissed.

Fire Emblem Heroes at least is parading heavily in the husbando section. Besides as many bishonen as you can shake a falchion at, you also get characters like Dorcas and his "armored"alt that actually shows off more skin. Bonus points because Dorcas main gimmick is being an actual husband who's always talking about his wife and how much he loves her and how he fights to earn money for her.

Then there's some old rugged knights to go around too.

Still Lyn got four alts and Camilla has five with a sixth on the way, so waifus are still the primary focus.

[Koumei]

Don't you love the (relatively recent) Atelier series and Disgaea and keep up with the most recent romhackings to boot?

I have some PS4 games but not a PS4. I have a bunch of PS3 games but never play them because the PS3 is all the way over there, it basically just activates youtube for when I go to bed. Mostly I emulate GBA and PS2 games, and that's officially known as pre-historic. Never mind that I'm actually old enough to have been around when handheld games were "the thing with plastic rings in water and one button squirts a jet of bubbles so you try to get the rings onto pegs" or "roll balls around in a plastic dish and try to get them to sit in holes", PS2 still predates the use of iron.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The FF8 card game was a lot less painful for me than the FF9 one. It wasn't like, a riveting gaming experience or anything, but at least it was possible to learn and fully understand the rules in a couple minutes, making it infinitely less painful than FF9's. To this day I don't fully understand the FF9 card game, and I almost certainly never will.

No one does, anyone that says they do is lying. Or more accurately, RNG has so much of an effect that any knowledge you have about the game is worthless because a very weak card can beat a very strong card half the time anyway.

Triple Triad has rules that are hard for a human to understand, but easy for a computer to take advantage of, but at least it's consistent.

That only happened when you spread the "Random" rule around. The game was pretty easy. They only really fucked it up when new iterations of the game appeared like on Squeenix's Final Fantasy portal.

Maybe you're just better with logic than me, because seeing "same wall" or "plus" rules basically meant "you fucking lose" to me. Yes, I know how they work, explaining it won't stop the computer from having the perfect card to flip the entire board at any given time.

[GreatGreyShrike]

when you spread the "Random" rule around.

Oh I forgot about the rule spreading bullshit. That entire mechanic was tremendously stupid and annoying. Like kind of a lot of FF8, if you spent a long time reading documentation you could break the game in half with minimal effort (in this case by save/reloading to manipulate how rules spread, ultimately setting every region you care about card playing to 'normal' rules). However, if you just try to play the game normally without fucking reading guides, you'll more likely than not get completely fucked.

This 'fuck people who don't read information outside the game obsessively' was a running theme in FF8's mechanics, and might actually be more fucking terrible than even the plot.

[Leress]

when you spread the "Random" rule around.

Oh I forgot about the rule spreading bullshit. That entire mechanic was tremendously stupid and annoying. Like kind of a lot of FF8, if you spent a long time reading documentation you could break the game in half with minimal effort (in this case by save/reloading to manipulate how rules spread, ultimately setting every region you care about card playing to 'normal' rules). However, if you just try to play the game normally without fucking reading guides, you'll more likely than not get completely fucked.

This 'fuck people who don't read information outside the game obsessively' was a running theme in FF8's mechanics, and might actually be more fucking terrible than even the plot.

Let me start by saying that I hated...loathed FF8. There were really only four things I liked about that game:

1. Zell's shoes
2. Doomtrain's and Bahamut's summon animation
3. Triple Triad without "Random" rule.
4. The spell Meltdown

I agree with you on all the bad points you mentioned.

The only game I hate more than FF8 is Langrisser Re:incarnation. There is only one way to express my hate for that "game".

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I mostly liked FF8. Squall was the only sane man in a group of lunatics, and I found that hilarious. My only problem is that Squall turned down the handsy teacher to date the retarded girl with enough daddy issues to constitute an entire subscription.

EDIT: then again, I obsessively research any game I play before I even buy it. I can see how one would have a different opinion if you don't actually want to do that.

[MGuy]

I didn't like FF8 at all and while Squall wasn't the worse part of it (the time travel probably sticks out the most to me) but I'm really sure that he was purposefully written to be an asshole or problematic. I remember thinking he was autistic or something. He wasn't supposed to be liked until the end. At least that is what I got out of the narrative. Zidane was pretty similar as far as that goes but he was written much more to be more charismatic and roguish with his more insensitive moments being more shocking.

[Whipstitch]

I like how Zell's fashion choices don't come close to cracking my personal "top 10 FF outfits that make you look like an entire toolbox" list even though I am a cave person like Koumei and haven't even paid that much attention to the last several titles.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I actually liked FF13. It did take way too long to get going, but it was enjoyable enough. Granted, I got the game for $5. FF13-2 was decent but other than Sera being an aggressive moron it wasn't as good. Never played Lightning Returns, I actually thought Lightning was the most boring part of 13.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

So, I've been playing the steam version of FF4: The After Years. Yeah, I know, inferior port, blah blah blah. I didn't expect Porom to grow up to be a turbo-cunt, but here we are. I have to slog through Porom's scenario now, which is a nuisance.

[OgreBattle]

FFVIII was written more like a bishoujo manga

[Leress]

So Disgaea 4 Complete+: HL-Raising Edition is for pre-order, and I got that as soon as I got off work, then some weeks later that had a Langrisser 1&2 remaster for pre-order and I was going to get that too until I looked at the trailer for it...then gameplay...then I became very sad.

[Koumei]

Do we know anything about the Complete+ HL-Raising Edition and what it adds?

[Leress]

Do we know anything about the Complete+ HL-Raising Edition and what it adds?

From the NISA blog: https://nisamerica.com/blog/disgaea-4-c ... w-features

Here what makes Disgaea 4 Complete+ truly “complete”:

• Contains all additional characters and scenarios from previous versions of Disgaea 4.
  Options for English or Japanese audio.
  Options for English or French text.
  Includes Peta-level spells and Job-specific Skills from Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited.
  Includes quality-of-life features that may seem familiar to those who have played Disgaea 5, such as the Cheat Shop, Event Viewer, Weapon Appearance, Innocent Warehouse, and Pay Up system to bribe Senators to change their votes in the assembly.
  Includes network features such as Map Edit and Upload, Pirate Edit and Upload, Pirate Duels, and Foreign Ministers.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what puts the “+” in Disgaea 4 Complete+? Well, we’ve got you covered there too, dood!

• Resolution has been updated to 1920 x 1080p.
  You can now reposition characters while viewing the target areas of their skills, even for specials that have non-fixed target zones.
  Skill speed can be adjusted between x2, x3, and x4.
  You can now get a graphic preview of the Magichange weapon that your monster class becomes by viewing it in the Status screen.
  After winning a battle, the game will now auto-save when you return to base.

[Hiram McDaniels]

So I just picked up EScrolls: Skyrim on PS4 (Yeah - I'm like waayyyy behind the times on vidja games).

All in all its been a pretty fun experience and I really enjoy the exploration aspect. That said, I gravitate toward making chaotic good decisions in crpgs and it seems like many of the factions in Skyrim just want you to do evil shit.

For instance, I'm playing a subterfuge based character and the two groups most beneficial for that (Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild) are just straight up criminal syndicates that want you to murder innocent people, when I really just want to play a "fuck the man, subvert the dominant paradigm, Trotskyist" Rogue.

Then there are the companions who apparently make you become a werewolf during their questline.

Neither side of the civil war leaves a good taste in my mouth, I wish I could just make both of them lose.

Now I'm not very far into the game, and while I've absorbed some of the story details through osmosis being that Skyrim is 10 years old, I haven't done a deep dive into the story. Right now it seems like there are no options for playing a faction that are just unambiguously good guys.

I might be worrying too much about this. It's not like I need all the best loot and absolute numerical superiority; mostly I'm just worried about having to opt out of half the games sidequests because they make me burn down orphanages and vivisect puppies for a daedric sword or whatever.

[maglag]

You kinda picked up the wrong game if you want to play "unambiguously good guys". Elder scrolls always was a lot more in the neutral and evil side. Crafting magic bling demands capturing and sacrificing the souls of other beings and a bunch of artifacts are locked behind doing quests for demon princes. You'll indeed need to skip a good chunk of the quests if you want to try to be a goody two shoes.

Although if you were playing in the PC I would say there's probably mods for that, but if you're in the PS4...

[Kaelik]

Certainly as I recall the civil war is supposed to be "What if the confederates rebelled because the nazis wanted to gas all their slaves?" which makes it very hard to not want to murder everyone on both sides.

[Thaluikhain]

Struggled to get into Skyrim, but yeah, the Thieves' Guild doesn't look cool, but at least you can fight the assassins.

There are all sorts of weird and wonderful mods for Skyrim worth checking out. Though, when I say "weird", that covers a multitude of sins.

[Hiram McDaniels]

You kinda picked up the wrong game if you want to play "unambiguously good guys". Elder scrolls always was a lot more in the neutral and evil side. Crafting magic bling demands capturing and sacrificing the souls of other beings and a bunch of artifacts are locked behind doing quests for demon princes. You'll indeed need to skip a good chunk of the quests if you want to try to be a goody two shoes.

Although if you were playing in the PC I would say there's probably mods for that, but if you're in the PS4...

Okay, then I guess I'll have to realign my expectations. I just have more fun playing good guys than bad/neutral guys. Not sure why.

I'll just find where to draw my lines when they come up.

Certainly as I recall the civil war is supposed to be "What if the confederates rebelled because the nazis wanted to gas all their slaves?" which makes it very hard to not want to murder everyone on both sides.

CAN I murder everyone on both sides?

Struggled to get into Skyrim, but yeah, the Thieves' Guild doesn't look cool, but at least you can fight the assassins.

There are all sorts of weird and wonderful mods for Skyrim worth checking out. Though, when I say "weird", that covers a multitude of sins.

I play on a PS4, which doesn't have quite as robust a mod selection as PC/XBox

[maglag]

Okay, then I guess I'll have to realign my expectations. I just have more fun playing good guys than bad/neutral guys. Not sure why.

I'll just find where to draw my lines when they come up.

That's a plan.

CAN I murder everyone on both sides?

Sadly no, most key characters are tagged as essential and thus have literal plot shield until you go with the right quest to take them out. Ulfric and Tullius in particular are the final "bosses" of the quest chain you gain from picking the other side, and can't be killed before (and thus the other will remain unkillable).

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, that bugged me in Skyrim. After examining all the details (including many that as a player I wouldn't have access to) the Stormcloaks are the least harmful faction, as "being racist to dark elves and argonians" is less harmful than "literally wanting to erase existence". (Out of character: the dark elf woman that Rolff Stone-fisy is harassing when you first enter Windhelm is factioned in "imperial" faction, she literally is an imperial spy. Rolff is right, he's just a stupid drunk and going about it stupidly).

That being said, Ulfric commits a worse crime than being a racist tyrant: he's a conceited dick. Bitch, I am wearing armor made out of dragon skins, using a sword that's literally so sharp it crashes the universe when I power attack, I am literally the head of every major organization in the country, I have every jarl in the country owing me favors. Oh right, and I'm fucking mantling Akatosh after KILLING HIS LAST AVATAR AND EATING HIS SOUL.

I find it therapeutic to quicksave, beat the stupid out of him for a few minutes, then reload.

[Thaluikhain]

That being said, Ulfric commits a worse crime than being a racist tyrant: he's a conceited dick.

Never stuck with it long enough to get very far into the game, but when you go to his city and meet him, he has a go at you because you'd been captured by the Imperials and were about to be executed. And so are obviously a dodgy person.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

True, from his perspective I could be guilty of any number of crimes other than "being the player character in an Elder Scrolls game". He just comes off as full of himself even after you've proven yourself. "Make it quick, I'm a busy man". Bitch, don't make me remove your essential status with console commands.

EDIT: I try to balance the fact that I'm following a racist dick by helping the Argonians at the dock, do Bruunwulf Free-Winter's quest, and marrying an Argonian woman and moving her into the biggest mansion in Windhelm to prove a point. The dark elves in Windhelm can fuck right off though.

[Shrapnel]

Certainly as I recall the civil war is supposed to be "What if the confederates rebelled because the nazis wanted to gas all their slaves?" which makes it very hard to not want to murder everyone on both sides.

CAN I murder everyone on both sides?

In vanilla Skyrim? No.

But there are at least several mods that allow the Dragonborn to remain neutral in the Civil War, and some of them might allow that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

There is a mod that lets you become high king of Skyrim.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/41087

I've never played it, so I can't tell you if it's any good.