Finished Vol. 1 of .hack// G.U. Last Recode.

The game stayed quite easy throughout the second half. These volumes are also somewhat short, I’ve done almost everything for a 100% completion within 30 hours. I usually don’t care for completion, but carrying everything over to the second game was suprisingly motivating.

The biggest thing introduced in the second half was a second battle system. It’s not used often, mostly for story boss encounters, but it was quite a fun addition.

Not much progress on the Ace Attorney Trilogy.

Since last time, I’ve only done the Steel Samurai case and it’s not even finished yet.

Unsure about this one. I loved the Joker games as a child, but Dark Prince made me question myself on whether I still enjoy these. I didn’t even have the heart to go back to Joker since then to see if Dark Princes changes were the problem or the core gameplay just isn’t my jam any more.

Regardless, this game seems to land in the middle mechanics wise. E.g. special synthesis recipes return, size variance seems to stay. Definitely will be a game I’ll wait for the general opinion to settle on after its release.

I have this game on wishlist for over a decade, how does it play? Not too dated, I hope. You are piquing my interest, and a quick look shows it doesn’t look too bad.

Quite dated, to be honest. You’ll mostly be using basic attacks - either charged or as a combo - and blocking. There are skills, but there’s a cooldown attached to using skills, and you don’t get many of them. They are mostly used to cancel enemy skills by using them while they cast their own. Later on you get different weapon types, but I’m not there yet. And there’s an ultimate skill you get to use every so often.

However, often it doesn’t matter. The game has a strong level scaling, as in you’ll one shot everything 5 levels below you. This, along with the EXP bonus in this remaster made most encounters a breeze. You can generate areas above your level for a challenge, but this will only further overlevel you.

That being said, while it did bother me in the beginning, I still came around to liking it. Maybe it will expand more with future unlocks.

Legends is a tough one to rate, I think. The first area was some of the most fun I had with a game made by GameFreak. In fact, I had so much fun, I left with Lv. 50+ Pokemon and a maxed Pokedex for everything in there - which ruined every area thereafter.

This is my first Star Ocean game and I am surprised to see how good it is. […]

Felt the same way about Second Story R, but I think the game fell apart in its second half. I’m curious to see if First Departure has similar problems.

Started .hack// G.U. Last Recode. It’s a collection of three old PS2 RPGs along with a short 4th game made for this collection. They all share a single story and most stuff carries over between them.

It may be the first MMORPG story, at least it’s the first one I know about. You even log out periodically and check mails, forums or news on your desktop before logging back in. With the MMORPG jargon and the use of emoticons, its super nostalgic to me - I used to play a lot of them when I was younger.

The actual battles feel quite simple, but the story is fun. Just be prepared to read a lot. Watching the recap of the first .hack// series (which never left the PS2), reading everything available at the start - including a wiki with lore about the MMORPG - took about 3-4hours with almost no actual gameplay.

Finished God Eater 3. Overall I recommend the game, but I haven’t done any of the post game story yet. The small pool of enemies got quite tedious towards the end so we’re taking a break. We’ll finish it before MH:Wilds arrives on Switch!

Started the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. Currently only on the second episode. Thus far, I really like the characters, the game is unexpectedly funny at times. Depending on my partners feedback, I plan on doing the entire series eventually.

The OST really is great! But I’ve got to admit the battle voice lines did get jarring towards the end. Well, at least Amiguchi’s.

I’ve mostly relied on Gen 4 mechs during the story. Quad Leg Spike and whatever Yakushiji’s AoE skill is called did a lot of heavy lifting. Outside of Gen 4, Super Large Missile and Juro’s unique piercing skill were probably the most helpful ones for the final encounter.

After the gladiators were introduced, I pretty much stopped using Demolisher Blade, since Ceramic Armor just absorbs it (at least in the rebalanced Switch release). I think I’ll experiment some more with them in the postgame this week!

My partner was out of town, so I just finished 13 Sentinels this week.

In typical Vanillaware fashion, they ran out of budget and cut a lot of things. I’ve read something about up to 50%. At the very least, the game should have been 15 Sentinels. Despite that, the story is a wild ride and has a satisfying conclusion. Honestly, I’ve enjoyed it even more that Danganronpa previously. Some open questions remain and a few plot points seemingly get dropped, but in the end, I just like the entire cast and loved the structure. There’s always a mystery, a twist or a new perspective and in the end everything kinda just clicks together.

There’s one gaping hole in my understanding I couldn’t find an answer to, maybe someone who has played the game could answer this:

The RTS part of the game was also surprisingly engaging, although mostly on the easy side. But that’s to be expected, as I did almost all the story segments first and could fully upgrade a lot of stuff before even starting it properly. There is even an endgame with an absurd amount of stages to dig your teeth in, but I’ll probably only delve a little bit into them before starting the next game.

That probably won’t do it for me then. But I’ll keep an eye out for your future opinions on the fusion stuff. Might still be a good game inbetween more complex ones!

After you’ve played more MH Stories, what do you think about the battle system? I bounced hard off the demo, but I’m curious if I should give it another try. I remember it being just rock paper scissors.

More 13 Sentinels. I’ve done alle the story I could do without progressing the battles (~75%). By now, I have a good grasp on the story, I think, but I’m sure there a many more twists waiting in those last 25%.

At about ~45% completion for the battles and compendium. Doing the story first I had so much resources, I could may out my score boost for those sweet mystery points.

Not much more to write about the game. I recommend it, but it’s impossible to talk about it without spoiling stuff.

God Eater 3 was also more of the same. The story increasingly takes a back seat, which I prefer while doing the multiplayer. At the begining, you had to search and talk to several NPCs after each mission to progress - now it’s only one after every 2-3 missions.

I don’t think that’s true anymore. Going all digital, even on Nintendo’s eShop, most third party games are dirty cheap during sales which happen quite frequently. Most games I’ve looked at go on sale every other month. Of course, they are still stingy as fuck with their first party stuff.

Some more 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim.

I only focused on the story this week, but didn’t have much time anyway. Went from ~21% to ~44% completion.

With each new character I follow, the story just seems to get better. I’m excited to get the full picture eventually - but I also feel like I’ll need to play a good old linear RPG afterwards.

As for the weekend, I played a lot of God Eater 3. About halfway through the story, I think.

On paper, the gameplay has a few problems. Almost all enemies seem to have some badly telegraphed AOE attacks or chain some quick dashes across the area together. Getting hit is mostly unavoidable. At the same time, the game is quite easy. Missions rarely take longer than 5 minutes - some monsters yielding after just a minute. But despite this, the Monster Hunter formula is just inherently fun and there a many ways to customize your character. So even if you don’t care for the story, there’s always a motivation to jump into the next mission right away.

Unlike Monster Hunter, crafting is rather easy, and you can get most weapons/shields without replaying any missions. But you still can and will be rewarded for grinding, because some of your moves will gain EXP by using them. There are about 10-20 skills per weapon, and you can equip 3 at the same time.

More 13 Sentinels.

It has been a slow week in terms of gaming, I only did a bit of story. The story segments and the battle segments are mostly independent of each other, so you can do whichever for the most part.

Even though there are 13 characters, each with their own perspective and during different times within the overall story, the game does a great job to interest you in at least one of the other characters during any given perspective. You’re free to switch after each mini episode, but I tend to follow a single character until there’s a progression lock.

Currently, at 31% battle and 20% story completion.

Started God Eater 3.

Monster Hunter Wilds has been announced for Switch 2 and with the last direct being as great as it was, I’ll get one eventually. But until then, we wanted to play something similar to scratch the itch.

The game throws a lot of progression systems at you, which I like. The monsters are a lot less tightly designed, but still fun. Thus far, the game is quite easy.

As an RPG guy, this was honestly one of if not the best Direct they ever produced. Guess it’s time to get a Switch 2 - well, maybe only once the revised one releases in Europe, but still.

Definitely my biggest one. If they announce one I’ll bite and get a S2!

Just finished Danganronpa. I thought it was great, but my partner wasn’t really invested - which is why we finished it in one go this weekend and will be starting something new next week. I’ll probably get the next one during the next sale.

How is Shiren the Wanderer a roguelike without any meta progression, aren’t they part of the genre?

The original game Rogue didn’t have any meta progression, that’s been tacked onto the genre later. Back then, people tried to establish ‘roguelike’ for games without meta progression and ‘roguelite’ for ones who do. Didn’t stick apparently.

Shiren ist actually quite faithful to Rogue as a whole.

There are ways to keep gear between runs to force some meta progression, but most dungeons don’t allow you to bring items in anyways. It’s mostly a thing for the story dungeon.

Any recommendation to try? To see if the genre is for me or not.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is generally the most popular sub-series. Especially the first two games - with Explorers of Sky being the best one overall. There is also a Switch remake of the first game.

These games aren’t roguelikes at all, you keep your level and everything and there’s an actual story.

If you don’t care for that, Shiren has the most depth instead but can be quite overwhelming. Unlike Pokemon you can get these games for like 2 bucks during sales.

Started 13 Sentinel Aegis Rim!

It’s a weird mix of a strategy game and an adventure/visual novel. It didn’t grip me immediately, but I’m really starting to get into it. There are 13 different perspectives you can follow - they all overlap, but they are not told in order. There’s giant mechs and time travel shenanigans involved. The biggest hurdle thus far was simply starting it. From the get-go, the story gets told like you already know most things, and it’s on you to make sense of it all. I like this approach, but I’m not always in the mood for it.

Dabbled in some rougelikes this week.

Played some Ball x Pit while it was free. I did really enjoy the game, it has a certain addictive quality to it. At the same time, I don’t feel like there’s enough player agency outside of picking upgrades. Most of the time, I basically just needed to walk left - right to collect EXP. It’s one of those game I can see myself putting a lot of time in really fast and then kinda regretting it. Every blue moon, that happens with an idle game.

Also played some Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. This one is quite the opposite. There’s little to no meta progression and it’s choke-full of decisions to make. I simply love Mystery Dungeon games and this is no exception, even though I specifically avoided it for so long because I prefer the story based ones like Chobo or Pokemon. But that makes it perfect while I only have Visual Novels going on and sometimes need a burst of pure gameplay.

Just did the 4th trial of Danganronpa.

Seeing how slimerancher finished the game, chances are I’ll finish the game over the weekend. If so, I’ll add another post about it here while it’s fresh in my memory.

Finished Octopath Traveler II!

The final stretch using all characters together within the story and allowing you to swap them at any time was the best part of the game by far. The final boss was quite epic and even had a cool new mechanic!

Sadly, the hidden final boss was none of that. It’s one of those ‘wiki bosses’ you’ll usually only beat by looking up either just a guide or lists of all available abilities and pieces of equipment and where to find them. I didn’t feel like doing hours of prep work.

Overall, I did enjoy the game a fair bit more than the first one, but Octopath is still leagues behind Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default in my personal ranking. Still, anything by Team Asano is at least good. (Well, maybe except for Various Daylife, but I never played it myself. Someday on sale, perhaps.)

More Danganronpa!

Still enjoying the game, but I think the class trials could be a tad shorter. They can also be somewhat frustrating, I died twice testing every single combination in an argument, simply because I didn’t know or forgot about being able to carry absorbed arguments into the next cycle. Luckily, you don’t have to repeat the whole thing when running out of hearts.

Next up is 13 Sentinels! Actually my last game on the backlog, discounting Nioh 2 (lent out my PS4) and stuff on Steam I’ve had for almost a decade (I was waiting for the crypto craze to die down before buying a modern PC, then AI happened…).

Almost finished Octopath Traveler II.

Finished my run through with the 3 character team, finished most side stories and am almost done with Hikaris solo run. From what I’ve heard, the post-game isn’t very long, although it does require a lot of annoying grinding. Normal content only goes up to level ~50, but the final boss seems to require level ~80. You can only reasonably reach this level by hitting a 7% chance for 100x EXP from a certain (expensive) recruitable NPC within a fight with a rare monster encounter. Think metal slimes. I don’t have a number for that one, but I’ve seen 2 during my ~65 hours. Rinse and repeat for multiple teams.

…yeah, not really feeling that one. I’ll try fighting him low level. I’m not good with resetting for random stuff.

Did the second chapter of Danganronpa. Just an hour ago, actually.

The status quo changed so much, I feel like any semblance of normalcy or trust are gone.