Video Games - Storage Space Blues

[Werthead]

CRPG just means computer/console roleplaying game to distinguish it from a tabletop roleplaying game. It's been in use since at least last century. Particularly useful if the franchise you are talking about has both video game and tabletop versions (so WH40K, D&D, Pathfinder etc). It doesn't mean "hardcore RPG" or anything like that, I think that's some definition one person has made up and tried to sell as being a thing.

JRPG and Western RPG are other terms that come up when discussing, say, Final Fantasy vs Skyrim, but that's a whole different thing.

[Werthead]

Yahtzee has a pretty good review of Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and to get his trademark cynicism on he has to dedicate 80% of his criticisms to the most minor, ignorable thing in the game (most of the plot dialogue not unfolding over gameplay but in brief-but-unskippable cutscenes).

[Argonath Diver]

5 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Hey at least Diablo 2 is finally playable in a way that doesn't make me loathe it! 

Between D2R, Diablo: Belzebub, and D:I, the franchise is providing me with hours of fun! 

*C'mere Diablo, don't you listen to that mean Argonthan Diver, he doesn't love you like I do!*

Hey now, you're not the one on 3 hours of sleep because you finally hit 93 and crafted 80ish caster necklaces til 3am! 

ARPGs have been my bread and butter, and the overwhelming majority of my gaming hobby addiction since my freshman roommate got me hooked on D1 in '98. I've played through nearly every major release of the genre - even freakin' Wolcen, which was the most atrocious, bugged, woebegone game I've ever stupidly paid for. I did enjoy a ton of what D3 had to offer early on - certainly the most compelling moment-to-moment action of any game in the genre. I just wish they'd worked to diversify their itemization system instead of homogenizing it into the mess it is in its current state. I'll probably give it one more weekend right before D4 eventually releases, as it isn't a bad 1-70 playthrough before the hyper power creep kicks in.

D3 was a massive commercial success, and I imagine Immortal will make Activision a bazillionty dollars. I think their direction will never trend back toward what the Blizzard North guys were going for 20 years ago with the first two games. Now that Path of Exile has lapped my desired level of gameplay with its incredibly complex itemization, absurd screen clutter, and imposing end game systems, I hope for another contender in the ARPG scene. Lost Ark is a p2w mess, and I don't care at all for the KRPG aesthetic. Last Epoch looks cool, but definitely has a ways to go while it's in Early Access. 

I'm quite happy with D2R for now, though I dearly wish it supported the incredible mods for D2 Classic that're still in active development. 

[JGP]

I don't game remotely as much as I used to, but I still sometimes play D3 when a new season drops. Been playing a Boulder Toss Barb lately, in my non conventional way.  

From marketing/development type stuff and snippets of gameplay I've seen, D4 looks gorgeous.    

[Argonath Diver]

Yep I'm sure the combat, visuals, and cutscenes will be absolutely top-of-the-line. The quarterly developer updates have shown some optimism as they respond to community feedback. Early iterations of character skill trees and itemization (two stats, wow) were resoundingly derided as too simplistic, and by the sounds of it they've seen how POE has raked in tons of money with its ever-developing endgame. It's still probably two years away, so we're going to see even more polish, and hopefully an endgame model that offers a ridiculous amount of replay (and still gives Activision an active revenue stream). 

Anyone else still load up Vampire Survivors here and there? That Italian fellow who makes it keeps pumping out new content! What a silly game, but damn if I've gotten a lot of time out of a $2.99 purchase.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

Lost Ark is a p2w mess, and I don't care at all for the KRPG aesthetic. Last Epoch looks cool, but definitely has a ways to go while it's in Early Access. 

 

Wait... now I feel like @Babblebauble... what the hell is a KRPG????

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Wait... now I feel like @Babblebauble... what the hell is a KRPG????

JRPG = Japanese RPG

KRPG = Korean RPG

Korean RPGs tend to be very, very grindy.

[Werthead]

The new Dragon Age game officially sounds like a B-tier Transformer from c. 1988.

 

 

[Rhom]

48 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The new Dragon Age game officially sounds like a B-tier Transformer from c. 1988.

 

 

I think that was in the Beast Wars incarnation.  He was Optimus Primal's nemesis...

[IlyaP]

8 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Now that Path of Exile has lapped my desired level of gameplay with its incredibly complex itemization, absurd screen clutter, and imposing end game systems, I hope for another contender in the ARPG scene. Lost Ark is a p2w mess, and I don't care at all for the KRPG aesthetic. Last Epoch looks cool, but definitely has a ways to go while it's in Early Access. 

Grim Dawn and Titan Quest are your friends. They call out for you, seeking your love!

[Rhom]

Looks great.  But that’s not Final Fantasy.

[IlyaP]

Have now had the chance to try out Diablo: Immortal on both a PC and Android smart phone. The PC version appears to still be in beta and feels VERY MUCH like a work in progress port, as the UI, while simple enough, doesn't seem very responsive to different resolutions - as several players on my local server (Oceania) noted while I was playing. 

Still: the ambience is unbeatable, the sound design is as expected, top notch, and the audio production is out of this world. The game very much needs a bit more work to suit the expectations of PC audiences - including (hopefully) the ability to zoom in and out, to see more of the lush maps the designers made. 

That said it is clearly a prequel to Diablo 3, and has a design aesthetic and palette that is somewhere between Diablo 3 and Diablo 2: Resurrected. Whether or not that works for you, well, that's pretty much a personal taste thing, I figure. But the game is fun as far as ARPGs go, and doesn't make many demands, but bear in mind, it is VERY MUCH still a work in progress, so certain features will - I hope - change over time to be less smart phone-y and slightly more PC oriented. 

The Android version is far more refined, and clearly was where more focus was placed, and it shows. I am very much reminded of the game Blade Bound, which has a similar style of art and design, and I can't help but wonder if the developers took some inspiration from that addictive delightful game.

[IlyaP]

Spider-Man is coming to PCs: https://www.pcgamer.com/au/playstations-spider-man-is-coming-to-pc/

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

Grim Dawn and Titan Quest are your friends. They call out for you, seeking your love!

Hell yeah! Can you believe they are STILL putting out little updates here and there to Titan Quest?

I adore Grim Dawn, definitely in my easy top three with D2 and POE for all time great ARPGs. If only the actual combat weren't so unrewarding. There were a few really satisfying endgame builds, but many of the strongest ones were exceedingly dull to play. There's a vast diversity of builds, though, and a relatively simple endgame to test your characters' mettle once you've found or farmed your desired loadout. I think Grim Dawn has the absolute most engaging worldbuilding of any of them. I've played through to 100 maybe twenty different characters and I still read plenty of the little lore notes and books you find in all the secret and off-path areas. 

I mentioned a few threads back that Crate unfortunately were not pursing a sequel, nor even another isometric ARPG but a medieval city builder. Bit of an odd choice of a genre in my opinion, but it looks charming enough. Titan Quest and Grim Dawn are so good that they'll get me to try it, though I've not played a city builder since Sim City 2000.

[briantw]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Looks great.  But that’s not Final Fantasy.

Combat looks boring as fuck to me.  

Then again, most FF games these days have zero appeal to me.  I miss the days of turn-based combat in those games.  

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Hell yeah! Can you believe they are STILL putting out little updates here and there to Titan Quest?

If that's not a sign of love, I don't know WHAT is. 

7 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I adore Grim Dawn, definitely in my easy top three with D2 and POE for all time great ARPGs. If only the actual combat weren't so unrewarding. There were a few really satisfying endgame builds, but many of the strongest ones were exceedingly dull to play. There's a vast diversity of builds, though, and a relatively simple endgame to test your characters' mettle once you've found or farmed your desired loadout. I think Grim Dawn has the absolute most engaging worldbuilding of any of them. I've played through to 100 maybe twenty different characters and I still read plenty of the little lore notes and books you find in all the secret and off-path areas. 

Grim Dawn's world is just so wonderfully weird, isn't it? The ambience, the music, the sound production, the audio design, it's all just firing on all cylinders. 

7 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I mentioned a few threads back that Crate unfortunately were not pursing a sequel, nor even another isometric ARPG but a medieval city builder. Bit of an odd choice of a genre in my opinion, but it looks charming enough. Titan Quest and Grim Dawn are so good that they'll get me to try it, though I've not played a city builder since Sim City 2000.

At least in the meantime, we have Victor Vran, The Incredible Adventure of Van Helsing games, Anima: Reign of Darkness, and Vikings: Wolves of Midgar. Hopefully Crate will bring us some new APRG to keep the genre alive and ensure Blizzard/Microsoft (Blizosoft?) has some creative rivals in the genre. 

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, Rhom said:

Looks great.  But that’s not Final Fantasy.

People with impeccable hair making dire pronouncements of doom whilst a party of wildly diverse nobodies teams up to take down the villains? Looks exactly like Final Fantasy.

The traditional major Final Fantasy summons (especially Ifrit) are also playing a major role in the story itself this time around, so it's really Final Fantasy Plus.

The total absence of anything on Remake 2 suggests that it's still at least two years off, which is pretty ridiculous.

9 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Spider-Man is coming to PCs: https://www.pcgamer.com/au/playstations-spider-man-is-coming-to-pc/

Yes, they all come to PC. They all come to PC in the end, no matter how long. It is inevitable (mwahaha).

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

 whilst a party of wildly diverse nobodies teams up to take down the villains?

I didn't see any sign of a party.

Looked like a Devil May Cry clone.  Which I love Devil May Cry... but its not Final Fantasy.

[Werthead]

10 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I didn't see any sign of a party.

Looked like a Devil May Cry clone.  Which I love Devil May Cry... but its not Final Fantasy.

The accompanying press released confirmed there is a group of characters led by brother-protagonists Clive and Joshua Rosfield (Joshua is only 10 at the start of the game, but apparently there's a timeskip and he joins the fray later on, and he is Phoenix's Dominant so that makes sense). Jill Warrick is another party member, since she is Shiva's Dominant and Shiva appears in battle in the trailer. It also appears that the other Dominants (people who are paired with a summons and the only people who can use that summons) are party members, since there is no way they won't let you use the popular summons in an FF game, so that's Benedikta (who is Garuda's Dominant) and Hugo Kupka (who is paired with Titan). Interestingly, the latter is depicted in an antagonistic role, so he might be an early game enemy who joins the party after a change of heart or through an alliance of convenience.

The game looks like a pretty much linear progression of where they were in the XIII family, XV and VII Remake.

[Fez]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

The accompanying press released confirmed there is a group of characters led by brother-protagonists Clive and Joshua Rosfield (Joshua is only 10 at the start of the game, but apparently there's a timeskip and he joins the fray later on, and he is Phoenix's Dominant so that makes sense). Jill Warrick is another party member, since she is Shiva's Dominant and Shiva appears in battle in the trailer. It also appears that the other Dominants (people who are paired with a summons and the only people who can use that summons) are party members, since there is no way they won't let you use the popular summons in an FF game, so that's Benedikta (who is Garuda's Dominant) and Hugo Kupka (who is paired with Titan). Interestingly, the latter is depicted in an antagonistic role, so he might be an early game enemy who joins the party after a change of heart or through an alliance of convenience.

The game looks like a pretty much linear progression of where they were in the XIII family, XV and VII Remake.

Garuda is a bit of an odd one IMO. She's a relatively new summon, only appearing in the two MMOs and XV. I'm a little surprised she's made the cut over ones like Leviathan, Carbuncle, Alexander, or Siren; when all the others shown so far are mainstay staples.

Makes me wonder if there's a lot more summons that will show up in the game but only select few will actually be playable.  It wouldn't be unprecedented. In XIV only a handful of summons are available to the summoner class; but a huge number show up as boss fights. And XVI has the same creative director as XIV.