HandsomeDead

If you're not sold on the Borderlands action comedy maybe this might be the one

I'd say FF8 is fuck nihilism too.

What to expect from SMTVV: I don't think I'm in any rush to play a rework but I hope the story is improved. While as a game I think it's really good but the story is anemic in the OG version.

Welcome to the club, shiny. I think I'll just say regarding fusing personas is don't be afraid to just liberally fuse them. You always have access to any you've had in your party through the compendium in the velvet room. There is a monetary cost to doing that, sometimes it's very expensive, but that's what the decision is rather than "do I fuse this persona?", it's "do I buy this persona or go find another".

The Citizen Kane of gaming is Legacy of Kane because they both have a guy called Kane in it.

If you put all games on a difficulty spectrum no matter what the Souls games are gonna be pretty far along in the hard part. It's not the hardest game ever but it's in the ball park. What I think most people are responding to in Souls games isn't that they are hard on some inconceivable level, they're very conceivable. But they really relish in killing and putting you in a fail state. Miyazaki has said as much in interviews: Like, I don't think he'd ever tell people to 'git gud', it's more like "didn't you not find it fun when that rolling boulder pushed you off a cliff?"

I suppose I mostly start off on normal these days. There was a time I was a hard mode person. It would make most of the games more satisfying to play but it was frustrating when the game wasn't balanced the best and hard mode would be a slog. Its just not good to have it as a rule because not every hard mode is created equal. I'm glad I played The Last of Us games on hard from the jump because the limited ammo and items does make you play in a more in your face and brutal way and sells on the game's tone better than having all the ammo to play it comfortably as a shooter. I did start Pillars of Eternity recently and I did put that on easy because I have never played a classic CRPG in my life and it's harder for old dogs to learn new tricks. That's gonna be the only kind of situation I'd put a game on easy though. I don't like to say that their should be any rules in regards to how difficulty should work. I know some devs work hard at making a game that's accessable but has a high ceiling, and has lots of customisable options and I respect that. And then there's Miyazaki who is a freak that thinks suffering is great and wants the game to be that, and I respect that creative choice too. Dynamic difficulties that change on how well you're doing are interesting and not used that much. Left 4 Dead and RE4 are probably the most famous for it. It keeps it so you're always at the brink. Do well and you'll have tons of enemies but start messing up and there'll be less and more drops, it gives an effective sense of survival no matter what your skill level is. I kinda like the thing in older arcade or arcade-like games where you only got half the game if you play on easy. I remember Streets of Rage 3 doing this most. I guess it's kinda mean spirited to just drop a bad ending on you like that and told to go back and 'git gud', especially since SoR3 is harder than the others but it worked on me. I did go back and try to get good enough to beat it on normal.

Theurgy makes the game a lot easier, I certainly stopped dying when it became available. Especially since Fuuka has it too. This was when I bumped the difficulty to hard and didn't have any problems. The original was a bit different than other Persona games because you had to be more careful knocking down enemies because they would get up if you hit them while they're down, so you had to be specific getting all the enemies down at once, careful not to use area attacks. But I think they even removed that in vanilla Persona 4. The original game had a lot of bosses with no weaknesses so it's about making use of buffs/debuffs and getting crits from physical attacks. It's not like it's brainless or anything but it is a more chill game.

To fix the formatting after you paste there should be a little message at the bottom to paste as plain text. MS has a problem with their big AAA games not competing very well and Sony has a problem with putting all of their eggs in the AAA basket and having nothing else and creating a very sparse catalogue. It's thanks to their "special relationship" with Square-enix they'll even have a big game this year. I think we've talked about it a lot but maybe in this console war framing but it just all leads to things being really precarious. They might always try to get that live service audience but the ones that are successful like Fortnite and Genshin Impact got big in a grass roots sort of way. I don't think a single one of them was a purposely made to be a massive money maker. I'm not saying they're coming from nothing, they had a decent backing but so many the really tried to scoop at the space failed. I dunno if they see it as worth it to just keep trying and that one is bound to be the one that becomes the next big thing. Doesn't sound very wise to me but I'm not in charge, what do I know 💅

Holy shit haha I'd guess they're quick and do as they're told.

Jolt is what I was thinking of when I mentioned more recent ones. I was up for liking it but it was missing a certain something. I never really put Lucy in that genre but I don't have a good argument for why it shouldn't be there. I just see it as an odd movie I kind of love. I'm just reminded of Madem Webb coming soon and it seems to be getting panned but in another timeline it could also have been one of these kinds of movies and been much better for it.

I've been thinking a lot about this kind of thing lately since Mackie put that take out there and I think he is right, and it's unfortunate. These kinds of genre movies were very actor lead. Like people would turn up for a Stallone or Shwarznegger movie no matter what the film actually was. It meant you could carry original stories off the back of them and not rely so much on known IP. It's why something like True Lies could be really successful. Even the comic book movies didn't have that as their main appeal. Men in Black was a Smith/Jones movie, I'd even say Blade was a Snipes movie. The fact they were based on comic books was just a little factoid known by weirdos. I do think the shift to think IP first has had a negative effect on movies. Actually, there's something else as well. I saw a tweet pointing out where all the 90s/00s hot, badass bitch movies are. Like Underworld, Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet. The Resident Evil movies are a successful version of this but I think comic book movies pretty much killed them due to Catwoman and it coming out around the Nolan Batman trilogy and drawing it into that world when it was never really a comic book movie, it was an actor lead, hot badass bitch movie. And they were never critical darlings, they were just a fun thing to rent on a weekend. Its the sort of thing that should do great on streaming but I dunno, some have been made but they still don't quite hit. Maybe because so much production talent is in the MCU/DCEU but I'm speculating. I just think it has shrunk genre movies and made them less interesting. I'm at the point I want to shove anyone into a locker who says 'faithful adaptation'.

Love the red nose like a drunk anime character. There's a lot of reasons why there is a tension between product and art but I'm hoping the worst doesn't happen in the future and it all just becomes product. It's so sad even a few people want this.

12/02/24 - Persona 3 Reload (S/X) I knew mostly what was coming and I'm still welling up. I could nitpick all I want but it's an amazing game.

@DANGERMAN

Okay, someone made the best joke about the yellow paint discourse so it can end now

Oof, falling into the trap of assuming something intentional is bad writing.

I figured out why it's less graphic. In Reload the battle system just works a little differently by having the characters put the gun to their heads while choosing an ability, then going through with the animation once selected so the first part is slightly obscured. Where the original just had the full thing play out after selecting an ability. It doesn't hide the shot but not having it all play out it misses some impact. I remember when I first played FES and they added some abilities that require two Personas and it had a new animation and I was a bit gobsmacked at it. But I feel similarly about it. The game isn't hitting like when I first played it but it was never going to, nor did I expect it to because you only get that once. I like the new intro, I think it's a good anime-like opening with a fun song but the original is bizarre and unsettling and fits the game so well. I really didn't know what I was in for back in the day.

Another Arkham vote I suppose. I think I may have liked City more in the end. I replayed some of it later on and I think it might be the one that hits the best notes. I don't really think of it as open world but more like an older 3D Zelda game. It's a hub with dungeons. Asylum is Metroid, City is Zelda and Knight is the one that gets a bit bloated but still not as guilty as most open world games. They just did such an excellent job making a Batman game it's hard not to give them all the props. I've not played that many other super hero games, and even less that I really liked. To get away from the obvious there was a Judge Dread game on the Mega Drive I liked quite a bit. I think it was meant to be based on the Stalone film but really wasn't. Oh, The Darkness was a comic book... A super hero? probably not but arguably so I'd say just so I can mention it here. It's a pretty cool game. Maybe these aren't getting to the spirit of the question. I've never played any of these games. That Wolverine game, that Deadpool one, etc. I was just never drawn to them. And to add, I know what they're talking about when they mean super heroes but aren't a lot of video games very super hero coded? Like Dante from DMC is as much as a super hero than Blade. Even Mario is. He even has a cape, sometimes.

It's like fuller version of Mementos, especially the higher you go. It's more dynamic than what was in the OG P3 and P4. But it's still one of the best combat systems out there I've never felt bored in them, even the older ones. I'm near the end now. I won't go into it too much now but I've appreciated some of the little additions to the story, and especially add what was needed to one character in particular. I found a little overwhelmed in the second half of the game where it gives you a lot of activities to do with your dorm mates and found myself having difficulty balancing with raising stats. But it's a good problem to have because there was a bit too little to do at this point in the OG. It's weird because despite that I think I've done better than I had originally with social links. It probably is impossible to max out all of them in a play through but I've got more than half done so I'm rocking a mean team of Personas going into the end. I'm just hoping then end boss is less of a problem this time because... oof 😐

It's never been anything I'd get bent out of shape about. I'm always aware I'm playing a game, I don't get taken out of a game by noticing this stuff. I think it's aesthetically more pleasing if it communicates it's paths more organically, like the climbable walls in the Tomb Raider reboot where a good way of doing it because it still looked like the environment. Oh, and Maf uses the same example is I make this post. Also, doesn't FFVIIR already have some corny UI element at ladders and stuff. Dunno why this wasn't brought up then because that's more egregious than yellow paint.

🙏

I'm pretty sure mine was Street Fighter II. I didn't play a lot of early capcom games 'til later.

The console market might be in for a radical change if it's still around. Maybe we get more open Steamdeck devices or even the idea of the Steambox gets dusted off again and we do just do end up with under the TV PCs.

I just don't understand this really. For me I wonder if MS saw the Activision acquisition playing out this way? Like even as a possibility early on but went through with it anyway. Is owning ABK a better option financially than being in the console market? Were they at a point they couldn't back out of the deal when things started going sideways? I think the Series S is still a cheap way to get new video games but in the near future the Series X is pretty redundant if this plays out in the way people are talking about.