Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

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Giji Shinka
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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Giji Shinka » Sun Mar 10, 2019 8:10 am

I'm currently waiting to play Sekiro in 12 days and for the past year or so, I have played through these games:
-Resident evil 2 remake
-Spider-man PS4
-Hollow knight
-Little nightmares
-God of war 4
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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Justacrazyguy » Mon Jul 01, 2019 10:43 am

Phantasy Star II: Phantasy Star is now best know for the Online games, but in the old days it was a simple RPG franchise. I had this game in the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection that I've owned for many years, but back when I first tried it, its complexity and difficulty scared me away. Only now have I finally given it another chance and I have to say: I'm impressed by this game in many ways.

The first thing that will strike you immediately is the visuals. The game is gorgeous and has aged gracefully considering its age. The very next thing that will impress you is its difficulty. I do not exaggerate when I say this game is almost impossible to beat without a guide, in fact, according to the net, the NA version of the game came with a very thorough guide!
The difficulty comes from 3 aspects:

-The grinding is brutal and tedious and you can't avoid it. You cannot beat this game without grinding. I had to dedicate a few of my play sessions exclusively to gaining levels. This is especially irritating in the last third of the game.
-Like many other RPGs of the time, many things are obtuse and impossible to guess normally. One particularly egregious case is the Visiphone, an item that allows you to save the game wherever you want. This incredibly useful item is hidden behind a complex sequence of events that you have no way of knowing will trigger its appearance.
-The dungeons are insanely complex. Never mind getting lost occasionally, I couldn't beat the first dungeon without a guide! Some of the dungeons are so difficult I have no idea how people where able to beat them back in the day. Even if you went to the trouble of drawing every dungeon it would still takes you ages to beat them!

So yeah, you have a big mountain to climb before you beat this one. At least the excellent music never gets old, there aren't that many tracks, but most are wonderful. A few are also sad and quite atmospheric.

Finally, the most impressive thing about the game is it's story, spoiler ahead:

SPOILER: Show
Not only does it have one of the darkest stories in any RPG I've ever seen, it has one insane twist ending. During the game, not only will you witness a father mistakenly murder his daughter and then killing himself(in the first hours of the game, I might add) you will lose Nei, your first party member and adopted daughter? Lover? The point is that you raised her your whole life and then she dies in your arms, it's heavy.

Like that wasn't enough, after she dies, the entire planet you live in nearly gets flooded and robots think you're responsible and try to kill you. So you open dams and save the world! Your reward? You get captured and then one of your neighboring planets gets obliterated(said planet was the one you worked hard to save in the first Phantasy Star, so if you played the original, this event stings even harder). After that, you have to go to a strange, hostile planet, where people don't speak your language and don't really like you.
This sequence of events has no happy moments between them to soften the impact. Nope, the whole game is permanently on a minor key. I had never played a game this old with a story so depressing ever before this one.

So you get to the ending, beat Dark Force, the generic big bad from the first game(despite being generic, it does have a cool attack where it will inflict DARKNESS on you and make you and your party members steal each other, try to flee and fall to despair. It's deliciously dark) and reach Mother Brain, the AI thingy that controls your home planet and almost everybody revered like a God, and find out it his the one that caused all the mess you're in.
Killing it, you end the game in a bittersweet note...or you would have, but the game does that insane twist ending I mentioned and you find people in the room behind Mother Brain, and they reveal they were the ones that created it. These people are none other than humans from Earth. Yes, I kid you not, the ending reveals that it was us all along. The humans reveal they destroyed Earth and so went to space to find a new planet. They found your planet, and decided you were theirs to control.

The game ends with you and your party fighting the humans, then the screen cuts to your planet, and their fate is left ambiguous.


It really his an excellent story, and its held up well, although I'm sure the impact on a young kids mind back then must have been enormous.

The difficulty is certainly a barrier, but if you can bear the grinding and looking up a guide with frequency to beat the dungeons, this game has a lot to offer. I recommend it.

Phantasy Star III: How exactly do you make a sequel to the ending of Phantasy Star II? The answer is, you don't. PSIII takes place across three generations and only in the final one do you finally understand where you are in relation to the first two games. A bold move.

Just like the generation thing is: So, in this game, you always start of with the same guy(can'e even name him , like in PSII) and throughout the game he meets 2 women, and at the end he can pick one of them to marry, and then, his son can do the same thing, witch leads to the final generation, and 4 different endings, depending on your choices. It really his impressive how they managed to make this work, specially considering the games was rushed.

And it his not only story wise that this game sets itself apart from its predecessors. Unlike PSII, the dungeons can actually be beaten by normal human beings! IN general, the game is much easier than PSII, and that's a good thing most of the time(the final few areas are a just a bit too easy).

The graphics are just as pretty as in PSII, although the dungeons are less inspired and can feel a bit repetitive. The music isn't as good as PSII either, although there are still plenty of excellent tracks.

The story isn't nearly as wild has in PSII, but it still has a mostly depressing tone, despite the more cheerful music and the endings still have a bittersweet note in them. This is a game with much death and misery, just like PSII.

It's hard to say weather I like this one more than PSII. It does many things better, but also does many things worse.
It his definitely easier to get into though. You can pick this one up and beat without too much difficulty.

I also recommend this game. Looking at the internet this one seems to be generally less well liked than the others, and I understand why that is the case, but I'll have to disagree.

---

Now, all I have left is Phantasy Star IV to do. I don't have time for it right now, but soon... I have high expectations for that one. All I hear are good things about it.
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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Gus Hanson » Mon Jul 01, 2019 4:48 pm

Still playing GTA: Vice City and while after hustling time after time to complete the Love Juice mission without constant fail now the cycle is broken on that one. However, I STILL cannot for the life of me finish Autocide and it's driving me insane! :rant:
"Damn it! Who do I have to screw around here just to get a stupid story?!" - Gail Hailstorm, author of the book You're Dead, I'm Rich (Scary Movie)

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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby TheFriskyIan » Sun Oct 06, 2019 1:10 am

I was invited to the Halo Reach flight testing on Master Chief Collection.

This game has never looked and played better. 1080p 60FPS Reach is one of the most beautiful thing my eyes have seen. Furthermore I'm so glad I finally got to play Invasion on Breakpoint nine years after the Noble Map Pack released on XBL ten years ago; it feels like I'm finally getting my $10 worth.
Please just call me Ian, "TheFrisky" is more of a title.

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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Tankred » Sat Oct 12, 2019 3:10 am

MCC is probably the only collection I'm going to seriously entertain buying on PC in a while.

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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Justacrazyguy » Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:52 am

I think I'm done with Nioh, at least for now.

I came in expecting a souls styled game, but, while it does have quite a few similarities, the more you get into the game the less it feels like Dark Souls. The gameplay is very different, much faster paced and with a wildly different "magic" system. In souls games the magic many times felt like just ranged attacks with pretty effects, but in this game it leads to a completely different play style. I saw players trivialize all the levels and bosses with a good combination of jutsu and magic. Unfortunately, the magic is so strong that I saw players basically brute force their way through most of the game, never actually improving. I don't think they're wrong for using magic, but I do think they ended making the game be way less fun because it ceased to give them any challenge.
I played without using any magic and apparently that's almost a challenge run by itself. Particularly in the DLC I had to memorize boss patterns by heart to win. It was insane. I even did all the double boss fights that feel like they're meant for players with some ninjutsu and magic abilities. I even beat the Ninja Gaiden reference mission.
All this made me feel pretty proud I managed to reach the end of Way of the Strong, this games form of NG+. It continues for a few more game cycles, but for now I'm satisfied.

Looking at the story, it's mostly out of the way. If you do take an interest in it though, it actually has a few great moments. It does need a basic understanding of 16th and 17th century Japanese history. It's a shame the Portuguese never make an appearance. I mean, come on, we enslaved so many Japanese, we should at least get a small mention somewhere!

The DLC is generally fantastic: huge levels that may take up to an hour to complete, filled with secrets and optional challenges, difficult bosses that really test you're understanding of the games system, etc.

Soundtrack wise it has a few good tracks, although it repeats the same tracks a little too often for my tastes.

Now I'm really looking forward to Sekiro and Nioh 2!
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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Sailor Star Dust » Fri Feb 07, 2020 11:14 pm

Absolutely everybody here needs to check Kentucky Route Zero out. I just finished it moments ago and I'm still mentally digesting. Wow. http://kentuckyroutezero.com/
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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Gus Hanson » Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:15 pm

Going through my first Standard (changed to Assisted after dying so many times) Claire campaign on Resident Evil 2 remake. It's so difficult staying alive with the zombies when I haven't even had my first Licker encounter yet. But I have had so much fun in collecting items and using fire rounds on the undead as well as acid rounds which I never got around to doing for the original, it's stupendous.
"Damn it! Who do I have to screw around here just to get a stupid story?!" - Gail Hailstorm, author of the book You're Dead, I'm Rich (Scary Movie)

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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby nullyoaG » Wed Feb 19, 2020 5:23 am


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Re: Currently playing 4: Guns of the Patriots

Postby Reichu » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:34 pm

さらば、全てのEvaGeeks。
「滅びの運命は新生の喜びでもある」
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