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I started playing this again yesterday. Up to chapter 5 now. At the start I was really liking this game and having a much better time with it. But already I can feel the same frustrations I had before kicking in. I'm trying to play looser and trying not to care about having a 'ghost' playthrough. Which is less satisfying, but does make the game easier when you just run at things killing whoever and throwing bombs around. But I still think this game is a little on the hard side and I haven't even really started yet. I'm still dying a few times each section and having to restart checkpoint a lot when plans go tits up. It really comes down to the enemies just have really annoying patrol patterns. I guess on the one hand it's good design, but on the other hand I kinda wish they'd just fuck off. I'm trying to play looser and more relaxed, and it's working but hmm. I had a really good time playing the game yesterday, and a bit of less today. I also kind of forgot how stunning this game is. I'm also playing with headphones this time and that's increased my enjoyment of it as well. Really helps with the atmosphere.

Phoenix Down is your friend! The reappearing trait exists with a few monsters. I had a character that used a OHKO knife. It worked, then it didn't? There isn't really any explanation given in game either.

Back playing this too, put another hour or so into it. Still in the same place as I mentioned above, the Githyanki Creche. Around 75 hours in at the moment.

Does it do the ending too, that's all I'd care about

I enjoyed it too. Raph isn't especially well written, but he's the worst anyway so who cares

Only one of my characters had Cura at that point unfortunately. But I managed to get past them somehow. Still don't quite understand why they sometimes dissolve and reappear and sometimes just die right away.

I think I'm ahead (by quite a bit), so if anyone else has questions, feel free.

A mod to change the card faces and back art to those from Solitaire in Windows 95 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3223727481

When I get a house I look forward to a giant ass TV being one of the first frivolous things I get after all the super expensive grown up boring things like appliances and flooring and shit, and using that thing just for films and games

Yeah, new TV out there sweet talking the wife.

That looks like such a misleading message 😂 Cool though, enjoy!

I'm way behind you by the looks of your hp level on those characters so I haven't encountered those monstrosities. They look scary in minimal pixels. Be like playing a resi game if they ever decided to remake 6.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. The kids on the design team where I used to work used to play Fortnite and a couple of other things, but invariably together, and only one of them played single player stuff (Persona etc). What was funny was hearing them discover things that aren't especially old, but then you realise media actually moves quit slow now. The Last Of Us came out years ago, the MCU started years and years ago, they've not exactly had a lot of time to catch up on things that are still kind of in the zeitgeist It's basically the same as us piling round people's houses to play Micro Machines and Sensi, only now it's a years old Mario Kart and Fortnite because it's new to them and still not been replaced I've a sneaking suspicion that it's the market COD goes after that might be more at risk. Those games cost a lot to make, but I'm not sure how appealing they are to new players

KCD was alright - definitely a bit closer to Witcher than ES games (in terms of playing set protagonist) but also has that janky roughness of Risen (and the early game toughness of that and Elex - for a good while you are pretty poor at combat and can die easily). The whole realism thing is often more a hindrance than bonus though - you need to actually master real hard skills (how controller & game mechanic works) in order to lockpick and use archery successfully - and the learning curve can be pretty painful (lockpicks & arrows are pretty scarce and expensive relative to your wealth, at the beginning, and it's really heartbreaking to break or lose them when you're getting to grips with the gameplay). Even Alchemy skills meant carefully following a set recipe in specific order to make your concoctions (this isn't just chucking things into a pot BotW style, but it's mashing, mixing, boiling etc) - nothing here is given without making you work a bit for it. Not really sure it delivers on its expectations and ambitions - but certainly worth a run through (if you've got the patience).

If the portrait is leaning to the left, they're at the front, if it's leaning to the right, they're at the back. So basically you have to swap everyone in your team around. Back (surprise) attacks (when your party is on the left side of the screen) force your backline characters to the front and vice versa. Whether a back attack occurs is random. There's also battles where your party is sandwiched in the middle, I don't quite know how attack and damage values are modified in that case. It's rather rare that happens anyway. Different problem, but does anyone know how to deal with these assholes? (Fun fact: I still survived that encounter) They randomly absorb certain attacks, physical or magical, to heal themselves. They also sometimes die and then immediately come back. Libra says they're weak to water but I have zero water-based skills. I'm just bruteforcing through them and lose a ton of HP and MP in the process.

I'm not sure about that formation thing. I haven't even looked at that. Probably something that will help as the game goes on, to have your caster slightly out of harms reach etc. Having said that, the battles are so fast I sometimes can't follow who's where and who's doing what. I've had people die on me before I've even noticed their hp dropping. Game certainly keeps you on your toes. And in a good way. Not in the FF7 remake's 'is this bastard's health bar ever gonna drop' way Welcome to the playthru @mfnick.

Finally made a start on this. Only reached South Figaro but already hooked. Music is fantastic as always with FF. Playing the pixel remaster and had to immediately change the font though. Even after everyone else complaining about it, it doesn’t prepare you for just how bad it looks with the new font. So weird they’d pick that. & surprising how much of a difference it makes. Music wise though I’m struggling to pick. I keep swapping between them, love both but think I’m leaning towards classic. Confused by the formation thing if anyone can help though? I’ve set mine out below. Want Edgar and Locke front, Terra back. Which is how it looks here. But in battles it keeps being the opposite way round - however since changing formation my battles have always been facing left so is that why? May as well just keep them all the same position if random battle direction messes it up.

🤔Maybe I was overlevelled at that point? None of that sequence (nor the Phantom Train) even dented my three parties. Kefka also fell pretty quickly with a couple of Blitz' to the face. Meanwhile, hit a roadblock (optional) boss. So I've broken away from the set path the game put me on and re-recruited some more of the crew (even a new one). Not much beyond that. Aside from lamenting the limitations of Esper spells that have no multiplier.

Yeah, my 4 man team was unstoppable against the cannon fodder in the battle of Narshe, and pretty decent against the two bosses, with a couple of hairy moments against Kefka who flatlined a couple of my team early on but then, I felt, started to ease up on me in the second half, just casting confuse and poison but not dealing much damage. I definitely would have picked three teams of two and got ravaged if I hadn't asked here. Nice one @Maryokutai.

I'm not entirely convinced of a generational divide. I did work with a lot of younger folk a while back and those that played games had a pretty similar attitude to me in my early 20s. But these were pretty nerdy collection of people. I think the same amount of young people like single player games as our generation but more treat games like a social media platform with a game attached I'd say. Just somewhere else to hang out with friends as society gets more online. It's just not necessarily translating to them being interested in trying other games.

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/04/windblown-gameplay-trailer Coming to early access later this year.

Yeah that was a cool trailer. Have owned the first one for ages but need to play it.

This just got announced. There were a number of elements about the first that put me off, but this is a great looking trailer The idea with it afaik is it's a RPG which is very into verisimilitude. Things being all realistic, even to a mundane and frustrating degree, but doing so in order to make its role playing feel immersive I feel it's probably the kind of game I would like. The presentation here is pretty impressive, Witcher vibes

I know it’s just marketing but oooh if it isn’t working on me this movie can’t get here soon enough 🤗

It wasn’t quite 2001 but a few years later there was a game called Metal Gear Solid 3 which is essentially the same is my understanding